Brendan Guenther's Portfolio

At University of the People, students from across the globe have access to free online classes in business administration and computer science. The school has attracted about 380 students from 81 countries. But in order to survive, the university needs more to enroll, its founder says.

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Some drivers admit to texting while driving despite the known dangers of distraction. And it isn't just young drivers. Some studies show the biggest growth in texting is among people ages 35 and older.

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U.S. Sen. Charles E. Grassley hasn't forgotten about college endowments.

And he's not alone.

Despite plunging endowment values, colleges continue to face big questions over whether they spend enough of their endowments for society's benefit to justify the tax exemption they get. The events of the past two years are also raising a crop of provocative new endowment questions that deserve center stage in campus boardrooms and faculty senates.

On the "big question" front,...

Since 2007, U.S. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has used Congressional hearings and other means to raise questions about endowment spending by colleges. While he's not now pressing for legislation for a mandatory payout, in an interview last week with The Chronicle, Senator Grassley made clear that even in a recession, he still expects universities to stick with an ethic of responsible spending for the benefit of students. Following are edited excerpts from that...

"Camera shy" is not the first phrase that comes to my mind for Siva Vaidhyanathan. The University of Virginia faculty member commands healthy fees for his lively presentations on media studies and law at conferences, and he has even appeared on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. But he's not sure if he should record his lectures—or if he does, whether he should share them freely online.

An associate professor who focuses on digital media, Mr. Vaidhyanathan regularly...

More than half of young adults, including college students, are worried about their current economic situation, and many do not approve of President Obama's handling of the economy, according to the results of a recent survey.

A report on the findings, "Survey of Young Americans' Attitudes Toward Politics and Public Service: 17th Edition" says that students at four-year colleges diverged from young adults over all on a range of opinions. The students were more likely to say that it's...

Besides providing access to higher education, colleges must do more to help more students finish, Hilary Pennington, director of special initiatives for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said at the American Council on Education annual meeting here on Monday.

Colleges should be accountable if their students fail to graduate, Ms. Pennington said, speaking at a plenary session. "Once we cash a student's tuition check, we must accept responsibility for their success."...

The Obama administration promised on Monday expanded enforcement of civil rights in education, saying that gender and racial discrimination still hinders far too many students from grade school through college.

In an initiative tied to the 45th anniversary of the civil-rights marches in Selma, Ala., Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited that city and announced plans to open "compliance review" investigations at more than 30 school districts nationwide and six...

Nearly 5,000 campus officials here this week at the annual conference of Naspa—Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education are hashing out not only vital issues in their field but also the future of their professional association.

At a forum on Monday afternoon, the group's president, J. Michael Segawa, fielded financial and organizational questions about the possible consolidation of Naspa with ACPA—College Student Educators International. The two major...

The Obama administration wants research data to drive more of its higher-education policy...

What makes someone poor? Among those who study poverty, the answer has long been a lack of money. If your income falls below a certain level, you're poor. Researchers study extreme poverty and chronic poverty, but the basic assumption is the same: What's in your wallet is what matters.

But maybe there's more to it. Maybe poverty is about not having enough food, access to health care, reliable transportation, adequate sanitation, and a dozen other things that make life bearable. The...

Jonathan D. Spence, an expert on Chinese history and culture and a professor emeritus at Yale University, will deliver the 2010 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Humanities announced on Monday.

The humanities endowment calls the annual lecture, which carries a $10,000 honorarium, "the most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the...

More than a third of all college faculty members took a pay cut during 2009-10, and overall faculty pay showed no salary increase, according to a report released this week. The results are in contrast to those in the recent past, when professors' pay increased nearly 4 percent per year.

The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, which conducts the annual survey, says only faculty members at private doctoral institutions saw a salary increase of any...

Hamilton College, in Clinton, N.Y., planned to announce on Monday that it was no longer considering applicants' financial need in admissions decisions. The announcement comes in a year that has so far brought mixed news on colleges' affordability efforts. Two prominent colleges have...

The attorney general of Virginia, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, has sent a letter to the state's public universities and colleges asking them to eliminate campus policies that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Mr. Cuccinelli. a Republican who took office in January, wrote that only the state's General Assembly can extend legal protection to gay state employees,...

A new analysis by Congressional budget analysts shows that President Obama's proposal to end the bank-based system of distributing student loans would save $67-billion over 10 years, more than 20 percent less than the previous year's estimate.

The estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has both budgetary and political implications for Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats who had hoped to use the earlier budget-office estimate of $87-billion in savings...

In the face of a stubborn gap between the rich and poor in America, colleges must open the door to higher education "wider than it has ever been opened" to prevent even more people—and the country—from falling behind, Eduardo J. Padrón, president of Miami Dade College, said at the annual meeting of the American Council on Education here on Sunday.

Mr. Padrón, who leads the country's largest community college, urged the leaders of both private and public...

The moment Barack Obama was elected president, colleges and their students suddenly stood a good chance of receiving tens of billions of extra federal education dollars that have been going to private loan companies for decades.

Following through on promises made on the campaign trail, Mr. Obama proposed to end the bank-based federal student-loan system and direct the savings to student aid and other higher-education programs. Now, 16 months after his election, the legislative process...

Back in 2005, officials at California State University at Chico asked students how to improve English 130, a composition course that almost every undergraduate there takes. One consistent response: Class sections should be smaller.

But in the years since then, the enrollment cap on English 130 sections has actually crept upward, from 22 to 30. That's no great surprise. Across the country, budget-straitened colleges have been quietly increasing the sizes of all sorts of courses. At...