Education News

MPR News keeps track of the latest education news in Minnesota so you can understand the events shaping the future of learning and how it impacts students at any level.

Stay informed about local education events, policies and more happening in schools and colleges across Minnesota.

How St. Cloud State's reorganization is being sold to students
St. Cloud State University is marketing (or rebranding?) its recent academic reorganization with a theme that could be described as a helicopter parent’s dream: It’s all about me. Watch the video above and read here the university’s schtick on what’s going on.  
Macalester College President Brian Rosenberg explains in The Huffington Post one of three lessons that higher education needs to take from the life of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs: One of higher education’s great weaknesses is the inability to decide what not to do. We see this played out in many ways: on a curricular level, where the proliferation of…
The Evolution of Higher Education Drawing on his experience as the first chief technology officer at Hewlett-Packard, director of the National Science Foundation’s computer and computation research division, and dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, Richard DeMillo offers an engineer’s view of the challenges facing higher education. (The New York Times) The big college scam The…
What Minnesota students will do at the Capitol Monday to support the Pell Grant
Just got this from the state’s two largest student organizations: Minnesota Students to Deliver 3,500 Signature Petition Opposing Pell Grant Cuts Students from the Minnesota State College Student Association (MSCSA) and the Minnesota State University Student Association (MSUSA) collected more than 3,500 signatures in opposition to the U.S. House of Representatives’ proposal to cut the…
It ended up being a pretty good day for school districts that had ballot questions before voters Tuesday. About a third of all school districts in Minnesota had decided to put referenda on the ballot. They were asking voters to either maintain or increase the amount of funds that come from local sources. And of all those questions that were out there, 70-percent were approved. Education reporter Tom Weber discussed the results with Morning Edition host Cathy Wurzer.
Why a community-college student is concerned about the U's transfer decision
In light of the post I wrote about U’s decision to scale back a little on the number of transfers it’s accepting, I called up Geoff Dittberner, president of the Minnesota State College Student Association, the organization that represents students at Minnesota’s two-year colleges. Like a lot of his constituents, Dittberner is a student who…
Voters approve 70 pct. of all school referenda; many raise own taxes
Voters across Minnesota approved seven of every 10 school-related referenda on Tuesday, in many cases agreeing to raise their own property taxes to provide extra dollars for their districts.
Daniel Luzer of Washington Monthly magazine — the publication that last year ranked St. Paul College as the best community college in America — reacts to Tim Post’s article on the University of Minnesota cutting back on transfers: (University of Minnesota Dean of Undergraduate Education Bob) McMaster also told Post that the university needs to…
Which majors provide the least and most job security?
We’ve seen numerous articles about the hottest majors — those most in demand at the moment, or those that pay the best. This interactive Wall Street Journal chart, based on data from a recent Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce report, shows which college majors tend to have the highest and lowest unemployment…
The Crookston Daily Times laments the state of student debt nationally and in Minnesota: Three decades ago, a Federal Pell Grant for the full amount easily covered a year’s worth of tuition, books and maybe left you a little extra spending money. Now, it doesn’t even pay a semester’s tuition at most four-year universities. State-provided…