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.

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A southern Minnesota school is closed for a couple of days after more than a quarter of its students became ill.
Finally, it’s coming to the point where I’m starting to hear a lot of the same stories I’ve heard in state legislative hearings on higher ed. This afternoon, a half-dozen or so student and faculty groups testified before the Senate committee. The messages remain the same — though still unsettling: an eroding higher education system…
Mac prez phones 7,500 alumni and parents at once
“The best way to describe it is as a talk radio show with Brian Rosenberg as the host. We were hoping to use technology in a surprising and engaging way to help people remember what they love about Macalester.” — Macalester College Director of Communications Amy Phenix on the 35-minute conference call that President Brian…
“Decisions that affect our local campuses are best made by the local campuses, not a central office in St. Paul. We do not need multiple layers of administration.” — Senator Jeremy Miller (R-Winona) telling the Winona Daily News about the bill he introduced yesterday that would cut by 10 percent the funding for the University…
How to eat less and save water in the cafeteria
“If I am super hungry, I have to get a tray because I only have two arms.” — University of Colorado student Melody Siefken on how she, like many other American students, tries to go without a tray to save on dishwater and help her take less food. Apparently the University of Minnesota has joined…
Why Winona State is the best place for MN students to crash
Now this ranking may be causing a bit of bemusement at Winona State University. The campus placed third in CampusSplash.com’s first Dormy Awards for best residence halls, as covered by USA Today. It made the top three in the country in three divisions: #3 school for dorms #2 among best dorms in the country (Lucas…
U-Va. Rotunda waits in line for repairs You’d think that the University of Virginia, a “public Ivy,” would easily repair its iconic Rotunda by Thomas Jefferson. But its endowment is largely off-limits for capital projects. And Virginia lawmakers closed their annual session Sunday without budgeting a single dollar toward the $51 million Rotunda renovation. (Washington…
Lynn O’Shaughnessy explains in US News & World Report how economists Alan Krueger of Princeton University and Stacy Dale of Mathematica Policy Research have reinforced their almost decade-old study showing that Ivy League graduates do not enjoy a monopoly on high earnings: In the pair’s newest study, the findings are even more amazing. Applicants who…
Higher-ed panel hears of U link to rural MD crisis
On a more serious note, here are some main discussion points from the House higher-ed committee session on the University of Minnesota’s medical school. The main topic: How cuts to the U’s medical school could worsen the shortage of doctors in greater Minnesota. Expense. Medical resident Patricia Dickmann of the psychiatry department said the U…