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.

Online help with textbook costs
Just passing a long a couple of Web site links that Todd Digby, textbook liaison for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, offered Friday to student leaders: The Student PIRGs (student Public Interest Research Group) textbooks site is nice because it focuses on the issues of affordable textbooks, plus it has a wealth of…
Across the Pond: A Comparison of Key Data About British and U.S. Higher Education The gap between tuition at public institutions in England and the United States is narrowing, while the United States still spends more of its GDP on higher education. (chronicle.com) Student faces faces vehicular homicide charges over death of U alumna The…
While I was at the Bloomington leadership conference for two-year community college students on Friday, I was taken aback by the answers a few of them gave to a seminar question on why high school students don’t consider them in their post-graduate plans. The biggie: Stigma. One student told the group: The attitude was, “If…
Why a student-built solar house has no buyers
It seems like a bargain: a $1 million prize-winning solar-powered house for a starting bid of $200,000 — just above the Twin Cities median value. But buyers haven’t warmed to it, so the University of Minnesota student project still stands unwanted across the street from the Bell Museum in Minneapolis Why? A weak housing market.…
The exclusiveness of some America colleges is itself an attraction for many applicants, but obviously for-profit colleges face a different dynamic. Minneapolis-based Capella Education Co., which will toughen admissions standards by instituting entrance exams for some bachelor’s applicants, expects enrollment growth to decline. (Remember: Growth would decline, not enrollment.) Such a prospect was enough to…
Full-ride scholarships not so full
Back in August, in a college finance story I mentioned the case of Rickey Batsell, a north Minneapolis student who is on a “full athletic scholarship” to the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff — but who still has a number of living expenses that aren’t covered. Looks like he’s not alone. Just for Division…
Video: Talking gov candidates at U-Minnesota
MPR digital video intern Alex Gaterud talks to a professor and some students on the University of Minnesota campus about the gubernatorial campaign. There’s no ideological fire, but they do voice concern. One student says he finds the candidates “very underwhelming.” You can view the video here.
Duke University professor Charles T. Clotfelter says college faculty and administrators are wrong to ignore the “sports-entertainment complex”: For reasons that are peculiarly American, universities here have developed commercial-sports enterprises that have no counterpart anywhere else in the world. With clear-eyed rationality, they nourish their sports enterprises year after year because, contrary to their official…
Where Fulbright students come from
Wondering where the foreign Fulbright students on campus are coming from? This map from the Chronicle of Higher Education should give you an idea. Germany, Pakistan and Chile are in the lead.