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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.

Obama wants to boost grad rates

Here’s CNN’s preview of his speech today. Here’s the job ahead of him: … the U.S. would need to add more than 10 million college graduates over the next 10 years. And here’s a mechanism he wants to use: The administration plans to fund the initiative by eliminating “middleman” banks from the loan process and…
by Alex Friedrich

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Oberstar, St. Thomas in overly cozy endowment?

Oberstar, St. Thomas in overly cozy endowment?

  Oberstar First we read that university endowments are taking a beating. Now it looks like some are the tools of corporations looking to get cozy with politicians. One wonders whether that’s the case with Democratic U.S. Rep. James Oberstar and the University of St. Thomas. Both are in a New York Times article about potential conflicts of interest between…
by Alex Friedrich

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Princeton Review's Best Midwestern Colleges

I noticed a few Minnesota colleges tooting their horns last week about making Princeton Review’s list of Best Midwestern Colleges. It’s part of the 2011 Best Colleges: Region by Region list, which is a separate list from the rankings I posted last week. The list on the Princeton Review’s Web site has been practically inaccessible (at least for me)…
by Alex Friedrich

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Kindergarten could be a kingmaker

Kindergarten could be a kingmaker

Recent research suggests that how much a child learns in kindergarten will translate to higher earnings in adulthood than students who had low quality early education.

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U of Phoenix in GAO muck

Looks like the University of Phoenix — the national for-profit university that has branches in Woodbury and St. Louis Park — may have been snagged in that GAO inquiry into deception at for-profit institutions. The document and video didn’t appear to name names. But now the university’s owner, Phoenix-based Apollo Group Inc., has launched an…
by Alex Friedrich

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Feds questioning Capella U's owner

Looks like the federal hearings into activities by for-profit colleges has reached Minnesota. Earlier this week the General Accounting Office released results of its investigation into fraud at for-profit schools. Minnesota was not one of the states the GAO targeted. Now, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions has asked Capella Education Company of Minneapolis,…
by Alex Friedrich

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Worst orientation video ever?

Worst orientation video ever?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GJVxFP19Gs Note to Minnesota colleges getting into video: This is not how to do it. If you do, you’ll be the laughing stock of the Web and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Yes, yes, this is my alma mater. Not my proudest moment. UPDATE: I almost forgot. What makes this even more embarrassing is that it comes…
by Alex Friedrich

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List of 20 Worst-Managed University Endowments

List of 20 Worst-Managed University Endowments

To put the story of the U’s plunge in its endowment into a little perspective, see the list by Financial Web site 24/7 Wall St. of this year’s Best- and Worst-Managed Endowments at universities. Thanks to Professor Bill Gleason for pointing it out.  The 20 Worst Managed Endowments: 1) Harvard, down 30% and $10.9 billion 2)…
by Alex Friedrich

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Something for TCF Bank Stadium to aspire to

Something for TCF Bank Stadium to aspire to

  Manningmbd via Wikimedia Commons Would it take a Big Ten championship for our U students to snap up tickets? The Big Ten has selected Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis as the proposed site for the conference’s first football championship game to be played December 2011, the Associated Press has reported.  The Big Ten announced…
by Alex Friedrich

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The U's med-ethics policy: One comparison

I wanted to lay some groundwork showing how the University of Minnesota’s conflict-of-interest policy has stood compared to others — before getting an idea of where it’s going. So I consulted the American Medical Student Association’s scorecard to get an idea. It’s not great. The U’s policy scored a D in 2008. The association, however, bumped the U’s provisional grade to a C based on a draft of…
by Alex Friedrich

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