Notable News Articles

Colleges like to build, but they don't like to maintain, and costly deferred maintenance looms over many a campus.
Broken stairs are among the repairs that need to be made at the U. of Maryland at College Park. The campus's Georgian columns are particularly expensive to maintain. (Photograph by Michael Williamson)

Why does college cost so much? As the debate intensifies, millions of people wonder how they will pay for that all-important diploma.

With the fall of in loco parentis and the rise of alcohol-abuse education, what does the archetypal beer-bash movie have to say to college students and administrators now?

Frostburg State University's president has won a national award for his efforts to curb drinking among his students. But how much can one man do?

Many people in college sports, including the coaches themselves, say the recruiting process is only getting more frenzied and has trickled down to all levels of play.

Virginia Tech invoked "Hokie spirit" in making a quick recovery from the mass shootings on the campus in April 2007. Some marketing experts see the strategy as wise.

As universities around the world compete harder for students and professors, they look more closely at their place in the growing number of international rankings.

Memberships on corporate boards offer big benefits to college presidents, but these days they also carry big risks.

Careers Articles

A cartload of recent books suggests that it's time to reverse the customer-service mentality plaguing academe.

Exactly how shall we teach the "digital natives"?

This is most definitely not a cautionary tale.

If we had to make up a story for why you might be interested in our position, then interviewing you was too risky.

A journal editor reveals the most common mistakes academics make when they submit manuscripts.

Is it plagiarism when a colleague borrows your syllabus and then uses it in its entirety for his own course?

News Blog

Undergrad Economics Major Mustn't Get Too Technical, Report Urges
The report, which is scheduled to be discussed on Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association, says that young faculty members should be trained to teach the discipline to undergraduate students who have a broad range of interests.

American Business Schools Seek Students Among Indian Executives
A fall in revenue at home from executive M.B.A. programs has prompted the schools to look abroad.

Brainstorm: Lives of the Mind

A Lighter Look

When an academic course is the hottest ticket on campus, students will go to a lot of trouble to get a seat.

Test your higher-ed IQ by taking our annual news quiz.

A small college joins in a worldwide celebration of the poet's 400th birthday with a recitation of his most famous work — all 12 books of it.

The members of this year's entering class were conceived about the same time as the World Wide Web and took their first steps as Clarence Thomas took the Supreme Court oath.

Notable Review Articles

Web skimming may be a kind of literacy, says Mark Bauerlein, but it's not the kind that matters most.
(Photograph by Richard Howard)

Like everything else, attending college has pros and cons. But students don't hear nearly enough about the cons, Marty Nemko writes.

The collapse of 1929 is the wrong model for the current financial crisis. Think 1873, writes Scott Reynolds Nelson.

Where does the Obama campaign leave the black narrative of victimization?, asks Gerald L. Early.

Today's college students have tuned out the world, writes Ted Gup, and it's partly educators' faults.

Chronicle Data

The Chronicle's annual survey of pay and benefits for presidents at 184 public institutions, 599 private colleges, and 64 community colleges.

Two searchable databases of grants awarded to colleges, from 1990 to 2003 and from 2008.

Search eight years of average faculty salaries arranged by academic rank at more than 1,400 colleges, universities, and multicampus systems, or at institutions that do not have academic ranks.