Posts Categorized: News

DC Shuttle: Parties Tangle Over Student Loan Rates as Deadline Nears

With a June 30 deadline quickly approaching, lawmakers are running out of time to prevent student loan rates from doubling. Leadership from both parties has said that a compromise will be coming before the deadline and suggested on Friday that they are close to a deal. In 2007, Congress approved PL 110-84, which gradually reduced loan interest rates over four years. but expires July 1. The is...

SNHU Awarded $1 Million to Develop Blended Model

Next Generation Learning Challenges awarded Southern New Hampshire University's (SNHU) Innovation Lab a $1 million grant to develop online and blended programs designed to improve student access and college completion through the use of technology. SNHU's Pathways Project targets include low-income and minority students, and will initially offer an associate degree with content and assessment deli...

DC Shuttle: Maximum Pell Grant Increased; Education Dept. Updates Lists of College Costs

On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted along party lines to approve FY2013 authorization for Labor-HHS-Education programs, including $68.5 billion for the Department of Education. This includes an $85 increase in the maximum Pell Grant award level, from $5,550 to $5,635, beginning in the 2013-14 school year. Funding for most other student financial aid programs would remain at curr...

DC Shuttle: 10 Colleges Commit to White House Plan to Give Students Clearer Price Info; Rise in Student Loan Interest Rates Looming

On Tuesday, administration officials announced a White House partnership with 10 colleges and universities to give students better information on the cost of higher education and financial aid options. The schools, which include the University of Massachusetts System, have voluntarily committed to adopting an information sheet for incoming students to help them understand the costs of college and ...

OECD Invites New England Higher Ed Leaders, Students to Paris for Conference on “Mass Higher Education”

The OECD invites New England higher education leaders to attend its Programme for Institutional Management in Higher Education's 2012 General Conference on “Attaining and Sustaining Mass Higher Education” to be held from Sept. 17 to Sept. 19 in Paris.The conference will examine: Where have we got to in attaining and sustaining mass higher education? What can higher education contribu...

DC Shuttle: More Haggling Over How to Pay for Student Loan Interest Rate Extension, College Access

In a bid to break the stalemate over offsets for student loan interest rate legislation, Republican leadership in the House and Senate proposed two alternative proposals on Thursday. While general agreement exists on the desire to extend the current 3.4%  interest rate on federal student loans for one year, delaying an increase to 6.8% scheduled for July 1, lawmakers have been unable to ...

Comings and Goings: Purcell Joins MassBay CC as Provost

Massachusetts Bay Community College named Francesca Purcell, formerly associate commissioner for academic and P-16 policy with the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, to be the Wellesley, Mass-based community college’s next provost/chief academic officer. Purcell wrote Smooth Transfer: A Once Mundane Administrative Issue Re-emerges as a Key Tool for Equity for the Summer 2006 issue...

DC Shuttle: STEM’ing Immigration; Measuring Higher Ed Productivity; Funding Upward Bound

Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) introduced legislation Wednesday to create a new category of student visas for those studying in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. The bill would create a new category of non-immigrant visa for foreign students pursuing a master's degree or doctorate in the STEM fields in the U.S. Those students would have one yea...

A Few More Caps and Gowns

Ronald Noble, the first American to head the international policing organization INTERPOL, will keynote the University of New Hampshire's 142nd commencement ceremony on Saturday May 19 at 10 a.m. on Memorial Field.Paul S. Grogan, president of The Boston Foundation, will deliver the commencement address at the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology's 104th commencement ceremony on Saturday, Ma...

Common Core Backer to Lead College Board; Maine Development Foundation Prez Heads to Thomas; Former UMass Amherst Chancellor Ousted at LSU

David Coleman, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant and co-founder of Student Achievement Partners, will become president of the College Board in October 2012, succeeding Gaston Caperton, who announced plans to step down.Maine Development Foundation President Laurie Lachance announced she would leave the position to become president of Thomas College in Waterville, Maine, effective July 1. The...