Opinion

So we've made it through the first two weeks of my semester, and the first week of Nick's. And what have I learned so far?

Last year’s student protests in Chile had as one of its main targets the pursuit of profit in education. The argument defended by demonstrators and shared, according to opinion polls, by a large majority of Chileans, was that financial gain from education is morally illegitimate and ought to be legally banned. Most people seemed to believe that education cannot be, under any circumstances, a business enterprise.

After talking to dozens (perhaps hundreds) of sustainability staff on a wide range of campuses, I've come to the conclusion that almost all of them fall into one of two categories: either they're administrators or they're strategists. (OK, that's a gross over-generalization, but when have I let a little thing like that stop me?)

William Palmer considers the value of his time away from teaching, and why he's excited to return to the classroom.

Higher education depends on scholarly publishing, even if most institutions don't do anything to foot the bill, write Alex Holzman, Douglas Armato and MaryKatherine Callaway.

If credits are available for free, what will colleges sell?

Reflections on the new academic year, online courses, the OECD's forthcoming Education at a Glance (2012), and international consortia of universities.

A stellar content strategy starts with creating quality content. Then social media can be used to subtly deliver the content, creating a much more powerful connection than the megaphone approach.