Best collection of e-Learning articles, e-Learning concepts, e-Learning software, & resources.

Image:  Lots of uncertainty is ahead for student borrowers, with loan repayments scheduled to restart in October and two loan servicers announcing their federal contracts will be over at the end of the year. That means now is the perfect time to wipe the slate clean and start over, say those frustrated with the administration of the student loan system. The need to take advantage of the “rare opportunity for a fresh start” was a common theme of the comments made by lawmakers and witnesses during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs subcommittee hearing held Tuesday on protecting student borrowers. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who is chair of the economic policy subcommittee, said in her opening remarks that with the student loan program at a crossroads, it must be rebuilt to work in the best interests of borrowers. “This is our best chance in years to build strong guardrails into student loan servicing contracts and to hold student loan serv...

Image:  Public colleges and universities do more than just educate students: Northern Michigan University created a wireless LTE network that brings affordable, high-speed internet service to Michigan’s sparsely populated Upper Peninsula. The University of North Carolina at Pembroke used CARES Act dollars to vaccinate members of the Lumbee Tribe against COVID-19. Research from the University of Michigan at Flint helped the city of Flint respond to a major lead contamination of its drinking water. These are just some examples of the value of regional public institutions to the communities where they are located, a new report from the Brookings Institution argues. The report, released today, suggests that the federal government should invest millions in regional and rural public colleges and universities to help them -- and surrounding communities -- recover from the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Providing federal assistance to communities is essential to th...

Image:  Faculty influence in institution-level decision making declined in recent decades while faculty say in “local” decisions, such as those involving program curricula and personnel, increased. These are the top-line findings of a new national survey on shared governance by the American Association of University Professors, the group’s first such report in two decades. ‘A Mixed Bag’ About two-thirds (63 percent) of four-year institutions have no faculty involvement in budget decisions, for instance, signaling a reversal of progress on this front since the AAUP’s two earlier shared governance surveys, published in 1971 and 2001, respectively. For reference, 43 percent of institutions had no faculty involvement in budget matters in 1971 and just 13 percent had no faculty involvement in 2001. By contrast, faculty authority for things such as individual grade assignments is today a “faculty prerogative” at 99 percent of institutions. Program curricu...

Image:  The surge in coronavirus cases fueled by the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant and low vaccination rates is leading some colleges to expand vaccine mandates or reinstate face-masking requirements, even as public colleges in a number of Republican-controlled states continue to be constrained by executive order or law from taking such steps. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance Tuesday recommending that all individuals regardless of vaccination status wear a mask while in public indoors if they are in an area of substantial or high transmission -- a characterization that currently applies to broad swaths of the U.S., including much of the South and Midwest. The change reflects a reversal from earlier CDC guidance in May that said individuals vaccinated against COVID-19 did not need to wear masks in most indoor and outdoor settings. In response to the guidance, the University of Memphis announced it would require that masks...

Blog:  Confessions of a Community College Dean   A few months ago, someone who graduated years ago showed up in my office hoping to get some grades changed.  She had gone on to a bachelor’s program at a selective university and was in the process of applying to law school.  Apparently, some grades she had earned in dual enrollment classes in high school dragged her gpa beneath the magic threshold to be considered by some top-tier law schools.   It was the latest version of a tension I’ve worked with, through, and around for a long time.   On one side, I believe that education involves exploration and therefore risk.  Someone who has never struggled in a class has missed an important life lesson.  Nobody is great at everything, and if you were, how would you choose what to do?  Students who venture outside their comfort zones may take some hits to their gpa’s, but they will emerge having learned things they otherwise wouldn’t hav...

California governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation Tuesday implementing a series of measures to make college more accessible as a part of the state’s COVID-19 recovery efforts. “With massive increases in funding for our world-class colleges and universities, expanded college savings accounts, increased student financial aid and opportunities to gain work experience while learning, we are helping students reach their full potential and driving upward mobility across California,” Newsom said in a press release . Among other measures, the bill expands the Cal Grant program, a financial aid program for low- and middle-income students in the state, by removing eligibility requirements based on age and time out of high school. It ensures these grants continue to apply after students transfer from a California community college to an institution within the Cal State or University of California systems. The bill also allocates $115 million to zero-textbook-cost degree grant programs...

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, said Wednesday during a press briefing that President Biden doesn't have the authority to broadly cancel student loan debt. "He can postpone," Pelosi said. "He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress." Members of her own party have disagreed with that in the past, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, and Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, stating the president does have the authority to cancel debt via executive action. Schumer said Biden could do it "with the flick of a pen." Biden directed the Department of Education and the Department of Justice to explore his legal authority to cancel debt, but they have yet to release any conclusion. Pelosi also questioned the logic of canceling student loan debt, saying that families with children who don't go to college "may not be...