Personality Test to Supplement Grad Exams

(NEWSER) - Sweet sixteen is the right time to leave high school and leap into higher education, New Hampshire education officials say. Following advice from a blue-ribbon panel that warned of America's educational decline 2 years ago, the state plans to test 10th graders with tough new exams. Those who pass can attend community or tech colleges instead of high school, Time reports. More»

U.S. News accused of fabricating average SAT scores

(NEWSER) - A college president is lobbing allegations of shoddy journalism at U.S. News magazine, accusing its annual college-ranking guide of fabricating data for its upcoming report. Although Sarah Lawrence tossed out its SAT requirement for incoming freshman, president Michele Tolela Myers says U.S. News decided to assign an average SAT score to the school anyway—one that it made up. More»

Harvard, Princeton top universities list

(NEWSER) - US News and World Report has released its latest college rankings, and it’s full of the usual suspects, with Harvard, Princeton, and Yale topping the list; not much has changed since last year . Among liberal arts colleges , Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore lead the pack. The magazine also presents its best universities in the world : The UK is on top, with Cambridge at No. 1, followed by Harvard and Yale (don’t ask us why Yale beats Princeton worldwide but not nationally). More»

'Consumer-based' education to blame for loosening standards, says report

(NEWSER) - A is for "average," especially at American colleges and universities today—a stunning 43% of all grades in the United States are now A's, according to a new report on grade inflation . That's up from just 15% in 1960 and 31% as recently as 1988, notes the Economix blog at the New York Times . At the same time, the number of bad grades have plummeted, with C's going from 35% in 1960 to just 15% today; D's have dropped from about 11% to 5%. More»

We invest vast sums in a future that may not exist, says Peter Thiel

(NEWSER) - We’re in the midst of another bubble, and it's not an Internet one, according to PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. It's a higher education bubble, and "like the housing bubble, the education bubble is about security and insurance against the future,” writes Sarah Lacy, who sat down to interview Thiel for TechCrunch . Students pay universities big bucks not to teach them, but to guarantee their security, argues Thiel. Questioning the value of education has long been "the absolute taboo," he says—but now more and more kids are graduating ... then moving home, leading many to ask, "Is it worth it?" More»