SCUP Links Magazine: The inbox for SCUP’s weekly environmental scanning

But over all, the papers are more a cacophony of competing recommendations than they are a coherent policy agenda. The ideas that frequently recur might be politically ambitious (requiring colleges to disclose more data on graduates' employment and earnings, or automatically enrolling all student borrowers in income-based loan repayment), but they are discrete, small-bore policy prescriptions, not a broad vision for the future of federal financial aid.

“We felt it was important to make a statement -- that education is a public good,” said Sylvia Manning, president of the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

As a result, the commission included language describing how colleges must first serve the public -- rather than themselves or outside interests -- as part of its updated criteria for accreditation. The document lays out standards of quality that colleges must meet to earn accreditation or have it reaffirmed, which is required every 10 years.

The revised standards are getting an early test, as a commission review team last month recommended a sanction of probation for the University of Phoenix, the nation’s biggest university. According to a corporate filing from the Apollo Group, which is Phoenix’s holding company, a sentence in the public good section is what tripped up the university in its bid for reaccreditation.

That language reads: “The institution’s educational responsibilities take primacy over other purposes, such as generating financial returns for investors, contributing to a related or parent organization or supporting external interests.”

Washington already spends enough on student aid to cover tuition for each and every public college student in America. Maybe it's time to give that a try?

Their median base pay rose by 2.3 percent last year, an improvement over the previous year, an annual survey found.

Experts say there is a long-term trend of shifting the cost of higher education from the public onto students and their families.

Last week the Marine Corps and the Army both announced they would discontinue their programs, which provide active-duty service members with up to $4,500 a year to participate in high-school completion courses and certificate programs, or to work toward a college degree.

"Finally, Diana Oblinger, the President and CEO of Educause, gave a plenary that picked up largely where Sebastian left off.  She went through a host of examples of colleges that are using analytics and other software in fascinating ways, of which my favorite was Austin Peay State University’s program that gives students “top ten” course recommendations for the following semester, complete with projected grades.  The idea is to keep students on track by “nudging” them towards the “right” choices.

As Oblinger went through her examples, I was struck by the heavy (acknowledged) borrowing from behavioral economics.  Behavioral economics uses observed behavior to change the ways that people make decisions.  For example, people are easily overwhelmed by too many options; sometimes they’ll just walk away rather than make a choice.  (Note the parallel to “initiative fatigue.”)  If we don’t have the stomach to mandate decisions, but we don’t want students to just throw up their hands at seemingly infinite options, then we can use “nudging” to push students towards the choices we want them to make.  Top ten lists are a way to do that.  Students are still free to go off the top ten list, but most don’t."

Who should lead innovation in education—teachers or entrepreneurs? That key question was in the air here at this year’s South-by-Southwest Edu conference, which brought together a mix of entrepreneurs and educators for four days of panels and a competition for education start-ups.

An unconfirmed report of a person wearing Ku Klux Klan regalia followed a month of incidents of hate speech and vandalism on the campus of Oberlin College in Ohio.

Meanwhile, many observers wonder, can the establishment play a starring role in the revolution?

Andrew P. Kelly, a research fellow in education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, says ACE can and should move forward in “accrediting” individual courses. It just shouldn’t be the only option.

“Empowering a group that represents incumbents to pick winners and losers seems like a recipe for more of the same -- small pockets of noteworthy innovation that help some students, but little systemic change,” he says via e-mail.