Behind the News

The number of students taking at least one course online is on the rise; the 2012 Survey of Online Learning conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group and released this year indicated that number surpassed 6.7 million for the fall 2011 semester.

That said, there is a divergence between higher ed administrators and faculty on the value of online learning. Seventy-seven percent of academic leaders surveyed believe online education results in the same or superior learning outcomes as in face-to-face classes.

As other campus departments experience cut or stagnant budgets, campus engagement centers have been an exception. Although they’re generally smaller departments, their budgets have been steadily growing over the past few years. That’s according to a survey of Campus Compact’s member institutions.

The student visa process has come under scrutiny after investigators in the Boston bombings learned that a friend of suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev entered the U.S. with an expired student visa.

Azamat Tazhayakov, a student from Kazakhstan, was arrested on suspicion of obstructing justice after investigators say items were removed from Tsarnaev’s University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth dorm room three days after the attack.

Texas Tech University is the only school in Texas to have an undergraduate institution, law school, and medical school on the same campus. It is also the U.S. university with the happiest employees, according to a new top 10 list released by CareerBliss, an online community featuring company reviews, salaries, and job listings.

When Boston College leaders sent a letter to a student group in March saying its members could expect disciplinary sanctions if they distributed condoms from dorm rooms on campus, a game of sides followed. Some students, members of the media, and the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union stood by the unofficial student group, Boston College Students for Sexual Health.

It used to be that when a student left high school and entered college, he or she could expect to graduate four years later. But the pressures of jobs (to support rising education costs) and the demands of family have increased time spent in school so much that a Time magazine article earlier this year focused on “The Myth of the Four-Year College Degree.”