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The cost to enroll a student is averaging approximately $6,000 and this cost doubles with the replacement of every student lost. Due to the recent financial climate, most states are facing financial cutbacks, making student retention paramount. Top reasons for attrition include school preparedness, financial support, academic progress, dissatisfaction with support services, and social readiness. So how can we keep students on track for graduation?

Tuition refunds require intense administrative attention at many colleges and universities. If a student receives financial aid after tuition has been paid, or if he or she drops a course early in the term, schools are obligated by federal law to issue refunds within 14 days.

Our annual surveys provide information on the landscape of ITIT and campus policies. In 2010 we added questions on going mobile. For the category "Mobile apps are an important part of campus plans," we got a very strong response. We see this as very much driven by student expectations - an expectation, if not an entitlement.

Whether your athletic program is big or small, success depends on building engagement and loyalty among fans. Sony's new ZIRIS digital signage solutions can boost your spectator experience significantly, as shown by the Miami Heat, which is using the system to excite fans the moment they enter American Airlines Arena. ZIRIS can create visually engaging video walls, open new sponsorship opportunities, simplify delivery of content through web-based controls, and increase revenue through the dynamic presentation of display advertising and concession information.

College recruitment is getting ever more competitive, so making sure students stay in school once they're enrolled is a smart move for any university.

Not so long ago, Kutztown University found itself struggling to work out flexible tuition payment arrangements for strapped parents.

"It became so cumbersome that it was taking a staff member and a half just to monitor payment plans here," said Wendy Pursell, bursar of the Kutztown, Pa., school.

The University of Central Florida has championed distance learning since 1982, back when lectures were recorded on scratchy VHS and Beta tapes. The commuter college is the nation's third-largest university and is committed to transforming Florida from an economy tied to travel and tourism to one that's powered by high-tech.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.

Charles Dickens penned the opening lines of "A Tale of Two Cities" to describe French Revolutionary times, but they could easily apply to the modern world of student refunds. Or, more specifically, to two of the primary alternatives to paper checks.

One is simple, secure and smart. The other can be convoluted, controversial and painful for students.

Nearly a decade ago, Oklahoma City Community College installed state-of-the-art administrative system technology from Datatel that linked its student, finance, and human resources information systems together. It worked wonderfully - until staff turnover and training lapses diminished its utility.

As new technologies are developed, many tried-and-true staples of academia have fallen. So it is with the carousel slide projector.

Long a staple of art history classes, slide projectors are becoming obsolete, and while many professors and instructors have plenty of media, they don't have a way to replace the projector itself.

For the University of Denver's multimedia department this presented an opportunity not only to solve an immediate problem but to create something that would go beyond the traditional uses of media objects.