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"Take professional associations, for example. They exist in essentially every industry, and most offer substantially discounted student rates. Yet in my experience, not many college students are motivated enough to get involved. Should they? Here are five reasons why students should be active in associations that align with their career path."

"If you have an exercise bike in the back room, you could be the small selection of people that use it everyday to get fit. But then again, you could be one of many more who bought it in the hope of regular practice but were unable to make it part of your routine. The MOOC or Massive Open Online Course, which has come to prominence this year, often has much the same effect. Students may enrol in the online free courses from prestigious universities in their tens of thousands, but overwhelmingly they bomb out with attrition rates up to 80-90%."

"I love the Fox as much as the next bearded geek, but the numbers just don't lie: Chrome is breathlessly decimating Firefox's userbase at a breakneck rate. It took Firefox more than four years to prise 20% of the market from Internet Explorer; Chrome did it in almost half that, and is fast approaching 30% in just over three years. Internet Explorer's graph is a little harder to interpret, but it looks like it might have finally turned the corner and stopped hemorrhaging market share."

"instructors and a large share of academic technology administrators say the efforts are mainly designed to satisfy accreditors and politicians -- not to increase degree completion rates."

"Prices for a "tutor" vary. Boostmygrades.com advertises a $695 rate for graduate classes, $495 for an algebra class, or $95 for an essay. When Inside Higher Ed, posing as a potential customer, asked for a quote for an introductory microeconomics class offered by Penn State World Campus, noneedtostudy.com offered to complete the entire course for $900, with payment upon completion, and onlineclasshelpers.com asked for $775, paid up front. Most sites promise at least a B in the course."

"Designing a course that precludes cheating might require thinking creatively and breaking away from simply uploading lecture videos and administering quizzes, said Kyle Johnson, an independent higher ed consultant. "What kind of experience are we providing for students if someone is able to take an entire class for a student and we never figure it out from the interaction? At a pedagogical level, that's my concern," he said. "Are we really just dumping information at them so someone can come in and take a couple of quizzes and they're done?""

Online enrollment growth, while still substantial, is slowing. The 2013 Survey of Online Learning conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group reveals the number of higher education students taking at least one online course has now surpassed 7.1 million. The 6.1 percent growth rate, although the lowest for a decade, still represents over 400,000 additional students taking at least one online course.

Rather than a standard rating system that assumes an institution will be relevant for all prospective students, regardless of what area of study they want to pursue, an Ohio State University official proposes the federal government explore adopting a business model that helps people find successful partnerships, such as Match.com and eHarmony.com.

"Christopher Brinton at Princeton University and a few pals offer their view. These guys have studied the behaviour in online discussion forums of over 100,000 students taking massive open online courses (or MOOCs). And they have depressing news. They say that participation falls precipitously and continuously throughout a course and that almost half of registered students never post more than twice to the forums. What's more, the participation of a teacher doesn't improve matters. Indeed, they say there is some evidence that a teacher's participation in an online discussion actually increases the rate of decline."

Under the new effort, paid for by the College Board, high-achieving low-income students will also receive a packet of information on selective colleges, as well as waivers for the application fee. The information includes details on admission and financial aid policies, as well as on the variation in graduation rates at different colleges.

"In the United States-where public universities are hurting for funds, tuition and debt levels are growing, and graduation rates are stagnant-debate has focused on whether MOOCs represent a necessary innovation or the deplorable cheapening of elite university education. The question is: Could the hybrid, small-group model that's evolving abroad also provide a needed alternative for underserved American students?"

"Hersh believes there is another major factor driving the gap between retention rates in face-to-face programs and those in the rapidly growing world of distance education: the lack of a human touch."

"This research looks closely at claims that ratemyprofessors.com creates a valid measure of teaching effectiveness because student responses are consistent with a learning model. While some evidence for this contention was found in three datasets taken from the site, the majority of the evidence indicates that the instrument is biassed by a halo effect, and creates what most accurately could be called a 'likeability' scale."

The White House has suggested that the amount of federal student aid that an institution receives should depend on how well it performs on certain key measures. I wholeheartedly agree with this in concept. The question is what those key measures should be. They should include rates of loan default, retention, and graduation. But not tuition.

"In fall 2006, former DJ, point guard and teacher turned first-time principal, James O'Brien, opened a small public high school in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where 1/3 of residents live below the poverty line and the graduation rate is 40%. With infectious optimism, O'Brien and his team of eight undertook an unconventional approach and ambitious mission: Create a school with an arts-oriented curriculum that also emphasizes self-development, community collaboration and social change. Initially, the buzz from everyone was that this was a dream come true. "

"These findings support some of the early hopes that MOOCs would provide a life-changing opportunity for those who are less advantaged and have limited access to education. Of course, MOOCs are still available only to people who have access to the internet, and completion rates remain low. "

"California State University is moving aggressively to offer web-based science labs, a systemwide virtual campus and online advising as remedies for "bottlenecks" that impede student progress and graduation rates, officials said Tuesday. Some of these efforts will be ready to roll out this fall. The detailed strategies were presented in a meeting of the Cal State Board of Trustees in Long Beach as a response to Gov. Jerry Brown's call for the Cal State and University of California systems to improve student performance in exchange for long-term funding increases."

Tuition hikes are fine when someone else pays the real cost, and in this case, it's typically other students at a college who end up footing the bill for some professor's kid to go there free or at a reduced price. As tuition rates have increased, tuition remission has evolved from a nice extra to a big-ticket benefit, surpassing health care for those workers who take advantage of it in a particular year.

" wellspring of fresh faith has surged up around so-called SPOCs. Small and Private, not Massive and Open, SPOCs are boasting better completion rates and better vibes than their highly scalable predecessors."

"Legitimate research has determined that student evaluations of professors are biased, and so their "customer ratings" aren't fair. Legitimate research also indicates that while professorial popularity and effectiveness do overlap, one does not immediately signify or correlate with the other. Further, most students don't actually view themselves as customers, because they know how education works and actually want to get one."

Completion rates and grades were worse than for those who took traditional campus-style classes. And the students who did best weren't the underserved students San Jose most wanted to reach. It wasn't really proving to be cheaper, either, says Peter Hadreas, the chairman of San Jose State's philosophy department.