Links for 1/25/10

Mercedes Bunz

This spring, the New York Times will start awarding certificates in conjunction with several universities to students who pay to take its online courses…

The Times and the universities will share the revenue they get from $235 per course for a media program teaming up with Ball State University, a course about Travel Writing for $495, or for a five-course certification in entrepreneurship offered by Rosemont College for $1,950…

Gordon Winston

I have little doubt that some university presidents are caught up in the same salary-as-self-respect lust as the bankers we're hearing so much about these days. Sure, they run complicated and demanding organizations and most of them could have made more money in the for-profit sector, but that's not where they are. They're part of a community whose mission and dedication and satisfactions have to do with something more than, and different from, profits. And whatever their impact in the world at large, outsized presidential salaries have corrosive effects within their communities. There once was an idea that a college's president should make about twice what its average full professors did (as professors, not as clinical practitioners or football coaches or consultants). That seems to me a reasonable and community-based target for boards to aim at. More than that suggests presidential values inconsistent with their jobs.

Anna Nemtsova

Across Russia, bribery and influence-peddling are rife within academe. Critics cite a combination of factors: Poor salaries lead some professors to pocket bribes in order to make ends meet. Students and their families feel they must pay administrators to get into good universities, if only because everyone else seems to be doing it. And local government officials turn a blind eye, sometimes because they, too, are corrupt…

Several students said they once saw a list of prices posted in the hallway of the law department. The cost of a good grade on various exams ranged from $50 to $200. Students from other departments report similar scenarios…

In 2001, Russia introduced an SAT-like test known as the Unified State Exam. It was created in large measure to eliminate corruption in the college-entrance process… But instead of reducing corruption, the exam apparently has fostered it…