Links for 10/14/10

Allie Grasgreen

The misuse of prescription drugs was banned not because of concerns over health, safety or illegality, said Michael J. Whaley, Wesleyan's vice president for student affairs, but because the activity violates the spirit of the student honor code…

What constitutes improper assistance? If students are using study aids -- prescription drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin that can increase students’ focus and alertness -- for studying rather than exams or homework, is that a violation of the honor code? Can study aids, which are used the same way that millions of people use coffee or energy drinks, really be called cheating mechanisms?...

David Moltz

The line between for-profit and nonprofit education continues to blur in Massachusetts…

Earlier this year, the Princeton Review signed a deal with Bristol Community College, in Fall River, to offer accelerated health science degree programs to students willing to pay a higher tuition…

administrators at other institutions around the state are considering whether they should enter into similar agreements with the for-profit company…

Marc Bousquet

Sure, the for-profits are just as bad as they say. They fail to graduate students and the students they graduate are often un-, under- and mis- educated. The students go into debt to pay outrageous tuition for the attention of under-qualified faculty, and then fail to find the employment for which they were putatively prepared. And from all of this under-regulated misery and failure, the shareholders are racking up massive capital accumulation.

The problem is that the for-profits did not invent any of this. All of these tactics–what I’ve called the tuition gold rush–were pioneered by the nonprofit sector…

Nick Gillespie

Obama continues to make a play to be the edjumication president, yet he won't do a goddamn thing to actually shake up the ineffective, over-spending status quo…

when it comes to doing something-anything to empty the K-12 prisons we mislabel as schools in this country…