Job placement/careers

U. of West Alabama tells students what they can't wear and finds little opposition. Among its rules: no "sagging pants," caps or hoods in class.

Either in the classroom or at career services, top business schools scramble to counsel students and recent alumni whose job prospects may have taken a hit with the recent shakeups on Wall Street.

It appears the grass is still greener on the other side.

A group of students near Tinseltown think a young movie star lacks the gravitas to give a commencement speech, while others in Virginia say their graduation day needs a little more star power.

In a faltering economy, universities that put cooperative education programs front and center struggle to place students in jobs.

Seeing grim job prospects for its graduating Ph.D. students, a college at Vanderbilt offers stipends and ongoing teaching positions to help students buy some time.

A five-year-old program at the University of Texas at Austin pairs undergraduates considering graduate school with graduate students -- and seems to be working.

U. of Indianapolis encourages students to exercise, and eat well, with a new set of courses.

Distance ed students seek to replicate social and professional benefits of traditional college experience by forming Web-based extracurricular organizations.

Scholars argue for new approach in which vocational education and the quest for employment are seamlessly linked – throughout a career.

BALTIMORE – Teaching entrepreneurship has become one way for colleges to help local economies. Creating degree programs focused on the acquisition of business-savvy skills without a unifying theme, however, is often a difficult sell with both professors and students. Without creating new degrees, one community college has achieved success in the classroom and spawned many a student-run business in its area by encouraging faculty to embed entrepreneurship into their traditional curriculum.