Opinion

Analysts of the court's ruling have focused on its implications for fair use, but the outcome could help some publishers and bring down costs for students, writes Caroline Vanderlip.

William G. Tierney and Michael A. Olivas outline the topics on which they would like some detail from Obama and Romney.

Cal State is refusing admission to graduate students from California; it’s only taking out-of-staters, citing the need for their sweet, sweet tuition surcharges. It’s ridiculous, but it’s also sane.

Matthew Yglesias has zero to say about higher ed and the price of tuition in his excellent Kindle Single The Rent is Too Damn High. This oversight (doesn't everyone relate everything to higher ed?) should not stop us generalizing some of Yglesias' conclusions to our world.

There's been plenty of buzz lately about the ways in which online video is poised to "disrupt" education -- whether it's via the video library of Khan Academy or through the video-based lectures and lessons offered by the flurry of new MOOCs (including Coursera, Udacity, and edX). But the news today out of MIT -- one of the founding members of the edX initiative -- is a very different sort of usage of video. It's a reality TV show (of sorts) with 14 freshmen in its 5.301 Introductory Lab Techniques course.

In a recent New Yorker article, Atul Gawande compares medical—especially surgical—care to the service at the Cheesecake Factory chain of restaurants. While the analogy seems somewhat absurd at first—no doubt Gawande's point—we are soon sucked in to his comparison. The cooks and servers at Cheesecake Factory master hundreds of recipes, serving thousands of customers exactly what they ask for, night after night. Why, he asks, can't medical care work the same way? Why can't doctors deliver a measurable standard of care on a routine basis?

Wendy Robinson offers advice for college administrators who feel they can't stay away from their positions for long.

Significant changes, based on true assessment, are going on right now, led by the profession, writes Linda Darling-Hammond, who urges critics to check out what's really happening.