When asked to select comparable institutions, colleges typically chose schools of higher status rather than delineating actual peers, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. Upon studying the comparison groups submitted to the U.S. Department of Education by almost 1,600 institutions, The Chronicle found that the typical college labeled more selective colleges with better average SAT scores, higher graduation rates and more extensive resources as its peers. Alabama A&M University, for example, selected Dartmouth College as a member of its peer group. Members of the Ivy League named only 12 schools outside the Ivy League as peers, with Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology among them. Colleges may be better able to understand their flaws by citing realistic institutions as peers, Executive Director of the Association for International Research Randy Swing told the The Chronicle.
The National College Athletic Association has faced criticism for its alleged failure to react to student-athletes enrolling in and receiving illegitimate passing grades in "no-show" classes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Inside Higher Education reported. Although students in the classes, who were both athletes and non-athletes, received grades for work that was not reviewed, a subsequent investigation by UNC officials determined that no students received grades without submitting work and that no athletes received better treatment than non-athletes. Because the courses benefited all students and not exclusively athletes, the investigation does not require NCAA involvement, according to Chuck Smrt, president of the Compliance Group, which advises athletic departments and conferences on NCAA rules.
The U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training will collaborate with the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions to hold a hearing on the National Labor Relations Board's relationship to institutions of higher education, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. The meeting's title "Expanding the Power of Big Labor: The NLRB's Growing Intrusion Into Higher Education" may reflect the conservative views of the Republican-dominated House, according to The Chronicle. The Subcommittee on Higher Education announced in a statement that the NLRB is "taking steps to impose changes on private postsecondary institutions by re-examining its jurisdiction over graduate students, university faculty and religious institutions," potentially resulting in restrictions of academic freedom and higher costs, The Chronicle reported. The NLRB may overturn a 2004 ruling against the unionization of college graduate students and change the standards by which private college faculty members are classified as employees who can unionize.
