My apologies to those of you who await the blog roundup with bated breath…

(crickets)

Last Monday I was going to do a regular roundup but when I stumbled on that list of higher ed earmarks, I couldn’t pass up the chance to indulge in a little snark. I was anxious to see who’d write in passionately defending their odd program of choice. The winner was actually over on Digg, championing the U of Maine Lobster Institute and the “developmental carbon-based nanotube something something something.”

Anyways, on to the roundup!

The College Journal reports that more and more frosh are heading overseas to study, to which I say bravo/cheers/slainte/opa! There are few things more important in today’s educational process, I think, than getting a taste of the outside world. America is famously insular but will not be able to retain any kind of leadership status in the world if our people don’t start caring and learning about the other 5.65 billion people in it.

Educated Nation offers some notes on the American Diploma Project’s new report about how well U.S. high schools prepare students for college (answer: not so well). Apparently some folks are proposing that the gov’t create an optional “Super Diploma” that ensures college readiness by mandating a rigorous high school curriculum. Or, as Educated Nation describes it, a “Special Shiny Golden Bridge of Wonderfulness over the Potholey Road of Public Education.”

A few years back, the Texas state university system implemented a plan to offer automatic admission to the top ten percent of every high school’s graduating class, in the hopes of increasing diversity without using affirmative action. Turns out, it didn’t really work (see “Missing in Application: The Texas Top 10% Law and Campus Socioeconomic Diversity”).