Notes in the Margins: Sex week, student fees and the talented poor

Resurrecting California’s Public Universities The same California State Legislature that cut the higher education budget to ribbons, while spending ever larger sums on prisons, now proposes to magically set things right by requiring public colleges and universities to offer more online courses. The problem is that online courses as generally configured are not broadly useful. (The New York Times)

Course Load: The Growing Burden of College Fees Student fees have been something of a known irritant for years, often criticized as a kind of stealth, second tuition imposed on unsuspecting families. But such fees are still on the rise on many campuses. And though their names can border on the comical — i.e., the "student success fee" — there's nothing funny about how they can add up. (ProPublica)

British professorial pay rises twice as fast as rest Universities are paying higher salaries to attract or retain senior staff who can boost departmental REF scores, which will be used to distribute hundreds of millions of pounds in research cash. (Times Higher Education)

The Ivy League Was Another Planet Even the most talented rural poor kids don’t go to the nation’s best colleges. The vast majority, the study found, do not even try. (The New York Times)

UT 'Sex Week' Funds Cut After Conservative Backlash The University of Tennessee pulled funding for "Sex Week" after conservative lawmakers complained, but some critics still aren't happy. (The Huffington Post)

• How Augsburg is going all Mark Twain
• How past U of M presidents view higher-ed today
• Metro State data breach affected 160,000 students