GO TO COLLEGE: STEP-BY-STEP

"Art Levine, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, sees three major change forces: new competition, a convergence of knowledge producers, and changing demographics. The explosion of online learning from new and existing providers is changing the landscape of higher education. More broadly, everybody is getting into the learning business and providing some kind of instruction: YouTube, iTunes U, the neighborhood library, and closet hackers like Kahn Academy. To make the landscape even more confusing, Levine points out that less than a fifth of higher ed students are traditional -- young adults that went straight to college from high school. The new majority in higher ed are working adults and they view college as just another part of their life. They want a relationship with college like the one with the bank or the electric company -- convenient, service on demand, quality support, and cheap."

26. Boomerang kids: 85% of college grads move home http://t.co/r4s0RRz "Stubbornly high unemployment -- nearly 15% for those ages 20-24 -- has made finding a job nearly impossible. And without a job, there's nowhere for these young adults to go but back to their old bedrooms, curfews and chore charts. Meet the boomerangers.

"This recession has hit young adults particularly hard," according to Rich Morin, senior editor at the Pew Research Center in DC. So hard that a whopping 85% of college seniors planned to move back home with their parents after graduation last May, according to a poll by Twentysomething Inc., a marketing and research firm based in Philadelphia. That rate has steadily risen from 67% in 2006."

27. Trade schools flunk key test: Helping students http://t.co/Ubp9Kq3 "The default rate at for-profit schools is the highest, compared to other types of schools. It climbed to 11.6% in 2009, from 11% the year before, according to a study released Monday by the U.S. Department of Education. The rate is higher than the 6% for public schools and the 4% rate for private institutions. Tuition at for-profit schools runs significantly higher compared to public institutions, according to the Department of Education. The department said the average cost for a degree of less than two years is $11,480 at a for-profit compared to $2,451 at a public school. For programs longer than two years, the for-profit schools charge $12,026 compared to $7,077 for a four-year degree at a public school."

28. Is What’s Ailing For-Profit Colleges Evident Throughout Higher Education? http://nyti.ms/ccVSsN "First, Mr. Bousquet acknowledges the fundamental shortcomings of some for-profit universities: They fail to graduate students and the students they graduate are often un-, under- and mis-educated. The students go into debt to pay outrageous tuition for the attention of underqualified faculty, and then fail to find the employment for which they were putatively prepared. And from all of this underregulated misery and failure, the shareholders are racking up massive capital accumulation. He then goes 39