For whatever it means...

Above are the world rankings of universities from the British Times Higher Education magazine based on "academic reputation." [Click on the image to make it clearer.] The full list and info on the survey methodology is at:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2013/reputation-ranking

Yale & Penn Sue Defaulting Students But UC Doesn't

From the LA Daily News:

Needy U.S. borrowers are defaulting on almost $1 billion in federal student loans earmarked for the poor, leaving schools such as Yale and the University of Pennsylvania with little choice except to sue their graduates. The record defaults on federal Perkins loans may jeopardize the prospects of current students since they are part of a revolving fund that colleges give to students who show extraordinary financial hardship. Yale, Penn and George Washington University have all sued former students over nonpayment, court records show... 

Repaying Perkins loans may be a lower priority for borrowers with multiple debts, said Nancy Coolidge, associate director of student financial support for the University of California system. They may be more likely to pay back private student loans first because they can carry much higher interest rates, she said. Perkins loans are given to the most at-risk students, and "they may have the least ability to pay it back," Coolidge said...

The University of California system tries to use its own personnel before suing Perkins debtors because balances are relatively small, said Coolidge. When borrowers don't have assets or income, winning a judgment doesn't actually result in collecting the money, she said. "It's not that we wouldn't do it," she said. "It's not that practical."

Full story at http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_22530769/schools-sue-graduates-amid-record-defaults-federal-loans

If they ain't got it, it's hard to get it:

No Rush Online at Yale

Inside Higher Ed today carries a report that Yale is taking a gradual approach to online education and not rushing into MOOC delivery.  Excerpt:

News of universities partnering with massive open online course providers has become commonplace, which is why Yale University stands out for what it’s not doing: rushing.

While many top universities -- including Harvard and Stanford Universities, along with many others -- were announcing partnerships and launching their first MOOCs, Yale sat back, watched, and evaluated...

Watching and waiting — and strategizing — can be a difficult choice to make given the “herd mentality” that has developed around MOOCS, according to Peter Stokes, executive director of postsecondary innovation in the College of Professional Studies at Northeastern University.  Still, he thinks there’s value in the approach. “It’s certainly reasonable for an institution like Yale to pause and to ask its own community whether this is something they ought to be involving themselves in or not,” Stokes said. “That is, in fact, very sensible. There probably hasn’t been enough reflection like that over the last six to eight months.” ...

Full article at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/29/yale-takes-time-reflect-evaluate-jumping-moocs

Meanwhile, Yale can be online in other ways:

Would it work for UC?

We have noted in prior posts that the Regents (with a push from Gov. Brown) are interested in promoting online education at UC.  A somewhat different model is noted today in a brief article in Inside Higher Ed.  Online education, even if aimed at a mass audience, is often (not always) a pre-recorded program.  That is, something is put online and students access it at their convenience individually.  The article in Inside Higher Ed reports that Yale, Columbia, and Cornell are using video conferencing (so it's live and at a fixed time) for small courses (capped at 12 students in less popular languages.  Languages taught or to be taught include Romanian, Dutch, Zulu, and others. You can find the article at:
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/11/21/columbia-cornell-yale-collaborate-languages

Yours truly regularly does an online video conference call with a systemwide Senate group roughly the size of the small classes described above.  Presumably, the participants in the language courses see each other (so up to 13 images at once).  If that is what is being done by the three universities, to be used in a class, their technology would have to be a lot better than the system used for my conference calls.

And can you see me?