Amazon Kindle Lightens Textbook Load, But Flaws Remain

Amazon wants to adapt the Kindle to academia, where it could reduce the notoriously high cost of textbooks. The Kindle DX, with a larger screen than the regular model, costs $489, but digital books can cost less than half what physical ones do.
While it might be the future of textbooks, Amazon or any other e-reader company has a long way to go to make it happen — even for a technology-saturated generation that should be more receptive to the shift.
USA Today

International call expenses reduced EP Lines helps students far from home connect

Thinking about the situation that international students must deal with, Nahum Avila, accelerated MBA student, developed EP Lines, a broadband phone company that helps serve as a link between students and their families.
EP Lines uses the Voice over the Internet Protocol to make a high-speed Internet connection serve as a regular phone line. The company provides each customer an adapter, which turns analog audio from a phone into digital audio that can be transmitted through the Web.
Students may get a line for their home in El Paso and another line for their parents in their hometown. As a result, calls will be charged as local calls without long distance fees. UTEP international students who currently use EP Lines to call their parents come from many different countries including Korea, India and Mexico.
The Prospector
The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX

ECU named top business school

For the third year in a row, ECU's College of Business has been ranked among the Princeton Review's top business schools. The Princeton Review released their latest edition of "The Best 301 Business Schools," listing ECU among them. In the book, ECU's College of Business is given a two-page profile complete with an analysis of career and placement opportunities for graduates and excerpts of student opinions of the college.
...In addition to their innovative and outstanding academic success, the Princeton Review also specifically recognizes ECU's College of Business for their superb distance education program....
East Carolinian
East Carolina University

GI Bill applicants experience delayed payments

When senior Michael Jenkins started his summer vacation, he did not know how to pay for his last year of college. Two days before classes started, the government informed him that it picked up the bill.
Jenkins, a kinesiology major and Navy veteran, said he applied for the post-9/11 GI Bill in May because his old GI Bill ran out. About 16 weeks after he applied, a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs officer informed him that he qualified for 100 percent of the new bill's benefits.
....Because the number of applicants for new GI Bill benefits resulted in delayed government payments to veterans, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki announced an emergency payment plan for eligible veterans in a press release Sept. 30. The plan went into effect Oct. 2 and allows veterans to receive checks at regional offices or to make an online request for immediate funding....
Daily Skiff
Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX

Making the Grade Isn't About Race. It's About Parents.

My students knew intuitively that the reason they were lagging academically had nothing to do with race, which is the too-handy explanation for the achievement gap in Alexandria. And it wasn't because the school system had failed them. They knew that excuses about a lack of resources and access just didn't wash at the new, state-of-the-art, $100 million T.C. Williams, where every student is given a laptop and where there is open enrollment in Advanced Placement and honors courses. Rather, it was because their parents just weren't there for them -- at least not in the same way that parents of kids who were doing well tended to be.
Washington Post

Overcrowding Impacts Nursing Students

Student enrollments in nursing programs in California have increased over the last few years, but shortage of well-trained nurses remains a problem because of budget cuts to higher education.
California colleges and universities will need to graduate more than 40,000 nurses within the next decade to meet projected demand, according to a report from the Legislative Analyst's Office.
However, because of the budget crisis, funds needed to expand or maintain nursing programs in state universities and community colleges are either cut or unchanged, said Sara Bachez, consultant for the Assembly Budget Committee.
The State Hornet
California State University

ECU Named Top Business School

For the third year in a row, ECU's College of Business has been ranked among the Princeton Review's top business schools. The Princeton Review released their latest edition of "The Best 301 Business Schools," listing ECU among them. In the book, ECU's College of Business is given a two-page profile complete with an analysis of career and placement opportunities for graduates and excerpts of student opinions of the college.
...In addition to their innovative and outstanding academic success, the Princeton Review also specifically recognizes ECU's College of Business for their superb distance education program....
East Carolinian
East Carolina University