An interesting look at transforming higher education, from the Washington Monthly. They examine the reasons for the escalating costs of college, in comparison to some new teaching techniques that have produced impressive cost-savings as well as positive results for students. From reading the article, it appears to me that the biggest problem is the U.S. News rankings, which cause colleges to chase fake indicators of excellence to improve their ranking at the expense of the students they are supposed to be serving. The same thing happened at my alma mater, when they dropped ten spots for refusing to release some personal data about donors. Perhaps a measurement of actual student success, both in college and after, would be much more worthwhile? But then, that would make too much sense.