Federal Institutes aim to top academic rankings
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The new head of Switzerland's two Federal Institutes of Technology says he wants to ensure they remain among the top ten universities in the world.
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By Paul Tosto, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.  Feb. 12--A science education can open doors to some of the best careers in Minnesota, and students who do well in the sciences can expect to be in high demand.
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Finland has topped the rankings in the Global Competitiveness Report for the third time in the last four years. The United States has maintained its second-place position.
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The United States, Sweden and Japan  topped a new ranking that measures how well countries use  telecommunications technologies -- networks, cell phones and  computers -- to boost their social and economic prosperity.
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Princeton takes the top spot in the latest U.S. News &amp; World Report college rankings, breaking a three-year tie for No. 1 with Ivy League rival Harvard.
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A number of leading public universities are drawing increasingly impressive and affluent students.
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The federal government releases a list Wednesday lauding Fortune 500 firms that make a major effort to ease commutes for their employees, which helps ease traffic congestion and air pollution. Intel is No. 1 on the list of 69 companies to be designated as Best Workplaces for Commuters by the EPA.
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France, Japan and Australia rated best and the United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday.
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Universities and businesses need more information to select the best candidates, the government has admitted.
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Intel, Fannie Mae and Cisco Systems  top the U.S. government's list of FORTUNE 500 companies that  have the best commuting benefits for their employees.
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According to a Washington Post survey, nearly three dozen of the 117 Division I-A universities award academic credit to varsity athletes for participating in intercollegiate sports.
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Texas A&amp;M is trying to show its critics that it belongs in the top 10.
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Unofficial league tables are increasingly influencing university choices, suggests research.
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Los Alamos employees like the University of California&#39;s benefits, its academic reputation and the chance to send their children to UC at in-state prices.
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Players in the NCAA&#39;s top-tier Division IA are more likely than ever to leave school with degrees, according to the latest survey of graduation rates compiled by the federal government and released Monday by the NCAA.
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By Joann DiGennaro  WASHINGTON  --  At an educators' meeting in Washington last fall, conversation turned to whether the federal government should support programming for this nation's most gifted and talented high school students.
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(InfoWorld) - U.S. industry and education leaders, including Intel chairman Craig Barrett, called on Congress to pass bills that would provide scholarships for math and science teachers and increase federal funding for research. Barrett, testifying before the House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee Tuesday, said the two bills would be a "good first start" toward improving the competitiveness of U.S. workers and industry. Improved kindergarten-to-12th-grade education and increased funding for research were the top two priorities in a National Academies of Science report on U.S. competitiveness, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, released in late 2006. Executives and educators sounding the alarm about U.S. competitiveness aren't saying the "sky is falling," he said. The rest of the world is "copying what we did well for the last several decades," he said. "Our challenge is to do what is necessary to be successful for the next several decades." Congress has been slow to step up with policies that promote competitiveness, added Neal Lane, a physics professor at Rice University in Houston and former assistant to President Bill Clinton in the White House Office of Science and Technology. "In recent years, the U.S. has been reluctant to make the kind of long-term investments necessary to secure a bright future for Americans," Lane said. "We seem to have other priorities. My grandchildren and their generation will inherit a different America, and they think perhaps a used-up or worn-out America." Rep. Bart Gordon, a Tennessee Democrat and chairman of the committee, promised to push competitiveness bills through Congress this session, even though similar bills stalled during the last session. "There is a bipartisan consensus that investing in education and research...is necessary," he said. The first bill, the 10,000 Teachers, 10 Million Minds Science and Math Scholarship Act, sets a goal of training 10,000 new math and science teachers per year for U.S. schools. The bill would provide scholarships for college students who want to be math and science teachers, with $70 million going into the scholarship program in 2008, rising to $196 million in 2012. The second bill, called the Sowing the Seeds Through Science and Engineering Research Act, would authorize a 10 percent funding increase in the research budgets at five U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy. Gordon introduced both bills in January. In addition to the two bills, Barrett called for Congress to relax restrictions on the number of skilled foreign workers U.S. companies could hire per year. The current cap for the H-1B program is 65,000 workers per year, not counting an exemption for 20,000 workers per year who leave U.S. universities with graduate degrees. Barrett called on Congress to not put any hiring limits on the number of foreign workers who graduate from U.S. colleges. Congress should "staple a green card [worker visa] to every foreign student graduating with a degree in science and engineering," he said. Barrett's comments echoed comments from MicrosoftÂ chairman Bill Gates during testimony before a congressional committee last week. But Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington state, questioned the need to expand the H-1B visa program without linking it to programs that require businesses to help train U.S. workers. "There are freeloaders," he said. "They pay [the H-1B fee], but if you ask them to do anything with the local school district to help out, they're AWOL."