Sometimes, we in higher ed can get caught up in lofty thoughts of changing the world by impacting the lives of future generations.

And, sometimes, we’re reminded to not take ourselves all that seriously.

Check out the greatest pranks in MIT’s history. Which one is your favorite? I’m partial to the pumpkin.

Anyone who knows @tressiemcphd will not be shocked by this statement: she is smart, brassy, highly educated and not afraid to tell you what’s on her mind. Her latest blog post brings to light what we know about for-profit colleges (and what we don’t know) and asks the question: is the Devil you know better than the Devil you don’t?

The debate about how accurately standardized test predict a student’s academic success is ongoing. And probably always will be. In fact, many school have now moved away from the ubiquitous SAT/ACT as an admissions requirement altogether. But the entrance exam used by many for-profits? That isn’t up for debate. Something ain’t right.

Instead of SATs or ACTs, for-profits use a Wonderlich test. What is that, you ask?The most famous use of Wonderlichs is for potential NFL draft picks for college football players. The best way to think of a Wonderlich test is not in terms of the standardized SAT but rather in terms of IQ.

Keeping that in mind, consider this (from a recent Chronicle article):

“A Wonderlic score of 20 is the equivalent of a 100 on an IQ test, in other words, the baseline for average intelligence. Having said that, at Daymar College, a privately owned for-profit with campuses in Ohio and Kentucky, the minimum required Wonderlic score for admission is 10—not 20 but 10. That should worry everyone.”

And it does worry me. Set the bar low enough and anyone is eligible to go to college. And, while increasing the likelihood that anyone can achieve a college education sounds great…crippling them with the financial burden of lifelong student loan debt does not.

Are you smarter than a football player? Congrats! Here’s your acceptance letter and a 57% chance you’ll be a college drop out!

Check out the infographic here on the marketingforhighered.com website.

Forget distance learning. Forget YouTube.com/edu.

” Sophia is a social teaching and learning platform that taps the teacher in all of us and enhances the learning process by providing access to a wealth of knowledge, help, instruction, standards-aligned content, and expertise available to learners everywhere.

We want to harness technology for the betterment of the educational system as a whole. We can all help others learn. And Sophia’s mission is to be a catalyst in this educational movement.”

A catalyst in this educational movement. Powerful statement! But will it stand up to the ever-changing landscape of academia?

On campuses all across America, meetings are being held right now where questions are being asked: “What’s the ROI on Twitter?” “Should we moderate comments on Facebook?” and even “What’s wrong with us just sending out a viewbook?”.

Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Twitter, YouTube, etc, etc, etc, have changed the way colleges manage their recruitment marketing and enrollment management strategies. But, even those colleges who have social media superstars (please don’t call them gurus) can learn a thing or two by looking outside academia to learn lessons from the corporate world.

Why? Because research shows that consumers are 67% more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Twitter, and 51% more likely to buy from a brand they follow on Facebook (Mashable source here) . And I know you don’t think students “buy” a degree from you and I know you think your college is more than “a brand” but remember! We’re thinking outside of academia today…so don’t get hung up on the wording.

Get hung up on this: social media is a powerful tool to connect you with your audiences. But how does it all work? Check out the diagram above.

Your blogs and website enter the social media stratosphere and your school or department starts to gain awareness as you are exposed to users of social media – these are people who are either directly connect to you or (more importantly) find out about you through connections of their own. Once connected to you, this ecosystem promotes sharing of information and feedback of responses. The cyclical connectivity of information never stops – and neither should you.

Whether your school is a heavy user of social media or just a newbie, keep this diagram in mind. In fact, bring it to your next marketing meeting. There are many moving parts to consider and this visual can help explain how everything interacts within the social media world.

(via SocialMediaToday)

“But a Chronicle analysis has found that at hundreds of colleges, most of them for-profit, the three-year default rate is inordinately greater than the two-year rate, giving credence to concerns that certain colleges are aggressively using “default management” tools to mask problematic rates of default.”

Just another nail in the coffin for the for-profits? Or just another way of doing business? What do you think?

What does it all mean for academia? It means a major shake up. But maybe that’s not a bad thing. The walls that exist around academia are crumbling. That’s scary, sure, for some, because it means they now have to deal with so many more factors and outside influences than they ever had to before. But it also means there is more interaction with the outside world than ever before! And that’s where the opportunities are!

Think about it: academia is an extremely protected/protective, insular community. That culture exists because higher education is unique in its mission to educate our next generation of minds. And that is a good thing when it fosters a safe, tight-knit community where scholars and researchers can work to bring new ideas to our society.

However, that culture is counterproductive when it keeps out ideas and factors from the real world. The latest round of budget cuts are just a reminder, albeit a harsh reminder, that the world is changing and academia isn’t immune to change.

Having a brochure about how your faculty bring “real world experience to the classroom” isn’t enough. It’s time for academia to stop talking about the real world and start living in it.

The future is in the clouds. Cloud computing (also called Machine-to-Machine or M2M) is here and it is going to revolutionize not only industry but academia as well. Read the full article here.

Indiana University is spread out over 8 different campuses and recently overhauled their system to take advantage of the cloud. As you can see in their video testimonial, they increased their efficiency in every facet.

(Special thanks to Mark Greenfield @markgr for discovering this article!)