While most colleges live and die by US News & World Report, the Washington Monthly is offering competition with what's really important--how much the students help the community when they get their diplomas. Here are the three criteria from the Monthly: The first is social mobility: does the school do a good job recruiting and graduating poorer students? The second is research: is the school supporting the scientific and humanistic study that is key to......

Boston University is willing to spend big bucks--$1.8 billion, to be exact--to be an academic powerhouse. Linda Wertheimer at the Globe reported Thursday that BU wants to "add 150 professors, dramatically lower the school's student-faculty ratio, and pour money into salaries to allow BU to vie for the nation's top professors." Not bad. You go, BU. President Robert Brown has visions of US News & World Report college rankings dancing in his head. However, if......

Last night PBS premiered “RX for Survival - A Global Health Challenge,” a three-part, six-hour series on worldwide public health. Focusing on innovations in the last century, including vaccines and antibiotics, the series highlights efforts to eradicate disease around the world and comes at a timely moment: The Massachusetts State Legislature is debating a bill that would change healthcare coverage in the state and the White House just yesterday, released a plan to address the......