NEW HORIZONS

Kathlene Collins, Scott Jaschik and Doug Lederman, three former employees of The Chronicle of Higher Education, founded Inside Higher Ed—which is available online only5—in 2004. Saying that they and Gwaltney “wanted to go in different directions,” Jaschik, who is editor of the new online publication says he felt it was “a good time to do something new.”

“The three of us saw a lot of changes going on in higher education and in journalism and in recruiting services and we created Inside Higher Ed to be a new model to respond to those changes,” Jaschik says. He explains that some of the changes in higher education include the growth by geography in the south and the west, by institution type in community colleges and for-profit higher education and the internationalization of higher education. He also notes that electronic communication has become the way members of the academic world interact on many issues.

This entire online publication is free to readers. Revenue is generated completely by advertising, and, according to Jaschik, all the indicators—number of readers, job postings and ad revenues—are “going up steadily,” though he readily adds that “we started from a low base.” In September 2005, their site had 1.3 million page views, with no marketing, though a marketing campaign began later in the fall.

Commenting on the fact that their online publication does not charge a fee, Jaschik says, “We think information is important to everybody. Our model is very much based on the idea that we believe graduate students should have access to the same information in journalism as the provost. Information should be as available to somebody at an institution that doesn’t have a lot of money to pay for things as an institution that does.” He says he had been stunned by the number of international readers their site had reached.

Two other publications that cover education journalism are University Business magazine, a free monthly publication that focuses on management in higher education and reaches 42,000 presidents and other senior officers at colleges and universities. Both its print and online versions are free; the privately owned company is advertiser supported. Professional Media Group LLC of Norwalk, Connecticut, bought University Business a few years ago and folded it into Matrix, a similar magazine that the company owned.

HigherEdJobs.com, which is a privately owned company that has never received grant support, was founded in 1996. It provides a job database for openings in higher education that is free to those seeking employment. Prospective employers pay $145 to list a job for 60 days; their site has nearly 9,500 positions posted from more than 1,000 institutions of higher learning. According to John Ikenberry, president, an online data base instead of a print format “offers so many benefits for us and for our customers. It is less expensive for our employers, and we think an online format is easier for the candidates to search.”