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Former Tribune editor Lipinski heads to Harvard

Ann Marie Lipinski, former editor of the Chicago Tribune, on Tuesday was named curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Get the full story »

Naperville 5th grader wins financial essay contest

A cautionary tale with a twist ending helped Naperville fifth-grader Charles Tiseo win the 2011 Money Smart Kid award during the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s financial literacy week.

The White Eagle Elementary School student, 11, beat out 116 other entrants with his “Curious Case of Benjamin Budget” story about an poor old man who ignored the lessons of his youth. Get the full story »

Audit criticizes College Illinois managers

An audit of the College Illinois prepaid tuition program determined the program’s overseers didn’t follow “sound business practices,” or state law, when it hired San Francisco-based Grigsby & Associates for investment advice.

The firm advised College Illinois on debt restructuring, but gave only one opinion to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission — to invest $12.8 million in ShoreBank Corp. The investment was lost last year when ShoreBank collapsed. Get the full story »

PrepMe app lets teachers tailor courses to students

Tech Crunch | PrepMe, the Chicago-based online test prep company, has introduced Coursification, a Web-based application that allows teachers to tailor lessons to each student based on his performance and learning schedule. It will compete with similar platforms such as Blackboard, Instructure and Moodle.

College Illinois halts new investments

From Crain’s Chicago Business | The state agency that runs the College Illinois prepaid tuition program is putting all new investments on hold as it confronts mounting questions over its unconventional strategies for the fund that backs the college savings of 55,000 students. Get the full story>>

Ad exec in NU sex-toy row defends actions on blog

The Northwestern sex toy scandal got another shot in the arm Tuesday  afternoon, as a blog post surfaced that quotes the Chicago advertising executive involved in the demonstration defending his actions and castigating the media for mischaracterizing them.

Jim Marcus, creative director of Tribal DDB, the digital division of DDB Chicago, demonstrated the use of a sex-toy on his fiance in a voluntary assembly after a human sexuality class at Northwestern University this month. The news, first reported in the Daily Northwestern, led to a call  for the ouster of professor John Michael Bailey. Get the full story »

Advocates for blind sue NU over use of Gmail

An advocacy group has filed a complaint with the federal government accusing New York University and Northwestern University of discriminating against the blind by adopting Google’s e-mail program. Get the full story »

Columbia College, YouTube to offer digital courses

Columbia College Chicago is partnering with YouTube to launch a program that will train “aspiring content creators” how to produce and market their digital work.

San Bruno, Calif.-based YouTube, which is a subsidiary of Google Inc., is also working with the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. The YouTube Creator Institute, as the program is called, is accepting applications through March 25 for its inaugural classes at each of the two partner schools. In Chicago, the program will accept 10 students and run between June 1 and July 22. Get the full story »

Chicago startup EduLender raises $1M

Chicago-based startup EduLender, a comparison shopping website for student loans, said Tuesday it has raised $1 million in seed funding.

The group of investors includes Hyde Park Angels, an early-stage investment group with its roots in the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, as well as other local groups such as Sandbox Ventures and New World Ventures, whose founder is J.B. Pritzker. Kapor Capital, which is based in San Francisco, Calif., is also an investor. Other participants in the funding round include Excelerate, a Chicago-based incubator, and Sam Yagan, a co-founder of Excelerate who also helped found dating site OKCupid. Get the full story »

PNC Bank strikes deal with St. Xavier

PNC Bank, the No. 4 deposit gatherer in the Chicago area, has struck up a relationship with Saint Xavier University. It’s the second college deal that the Pittsburgh-based lender has done in the Chicago area in 13 months. Get the full story »

College Illinois taking risks to cover deep gap

From Crain’s Chicago Business | College Illinois has the deepest shortfall of any state-sponsored prepaid tuition program in the United States and is putting more of participants’ college funds on riskier wagers to try to catch up. Get the full story>>

Booth dean aims to make school more global

Sunil Kumar. (Handout)

In an interview with the website Poets & Quants, Sunil Kumar, the new dean at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, said he hopes to make the prestigious school more global and strengthen its alumni network, among other goals. Kumar also said he has put together a committee of senior faculty to assess Chicago’s global strategy and determine what, if anything, the school should do. “We want to consult widely, collect data on other schools and see how well they’re doing it,” Kumar said.

Kumar was appointed dean on July 28, 2010, and began his term on Jan. 1.

Chicago, Vernon Hills hop on Microsoft’s cloud

The City of Chicago and Vernon Hills Police Department are among 16 new government and education customers for Microsoft’s cloud computing program, the company announced at its Public Sector CIO Summit Wednesday.

“Public sector organizations are looking for enterprise-grade cloud solutions, and that means providing high levels of security, functionality and support,” Curt Kolcun, vice president of U.S. Public Sector at the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant said in a statement. “We’re seeing government and education organizations of every size and dimension using Microsoft cloud solutions to help reduce costs and increase productivity in support of their missions.” Get the full story »

Tax preparers don’t always get FAFSA right

Beware if you turn to an expert with your FAFSA, or the college financial aid form that many parents are now rushing to complete before February and March deadlines.

The typical tax professional that helps you with your tax return may not be equipped to maximize your financial aid. In fact, your tax preparer might inadvertently undermine your chances of getting aid.

For-profit colleges sue to block federal regulations

A group of for-profit schools filed a lawsuit against the federal government Friday to stop implementation of three costly new rules.

The rules were part of a larger package of new regulations being imposed on the for-profit sector, which has been accused of churning out poorly educated students with large debts. Get the full story »