| International |
Global convention on recognising HE qualifications adopted | The UNESCO General Conference has adopted the Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education, which aims to improve student mobility and access to higher education across regions and continents and will be the first United Nations treaty on higher education with a global scope. It is a landmark decision globally that establishes universal principles for recognition of studies and degrees and will give signatory states an obligation to recognise studies or qualifications from outside of their region.
French schools among the most unequal in the world, new report reveals | With a score of 107 points difference between pupils from an affluent background compared to a disadvantaged background, compared to an OECD average of 87, only Israel and Luxembourg ranked worse on inequality. And it’s not the first time that this problem has been pointed out, the French schooling ranked poorly for equality in both the 2016 and 2013 reports from PISA (the Programme for International Student Assessment). Pupils in France who come from a disadvantaged background are five times more likely to have trouble with reading and are much less likely to continue their education after the age of 18, even if they get good results.
Canadian students performed better than OECD average in international test | A new report shows Canadian students are performing as well, if not better, than their American, Australian and British peers even though the country spends less per student on education. The latest results of the Programme for International Student Assessment, released today, suggest that after a certain spending threshold, there is almost no relationship between the amount invested in education and student performance.
Sweden Provides Free Higher Education, Universal Healthcare, Free Daycare — Why Can’t the U.S.? | MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: Yeah, we have free college. We don’t pay any tuition for any university in Sweden. Even the best ones that could compete on a global level, you can’t have any tuition. Which means that everybody who has the grades to join these universities can do it. And they obviously then take jobs in our global companies and helps them compete on a global scale.
| U.S. National |
Study Focuses on Millennial’s Perceptions of their College Education | According to the study, two-thirds of respondents said that obtaining a college degree prepared them for employment and about 61% would recommend the college that they graduated from to friends or colleagues…More than 33% of the respondents agreed that their college overpromised and under-delivered on how well-prepared they were for employment after graduation. However, the report found that only about half of the respondents made substantial efforts to seek career advice from their professors and only 40% fully utilized the services offered to them through their institution’s career services department.
How Higher Education’s Data Obsession Leads Us Astray | Has there ever been an enterprise that produced so much data to so little effect as higher education? We are drowning in data, awash in analytics. Yet, critics demand even more data, contending that higher education remains persistently opaque.
Should College Be Free? | Should public colleges be tuition-free? Should student loan debt be forgiven? This week on “The Argument,” the columnists discuss Pete Buttigieg’s criticisms of his more liberal Democratic rivals’ plans to reduce the costs of higher education. Proponents of free college should stress that — in some cases — tuition-free higher education would be a return to form rather than a radical break, argues Michelle Goldberg. David Leonhardt thinks universal free college and universal debt cancellation are both regressive policies and bad politics. And while simplifying the costs of higher education is a laudable goal, Ross Douthat says, he favors proposals to better fund community colleges, trade schools and other alternatives to four-year schools.
Wealthy Students’ Borrowing Spikes | College students from high-income families are responsible for some of the most drastic borrowing increases seen in recent decades, according to a new report that raises questions about exactly whose concerns are fueling talk of a student debt crisis. In 1995-96, just 16.4 percent of first-year undergraduates from families making an inflation-adjusted income of more than $114,000 took out student loans. That compares to 24.3 percent of those from families making $22,000 or less who borrowed, according to the report. But by 2015-16, borrowing rates were nearly identical across all income groups — right around 30 percent.
| U.S. States and Territories |
Nonprofit presents report on minority student equity gaps in higher education | Black students aren’t graduating at the same rates as white and latinx students, minorities are under-represented in higher education institutions and rural students struggle with returning to rural areas after college, according to a report by an Illinois nonprofit.
State Data Partnerships | As part of a push to better equip higher education institutions with better data, the University of Texas system worked with the U.S. Census Bureau to gather student outcomes data that includes those who leave the state. A new report detailing the process was released in conjunction with the Institute for Higher Education Policy’s November guidebook. Advocates for better data expect the information will help the system create evidence-based policies and practices, as well as promote success for all students, according to a news release.
Pennsylvania can turn its higher education disaster around | Opinion | The picture for Pennsylvania’s community colleges is just as dire. Receiving even less money per student from the state and filling the gap with local funds and rising tuition, our community colleges are among the most expensive in the country. And a loophole allows them to charge double tuition to students who do not live in a school district or county that provides local support. For some of these students, community college is almost as expensive as a state-owned four year university.
Can higher education be saved in California? | In California, 80% of community college students were being sent to remedial courses in English or math, and only 16% of them earned a certificate or associate degree within six years, according to the PPIC. In response, in 2017, California’s community colleges began putting less-well-prepared students into credit-bearing introductory courses with extra tutoring. The CSU system, too, started doing this last year, and now also funnels students with low high school grades or standardized test scores into special preparation programs in the summer before their freshman years. Though some faculty members have objected to the changes, early studies suggest they’ve led to big improvements: 63% of community college students who went directly into transfer-level English composition courses with tutoring successfully completed them, compared to 32% who went to remediation.
After a decade of tuition increases, the General Assembly wrestles with affordability | Since the 2008-2009 school year, [North Carolina’s] in-state undergraduate students have seen tuition increase by 59 percent, adjusted for inflation. For in-state, or resident, graduate students, the change jumps to 77 percent. But since 2017, resident undergraduates have seen a decline in tuition rates, while all other groups have relatively constant tuition rates. The overall tuition increases align with a documented trend in higher education since the 1980s
| Institutional |
Losing Sight of Jefferson and Falling into Plato | Plato millennia ago saw the problem as one of pure democracy (demokratia). In a democracy, according to Plato in Republic, each person thinks of himself as the equal of all others in all ways. The city is full of freedom and free speech and everyone is free to do what he wants to do when he wishes to do it. Democracy, constitutionally, is a “supermarket of constitutions,” as it embraces all persons and all rules. “[A democrat], always surrendering himself to whichever desire comes along, lives as if it were chosen by lot” (557a–561b). Thomas Jefferson, of course, was aware of the pitfalls of democracy. There can be no such thing as a pure democracy over a large expanse of land, he avers, but only in a small parcel, such as a ward, where smallness of political space enables all to have an equal share in political matters. Hence, Jefferson, while in France, speaks to James Madison (30 Jan. 1787) of the need of representative government, where “the will of every one has a just [and not a direct] influence,” for affairs of state and country. Even with representative government, he continues to Madison, “the mass of mankind … enjoys a precious degree of liberty & happiness.” Nonetheless, “it has it’s evils too: the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject,” because of its embrace of freedom of expression.
Berea College: Has a US university cracked student debt? | The “how” is twofold. First, there is Berea’s endowment which, as of this year, has ballooned to $1.2bn (£930m), a product of nearly 165 years of growth. “If you don’t have tuition revenue, then you want to have a powerful friend like the American stock market,” says Mr Roelofs…Its growth has also been spurred by a particularly prescient vote by Berea’s board in 1920, which ensured that any unrestricted bequests – donations left without a specific purpose – would be added to the endowment.
Study Focuses on Millennial’s Perceptions of their College Education | According to the study, two-thirds of respondents said that obtaining a college degree prepared them for employment and about 61% would recommend the college that they graduated from to friends or colleagues…More than 33% of the respondents agreed that their college overpromised and under-delivered on how well-prepared they were for employment after graduation. However, the report found that only about half of the respondents made substantial efforts to seek career advice from their professors and only 40% fully utilized the services offered to them through their institution’s career services department.
