| International |
Institutions must push harder to open science | As concern has risen about the so-called reproducibility crisis in biomedicine, publication of raw data has been touted as the obvious solution. Such an “open science” approach makes a lot of sense. At the very least, it makes selective reporting of results easier to detect, ending a practice that has, in some cases, distorted science’s evidence base and impeded progress….Open science is not, however, the panacea that some imagine, and it comes with its own challenges.
Australia must not pull up the ladder for poorer students | Students who are not financially supported by family have to work. They have to spend time at Centrelink, Australia’s social welfare payments agency…Their access to technological solutions is limited, and many rely on the availability of computers on campus, instead of being able to study at home. This means that our disadvantaged students are at a further disadvantage when it comes to obtaining the broad and deep learning they need to prepare them for an uncertain future.
Mexican universities grapple with how to handle populist Amlo | Mexico continues to have the highest wealth and income inequality within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. It also has the largest youth population – 46 per cent are between infancy and 26 years old. Despite the president’s efforts to tackle inequality through increased access to education, including launching the Jóvenes Construyendo el Futuro (Youth Building the Future) scholarship programme for 300,000 disadvantaged young people, investment in higher education remains uncoordinated.
New world disorder: the academy’s role in upholding internationalism | Equally important, if universities are to rise to the exceptional challenges we face, is ensuring that there is diversity of every sort in the academy – but most vitally, for Kyte, diversity of perspective. “The preciousness of a multiplicity of view must be understood,” she says. “We are at a moment when anything that’s elite can be branded as of no value or dangerous, and there’s a definite echo to earlier in the 20th century. As a school of international relations, I think it’s particularly important for us to stand back and understand what’s going on. We were founded in the 1930s for this precise reason. So it does really matter that your faculty is diverse, not just in…race and gender but in its perspectives.”
| U.S. National |
To support today’s students, Congress must strengthen oversight of colleges | One place ripe for improvements is our accreditation system, which serves as a “watchdog” for the more than 5,000 institutions currently eligible to receive Title IV federal student aid. Currently, there are around 100 accredited institutions whose graduation rates are below 25 percent, and another 680 accredited institutions where most students won’t be able to pay down their loans or earn more than the average high school graduate after leaving school. However, the nation’s accreditation laws make no discernment between an institution that graduates 10 percent of its students and one that graduates 90 percent. Under current law, both can be fully accredited and provide their students access to federal student loans and grants. Dangerously, this means potential students and their families are signaled by the accreditation system that both of these institutions serve students well enough to receive federal funds.
Year in Education: Stalled Test Scores, Increased College Costs | The most explosive education story of the year was undoubtedly Varsity Blues, the federal government’s investigation of a corrupt college admissions consultant, Rick Singer, and the dozens of parents who paid him to cheat and bribe their children’s way into elite colleges like Stanford, Yale and the University of Southern California…It called attention to deep-seated inequities in the college admissions process, from unequal access to quality advising and test prep to the ability of wealthy parents to essentially purchase disability diagnoses that can earn a student extra time to take the SAT or ACT exams. There was also a renewed focus on the role of race. A growing group of colleges have made the SAT and ACT exams optional in an effort to diversify their student bodies. The sprawling and influential University of California system is considering whether it will follow suit as it faces a lawsuit claiming the tests have spawned a vast prep industry that discriminates against low-income and black and Latino students.
These trends shaped higher ed in 2019 | Several of our most popular stories last year showed how colleges are changing their approaches to a common and long-standing problem: how to recruit and retain more students. Those strategies include pointing out where the skills learned in the classroom overlap with those needed in the workforce as well as creating so-called “guided pathways” that help students identify and reach their career goals. Some institutions, particularly community colleges, are partnering with technology-centric employers to design curriculum tailored to workforce needs. And small liberal arts schools are overhauling their student experience in a quest for long-term viability.
7 higher education trends to watch in 2020 | A rash of factors is threatening the financial health of small institutions, particularly in New England and the Midwest, where several shut their doors last year. Moody’s Investors Service predicts around 15 closures for 2020. High-profile cases such as the abrupt demise of Mount Ida College in 2018 have drawn policymakers to this issue. Despite the clout of Massachusetts’ private colleges, the state legislature late last year passed a unique law that increased oversight of their finances and could help alert state regulators to an imminent closure.
Half in U.S. Now Consider College Education Very Important | About half of U.S. adults (51%) now consider a college education to be “very important,” down from 70% in 2013. Over the same period, the percentages rating college as “fairly important” and “not too important” have both increased, to 36% and 13%, respectively.
| U.S. States and Territories |
Most Affordable Colleges With Best Outcomes in Every State | Student loan debt, the second largest consumer debt category in the United States after home mortgages, hit an all time high of $1.4 trillion in 2019. The financial burden posed by outstanding student loans is largely due to climbing tuition costs. In the 1999-2000 academic year, the average annual cost of attending a four-year institution was $33,060 at private schools and $12,440 at public schools. As of 2019, average costs hit $49,870 at private schools and $21,950 at public schools, a 51% and 76% increase, respectively. While the growing student debt crisis is contributing to annual declines in college enrollment, a four-year college education does not have to mean a lifetime of paying off student loans. Across the country, there are schools with relatively low tuition costs, where graduates typically go on to secure well-paying jobs upon graduation.
As colleges struggle with enrollment, Connecticut schools say they are holding their own | As college enrollment rates drop across the nation, several Connecticut schools say they are bucking the trend. Recently released statistics from the National Student Clearinghouse show that college and university enrollment in the U.S. dropped 1.3% from fall 2018 to fall 2019. In Connecticut, enrollment decreased by 1.6%, to about 184,000 students. Post-secondary enrollment has trended downward in the state since fall 2015 and nationally since fall 2012…Due to birthrate patterns in Northeast during the early 2000s, school administrators expect graduating high school senior classes to continue shrinking through 2026. And as tuition increases, even college-ready students are having second thoughts.
Can California save higher education? | It’s one example of the many ways that California is taking on seemingly intractable problems that are also plaguing higher education nationwide. These include the longer-than-expected time it takes students to graduate; high dropout rates; financial aid that doesn’t cover living expenses; courses that cost more than students will earn upon graduation; institutions that prey on veterans and others; financial aid applications so complex that many students never bother with them; admissions policies that favor relatives of donors and alumni; credits that won’t transfer; pricey textbooks; and “remedial” education requirements that force students to retake subjects they should have learned in high school, often frustrating them enough to quit. To tackle these problems, California is trying creative solutions. Among other initiatives, the state this year has invested heavily in helping community college students transfer to four-year schools; spent $50 million on campus food banks and other programs to combat student hunger and homelessness; opened an online community college to serve students who are working; and boosted state grants for students with children.
| Institutional |
ASU Leads Project to Enroll Undeserved [sic] Students in Colleges | A multi-million grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is being used to improve college enrollment among most vulnerable students in various districts of Arizona. Awarded to Arizona State University and the Be A Leader Foundation, the $8.7 million grant will establish Arizona Network for School Improvement that along with college enrollment will work on improving educational outcomes for underserved students.
How 3 Colleges Make Mobility a Reality | A large Midwestern public university, a historically black college, and a career-focused nautical academy have discovered ways to consistently help students up the economic ladder. [Higher education journalism’s lament: Why can’t more colleges be like these 3 colleges?]
Repercussions and Recriminations | While the faculty committee did receive “careful” written responses from Provost Kumar, committee members were frustrated that inquires to lower-level administrators with direct knowledge about official decisions regarding the sit-in were delayed and ultimately went unanswered, Culbert said. These administrators were suspicious of the committee and feared losing their jobs even though the faculty assembly intended for the report to be an impartial analysis of what took place and what led to traumatic police intervention, Culbert said. “It wasn’t as straightforward, and for reasons we still don’t know, it couldn’t be,” Culbert said of the responses received from administrators. “Consequently, there are certain questions that remain unanswered … The community has been very profoundly affected by this. It would’ve been better to have a more personal conversation.” Karen Lancaster, Hopkin’s assistant vice president of external relations, disputed the accounts of suspicion and fear among lower-level administrators and said such characterizations lacked “any factual basis.”
Students’ Sense of Belonging Varies by Identity, Institution | A new study shows that minority and first-generation students have a higher sense of belonging at two-year colleges than their counterparts at four-year institutions. Researchers who conducted the study also found that while racial-ethnic minority and first-generation students at four-year institutions are less inclined to feel that same sense of belonging, first-year students at both two-year and four-year colleges and universities said they “somewhat agree” that they belong on their campuses. The students rated their experiences on campus using a “belonging scale” of one to five with four representing that they “somewhat agree” they feel a sense of belonging.
