| International |
How should universities respond to the new Cold War? | The fundamental values or ‘purposes’ of higher education lie in four domains distinctive to higher education. First, the education of all persons without regard for socio-economic status, location, gender or ethnicity. Second, the partial but real autonomy from external direction that was first established in the medieval European university and has been integral to the university ever since. Third, the positive exercise of freedoms to learn, to teach, to write, to research and to communicate within the academic realm. Fourth, freedoms of local, national and global association and physical and virtual mobility.
Ethiopian PM threaten to close universities amid rising violence | Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, is changing his tone of speech after universities in Oromo and Amhara region of Ethiopia experienced another security crisis that claimed the lives of students. In a meeting organized by the Ministry of Science and Higher education on Friday to discuss the situation in Universities, he emphasized on the roles of regional state heads, zone and city administrations in terms of restoring calm and order in the university communities. “[I]f universities are not moving in the direction of stability, government could take measures including closing them down,” said Abiy Ahmed.
Democratization of higher education and responsible internationalization: Bridging the gap towards an accessible and inclusive education | For internationalization to embody inclusivity, various economic and socio-political contexts across the globe must be confronted, particularly issues borne out of policies that leave out a great majority of student population worldwide behind (De Wit and Jones, 2018). Current internationalization practices are only able to reach a small population of mostly elite students and universities, especially since not all universities worldwide adapt internationalization practices as a response to the processes of globalization. This exclusivity marginalizes a population that either has no access to known internationalization practices such as mobility or is not keen to participate in both credit and degree mobility options.
| U.S. National |
Number of Enrolled International Students Drops | The number of enrolled international students at American colleges and universities decreased at all academic levels — undergraduate, graduate and nondegree — in the 2018-19 academic year, according to new data from the “Open Doors” report. The number of international undergraduate students declined by 2.4 percent, the number of international graduate students declined by 1.3 percent and the number of international nondegree students declined by 5 percent.
Study Abroad Numbers Continue Steady Increase | A total of 341,751 students studied abroad for credit in 2017-18, representing a 2.7 percent increase from the previous academic year, according to the annual “Open Doors” report, published by the Institute of International Education with funding from the U.S. Department of State. The number of students studying abroad has grown steadily over the last 25 years. IIE estimates that about 10.9 percent of all undergraduates (including community college students), and 16 percent of all students enrolled in baccalaureate programs, study abroad at some point during their degree program.
New Research Analyzes Growth of International Exchange | Diversity has increased for study abroad students. In 2017-2018, 30% of study abroad students identified as a member of a racial or ethnic minority group compared to 2012-2013 with 23.7% and 18.2% in 2007-2008. The number still “trails the diversity of the U.S. higher education community as a whole,” according to the report. “As the cadre of students who study abroad becomes more diverse, programs can also work on their outreach and communications to push students away from what appears comfortable and expose potential study abroad students to more opportunities in different regions,” said Martel.
Unlikely and the Underlying Problem of Higher Education | Unlikely (2019) follows five individuals from different parts of America and their second chances at a college education. Directed and produced by award-winning husband and wife filmmaking duo and, Jaye and Adam Fenderson along with their team, this feature documentary aims to showcase the inequality that plagues the American higher education system. The film highlights the progress the country has made, showing that change is possible, while continuously emphasizing the problems that still need to be fixed.
Ethical College Admissions: The Hare and the Tortoise Graduate From College | A new report produced last week provides a first draft at answering those questions. The report, “A First Try at ROI: Ranking 4,500 Colleges,” comes from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Using College Scorecard data, the study attempts to measure the added value in earnings produced by 4,529 colleges and universities both 10 years and 40 years after graduation, or in the case of certificate programs, completion.
| U.S. States and Territories |
Penn State ranks close to worst in affordability for low-income students | Flagship universities like Penn State’s University Park campus are known around the country for having large research budgets and many resources for both students and faculty. Many, like Penn State, were built using federal land grants to make education on important state issues like agricultural innovation accessible to lower income families. But according to the IHEP report, only four flagship universities are within reach financially for low-income students — University of Michigan, University of Arizona, University of Wisconsin and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
| Institutional |
4 Reasons Why Students Don’t Receive the Degrees They’ve Earned | Millions of Americans have earned some college credit but no degree. Some experts think institutions of higher education—not former students—are partly to blame. Through Degrees When Due, a project of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, nearly 200 two- and four-year colleges are digging through data and auditing administrative policies to figure out how many such students they’ve lost, and why.
A Doomsday List of Possible College Closures Inspired Panic and Legal Threats. That’s Telling. | Higher education’s walking dead are already among us. Figuring out exactly who they are, though, is tricky and fraught. That fact came into sharp relief this week, when a college-advising company scuttled its plans to release a list of private, nonprofit colleges that it expects to run out of money and close in the coming years, according to a new financial-modeling tool. Edmit, the advising company, decided against releasing the information when some of the 946 colleges that were to be named in the analysis pushed back or threatened legal action.
‘Rethinking Diversity Frameworks in Higher Education’ | In offering this framework, we detail a number of specific policy-based recommendations such as committing substantial funding to admissions processes and financial aid that addresses the underrepresentation of diverse students, critically evaluating two-tiered tenured and contingent faculty workforce models, and making concrete progress in remedying widespread nondominant faculty underrepresentation; in-depth monitoring of institutional processes for equitable outcomes; and investing in sustained diversity education for faculty, administrators, staff and students.
