| International |
Academic freedom, institutional autonomy and democracy | Higher education can only fulfil its mission if it enjoys academic freedom and institutional autonomy…While concern about the state of academic freedom and institutional autonomy is near universal, the most salient issues vary between countries and continents. For example, the focus in the United States is largely on academic freedom and its relationship to the right to free speech on campus, most recently prompted by the alt-right movement. In Europe, the focus has so far largely been institutional autonomy.
Making the case for responsible internationalisation | New definitions have appeared: internationalisation at home (Bengt Nilsson, 2003); comprehensive internationalisation (John Hudzik, 2011); internationalisation of the curriculum (Betty Leask, 2015) and many other variations. The growth of inbound and outbound international mobility, the number of agreement terms and the quantity of research projects with international partners are clear. As the numbers have increased, different problems have arisen, bringing different challenges. We have started to face new questions and concerns that were not so obvious before.
Crisis in Higher Education – Ailments & Remedies | Higher education in the country [India], particularly engineering education, is facing a crisis. It is pulling on with half the teacher strength it requires. The government pressed a red button the other day when it was revealed in Parliament that the country faced a shortage of more than 4,00,000 teachers in its institutions of higher learning. In engineering education alone, the shortage is more than 2,10,000.
Access and Equity Aspects of Higher Education in Jeopardy | The draft National Education Policy 2019 (DNEP 2019) has been prepared by the committee constituted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, under the chairmanship of K Kasturirangan….The main thrust as stated in Chapter 9 is “moving higher education into large multidisciplinary universities and colleges, each of which will aim to have upwards of 5,000 or more students.” As per the stated objectives, this will address many problems in higher education, most notably, “efficiency of use of resources and of resource sharing, both material and human, across higher education.”
| U.S. National |
Answers to student loan crisis start with personal responsibility [South Dakota editorial] | Education, home ownership and transportation are major life expenses in the lives of most people. Learning to be responsible and smart in those areas — not buying more than you afford and staying out of debt, or at least minimizing it — can help you build wealth. But no one is going to do it for you. It is all about personal responsibility.
Letter: Other options for an affordable college education [Massachusetts] | Your Aug. 24 editorial titled “The climbing cost to attend UMass” highlighted the very real issue of college affordability and suggested that local families explore public colleges in other New England states as an alternative to the University of Massachusetts. I respectively recommend that, instead of going out of state, students who are looking for a university education start at a community college and transfer to UMass their sophomore or junior years, saving thousands of dollars in the process.
‘Free public college’ not a radical, or new, idea [Massachusetts editorial] | State and federal aid to higher education has stagnated or declined for many years. This is the underlying cause for soaring public college tuition. It is understandable that states have had trouble keeping up with the costs of their public colleges, but the starving of education budgets did not just happen by chance. It was the outcome of tax and economic policies that were imposed from the 1970s to the present day.
College costs are going up, and the burdens hurt all students [Nevada] | Because of the mounting costs of tuition, food, housing, books and other necessities, students in Nevada averaged $22,000 in student loan debt in 2017. That means most students have to work part-time, take out federal or private loans or take gap years to stay afloat. Quite frankly, the astronomical price tag on higher education has shut the door on millions of high school students, low-income families and people of color who don’t have thousands of dollars tucked away in a savings account.
Debate Surrounds College Board’s Adversity Score Replacement | Landscape would collect data about students’ high schools, such as their locations, class sizes, number of Advanced Placement courses and percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. It would also take into account details about students’ neighborhoods, such as the area’s median family income, education levels, crime rates and more. Now, whether Landscape is actually a better alternative is a source of debate.
Higher Ed at a Crossroads: What Role Does the Media Play In the Crisis? | The National Press Club Events Committee will present “Higher Ed at a Crossroads: What role does the media play in the crisis?” on Thursday, September 5…Annual college guides compiled and published by national media outlets themselves have bolstered the image of higher education “brands.” This panel, however, will ask whether these ratings have perverted the purpose and goals of higher education with their influential reports: how do these rankings work and how do they differ from each other needs of their students and the nation as a whole?
Higher Education Act Needs to Give More Student Aid | These days even a full class load and a maximum Pell grant is not enough to get a college education without falling into debt. According to a 2014 Urban League Study, Pell grants once financed about 75 percent of the cost of a public four-year college education but now covers just 31 percent of a student’s cost of attendance. “The purchasing power of the Pell grant must be strengthened so that it continues to serve as a key resource to help needy students to access higher education,” concludes the report.
| U.S. States and Territories |
Oregon shortchanges the liberal arts. What the HECC? | The way that Oregon divvies up state funding between its seven public universities is out of whack. The Higher Education Coordinating Commission should heed the University of Oregon’s call for a more-balanced approach…What we want to highlight is that the formula that HECC uses favors some schools more than others. Specifically, it awards more money to schools that have a lot of students who study science, technology, engineering and math subjects. Schools that lean more toward the humanities and arts lose out.
Policymakers Must Address Unequal Spending On Public Colleges | A new analysis from my colleagues at the Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) examined how states funded colleges between 2006 and 2016, the years around the Great Recession. While community colleges now receive modestly more funding, they still receive nearly $2,900 less per student than doctoral universities. Including tuition, community colleges have just 37% of the per-student revenue of doctoral universities.
Pritzker Comes Up Short on Campaign Promises to College Students | More than 2,300 Loyola students received MAP grants in 2017, The Phoenix reported. Without these grants, those 2,300 students and more throughout the state are faced with the troubling reality of paying for college. Maybe Pritzker simply set his hopes too high for his first year in office. But that means he took the hopes of thousands of college students and set them just as high.
IHEP Report Addresses Affordability at State Flagship Universities | America’s public flagship institutions have long been depicted as providing an affordable pathway for low- and middle-income students to pursue higher education and with that economic mobility. IHEP’s report, “Opportunity Lost: Net Price and Equity at Public Flagship Institutions,” presents an analysis that indicates such is not the case. A key finding is that most public flagship institutions are no longer affordable to low-income students.
Study Minimizes Impact of Free Community College | Using economic data from past higher education studies and enrollment and degree completion data from the College Board-National Student Clearinghouse dataset, the researchers analyzed four possible policies to increase bachelor’s degree attainment: free community college, reduced tuition at four-year colleges, increased spending at public colleges and reallocating students to academically matched in-state four-year colleges. The simulation showed a 3.1 percentage point increase in enrollment at four-year colleges if tuition and fees were eliminated for students from families who make less than $60,000 annually. It also showed that removing 10 percent of the per-student spending gap between four-year public and private institutions, and increasing per student spending by 10 percent at community colleges, raised bachelor’s degree completion rates by 1.1 percentage points.
Report: Funding cuts, high tuition spawn a cost crisis at Michigan colleges | Michigan has cut state appropriations per student by 40 percent since 2000. Currently, the state allocates $5,492 per public university student (12th lowest in the nation) and $3,265 per community college student (15th lowest in the nation). In 2018, higher education comprised just 4.1 percent of Michigan state budget expenditures (ninth lowest in the nation), compared to a 50-state average of 10.1 percent. Partly because of lower state appropriations, Michigan’s public universities have higher-than-average tuition rates. Since 2000, the sticker price at the median Michigan public university has doubled. The amount of tuition Michigan public universities collect per student is highest in the nation.
| Institutional |
UPDATE: Rutgers defends Penn scholar accused of fostering a ‘hypersexualized and racially insensitive climate’ |Penn, according to Inside Higher Ed, hired an independent investigator to look into the complaints, and following the probe put in place “sanctions” to “change the culture.”Training was provided and master’s students were moved out of the center, while doctoral students and staff members from elsewhere in the graduate school were moved in, according to the article. Gasman’s grant writer, who was accused of participating in some of the sexual comments, resigned following the investigation, the article said.
Blackness in the Academy: Who Owns the Truth? | [M]y intent…is to tether key past graduate school teachings that have not only continued to influence me in profound ways, but have also taught me about my Blackness, particularly as it intersects with notions of identity, representation and truth. Three conceptual and theoretical frames Professor Swartz shared in his lecture on truth left an indelible mark on my brain, especially as it related to my experiences as a Black male who was embarking on a life in higher education that would focus on the success of academically gifted Black males. I present a few of these conceptual and theoretical frames in turn, and offer an aside that unpacks each in ways that reveal how they are operationalized in practical and “real world” contexts.
Growing Price Tag for College Shutdowns | A string of recent for-profit college closures has led to tens of millions of dollars in student loan cancellation, creating new costs for the federal government on top of disruptions caused for thousands of former students. According to numbers recently provided by the U.S. Department of Education to Senate lawmakers, the federal government as of May had discharged more than $43 million in student loans for borrowers who attended programs operated by Education Corporation of America, Dream Center Education Holdings, Vatterott College and Charlotte School of Law.
‘Nudging’ Looked Like It Could Help Solve Key Problems in Higher Ed. Now That’s Not So Clear. [subscription required] | The strategy has been embraced as an elegant, low-cost way to fix thorny problems. New studies cast doubt on how well it could work nationally.
Winning the Battle for Student Success | To truly engage students—something every college and university is desperately trying to do—institutions must adopt platforms that students enjoy and want to use. At [South Texas College], faculty had tried a variety of communication channels (e.g., email, WhatsApp) to engage with students. Through Pronto’s LMS integration, everyone is connected on day one—students, classmates, teachers, advisors, tutors. Nicolas Alcantar, a student at STC, noted: “Before Pronto, Spanish-speaking students might only seek help from friends or classmates who speak Spanish. Now they can seek help from other students who may not speak Spanish.”
WWCC makes cuts amid funding crisis | Walla Walla Community College is in a state of financial emergency, President Derek Brandes said Tuesday. He is blaming low class enrollment and Washington state’s funding formula for community colleges that creates a $2.7 million budget deficit here for the 2019-2020 budget.