International
US loses one in five top spots in global subject ranking | The United States’ higher education system is continuing to decline in the global rankings, losing almost 20% of top rankings for its university departments in the 2019 QS World University Rankings by Subject, which ranks more than 1,200 universities in 78 locations across 48 single subjects and five broad subject areas.
Education budget cuts have resulted in financial crisis in universities | Vice Chancellors (VC) and rectors of [Pakistan’s] public sector universities said that they have been facing a financial emergency because of budget cuts in the past three years…Since the last three years, funding for universities has failed to keep up with growing enrolments. The crisis has been exacerbated because of legislated pay and pension increases and demands from newly established universities.
‘Universities at risk if they admit to cash crisis’ | There are UK universities facing deeper financial problems than at “any point in living memory”, warns the head of a higher education think tank. Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, says some universities are “close to the wall”. But the think tank says its survey of student attitudes raises dilemmas over how much information should be shared.
U.S. National
A problem in higher education masquerading as a solution | In higher education, this manifests in proposals to solve systemic and structural problems through the lens of academic capitalism. A recent piece in the New York Times exemplifies this mindset. The article touts a new funding scheme originating in Silicon Valley that would replace traditional student loans with income-sharing agreements between students and their educational institution, which the author suggests could eliminate student debt. Far from being original, the idea is simply a reversion to indentured servitude, where students pay debt peonage to higher education institutions rather than the government. Notably, this proposal offers nothing in terms of reducing the cost of higher education or even exploring the causes of student debt.
What Faculty Members Think | Regarding recruitment and treatment of women and professors of color, half of respondents said that their institutions placed a high value on promoting gender diversity in the faculty and administration. Some 56 percent of respondents said their institutions prioritized promoting racial and ethnic diversity within the faculty and administration. Whites and Asians were more likely than their colleagues of different ethnicities to say this, however. Just 35 percent of Native Americans and 43 percent of black professors said this, for example. Over all, some 77 percent of respondents said that women were treated fairly at their institutions. Men (84 percent) were much more likely than women (69 percent) to hold that view. While 79 percent of respondents believed that faculty members of color were treated fairly at their institutions, just 59 percent of Latino and 61 percent of black professors thought so.
The Ph.D. Identity Crisis | Pursuing a doctorate became this strange, surreal experience in which I kept waiting for “real life” to begin. I would tell myself, “If I focus really hard this semester, then I can be me again during winter break.” But somehow I never did. I kept putting off life, and the people who were important to me, until “after this grant, after this exam, after this meeting, after my fieldwork is done.” It was a never-ending cycle of goals and expectations that weren’t even mine anymore, yet I measured my self-worth by whether I achieved them.
The Mood Brightens: A Survey of Presidents | And presidents express more confidence in the 10-year financial stability of their campuses than they have at any point in the last six years — but nearly one in seven says his or her campus could close or merge within five years. Those are among the compelling and sometimes confounding findings of Inside Higher Ed’s 2019 Survey of College and University Presidents, conducted with Gallup and released today in connection with the American Council on Education’s annual meeting in Philadelphia…The survey — to which 784 chief executives of two- and four-year institutions responded — finds presidents expressing more confidence (sometimes ever so slightly more) on some key issues, even as significant worries remain.
U.S. States
Another Small New England College Closes | [M]ore broadly, the college [Southern Vermont College], like most in New England, is suffering from a demographic dip that is seeing fewer students graduate from high school. “New England is in a bad way — especially the rural parts of New England”…In addition to Mount Ida, several other regional colleges have announced that they’ll close or are facing financial crises.Green Mountain College in nearby Poultney, Vt., announced in January that it will close at the end of the spring semester. Goddard College, also in Vermont, is in the process of shoring up its finances as part of a probation arrangement with NECHE. Newbury College in Brookline, Mass., announced in December that it would close at the end of this academic year, after 56 years in the Boston area. Atlantic Union College, northwest of Boston, announced that it would close later this year. The college, affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, lost accreditation in 2011 and stopped operations for a time but reopened in 2015. Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., said last month that it won’t admit a freshman class this fall — it’s looking for a strategic partner to continue operating but has also announced layoffs.
College Affordability Creates Hurdles for Many Students | Increasing college completion among low-income students is a necessity for Georgia and a higher education goal for GBPI. Financial challenges create a large barrier to college completion for many students, particularly for students of color and first-generation students. There are 85 percent more low-income students enrolled in the university system than ten years ago. Increased enrollment from low-income students is not inherently problematic, but schools and state policies must be able to support all students to graduation successfully. Though college costs have increased for everyone, even small cost increases can pose a big hurdle for the lowest-income students.
Study: States Lagging in Black Enrollment, Graduation at Public Colleges | Racial disparities and inequities persist in the enrollment and graduation of Black students at two-year and four-year public colleges and universities relative to their state populations, according to a new research report released Wednesday by The Education Trust. Although the number of Black students attending public colleges has increased over the decades, national data indicate that “Black students are still severely underserved in public higher education despite having relatively identical college-going aspirations as their peers from different racial and ethnic groups,” wrote the study’s co-authors at Ed Trust, Dr. Andrew Howard Nichols, senior director for higher education research and data analytics, and J. Oliver Schak, senior policy and research associate for higher education.
Enrollment is falling at most Illinois colleges | The state’s community colleges and universities saw a decline in enrollment of nearly 100,000 students from fall 2008 to fall 2018, according to a State Journal-Register report. Brian Durham, executive director of the Illinois Community College Board, said this is due, in part, to a strong economy.
Institutional
Missing Federal Aid Payments | Argosy received nearly $13 million from the department in federal financial aid between January and Feb. 5. Instead of ensuring credit balances were paid to students, the institution paid nearly $4.3 million to its staff and about $2.2 million to vendors and used roughly $1.8 million for payroll expenses. Another $3.8 million was maintained in the receivership account.
How UT-Austin’s Bold Plan for Reinvention Went Belly Up | McInnis had started as provost shortly after Project 2021 launched. Early in her tenure, she was wary about giving Project 2021 the system’s $16 million…Her office, then, would not release the money…Project 2021 had been based on the idea that a new group could measure learning and drive change in the classroom and across the university. But McInnis says that’s not entirely how she sees things. Data can’t entirely capture many aspects of “those complex ways in which you touch students,” McInnis says. And instructional changes at a decentralized place like Austin should be left to the departments or individual colleges, she said, not a separate program like Project 2021.
For a Dissatisfied Public, Colleges’ Internal Affairs Become Fair Game | Harnisch, of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, says increased legislative activism may also be the result of a generational shift in statehouses. Today’s lawmakers may be skeptical of higher education, but they also are more likely to have graduated from college themselves. Familiarity with higher education may give them confidence to think they can diagnose — and fix — colleges’ problems. “Previous generations had less experience with higher ed,” Harnisch says, “so they tended to be deferential to college leaders and their expertise.”
Research Brief Explores the Impact of Predominantly Black Institutions | “Predominantly Black Institutions account for 3 percent of all postsecondary institutions, yet enroll 9 percent of all Black college students,” said Brandy Jones, the brief’s author and assistant director of communications for CMSI. “Much of the [existing] literature does not delve into how these institutions are supporting their students, how they are continuing to strive despite limited resources and the value these institutions add to the overall higher education landscape.” A significant portion of the nation’s 104 PBIs are public, two-year community and technical colleges, the brief said. PBIs differ from historically Black colleges and universities in that PBIs do not have an explicit mission to serve Black American students.
A Free Speech Purist Opts Not to Use the N-Word | A professor “doesn’t have to use the actual N-word to explain to students why that word could incite violence. We already get it,” wrote the student, David Raban. “And any point he tried to make was completely obscured because both his story and act of retelling it were racist.” Raban added, “They were racist because he, as a white man, repeated a word used by white people to perpetuate the subjugation of black Americans for hundreds of years. He trivialized the word’s history and the lived experience of black students. He employed the word to highlight a white student’s reprehensible treatment of a black student. He lent credence to the false stereotype that black men are prone to violence. He primed black students through stereotype threat to learn less and perform worse.”’
Posted on March 12, 2019