News Items from the Week of November 2, 2018

International

Cover | Outsourcing Student Success (Kindle Edition)
Outsourcing Student Success (Kindle Edition) | Click on the Image to Visit Amazon.com

Brazil’s public universities are in crisis | Funded by the state of Rio de Janeiro rather than the federal government, [Federal University of Rio de Janeiro] is one of numerous local public services hit with a crisis caused by falling oil prices coupled with widespread corruption. In recent years, local governments have based their spending on anticipated revenue from newly discovered offshore deposits before drilling had even begun, which has resulted in many costly policies, particularly in preparation for the 2016 Olympics. When the price of oil dropped to US$25 a barrel, the state’s main source of revenue collapsed.

How will artificial intelligence change admissions? | AI was founded as an academic discipline in 1956. It is defined as the development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally done by humans. AI uses algorithms that can predict everything from picking stocks to diagnosing diseases. Higher education administrative processes will not be immune from the impact that AI can have on how students are recruited, admitted, enrolled and graduated.

CEU to open Vienna campus to bypass Orbán restrictions | The decision comes in the face of the Hungarian government’s crackdown on academic freedom, including a government ban on gender studies programmes, the forced suspension of research related to migration, an unusually high tax on programmes for refugees and asylum seekers and the intimidation of academics in the Hungarian media.

University grade inflation under the spotlight | Readers respond as ministers promise to address concerns over the growing number of first-class degrees.

U.S. National

To Understand the High Cost of Colleges, Think of Them as Investment Banks | What if we understood leading American universities less as educational institutions, and more as investment banks?

Ameritech Financial: The Student Loan Crisis Signals More Than Problems Within the Educational System | The student loan crisis is larger than the educational system; it’s also one of structural racism and economic disparity according to a new report from Generation Progress.

Mapping Student Debt | More than 44 million Americans owe a total of $1.5 trillion in student debt, making it the second-largest liability on the national balance sheet. A generation ago, student debt was a relative rarity, but for today’s students and recent graduates, it’s a central fact of economic life that we don’t know much about. Mapping Student Debt is changing that. The maps below show how borrowing for college affects the nation, your city, and even your neighborhood, giving a new perspective on the way in which student debt relates to economic inequality.

Where support for college students is ‘high-tech, high-touch’ | Institutions on average were doing a significantly better job of graduating their wealthier students and leaving their lower-or moderate-income students behind.

U.S. States

Chancellor shares his vision for future of state system | Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Chancellor Dr. Daniel Greenstein told Indiana University of Pennsylvania students, faculty, staff and stakeholders that they have an opportunity to reimagine higher education in this country.

Century Foundation Releases First Report on Community Colleges | A new report released late last week examines the critical role that community colleges play in social mobility and highlights why adequate and equitable funding are essential.

Access, Completion Outcomes Lag for Underrepresented Students | Several public flagship institutions in the Great Lakes region are falling short in their objective of being a beacon for social and economic mobility for low-income and minority students, according to a recently published report by the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP)…Analyses reveal that “deep racial and economic inequities in access and completion” persist at the six flagships in the Great Lakes region despite progress over the years.

Institutional

What Do Presidents Talk About? | What presidents never seem to do, in my experience, is talk about the big picture: the purposes of higher education and the extent to which we are meeting those goals. We never talk about how all of our schools function together – or don’t – as a system. We rarely talk about the future of academic research, reforming the U.S. Department of Education’s higher education budget, access and quality in undergraduate education, loan default rates, or poor outcomes at many schools. This failure to talk about systemic issues may reflect the (understandable) fact that all presidents are worried primarily about what is happening in their own backyards.

Returning to her Rural Roots: bell hooks | On a Friday morning late last spring, bell hooks was sitting comfortably on a couch perfectly situated in a spacious single-family home that Berea College purchased and had since converted into an Institute bearing her name. On this particular day, hooks — arguably one of the nation’s most prominent authors and feminist scholars — was interested in talking legacy — hers and other Black writers.

Budget Woes Continue for Campus IT | Lean information technology budgets are making it difficult for colleges to hang on to talented employees, the latest Campus Computing Survey reveals. More than two-thirds of IT leaders surveyed this year, from 242 two- and four-year public and private nonprofit colleges and universities across the U.S., reported that their campus IT budgets had still not recovered from the 2008 recession — when many institutions experienced sweeping cuts.

Conflicted Views of Technology: A Survey of Faculty Attitudes | The proportion of college instructors who are teaching online and blended courses is growing. So is their support for using technology to deliver instruction. But their belief in the quality and effectiveness of online courses and digital technology isn’t keeping pace.

Connecting Data Science to ‘Almost Every Domain of Inquiry’ | The University of California, Berkeley, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are…creating entirely new institutions within their campuses to come to terms with the ubiquity of data and the rise of AI — and to accommodate a surge in popularity that these fields are generating among students and employers.

Regent’s Resignation Signals Turning Tide in U. of Maryland Crisis, as President Exerts His Power | James T. Brady resigned his post as chairman of the University System of Maryland’s Board of Regents on Thursday, marking another turn in a chaotic week for an institution that has descended into crisis over the board’s handling of an athletics scandal.

How Should College Leaders Respond to Campus Protests? | How presidents react is connected to how they view activism, says Dr. OiYan Poon, an assistant professor of higher education leadership and director of the Center for Racial Justice in Education Research at Colorado State University. She says that negative sentiments about student activism comes out of concern for liability – that is, altercations and students damaging property.