International
Imperial vice-provost: TEF a ‘godsend’ for university teaching | Government attempts to measure the quality of university teaching are a “godsend” for higher education as they force leaders of research-intensive institutions to focus on educational standards “for the first time”, a vice-provost of Imperial College London has claimed.
Research Excellence Summit: attracting and retaining academic talent | Ahead of the 2017 THE Research Excellence Summit, taking place in Taiwan from tomorrow, we hear from Partha S. Mallick on the importance of valuing talent.
Centres of Excellence project – ‘A model that works’ | A mid-term review shows that the first phase of the World Bank-funded Africa Centres of Excellence, or ACE, project focused on West and Central Africa is on track and has achieved significant improvement in universities’ training programmes, with strong indications that the project might be considered for further funding.
Questioning the status quo | The demand for innovation in higher education is widespread and has generated a plethora of books and papers. But too often this discussion ignores the more fundamental question of whether our models for higher education are flawed or at best insufficiently responsive to student needs and societal circumstances.
Equality for All Higher Education Needs Reform | The current and previous governments have never initiated a review of higher education to assess whether it meets the needs of Fiji and other neighbouring countries in the Pacific Islands and beyond.
IBM Study Finds Higher Education to Play a Pivotal Role in Bridging India’s Skill Gap | IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced a study conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) in cooperation with the Economist Intelligence Unit, to evaluate India’s growing skills challenge and proposed recommendations to bridge the gap.
ANCYL lobbying for free higher education by 2018 at ANC policy conference | The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) has called for free higher education by 2018. Despite the outcomes looking unfavourable for those calling for free higher education now, youth league president Collen Maine told the Mail & Guardian at the ANC policy conference on July 1 that they would persuade the conference to implement fee-free higher education in 2018 for poor and working class students.
Education role created ‘for political expediency’ says FF spokesman | Education spokesman Thomas Byrne says new higher education super-junior role has ‘led to uncertainty’ in sector.
Rising unemployment for graduates poses challenges, as Ittima Cherastidtham explains | The prospect of higher fees raises concerns about whether higher education is still worthwhile. With subdued job growth since the global financial crisis and many more students at university, educational choices are more complex now than a decade ago.
The TEF: a raven trying to fly underwater? | It is imperative that the government stop repeating the mistakes of the past when it comes to teaching assessment, says Roger Brown.
U.S. National
From Public Good To Personal Pursuit: Historical Roots Of The Student Debt Crisis | My research into the historical cost of college shows that the roots of the current student debt crisis are neither economic nor financial in origin, but predominantly social. Tuition fees and student loans became an essential part of the equation only as Americans came to believe in an entirely different purpose for higher education.
U.S. States
Students Don’t Deserve Underpaid, Overworked Professors | The 29 public colleges and universities in Massachusetts are weary after decades of state funding cuts that have shifted the burden of public higher education from our community to students and working families.
Fighting to Keep Leaders Who Are Academics | Faculty members at the University of Wisconsin at Madison want to kill a state budget proposal that would ban the university system’s Board of Regents from requiring the system president and campus chancellors and vice chancellors be academics themselves.
Report: Homelessness on Rise for Community College Students | Homelessness among community colleges is on the rise, according to a new report released by the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, a think tank that produces research aimed at improving equitable outcomes in postsecondary education.
New State Aid, With Strings Attached | About one in three eligible private colleges and universities in New York have opted in to a new state student aid program passed this spring alongside the state’s more widely publicized free public college tuition program.
Ohio Empowers Community Colleges to Address Industry Needs | Ohio, following Gov. John Kasich’s signing of the budget last week, is now the 24th state to allow its community colleges to offer four-year degrees. States across the nation have approved varying plans to allow community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees in specific industry areas, in an effort to fill workforce needs and provide an affordable path to a baccalaureate for state residents.
California lawmakers chip away at state’s college affordability crisis | California’s public universities may be among the most costly for high-income students, but they’re among the least costly for disadvantaged students. That’s because the state does more than most to supplement need-based federal grants with state grants, the institute has found.
18 States Sue Education Dept. Over Rollback of Borrower-Defense Rule | A coalition of states is suing the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, and her department over its decision to roll back an Obama-era regulation aimed at reining in abuses by colleges that defraud students.
As Illinois Budget Impasse Ends, So Does a ‘Nightmare of Total Uncertainty’ for Its Public Colleges | College officials in Illinois breathed a sigh of relief on Thursday as a historic state-budget standoff came to a dramatic end. By a margin of three votes, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives successfully overrode Gov. Bruce V. Rauner’s veto of a spending bill for the 2018 fiscal year, giving Illinois its first budget in more than two years.
Students of Color Near 74 Percent of U. of California’s Fall Freshman Class | If you want to see what diversity might look like in the future, just go to the campuses of the University of California come September. The fall 2017 freshman class at UC system-wide may just be the picture of America’s future diversity.
Institutional
Tremors of Controversy Rock Southern University | Administration and alumni officials at Louisiana’s Southern University have gone into a major damage control mode in the wake of a series of developments in the last month that have rattled the institution and upset and stirred concern among its base of supporters.
The Value of ‘an HBCU Experience’ | Growing up in the Midwest, I never knew about historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). One day, during my junior year in high school, my assistant principal pulled me aside and told me something I didn’t quite understand at the time: “Will, you can have a college experience, or you can have an HBCU experience.”
Even in crisis, UMass Boston can’t shake its habit of political hiring | The school’s chancellor, J. Keith Motley, was recently forced out, supposedly because of the school’s budget woes. Its deficit was projected at one point to be as high as $30 million, though more recent estimates place it closer to $10 million. Either way, it is hardly an institution that can afford to be a lucrative landing spot.
Note: We missed our usual deadline for Friday at 19:29 GMT due to the holiday week (U.S.) and deadlines on other work. Apologies! But lots of international and state news this past week. Glad to see the Illinois budget impasse end finally!