News Items from the Week of June 30, 2017

International

A model for teaching innovation in higher education worldwide? | University World News reported in March that China was stepping up its drive to lure overseas talent in its bid to become an innovation economy. An example of drawing on such talent is the Shanghai-based DeTao Masters Academy or DTMA, which was launched in 2010 with the aim of fostering leading-edge developments by having aspiring Chinese innovators work with top experts in the creative industries from all over the world.

How do globalisation forces affect higher education systems? | Scepticism of internationalisation can also be heard inside academia and its seeds can be traced back over the past few years. Critical voices rail against internationalisation as an elite cosmopolitan project; against the use of English as a second or foreign language for teaching and learning; against global rankings and the resulting reputation race with its annual tables of losers and winners; against the recruitment of international students for institutional income; and other forms of ‘academic capitalism’.

Many So-Called Innovators Don’t Understand the Community They Need to Serve | Students today are older, poorer, and more ethnically diverse than ever, but Heather Hiles, a founder of an e-portfolio company who now works for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, says too few investors and entrepreneurs reflect that reality in what they sell.

Latin American science funding crisis fuels brain drain | Researchers have warned of a growing crisis in science in Latin America as new analysis lays bare how low salaries, underfunding and excessive bureaucracy are fuelling a brain drain of scholars.

THE to launch new Global Business School Rankings | Times Higher Education is to launch a pioneering new set of global business school rankings in partnership with The Wall Street Journal, the biggest circulation newspaper in the US. Building on the success of the Wall Street Journal/THE College Rankings, which rank more than 1,000 US universities and colleges based on teaching excellence and graduate success, THE has confirmed that it will deepen its work with the WSJ to produce a set of business school rankings focusing on three key postgraduate programmes – MBAs, Master’s in Finance and Master’s in Management.

U.S. National

Researchers Look to Census Data for Keys to Improving Educational Outcomes | A report issued from the Institute for Immigration, Globalization, and Education at UCLA and the ACT Center for Equity in Learning highlights the nation’s racial and ethnic diversity and provides ways for data-collecting agencies to improve their methods.

U.S. Colleges Are Facing a Demographic and Existential Crisis | At colleges and universities across the country, students and faculty are preparing for the new fall term. But behind the scenes, administrators are dealing with a harsh reality. Many of them have failed to meet their enrollment targets for the entering class and many years like this are on the horizon.

The economic side effects of the student loan crisis (in 3 charts) | It’s no secret that we’re in the midst of a student loan crisis. Student loan debt has grown more than auto loan, credit card and home equity loan debt combined since 2003, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as the cost of higher education has skyrocketed and more students have flocked to get degrees.

An Education Worth Fighting For | The neoliberal revolution is radically reshaping higher education. Faculty can play a central role in fighting it.

College vs. the Great Recession | Millennials who graduated college just as the 2008 recession was unfolding fared better economically than their peers did, despite facing increased prospects of underemployment and carrying student loans.

U.S. States

Audit: New Mexico higher education agency lacks controls | The New Mexico Higher Education Department lacks adequate controls to oversee financial reporting and erroneously is recording investments, according to a new state audit made public Tuesday.

Oregon Promise will be ‘significantly’ changed 2 years after it started | Oregon higher education leaders are considering making significant changes to who qualifies for the Oregon Promise, the last-dollar scholarship program approved by lawmakers just two years ago.

Illinois is starving state colleges and universities | The schools are laying off staff and mandating furlough days. Library hours have been reduced. Campus buildings are closed over spring breaks and summer weekends. Maintenance work has been put off. Low-income students are worried their state funded scholarships will be pulled out from under them.

SUNY and CUNY student governments respond to tuition-increase request | Both the SUNY and CUNY boards of trustees have asked the governor to allow state college tuitions to be raised to the highest level allowable by law — an extra $200, for those students who do not qualify for the new Excelsior Scholarship.

Institutional

Southern University slammed with warning from accrediting agency | SACSCOC did not provide much detail about why the university was warned, but according to the letter from the accrediting agency, the institution failed to demonstrate compliance with four key requirements including faculty, institutional effectiveness, student achievement, and student complaints.

Mississippi’s largest community college warned by accreditor | The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, in a statement Friday, said that Hinds Community College was sanctioned because it’s violating accrediting rules related to a sound financial base and stability, as well as the effectiveness of its educational programs.

Concerns About Fund-Raising Effectiveness | Ask most college and university presidents for their top strategies for keeping their institutions financially viable in the years ahead, and the answer (along with recruiting more international students) is almost certain to include more ambitious fund-raising. Given that goal, colleges and universities will need efficient fund-raising teams and effective strategies.

1 in 5 L.A. community college students is homeless, survey finds | One in every 5 of the Los Angeles Community College District’s 230,000 students is homeless, and nearly two-thirds can’t afford to eat properly, according to a new survey commissioned by the system’s board of trustees.