International
What confronts 1.2 million new grads? Jobs-skills mismatch crisis: TUCP | MANILA – An estimated 1.2 million college and vocational graduates this month will find it difficult to get a job due to a growing mismatch between their training and the job skills required by most of employers, said the labor group Trade Union Congress of the Philippines-Nagkaisa (TUCP-Nagkaisa) in a news release.
Indigenous students up in Australia but concerns remain | A rise in Indigenous student enrolments in Australia should not obscure the need for “culturally appropriate and continuous support” to improve low completion rates, one academic has cautioned.
McGraw-Hill Education Study Shows Significant Improvement in Student Outcomes through Adaptive Technology | McGraw-Hill Education, a learning science company, today released results from the McGraw-Hill Connect® Effectiveness Study 2016.
Using crisis to correct wrongs | The current crisis in higher education institutions is one of the biggest in post-apartheid South Africa and the transformation debates that have arisen have never before included so many people.
World insight: the global potential of learning analytics | We are beginning to see how the careful and ethical use of digital data can improve learning and student opportunity. Comparisons based on large amounts of information, across different national higher education systems, can provide the quasi-experimental situations that are needed to find meaningful cause-and-effect relationships.
U.S. National
The Plight of Most First-generation College Students | Too many low-income students who are often first-generation students find themselves gamed when they meet with admissions counselors who help them to complete loan applications but neglect to explain the difference between being accepted to college and graduating from college—and the subsequent need to repay student loans.
The biggest problem facing higher education, in one chart | Those rising tuition prices during the past 15 years coincided with falling incomes of American families.
Race on Campus, Nontraditional Leaders, Rising Confidence: A Survey of Presidents | College and university presidents overwhelmingly describe race relations on their campus as excellent or good, are increasingly upbeat about their institutions’ financial situations, give President Obama’s higher education record a grade of C, and generally dismiss the push to hire campus leaders with nonacademic backgrounds.
College Presidents Say Race Relations Are Just Fine (Students, Not So Much) | Despite the recent wave of campus protests over racism, a vast majority of college presidents believe race relations on their campuses are good — and the share of presidents who believe it is even higher this year than it was last year.
ACE Survey: Policy Change not Widely Enacted to Address Campus Racial Issues | Roughly half of all college and university presidents say racial climate on campus is a “higher priority than it was just three years ago,” according to a new American Council on Education survey being released today.
U.S. States
Illinois higher-ed budget crisis affects grant for low-income students | There’e a new victim in the higher-education crisis in Illinois, where funds have been frozen in a nine-month budget battle: the state-run Monetary Award Program (MAP).
When State Politicians Can’t Compromise | In Illinois and Pennsylvania, eight-month budget stalemates threaten the future of public higher education.
‘It’s madness’: Louisiana grapples with worst budget crisis in a generation | Years of neglect have left a $900m deficit as the clock ticks for hospitals and higher education, with a controversial bill threatening to cut funds from both.
Wisconsin Regents Approve New Layoff and Tenure Policies Over Faculty Objections | The University of Wisconsin’s Board of Regents overwhelmingly approved new policies regarding layoffs and tenure on Thursday, despite the objections of faculty leaders and a few board members who argued that the changes would hurt the university system’s educational quality and recruitment of talented professors.
Institutional
CMSI Provides Toolkit to Assist HBCU Presidents | Amid ongoing changes in the leadership of historically Black colleges and universities, the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Minority Serving Institutions (CMSI) has published a new toolkit designed to help presidents of these institutions strengthen and hone their leadership skills. Full release.
Demanding | Lists of demands from student activists have gotten longer and more ambitious, but students at Western Washington U may have others beat.
What’s Really to Blame for the Failures of Our Learning-Management Systems | Have you ever wondered why learning-management systems, which just about everyone on campus uses every day to keep classes running, seem destined to disappoint, year after year?