ByMichael Gardner. Ten years after the formal introduction of bachelor and masters degrees at German higher education institutions in the wake of the Bologna reforms, most courses have been adapted to the new degree system. Statistics suggest that the new degrees have found acceptance among students and industry.
“Developments over the last few years have shown that opting for a Europe-wide higher education reform was the right decision,” said Higher Education Minister Annette Schavan.
“Never before has student mobility been as high as it is today, and never before has studying taken so little time. Introducing the bachelor degree as an early degree qualifying for a profession offers graduates many options to plan a career.”
Schavan called the Bologna reforms a “European success story”.

ByAlya Mishra. Herguan University in Sunnyvale, California, is the third institution in less than two years to have been raided by US officials and accused of visa fraud by the federal authorities, leaving hundreds of foreign student stranded.
As in the case of Tri Valley University in Sunnyvale, shut down under similar circumstances last year, and the University of Northern Virginia’s Annandale campus, which was raided by immigration officials, the majority of international students are from India. The succession of high-profile cases has highlighted the way in which dubious institutions are able to continue to attract Indian students, and the gaps in regulations that allow students to be duped. On 4 August, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a notice of intent to withdraw accreditation to Herguan University, where Indians comprise 94% of the 450 students enrolled.

ByLee Adendorff. Student groups are threatening protest action after the Italian parliament backed a law on 7 August that gives universities the power to raise the fees of students who are taking too long to complete their studies.
Students unions have called the law an outrage, and have accused the government of using fee increases to cover public funding shortfalls. The family income-tested fee increases will apply to nearly one in three Italian students, who fall into the large group of fuoricorso – students who fail to complete their studies within a given time limit. Union of University Students coordinator Michele Orezzi said: “Once again the public university is being violated…It is a grave attack on students that we will not let go by. We are ready for action, ready for an explosive autumn. We are ready for anything to defend our rights.”

By Wais Wafa. By 2013, the Russian government could be paying tuition for the country’s best and brightest at foreign universities. By Sept. 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to sign a decree establishing the Global Education program, which would allow qualified Russian students to study abroad at the government’s expense.
The program was first announced by then-President Dmitry Medvedev at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2010, but its implementation was delayed. According to some sources in the Kremlin, the main obstacle was former Education Minister Andrei Fursenko, who believed that the huge amount of money that the state planned to spend sending students abroad would be better spent on Russia’s universities. The rectors of the universities themselves were of much the same opinion.
In 2011, the initiative was taken up by Russia’s Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI), which further developed the program and named it Global Education. The program was approved at an Oct. 21, 2011 meeting of the ASI's Supervisory Committee, which is headed by Putin.
The program is essentially a very simple one.  Anyone who would like a state-funded education in a foreign university can submit an application. However, students must already hold a bachelor’s degree and must have on their own applied and been accepted for graduate study at a foreign school.
One of the major points of contention in the development of the program was how to ensure that students who took part in the program would return to Russia. Under the ASI program, until the students return to Russia, the money provided for their studies will be essentially a loan. If a participant returns to Russia and works for three years, the loan will be written off in full. If, however, the participant does not return or does not work in Russia for the agreed period, then he or she will have to repay the loan or a part of the loan with interest.
The funds for the implementation of the program have already been set aside in the draft 2013 budget. The program's authors have calculated that around 5 billion rubles (around $154 million) will be needed to fund the program over the next three years: 500 million rubles (around $15.5 million) in 2012, 1.5 billion rubles (around $46 million) in 2013, 2 billion rubles (around $61 million) in 2014 and 1 billion rubles (around $31 million) in 2015. In that time, the program will have funded the studies of around 3,000 people: 250 in 2012, 900 in 2013, 1,200 in 2014 and 650 in 2015.
However, it seems unlikely that the program will begin in 2012. The decree will likely only be signed on Sept. 1 and recruiting the students will take some time.
The question of who will manage the program, including evaluating the applications and allocating the money, is another issue altogether. According to a source close to the government, the program manager is likely to be one of Russia's three leading economic academic institutions:  the Higher School of Economics - National Research University; the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration or the New Economic School.
ASI has identifies a number of different priority areas for the project.  The agency believes that Russia is suffering an acute shortage of personnel who can work in management in higher education, state and municipal directorates, hi-tech companies (both in the state and public sectors) and social institutions, so students studying these fields will be more likely to get grants.
A source close to the government added that students from regional universities may have an advantage in the hope that professors who return to regional universities having studied abroad will have a progressive influence on their own universities and improve Russia's system of higher education.

ByWagdy Sawahel. Egypt has launched news higher education initiatives including a plan to set up branches of Alexandria University in Lebanon and Malaysia, establishing an Arab higher education area and joining the Arab and European Leadership Network for Higher Education.
The initiatives will give Egypt's universities a greater regional presence, facilitate the mobility of postgraduate students among Arab universities and help to improve university leadership, governance and management.
Branch campuses
On 22 July the council of graduate studies and research at Alexandria University – Egypt’s second largest institution – adopted partnership agreements with the Charitable Lebanese Association and the Malaysian Falcon Company to create branch campuses in those countries.

By Simon Marginson. Free Massive Open Online Courseware – MOOC – is less than a year old but it is already clear this will be the game changer in higher education worldwide. Right now it is reverberating through the world’s universities like a tectonic shock.
The new paradigm, first developed in the northern autumn of 2011 by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig (pictured) at Stanford University alongside Silicon Valley in California, will be as disruptive to conventional delivery in higher education as the internet is proving in terms of disrupting book publishers, newspapers, and stores such as Myer and David Jones. Thrun’s first programme in artificial intelligence quickly enrolled 160,000 students. His crucial innovation was not free courseware, which was a concept that was 10 years old, but online grading in multiple choice format, with certification at the end of the programme.

ByJo Ritzen. Can universities save Europe from its current economic problems? I believe that university education and research can help to recreate hope and optimism for a bright future, although this will not be achieved by more Brussels bureaucracy. Cooperation could create a better Europe.
If member states would learn from each other in terms of what works and what does not work in university policy...If European education and research would compete on a European scale...
But even more important is the reclaiming of ground by European intellectuals inside and outside the university, who should organise themselves and overcome the crisis of trust between academia and society. Up to now, European countries have learned little from one another. They prefer to make their own mistakes, ignoring the experiences of other countries.