A coalition of Asian-American organisations has asked the Department of Education to investigate Brown University, Dartmouth College and Yale University, alleging they discriminate against Asian-American students during the admissions process, writes Douglas Belkin for The Wall Street Journal. Read more...
UK to merge research and innovation in single agency
The UK government is to create a single research funding body, bringing together seven research councils, the innovation agency Innovate UK and research funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, writes Éanna Kelly for Science Business. Read more...
Cost of university degree set to soar
The cost of a university degree in Singapore is set to rise, according to a new study by the Economist Intelligence Unit, writes Amelia Teng for The Straits Times. Read more...
University heads’ pay rises faster than academic staff’s
UK universities have been accused of “blatant double standards” on the day it was revealed that vice-chancellors’ pay has risen around four times faster than pay for most academic staff, writes Aftab Ali for the Independent. Read more...
Record 97% of university graduates land jobs
A record-high 97.3% of university graduates in Japan were employed as of the beginning of the fiscal year on 1 April, according to government data, reflecting companies’ increasing appetite for recruitment, reports The Japan Times. Read more...
New education head scraps textbook guideline revisions
New Education Minister Pan Wen-chung unveiled several major policies last weekend, including the scrapping of the controversial adjustment of guidelines for high school history textbooks, reports Focus Taiwan. Read more...
US leader launches Fulbright University
United States Secretary of State John Kerry last week officially launched Vietnam's first private non-profit university in Ho Chi Minh City, writes Ha Anh for Thanh Nien News. Read more...
What chance for Syrians to study?
By Rebecca Warden. Before the conflict began in 2011, there were over 500,000 people enrolled in some form of higher education in Syria. Five harsh years later and 11 million people – half of the population – have been displaced and around six million have left the country and are mainly living as refugees in neighbouring countries. Read more...
Big data can help determine university funding
By Yegor Stadny. The Ukrainian economy and the country’s education policy-makers will dictate how many state-funded places there will be for each of the 130 fields of higher education this year. This means that the government will assume that, for instance, 452 biotechnology or 2,330 management graduates will be needed in four to six years’ time to boost the Ukrainian economy. Read more...
Addressing the dragon in the room
By David Stremba and Scott Spragg. Every other day in the United States press there is a headline warning of an impending “China Crisis”, whereby the steady stream of Chinese students seeking US education will presumably dry up and universities which foolishly put all their eggs in the China basket will be left in the lurch, forced to consider shuttering in the face of huge budgetary deficits. Read more...