By Brianna Ehley. As the majority of America’s college students struggle to pay rising tuition bills and prepare to graduate with overwhelming debt loads, an elite group of students are paying thousands more per semester to study Italian art in the Tuscan hills, or learn about modern architecture from the top floor of the world’s tallest building in Dubai.
It’s college for the 1 percent. Read more...

By Fiona Buchanan. Canada continues to top the list of most educated countries in the world but it is falling short when it comes to public funding for post-secondary institutions, according to a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) annual report, “Education at a Glance 2013,” ranks Canadians as the most educated of 34 OECD countries, with 51 per cent of the population having completed university-, college- or polytechnic-level education. But Canada trails the non-OECD Russian Federation, which reported a 53 per cent rate of tertiary education in 2012. 
Canadians with university-level education are also less likely to be unemployed, the report found. Both men and women with bachelor’s degrees or higher experience had a five per cent rate of unemployment, compared with nearly seven per cent for high school and college graduates in 2011. Canadians without a diploma experienced unemployment rates of around 12 per cent. Read more...

By Jordan Press. Unemployment rate may be higher for those holding MAs than those with BAs. When it comes to get-ting work, having a master's degree doesn't appear to provide employment seekers with any sort of edge, according to new data from Statistics Canada.
The unemployment rates for students with a master's degree were either equal to or higher than rates for their counterparts who had only a bachelor's degree, according to National Household Survey data released Wednesday.
Generally, the employment rate is higher for university graduates than for other categories of education: About 82 per cent of university grads were employed in Canada in 2011, compared to about 56 per cent of those who had no certificate, diploma or degree, the survey found. Read more...

By Michael Woods. There's a glimmer of hope in some otherwise bleak numbers about the education of Canada's Aboriginal Peoples: young indigenous women appear to be making clear educational strides. University of Saskatchewan Prof. Ken Coates, Canada research chair in regional innovation and a leading expert on aboriginal issues, told Post-media News this week there's anecdotal evidence that indigenous women in their 30s and 40s are returning to college - thus establishing themselves as role models for their children, who are then more likely to go on to their own post-secondary education. Read more...

A serious, sustained investment to improve the state of First Nations education on reserves would be money wisely spent, not just for the sake of individual young Canadians raised up to their full potential, but for Canada as a whole.
The aboriginal education gap, reaffirmed in bleak national survey figures released this week, continues to be a serious economic drag on the country and it cries out for an innovative action plan.
The arguments against another self-defeating taxpayer handout for our aboriginal communities do not hold water. Aboriginal youth are Canada's fastest-growing demographic group at the same time that this nation is being challenged with a looming labour shortage. Read more...

By Laura Beeston. Four months after the summit on higher education wrapped, the second in a series of reports on the future of Quebec’s universities and colleges was made public Thursday. The document, written by former UQAM rector Claude Corbo, proposes the creation of a Conseil national des universités (CNU) — a public, independent committee made up of 13 members appointed by the government to keep tabs on Quebec’s 18 universities.
The 121-page report sites various parties at the summit calling for an intermediary between universities and the government for better cohesion and coordination of development of academic affairs.
In 1993, a similar committee was abolished, but nearly all of the academic stakeholders at February’s summit, including students, called for its re-institution. Corbo’s report states that this body would “play an advisory, not coercive” role on university affairs.
The re-introduction of the CNU would not take any power away from university boards and the Education Department. The CNU “will have moral authority,” Corbo told The Gazette in an interview, explaining Quebec is the only province in Canada without some kind of advisory board on university affairs. Read more...