By Elizabeth Redden. When Albert Anarwat applied to the for-profit Aristotle University, in California, the Ghanaian student said he asked the university if the institution was accredited. Not only was he told yes, he said, but he also was told that if the university was not accredited, “How could they get a SEVIS number” – SEVIS being the federal Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. In other words, if the institution was not accredited, how could it be approved to host international students?
But it wasn’t, and it was. Two years after the revelations regarding the “sham” Tri-Valley University, another unaccredited California institution enrolling all international students is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Aristotle currently enrolls nine F-1 visa holders in a master of public health program that operates without state approval and holds class only one day per week in an office space. Student complaints about Aristotle first came to light after a recent NBC San Diego investigation. Read more...

By Ronald Roach. The national movement to make higher education institutions more transparent in terms of their comparative costs and student outcomes got a lift from the Obama administration with the launch of the web-based College Scorecard resource tool on Wednesday. President Obama, during the State of the Union address on Tuesday, announced the “new College Scorecard” as a web resource “that parents and students can use to compare schools based on a simple criteria—where you can get the most bang for your educational buck.” As a feature in the College Affordability and Transparency Center section, the College Scorecard is accessible through the White House website.
“Through tax credits, grants and better loans, we’ve made college more affordable for millions of students and families over the last few years. But taxpayers can’t keep on subsidizing higher and higher and higher costs for higher education,” Obama said. “Colleges must do their part to keep costs down, and it’s our job to make sure that they do.” Read more...

Both Gov. John Kasich and Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee have shown leadership in planning for a new era in how state government supports publicly funded higher education, with an eye toward the best interests of all state residents.
Together, with other university presidents from around the state, they have come up with a plan to tie state funding of public colleges and universities to graduation rates, helping ensure that taxpayers and students will get value for their dollars.
Kasich’s college-funding plan, like many of his other decisions regarding taxpayer money, is based on measurable return on investment. The yardstick In this case is graduation rates: Half of a school’s funding is tied to its average graduation rate from the previous three years. Under Kasich’s proposed budget, the overall funding pot for higher education would grow by $33 million, or 1.9 percent. Read more...

By R A Johnston. Do Americans think that education beyond high school is vitally important, and what barriers hold some of them back from having post-secondary degrees and certificates? The Indiana-based Lumina Foundation teamed up with Gallup to ask 1,001 Americans these and other questions. The poll was released February 5, reports the Fort Mill Times, and it shows that Americans take higher education seriously.
The poll of adults over 18, including houses with landlines and cell-only households, showed that no more than 3% are willing to say that education past high school is not important for financial security. Those without any education past high school often think about trying to go back for more certification, even in later life. Read more...

By Anita Singh and Howard Adelman. Traditional universities will have to respond to new challenges. In June 2012, University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan was unceremoniously fired. According to university board members, Sullivan's inadequate response to initiatives underway in MIT, Stanford and Harvard to online education prompted the drastic action. While her reinstatement was instigated by protesting students, administrators and faculty, and "(S)oon after her reinstatement, the university announced a partnership with Coursera, a for-profit online initiative."
University presidents fired for not being sufficiently dynamic in initiating online education! What is happening? Does such an event portend a vast shift from bricks-and-mortar to the online realm? Ira Basen, in a recent CBC special, pointed out that the current postsecondary structure is too expensive, too restrictive, and too inaccessible for the needs of the contemporary world and its potential students. Recent decisions of high-profile universities to offer online classes through Coursera or Harvard and MIT’s OpenCourse project, customarily with recognition for completion but not accreditation, are replies to that critique. The response has been overwhelming. In a little more than a year, massive open online courses (also known as MOOCs) have been accessed by over 100 million people. Read more...

For a provincial government desperate to manage expectations, the grim accounting now being conducted at Alberta's post-secondary institutions must be a cheering development.
But even as universities and colleges brace for a cash crunch looming in the provincial budget March 7, the Redford government should take care to remember the genuine value of the learning investment. The future payoff is even more compelling at a time when all provinces are anxious to educate and retain their young people to meet the growing shortage of skilled workers.
The premier and her cabinet are locked within a box, no question, and if it's not exactly one of their own making it is still one they have helped fortify in accordance with the prior practice of earlier Tory regimes. Now that the chickens have come home to roost and the province is struggling with sharply reduced resource revenues and a rapidly growing demand for services, something clearly will have to give. Read more...

By Hélène Perrault. Over the last 12 months, Quebec has been subjected to a deep social crisis in which students have taken centre stage to denounce our university system, and more specifically to protest against the projected increase in university tuition fees.
The conflict stems from a perceived or potential threat to access to education for all, which has been a guiding principle of Quebec higher education ever since it was set down 50 years ago in the Parent report. Beyond the debates and number-crunching exercises to define the appropriate dollar cost of tuition fees, there is a consensus that education remains a fundamental societal value for the growth and development of Quebec. Read more...

By Chris Martin. Postsecondary education has never been more essential to an individual’s success in the labour market, a fact increasingly recognized by students and their families. Recently, Statistics Canada reported that postsecondary enrollment increased 2.7 per cent nationally between 2010 and 2011. In many ways, heavy government investment in student financial assistance has made this increase possible, giving students access to loans and grants to meet high educational costs.
However, for such an important investment, financial assistance is rarely thoroughly evaluated and researched. The question of whether it really is equalizing access to postsecondary education is still the source of much debate, with relatively little analysis informing the debate.
It is for this reason that student groups like the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance and the College Student Alliance conduct regular surveys on financial assistance use. For instance, the latest Ontario Post-Secondary Student Survey polled 7,298 students, about 8 per cent of full-time undergraduates at participating universities. The survey asks students a series of questions on financial assistance use, as well as parental income and family education. Read more...