By - . A new consortium called Unizen hopes to exert greater control and influence over digital education. Four large research universities have formed a new consortium in an attempt to wrestle some control of the digital learning landscape from educational technology companies, the founders announced Wednesday. More...
08 juillet 2015
QS University Rankings: Latin America
By . QS’s 2015 University Rankings for Latin America show that the region’s biggest and most populous country is also home to its top universities. Brazil’s University of Sao Paulo has come top in our fifth Latin American ranking, with Unicamp, the Universidade Estadual de Campinas, in second place. Brazil has 17 of Latin America’s top 50 universities, including eight of the top 20. Of these 17, eight are ranked more highly than last year. More...
15 mars 2015
Measuring Research and Development Expenditures in the U.S. Nonprofit Sector: Conceptual and Design Issues
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) of the National Science Foundation is responsible for national reporting of the research and development (R&D) activities that occur in all sectors of the United States economy. For most sectors, including the business and higher education sectors, NCSES collects data on these activities on a regular basis. However, data on R&D within the nonprofit sector have not been collected in 18 years, a time period which has seen dynamic and rapid growth of the sector. NCSES decided to design and implement a new survey of nonprofits, and commissioned this workshop to provide a forum to discuss conceptual and design issues and methods. More...
22 juin 2014
Common Core Goes to College – Obama Admin's New Rating System
By Napp Nazworth. Despite strong opposition from College presidents, the Barack Obama administration is moving forward with a college rating system based upon a philosophy of education that bears a striking resemblance to the Common Core.
According to a White House fact sheet and a Department of Education FAQs page, colleges would receive a rating based upon: costs, graduation rates, how much money graduates make, and how many graduates go on to get advanced degrees.
Pitched as a way to slow the rising costs of higher education, Obama wants to tie those ratings to federal aid. Students who attend colleges with higher scores would receive more aid in the form of Pell Grants and more affordable student loans, colleges with lower scores would get less aid. More...
14 juin 2014
Military service a gateway to higher education
By Alice C. Elwell. James Ryan is ready to take the first step toward his goal of becoming a brain surgeon. The 18-year-old Marine recruit will ship out Monday to Parris Island, S.C., for basic training, just eight days after graduating from Beverly High School. More...
Prodding Congress, Obama acts to ease student debt
By Josh Lederman. Up to 5 million Americans struggling to make their monthly student loan payments could find relief under a program President Barack Obama expanded Monday, part of an election-year push by Democrats to paint Republicans as blocking common-sense steps that could help the middle class.
Dubbing it a "no-brainer," Obama also threw his support behind legislation to let some of those same borrowers refinance their student loans at lower rates, in a move the administration said could save 25 million borrowers up to $2,000 over the life of their loans. More...
13 juin 2014
Universities to take back control of digital resources
19 mai 2014
Universities, climate change mitigation and adaptation
By María Elena Hurtado. Each new report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, on the impact of global warming on Latin America jolts the region’s universities into action. Droughts in Amazonía, increased flooding in other areas of South America and temperature hikes of up to 3ºC in Central America are some of the scenarios predicted for the American continent in the 2014 IPCC assessment report. Read more...11 mai 2014
Obama’s Rating System: an International Perspective
By Ellen Hazelkorn. As an observer of global university rankings, I’ve followed the debate about President Obama’s proposed college-ratings system with great interest—and growing incredulity. From a distance, the concerns about the plan are curious. While some are certainly valid, I wonder how American colleges did not try to create a system of their own, or at least to work with the government to establish one. More...
04 mai 2014
US branch campus abroad for American students
By Wagdy Sawahel. In an effort to advance the internationalisation of higher education and create global citizens, the University of New England, or UNE, has opened a campus in Tangier, northern Morocco – the first American institution of higher education to open a campus in Africa for its US students. Read more...Report calls for reform in state's higher education master plan
By . California’s Master Plan for Higher Education is sorely inadequate for meeting the needs of students and employers here, according to educational researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. Their report, to be issued Tuesday, criticized what seemed to its authors to be disorganized and uncoordinated financing, tuition and aid policies at UC, Cal State and community colleges. Community college students find too many roadblocks in their efforts to transfer to a Cal State or UC, the study said. More...
