By Nicholas Jones Email Nicholas. Up to $3000 on offer for high achievers but getting the message to students can be a struggle, official says. School leavers are being urged to take advantage of competition between universities as one offers up to $3000 cash for those with high marks in NCEA. Applications for many scholarships close as early as this week, and universities say it can be difficult to make students aware of the chance. More...

By Katherine Donnelly. UNIVERSITIES and other third-level colleges face the prospect of having up to 10pc of their state funding withheld if they fail to reach new performance targets. It is part of a revolutionary change to how higher education is funded, which will – for the first time – link how much colleges receive in state grants to how well they perform. The new "stick and carrot" approach will rate colleges under a number of different headings, such as student retention, research and matching graduates to the needs of industry. More...

By Ray Clancy. Australia is the most expensive country for overseas students, with a combined average cost of university fees and living costs totalling more than US$38,000 per year. Despite this, Australia has remained one of the most popular destinations for international students with numbers likely to be further boosted by the continuing fall in the Australian dollar and improved visa processing.
The research by HSBC, which reviewed data on higher education in 13 countries, puts the United States as the second most costly country with average annual costs over US$35,000 and the UK third with $30,000. Graham Heunis, head of retail banking and wealth management for HSBC in Australia, said the strength of the Australian economy and the Australian currency has kept the cost of studying in Australia high relative to other markets. ‘While Australia has continued to enjoy higher economic growth than other western markets over the past five years, this has also led to a higher Australian dollar which has placed a strain on the price competitiveness of our export sectors, including education,’ he explained. More...

By David Evans. My first chair position was in a six-person department at another small college here in Iowa. We had a fairly regular rotating-chair system, and my term came early: I’d been there almost six years and had just been approved for tenure and promotion when the incumbent chair, who was finishing her first year of a three-year term, took another job and departed. I was next in line but had expected to wait another couple of years; I was very young, and had not yet really become a “player” on campus in the areas where real power and influence were exerted. More...

By Ben Yagoda. Each year at around this time, the folks at Beloit College put out the “Mindset List,” a half-serious, half-facetious accounting of what incoming first-year students do and do not know. It is ostensibly designed for professors, but it’s always picked up by news media and Web sites, not only because it’s often funny and eye-opening, but because August is usually a very slow news month. More...

By Jeff Selingo. Most American college students haven’t completed a cross-country road trip, let alone a transcontinental train trek. Such journeys give us not only a greater appreciation for the vast nation we tend to fly over, but also the time to reflect on what we see and experience away from the frenzy of daily life.
Last week, two dozen young entrepreneurs did just that, crossing the United States on a train for 10 days, to discover the country and themselves. Aboard the Millennial Trains Project, each of the twenty-somethings (average age 25) devised a project to benefit others. At stops in Salt Lake City, Omaha, and Chicago, among other places, they spent their days working on the projects and also met with local entrepreneurs and leaders. More...

By Lawrence Biemiller. The business-networking behemoth LinkedIn said on Monday morning that it was making a play in global college admissions, unveiling LinkedIn University Pages and welcoming school students as young as 14 as members.
The company said the new pages could help colleges build their brands and recruit students who fit what they offer. It said the pages can also help students choose colleges on the basis of the students’ intended careers and, subsequently, help with job searches. The pages take advantage of career data that LinkedIn has collected from some 240 million members around the world. More...

By Beth McMurtrie. As U.S. higher education shifts to a 'Pacific Century,' Europe feels the sting.
Since he came into office, President Obama has begun major educational efforts in China, Indonesia, India, and Latin America. Notably absent has been Europe. In fact, the Obama administration has labeled this "America's Pacific Century." 
The same could be said of higher education's international strategy.  In Yale's global-planning documents, projects in China and India are cited multiple times while Europe is barely mentioned. Of Columbia's "global centers," two are in Asia, two are in the Middle East, and two are in Latin America. Europe gets one. And at Washington University in St. Louis, 17 of its 28 strategic international partners are in Asia. Two are in Europe. 
Is Europe being put on the back burner? American universities say absolutely not, that they're simply turning their attention to neglected parts of the world in an effort to create a more balanced global strategy. More...

Die NSA schöpft Daten ab? Nicht mit mir und meinen Studenten, entschied ein Kieler Psychologie-Professor. Er lässt alle E-Mails von amerikanischen Anbietern wie Google und Yahoo ungelesen löschen: ein Anruf beim skeptischen Hochschullehrer Günter Köhnken.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Herr Köhnken, ist meine E-Mail bei Ihnen angekommen?
Köhnken: Ja, Sie haben ja von einer SPIEGEL-Adresse aus geschrieben. Da gehe ich einfach davon aus, dass Sie keine Direktleitung zur NSA unterhalten. mehr...

Fast zwei Milliarden Euro: Der Stiftungsfonds der Elite-Uni Cambridge verfügt über eine Menge Geld. Sie ist damit die reichste britische Hochschule. Die Konkurrenten aus Oxford sind nicht ganz so erfolgreich.
Viel unterscheidet die beiden ältesten britischen Spitzen-Unis nicht, jedenfalls nicht in Bezug auf ihr akademisches Ansehen. Doch beim Geld sieht es anders aus: Während Cambridge von der Nachrichtenagentur Reuters als reichste Unis des Landes gewertet wird, gibt Oxford mehr Geld aus, als es einnimmt.
Reuters hat sich Stiftungsfonds der Unis angesehen und bewertet: Welcher Fonds wuchs am meisten durch Spenden und gewinnbringende Investments, nachdem die Ausgaben bereits abgezogen waren? Demnach konnte Cambridge seine Stellung als reichste britische Uni verteidigen - der Uni-Fonds wuchs zum Ende des akademischen Jahres im Juli 2012 um 6,5 Prozent auf 1,65 Milliarden Pfund (umgerechnet fast 2 Milliarden Euro). Der Oxford-Fonds hingegen schrumpfte um 0,2 Prozent auf 854 Millionen Pfund (990 Millionen Euro). mehr...