Minerva Schools of KGI doesn't yet have accreditation, a campus or even a full faculty roster, but it is offering something even Harvard can't - four years of free tuition for its first matriculating class.
The San Francisco-based Minerva Project, an ambitious effort to remake the higher education model, announced its tuition plan on Tuesday in hopes of attracting some of the world's most talented and academically competitive students for the class that will enroll in the fall of 2014.
Although many details of the new school are still to be ironed out, students in subsequent years will pay tuition of $10,000 a year along with about $19,000 annually for room and board - still well below the cost of many other top U.S. universities that can run upwards of $50,000 and $60,000 a year. More...

Hargeisa University, the biggest university in Somaliland, has been partnering with several foreign universities in order to boost the recognition of the university and its diplomas abroad.
Below is an article by the Somaliland Sun:
British, Canadian and African universities have been partnering with the University of Hargeisa, in the Republic of Somaliland, to boost the institution's international credibility and the recognition of its qualifications.
Although international recognition has yet to be conferred on Somaliland since it separated from Somalia in 1991, its largest university – which has 6,500 students and is located in the capital city of Hargeisa – has been seeking foreign partners to supply higher education to Somaliland students.
In early 2013, Hargeisa University signed an agreement with Scotland's Heriot-Watt University, in terms of which the Edinburgh-based university would accept Hargeisa's degrees and diplomas as valid qualifications.
The deal also involved Heriot-Watt helping to invigilate Hargeisa's distance learning examinations, and offering scholarships to Hargeisa students. More...

By Melissa Korn. Your college degree is important, but it needs to be bolstered with plenty of work experience. According to a new survey by FTI Consulting, on behalf of Northeastern University, 60% of the general public feels someone with no college degree but some work experience would fare better in the workforce than a person who has a diploma but no work on their resume. And 62% of business leaders with hiring responsibilities agree.
A 1,000-person poll, conducted in August, asked respondents about the value of soft skills, U.S. competitiveness and the role of higher education in workforce preparation. The findings were compared with those from a July survey of 263 hiring managers. More...

Even as the country continues its efforts towards its ambitious Global 30 programme – an effort to bring 300,000 international students to Japan by 2020 – there are increasing signs of strengthening demand for study abroad among younger Japanese students and among female students in particular.
A recent survey of Japanese university students indicates a modest uptick in interest in study abroad. The survey, conducted by Recruit Marketing Partners in March and April of this year, gathered responses from more than 3,200 Japanese students.
Nearly 40% of respondents indicated they were unwilling to study abroad, while 33% said they were interested in studying outside of Japan. This represents a modest shift from a previous survey in 2011: the percentage of respondents unwilling to study abroad dropped by nearly 2% from 2011 whereas the percentage interested in study abroad bumped up slightly by 6% in the 2013 survey. More...

By Peter Campbell and Michael C. Desch. Ranking universities might seem like intellectual inside baseball, an academic game of interest only to professors and to prospective students. But these rankings are more important than most people realize, particularly since institutions of higher education are meant both to engage in the disinterested pursuit of knowledge and to serve a broader societal purpose -- in the case of international relations, to inform good policies. More...

By Theodore R. Johnson. At extension schools, it's possible to get an Ivy-League education at a fraction of the price, with lower admissions standards.
About two years ago, my classmates and I gathered in Harvard Yard to receive our graduate degrees alongside more than 7,000 of the university's newest alumni. As the procession made its way to our designated seating area, an onlooker eyed our banner with a puzzled look and asked the guy in front of me, “What in the world is the Extension School?”
My classmate’s reply: “It’s the back door into Harvard.” Ouch.
I often felt the same way – that I’d snuck into one of the world’s premier institutions for higher learning. There is little chance that my slightly-above-average undergraduate GPA and an extra-curricular résumé that only consisted of a part-time job at a music store would’ve secured a spot for me in one of Harvard’s ultra-competitive graduate schools. Yet, with no admission letter in hand and exactly zero hours spent preparing for graduate admissions tests, I became a Harvard student.
And I was not alone. The Extension School – Harvard’s degree-granting continuing education school – has a student population of more than 13,000. In fact, almost all of the Ivy League schools offer courses to “nontraditional students,” which the National Center for Education Statistics considers to be those who are older than typical college graduates, work full-time, or are financially independent and may have family dependents. More...

La Cour des comptes rend public, mardi 17 septembre 2013, un rapport sur l’application des lois de financement de la sécurité sociale. Ce rapport s’inscrit dans le cadre de sa mission constitutionnelle d’assistance au Parlement et au Gouvernement.
Unifier la gestion de la branche maladie du régime général
Pour 7,7 millions de fonctionnaires et d’étudiants, ainsi que leurs familles, des mutuelles assurent le remboursement des prestations au titre de l’assurance maladie obligatoire. Elles sont rémunérées, à ce titre, à hauteur de 365 M€ en 2011.
La Cour constate que la qualité de service des mutuelles de fonctionnaires demeure inégale et globalement insuffisante, pour des coûts élevés. Ce mode de gestion déléguée est à bout de souffle ; comme la Cour l’avait déjà recommandé en 2006, il doit être reconsidéré au bénéfice d’une reprise en gestion directe par le réseau de l’assurance maladie obligatoire.
Les onze mutuelles étudiantes, qui couvrent 1,7 million d’affiliés, ont remboursé 800 M€ de dépenses de soins et perçu à ce titre 93 M€ de remises de gestion. Leur qualité de service est, pour certaines d’entre elles, très insuffisante, qu’il s’agisse du règlement des prestations ou des relations avec les étudiants, dont l’insatisfaction est très prononcée, notamment à l’encontre de la mutuelle des étudiants (LMDE). Leur rémunération, fondée sur des bases particulièrement avantageuses et dénuées de toute transparence, a pourtant sensiblement augmenté. La reprise de la gestion de la population étudiante par les caisses d’assurance maladie permettrait une économie de près de 70 M€. Article entier...