America’s most prominent public universities were founded to serve the people of their states, but they are enrolling record numbers of students from elsewhere to maximise tuition revenue as state support for higher education withers, write Nick Anderson and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel for The Washington Post. Read more...

The United Kingdom’s top universities have rejected criticism they are not doing enough to promote racial diversity after Prime Minister David Cameron said discrimination against minorities in the upper echelons of British life “should shame our country”, writes Andrew Ward for Financial Times. Read more...

The University of Sydney will lead the attack on declining standards and falling enrolments in mathematics by requiring students in a range of courses, including science, engineering, commerce and IT, to have passed maths, at minimum of intermediate level, in year 12, writes Tim Dodd for the Financial Review. Read more...

A major international report suggests that students who are struggling with literacy and numeracy should not be able to go to university, reports the Telegraph. Read more...

The controversial draft Higher Education Amendment Bill only seeks to facilitate state "capture" of universities, while the sector is on the verge of economic collapse, says South Africa’s opposition party the Democratic Alliance, writes Bekezela Phakathi for BDLive. Read more...

Academics are concerned that Finns may soon be asked to pay tuition fees to attend local universities. Two prominent academics said they believe that the introduction of the charge for non-EU students may soon extend to locals and other European Union nationals, reports Yle. Read more...

The Labour Party, the main opposition, has announced a multi-billion-dollar plan to provide every New Zealander with three years of free tertiary education, reports the New Zealand Herald. Read more...

There are now almost 8,000 courses being taught in English by leading universities in non-English speaking countries, according to a project mapping their expansion, with the result that the rise of universities teaching in English, rather than their own local language, has become a global phenomenon, writes Nic Mitchell for the BBCs. Read more...

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology aims to increase the number of foreign students to 300,000 by 2020, from about 200,000 currently, with a strong focus on students from the ASEAN – Association of Southeast Asian Nations – region, reports The Japan Times. Read more...