By Doug Lederman. USA Funds, which was one of the country's largest guarantors of federal student loans when banks originated most such loans, announced Wednesday that it would transfer its guarantor operations to Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation and focus fully on its newfound role as a funder of college completion-related initiatives. Read more...

By Doug Lederman. New federal data show American universities awarded a record number of Ph.D.s in 2015.
American universities awarded a record number of doctorates in 2015 -- although the rate of growth in the number of Ph.D. recipients continued a several-year decline. And the 55,006 recipients were more likely to be men and to be American citizens or permanent residents than they were the year before. Read more...

By Matthew Reisz for Times Higher Education. From Afghanistan to Bahrain, Colombia to Zimbabwe, universities, their staff and students have come under attack in the past few years.
In its 2014 report “Education Under Attack,” the Global Coalition to Protect Education From Attack documented examples of higher education institutions attacked (or turned over to military use) in 28 countries between 2009 and 2012, including 17 where buildings were damaged or destroyed. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. The rise of big data has been a tremendous boon to researchers, but it has also revealed shortcomings in how higher education collects and analyzes data and judges the impact of research on human subjects. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. Eight grant-making foundations on Thursday announced the formation of the Open Research Funders Group, an effort to promote sharing of articles and data between researchers and organizations. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. Pearson on Tuesday released a list of 45 learning design principles under a Creative Commons license, giving away access to previously proprietary information about how the education company designs its products. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. A coalition of academic and research library associations on Monday signed on to an effort to preserve electronic journals promoted by the Keepers Registry, a preservation initiative supported by the International Centre for the Registration of Serial Publications, EDINA, a data center at the University of Edinburgh, and the higher education IT organization Jisc. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. Deakin University in Australia will next year offer graduate degrees and certificate programs through FutureLearn, the online learning platform owned by the Open University in the U.K. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. Metrics gauging the impact of journals the have been controversial among some researchers and publishers, who have said the emphasis on ranking journals negatively affects faculty members and journals themselves. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. Many university presses operate as largely stand-alone businesses, but some -- about 20 percent, according to the Educopia Institute -- are situated within or report directly to university libraries. Read more...