A leading university is to increase its intake of disadvantaged students by offering places with reduced grades, writes Sean Coughlan for the BBC. Read more...

Public universities have not sufficiently transformed in the past 20 years and discrimination remains prevalent‚ particularly on the grounds of race‚ gender‚ disability and socio-economic class, writes Ernest Mabuza for Times Live. Read more...

The US Department of Education slapped a set of tough conditions on a US$1.1 billion private equity bid for the company that owns the University of Phoenix, the nation’s largest for-profit university, after years of trying to rein in the for-profit college industry, reports Bloomberg News. Read more...

The Zambian Open University expects to increase its student intake twofold in 2017 after it entered into a partnership with eLearnAfrica for its courses and degree programmes to be made available on the platform, writes Matshelane Mamabolo for IT Web Africa. Read more...

The appeal of Russian education for foreigners has risen in recent years as the decrease in the value of the ruble compared with foreign currencies has made studying in Russia much more affordable. The government is trying to capitalise on this trend in several ways, writes Alexei Lossan for Russia Beyond the Headlines. Read more...

Legislators have criticised the government’s higher education funding adviser for its lax regulation of non-local student numbers, saying places for mainland students could come at the expense of locals, writes Peace Chiu for South China Morning Post. Read more...

British universities fear losing large swathes of their research staff as the country faces up to Brexit, the split with the European Union. More than 31,000 academics at UK universities are non-British EU citizens, and so may lose their rights to live in the United Kingdom after Brexit, writes Daniel Cressey for Nature. Read more...

One of Australia’s top universities has achieved a world first, becoming the first higher education institution to issue a ‘climate bond’, reports Study International. Read more...

The Home Office is considering cutting international student numbers at United Kingdom universities by nearly half in a threat that is being greeted with dismay by university heads, who say some good overseas applicants are already being refused visas on spurious grounds, writes Anna Fazackerley for the Guardian. Read more...

The first phase of the new Université Amadou Mahtar Mbow in Dakar – which is aimed at easing congestion in the Senegalese capital’s other existing public institution – is due for completion in October 2017, according to Baba Bâ, director of maintenance, construction and equipment in the Ministry of Higher Education and Research. Read more...