Europe's Budget Crisis Hits Universities

By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE. St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Ireland, has been training teachers for more than 135 years, for the past two decades as an autonomous college of Dublin City University. But in September, it received a letter saying that it would become a much more integral part of the university. Such proposed mergers between teaching colleges and universities are part of a government plan to allow the Irish higher education system to educate more people better with less money.
“There was need for changes anyway, but obviously now working against a background diminished resources, it brings an urgency,” said Malcolm Byrne, a representative of the higher education authority. More...