By Allie Bidwell. The Army announced on Friday that it had suspended new requests in its Tuition Assistance Program, joining the Marine Corps in halting the program due to significant cuts in federal spending that took effect last week.
The Marine Corps, which made its announcement on March 2, and the Army said they would not accept new enrollments in their Tuition Assistance Programs, which provide financial support for active-duty troops who are attending high-school-completion courses and certificate programs or working toward college degrees. Under the programs, participants can receive up to $4,500 per fiscal year.
The two other main arms of the U.S. military—the Air Force and the Navy—have not yet announced whether they will follow suit in their Tuition Assistance Programs. Read more...

By Seif Abdelghaffar. A bill introduced by a California state senator early in February would impose oil taxes to fund public higher education. Introduced by Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, SB 241 would allow the state Department of Conservation to administer a 9.9 percent oil severance tax on companies extracting oil in California. According to Senator Evans’ communications director Teala Schaff, 93 percent of the tax revenues would be allocated to public higher education while 7 percent would go toward renovating state parks.
“California doesn’t tax on oil, so it is a fairness issue because other states have oil taxes, and if people take something from the state through oil, this is a way for us to give something back to the state,” Shaff said. Read more...

The Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola (USIL), a leading private university in Peru, will receive a $23.5 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to double its capacity and expand access to affordable education programs for low-income students.
IDB financing will allow USIL to double its capacity from approximately 12,000 to 25,000 students over the next ten years.
Moreover, the loan will help USIL establish a new student guarantee fund, support a new technical training institute, and increase its participation in Beca 18, a Peruvian government flagship scholarship program targeting economically disadvantaged youth.
It will also help expand and upgrade USIL’s infrastructure using green technology that permits the reduction of water and energy consumption.
The project, which is also being financed by Banco de Crédito del Peru and the Canadian Climate Change Fund, comes as years of sustained economic growth in Peru has fueled growth of an emerging middle class eager to improve its living standards through high-quality college education. Currently only three out of ten Peruvian high school students have access to higher education. Read more...

The Third Conference of the Americas on International Education (CAIE) will be held in Mexico from October 16 - 18, 2013
It gives us great pleasure to announce the third edition of the Conference of the Americas on International Education (CAIE), being held from October 16th to 18th, 2013, in Monterrey, Mexico. In keeping with the theme « Knowledge Mobility: Responsibility and Resources », CAIE Mexico 2013 invites decision-makers and key players involved in the internationalization of higher education in the Americas to come learn, strategize, and engage in dialogue and debate regarding the best-practices and latest trends in this particular field.
After two successful conferences in Canada (2010) and Brazil (2012), CAIE Mexico 2013 aims to discuss and define the role played by all actors involved in the question of internationalization, such as university administrators, government officials, researchers, professors, students and representatives from both the private and philanthropic sector, not to mention personnel involved in the human resource, financial, and information technology side of the field. Understanding how to maximize involvement from all those who contribute in this sector will be an important topic of discussion, as well as a focus on developing important strategic alliances between key players in order to successfully navigate and manage the future of higher education in the Americas. Read more…

By Nathan J. Daun-Barnett. In a 21st century knowledge economy, countries across the globe are struggling with growing their stock of college educated workers while balancing concerns over the equitable distribution of opportunities to attend college.  The U.S. system is among the most “accessible” in the world, in the sense that nearly any high school graduate can find a place to enroll and potentially earn a degree.
In practice, that “American Dream” frequently goes unrealized in greater proportions for lower income families and under-represented minority students. As a consequence, much of the college access literature in the U.S. addresses these forms of social stratification in analyses and implications.  There is, unfortunately, a disconnect between the theory and evidence presented by the research community and the range of policy alternatives initiated at the state and federal levels. There are at least two problems that make research difficult to translate into policy – the research community does not operate as quickly as the policymaking process, and as a result, evidence that can be brought to bear quickly by federal agencies may be given disproportionate weight by policymakers seeking to legislate policy solutions. See more...

By Emerson Csorba. Pursuing graduating student attributes in Canadian higher education.
With shrinking public funding and stronger corporate influence in higher education, universities’ identities are changing.
In the evolving world of Canadian higher education, it is paramount that universities engage in conversations regarding the qualities that they desire to see in students as a result of undergraduate education.
The University of Alberta has taken the first steps in this direction, prompted by the Students’ Union and the Centre for Teaching and Learning. Read more...

By Allison M. Vaillancourt. Last week I cited a management book that gave me some helpful perspectives on the insidious and even unintentional ways leaders can undermine organizational effectiveness. Knowing that academic audiences often discount items from the popular press, I expected a little electronic eye-rolling and was not disappointed. Words such as “psychobabble” and “common sense” made their way into the comment boxes, just as I knew they would. The ire of some readers was apparently increased by The Chronicle’s decision to insert a screen shot of the book’s cover, which seemed to suggest that I was reviewing the reading—or, worse, promoting it—which I most certainly was not. Read more...