Central America
Sylvan Acquires Central American University
Sylvan Learning Systems announced recently it has bought the Universidad Interamericana [1], which has campuses in Costa Rica and Panama. The purchase marks the company’s first expansion into Central America and will add 5,900 students to its total enrollment.
Universidad Interamericana was founded in 1986 and has campuses in Panamá City and San José. Its 2002 revenue was approximately US$7.6 million. It offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in business, communications, education, engineering and hospitality. Sylvan now operates a network of universities in nine countries with an overall enrollment of approximately 110,000 students.
— The Chronicle of Higher Education [2]
Nov. 17, 2003
Canada
Faster Visa Process Planned for Foreign Students in Alberta
The Canadian government announced in October it will allow prospective students from China, India and Vietnam wishing to study in Alberta to get their visas more quickly. Starting next year, student visas will be issued within 28 days – the current wait is between three and nine months – through Canada’s embassies in Beijing, New Delhi and Ho Chi Minh City. Security reviews will be conducted during those 28 days. Officials say this step will not threaten Canada’s security and will help in the competition for international students.
Under the new policy, prospective students must present a conditional letter of acceptance from a public college or university in Alberta, must have passed medical and security examinations and must have an uncomplicated file that requires no significant investigation. A special provision also permits Alberta to allow its foreign students to work in their field for two years past graduation, instead of the normal one year that applies in other parts of the country.
— The Chronicle of Higher Education [2]
Oct. 17, 2003
East Coast Universities Top Rankings
The universities of St. Francis Xavier [3], Nova Scotia; Mount Allison [4], New Brunswick; and Acadia [5], Nova Scotia, took the top three spots, respectively, in the undergraduate category of the annual rankings of Canadian universities by Maclean’s magazine. Six of the top 10 are on the East Coast.
In the comprehensive category (wide range of graduate and undergraduate programs – research and professional schools), the University of Guelph [6] again topped the rankings, with another Ontario institution, the University of Waterloo [7], placing second. The University of Victoria [8] (British Columbia) picked up third place, replacing Simon Fraser University [9] (British Columbia), which slipped to fourth. The University of Toronto [10] maintained its position atop the rankings for institutions with doctoral and medical programs for the 10th year running, followed by McGill [11] (Quebec), which replaced Queen’s University [12] (Ontario), which in turn tied the University of Western Ontario [13] for third place.
The rankings are based on institution and student data, coupled with reputation reports from education professionals across the country.
— The Globe and Mail [14]
Nov. 10, 2003
Mexico
Cross Border Student Mobility Reflects Global Trend
International flows of students tend to follow a set pattern: Most emigrating students and scholars move from less-developed countries to more developed ones. In 1995, of 1.5 million students studying outside their home countries, approximately 1.39 million originated in less-developed countries (UNESCO 1997). To see if this trend rang true for students they had awarded grants to, the National Council of Science and Technology [15] (CONACyT), the main research funding body in Mexico, sponsored a study of postgraduate student flows from 1996 to 2000.
Analysis of the study data confirmed that the growth of Mexican international students reflects the global trend. The main destination countries are the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain, and this trend has prevailed throughout the years. Mexican postgraduate students seem to value education in English, with about 70 percent choosing an English-speaking destination. However, proximity also seems to be an important factor when choosing the United States – this factor seems to lose importance in the case of Canada. Student flows seem to be shaped by linguistic considerations rather than post-colonial links in the case of Spain. Interestingly, the number of students choosing the United States has decreased, and stagnated for Spain since 1997. On the contrary, the United Kingdom has welcomed an increasing number of Mexican postgraduates, which can probably be explained by the aggressive marketing of UK institutions.
— Interanationaliste [16]
Summer 2003
The Untied States
Mississippi Officials Push for ‘Diploma Mill’ Restrictions
Worried that online diploma mills that have been kicked out of other states see Mississippi as a fertile base of operations, state higher education officials have asked the Legislature to grant them more authority to shut down phony institutions.
William E. McHenry, assistant commissioner for academic affairs for the Mississippi Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning [17], has asked the Legislature to require that institutions be allowed to operate in the state only if they are accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. He also wants to streamline the process for prosecuting institutions that violate the rules. Other states – most recently California, Hawaii and Louisiana – have passed tough laws, leaving online diploma mills with fewer safe havens inside the United States. Mississippi is one of the last states – along with Alabama and Wyoming — to crack down on diploma mills.
— The Chronicle of Higher Education [2]
Oct. 17, 2003
Report: College Access Suffering in Comparison With Other Nations
Despite rising enrollment numbers in many states, a recent report by the Education Commission of the States [18]’ (ECS) Center for Community College Policy warns that the United States is losing ground in college access and participation compared with other industrialized countries and that wide racial disparities persist.
The report, “Closing the College Participation Gap – A National Summary,” notes college-enrollment levels are expected to increase 13 percent between 2000 and 2015. However, the report suggests the increase is not enough to keep the United States in line with other developed nations that have seen large gains in high school- and college-degree attainment. The report argues that educational attainment is the best measure of a country’s economy and standard of living, and while enrollment may increase over the coming years, “competing public priorities and shrinking resources will put access to an affordable and high-quality college education further out of the reach for more and more Americans.”
The report is available through the ECS Web site [19].
— Community College Times
Oct. 14, 2003
SAT Scores Gaining Relevance Beyond College?
Anecdotal evidence suggests more employers in this current climate of higher unemployment are taking a candidate’s SAT scores into consideration when considering them for employment. The SATs, usually taken by high school juniors and seniors and once used solely as a criterion for college admission, are now following many people through college and into the workplace as a defining performance measure. Certain companies that hire large numbers of new college graduates have long asked about SAT scores, but many other large employers have taken up the habit in recent years because of the dismal job market. With thousands of resumes flooding in for fewer jobs these days, employers see the scores as one more way to differentiate.
Those companies engaging in minimum SAT score requirements argue that a candidate with a higher mark than the national average of 1,026 – typically 1,200 or higher is what an employer might require – is likely to perform better as an employee. Critics stress the SAT is anything but a reliable measure of job performance, and can be an impediment to job seekers from less advantaged backgrounds who may not have had the financial resources to afford a private test-prep tutor. Furthermore, the kind of person who performs well on the SATs, they argue, is not necessarily the kind of person who will perform well sitting at a desk.
— Wall Street Journal [20]
Oct. 28, 2003
Time for Change? Rich Colleges Getting Lion’s Share of U.S. Aid
California State University at Fresno [21] enrolls a large number of students from poor backgrounds, many coming from families working in fields nearby. About three hours and a world away is Stanford University [22]. Far fewer of its students are poor, yet the federal government gives it about seven times as much money to help each one of them through college under one program, 28 times as much in another and almost 100 times as much in a third, government data show. This is not just a California issue, either, rather a national trend that sees the federal government typically giving the wealthiest private universities, which often serve the lowest proportion of low-income students, significantly more financial aid money than their struggling counterparts with a much greater share of poor students.
For every student who applied for financial aid in academic year 2000/01, the average institution received $14.38 to run the low-interest Perkins loan program. In contrast, Stanford received $211.80 and Dartmouth [23] $174.38; nearly 200 other colleges received less than $3 per applicant. Every Ivy League school was also given five to eight times the median to pay their students in work-study jobs – money the institution gets directly to aid needy students. In addition, these institutions got five to 20 times the median amount of grant money to look after the everyday needs of their poor students, despite having some of the largest endowments in the nation, if not the world.
Such disparities are a hangover from an era when federal money was given to colleges on an individual, almost negotiable basis. Now, for the first time in almost two decades, the nation’s financial aid officers are calling for the imbalance to be redressed and replaced by a system that steers financial aid toward universities with high populations of poor students, rather than those with the biggest reputation. The debate is underway, and although few universities seem to know exactly how they would fare under a new system, the financial aid officers seem to have a pretty good idea of who would be the big beneficiaries: community colleges and, perhaps most surprisingly, for-profit universities. Both kinds of institution now have a much greater national presence, and both enroll high percentages of low-income students, meaning that they would probably win a greater share of federal dollars under a new system.
— The New York Times [24]
Nov. 9, 2003