Brazil

DeVry Buys Education Company

DeVry Inc. announced in March that it is buying a 70 percent stake in Fanor, a Brazilian higher-education company with colleges enrolling approximately 10,000 students.

DeVry said in a news release that it would pay $23.5 million in cash, and would assume the debt of the company, in return for its equity stake. Fanor owns three institutions and — like DeVry University, the flagship institution of its acquirer — offers programs in business and management. The Fanor institutions also have programs in law and engineering.

Brazil, where U.S.-based Laureate Education also owns colleges, is considered a thriving market for for-profit colleges because of its growing middle class. These changes are taking place, despite the slowing Brazilian economy.

– DeVry news release
March 10, 2009

Canada

Government Looks to International Students to Make Up Shortfalls in University Budgets

Canada plans to significantly increase the number of foreign students it enrolls in recognition of the fact that they are a substantial “source of revenue,” Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced in late February. He would not elaborate on how many more students would be lured to Canada but said they would have the chance to understand the labor market and the language and put themselves on a “much faster pathway” to immigration.

Foreign students are eligible when their visas expire to apply to become permanent residents through the new Canadian Experience Class, launched last year. There were 176,116 foreign students in Canada at the end of 2007.

– Toronto Star
March 1, 2009

3,300 New High-demand Graduate Places in Ontario

The Ontario government is making available more than C$50 million (US$41 million) to grow enrollments in high-demand graduate programs, like engineering and environmental studies. A total of $51.6 million will be put towards the creation of 3,300 graduate spaces at Ontario universities over the next few years.

The money will create 1,925 new master’s seats and 1,373 new spaces for doctoral students. Ontario’s seven largest research universities will accommodate about 75 percent of the new spots. The University of Toronto will get the most with 588, followed by the University of Western Ontario with 504.

According to government estimates, seven out of 10 new jobs created in Ontario over the next decade will require post-secondary education or training.

– The Canadian Press
February 27, 2009

Foreign-Student Enrollments Double in a Decade

According to the latest immigration figures, there were almost 80,000 foreign students at Canadian universities and colleges last year. Embassy Magazine reports that this figure represents an almost 100 percent increase in the last decade. Ontario and British Columbia dominated the market in 2008 with 26,674 and 25,670 new foreign students respectively, while Chinese and South Korean enrollments accounted for more than 36 percent of the total across Canada.

Initial anecdotal reports for 2009 suggest that new foreign-student recruitment remains strong. Canadian universities expect that relatively cheap tuition fees, the weak Canadian dollar, and favorable immigration policies will continue to help attract students from abroad.

– Embassy Magazine
February 25, 2009

Mexico

Hundreds of Mexican Universities Pledge to Reduce Fees for Recession-struck Students

In recognition of the fact that students are struggling financially amid the global economic meltdown, the rectors of Mexico’s 128 largest public universities have pledged to reduce the fees their universities charge.

The program was announced in February, and it will include almost 80,000 thousand new government scholarships, discounts on tuition and other fees, and special payment plans. Universities are trying to prevent students from dropping out or postponing studies for economic reasons.

The National Association of Universities and Institutions of Higher Education, whose members include the 128 leading public universities and 24 prestigious private universities, have pledged to iron out all the details of the plan by May. They have also urged the country’s other private universities to reduce the fees they charge. Public universities enroll 87 percent of the 2.5 million tertiary students.

While tuition at Mexican public universities is usually free or very low, lab fees and other expenses can run in the hundreds and thousands of dollars.

– Chronicle of Higher Education
February 25, 2009

United States

Legislation to Get 1 Million U.S. Students Studying Abroad by 2020 Reintroduced to Congress

Legislation aimed at vastly expanding the number of U.S. students studying abroad was reintroduced to Congress in February, after being shelved in 2007. The headline goal of the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act is to send one million students abroad within ten years. This target would represent a five-fold increase from current levels.

The legislation would cerate an independent government body and would authorize $80 million in grants to students, colleges, and non-governmental institutions that organize study-abroad programs. The measure is sponsored Sen. Richard Durbin, a Democrat of Illinois, and Sen. Roger Wicker, a Republican of Mississippi.

The legislation enjoyed strong bipartisan support in the House of Representatives in 2007 but failed to overcome procedural hurdles in the Senate.

– News release from the office of Sen. Durbin
February 25, 2009

Santa Fe College Announces Plans to Close

Citing financial difficulties, the College of Santa Fe has told its employees that it will cease operations as an independent college as of May 22. But campus officials still hope a public university in New Mexico might take over all or part of it. A bill that would allow for such a rescue is before the state legislature. The pending legislation would allow any state university to bid to take over the institution.

– KBDC
February 27, 2009

Harvard Works with Banks to Find Funding for International Students as Loans Dry Up

Harvard University has signed an agreement with banking giant JPMorgan Chase that will provide graduate and professional students from abroad with access to private education loans.

The agreement follows six months of negotiations by university officials to secure support for international students in Harvard’s graduate and professional programs, after other major lenders withdrew from the market in the wake of the global credit crunch. International undergraduate students at Harvard College are separately covered under the College’s financial aid program.

Historically, only a handful of lenders were willing to provide loans to students from abroad in the absence of a U.S. resident to serve as a co-signer. Almost all discontinued their programs as the credit markets began melting down late last summer. This casts doubt on the plans of thousands of people hoping to study at universities across the country. Currently, there are approximately 3,300 international students in graduate and professional programs at Harvard.

– Harvard University Gazette Online
February 27, 2009

Foreign Graduates Shut Out of Wall Street Job Market

In an amendment added to the stimulus legislation in February by Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Bernard Sanders, I-VT, any firms or banks that have taken Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money are banned from hiring foreign workers who require H-1B visa sponsorship if they’ve laid off workers within the last 90 days. The legislation amounts to a blanket ban on the hiring of foreign workers.

Foreign students across some of the top U.S. business schools are being affected by this change in legislation. According to the Institute of International Education, of the 277,000 international students that enrolled for graduate studies in the fall of 2007, 16.3 percent were in business and management, indicating that approximately 45,000 students are potentially affected.

Wharton and New York University’s Stern School of Business told Forbes that their foreign students have had job offers rescinded but wouldn’t say how many. At the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, about 36 percent of students out of a class of 480 are from outside the United States. Tuck typically sees a third of its student take up jobs in finance.

– Forbes
March 9, 2009

Enrollments Surge at Community Colleges Across the Country

It is hardly news that in times of economic distress community college enrollments grow. It should come as no great surprise, therefore, that in this “once in a lifetime” economic downturn, community colleges are reporting a veritable flood of applications.

According to a survey released in March by the League for Innovation in the Community College, despite fairly serious budget cuts, enrollment increases are coming across the board in just about every major – with notable increases online.

The survey comes from 120 community college and district presidents or chancellors. And while much enrollment and budget data in higher education tends to be a bit dated, these figures focused on January of this year compared to January of last year. The survey found that more than 71 percent of community colleges are reporting increases in online enrollments of 5 percent or greater. But there is a gap between enrollment in individual courses versus in online degree or certificate programs.

– League for Innovation in the Community College
March 2009

Ohio State to Refocus Internationalization Efforts

Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee has announced plans to more than double the number of international undergraduates on campus and says every member of the student body should have a passport.

Currently, just three percent of the Ohio State undergraduate student body comes from overseas. In March in an interview with Bloomberg, Gee stated his aim to increase the portion of overseas students to 8-10 percent. Approximately 62,000 students attend Ohio State, with 80 percent of them hailing from Ohio. During the 2007-2008 school year, about 1,800 studied abroad.

– Bloomberg
March 18, 2009

Study: Undocumented Immigrants Good Business for Colleges

According to the findings of a study delivered to the State Board of Community Colleges in March, a majority of undocumented immigrants attending colleges in North Carolina pay out-of-state tuition, which more than cover the costs of educating them.

Based on information from the 2006-07 school year, the study found that the state makes approximately $1,650 on every student who pays out-of-state tuition, which would likely include ‘illegal immigrants’. By contrast, the cost of verifying the immigration status of students and instituting a permanent ban on illegal immigrants could cost colleges approximately $9,000 a year.

The preliminary report was part of the board’s effort to craft a permanent policy on the admission of undocumented immigrants at its 58 campuses. A final report from the consultants hired to conduct the study is due in mid-April. The board has been struggling with the issue since the winter of 2007, when a decision to admit illegal immigrants at all campuses – with out-of-state tuition rates — caused public uproar, causing them to close their doors to undocumented students.

In November, the board hired the Maryland consulting firm John B. Lee and Associates to study the costs of admitting undocumented immigrants and the practices of other states. The consultants looked at all the taxpayer money that goes into the colleges, and determined that the cost per student in 2006 and 2007 was $5,375. Out-of-state tuition that year was $7,024.

– News Observer
March 20, 2009

Study: Foreign Students Look to Return Home after Graduation

The Kauffman Foundation in March released a new report, “Losing the World’s Best and Brightest: America’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Part V,” based on a survey of foreign students in the U.S. The survey found that foreign students are becoming increasingly concerned about the U.S. economy, as well as their ability to get work visas, prompting them to say they are more likely than ever before to return home after graduating. The survey was conducted in October 2008 through the social networking website, Facebook.

– Kaufman
March 2009

Columbia Opens First 2 Researcher Centers in International Network

Columbia University officials are pushing a new approach to the internationalization of higher education by building a network of six to eight inter-disciplinary research centers in capitals around the world. The first Columbia Global Research Center was opened in March in Beijing. Days later, the university opened the Middle East Research Center in Amman, Jordan.

Lee C. Bollinger, the university’s president, told The Chronicle of Higher Education, “The idea is to engage in serious research, working with local institutions and our own students and faculty, as well interdisciplinary groups. The second big part of this is to try to connect them electronically, so groups in one region can work with groups in another, and make them all part of global studies.”

The centers will also serve as regional hubs for project-based scholarship, building on existing bilateral relationships to create a more multi-lateral international research model. Two other centers will be in Paris and either Mumbai or Delhi, with the goal of having a center on nearly every continent. The other sites have yet to be determined.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
March 20, 2009