Canada

Quebec Extends Foreign Students the Fast Lane to Citizenship

In a bid to attract foreign students to its colleges and universities, the province of Quebec is offering up fast-tracked citizenship to students who might otherwise be tempted to study in Australia, Britain, or the United States.

The province’s premier, Jean Charest, who led a delegation of university heads on a visit to India in February, told a packed meeting at the University of Mumbai that, starting on February 14, foreign students who graduated from universities in Quebec would get “a certificate of selection” that would put them on a fast track to Canadian citizenship.

“Any student who secures a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree from any university in Quebec will obtain a certificate of selection to become a citizen of Canada,” said Mr. Charest, according to The Times of India. “We have the right to select our own citizens. We are doing this because we have a shortage of skilled labor.”

Mr. Charest said that once foreign students had the certificate, the federal government would then carry out security and health checks before awarding citizenship.

– The Times of India
February 2, 2010

Canada’s Only Aboriginal University Loses Provincial Funds

The Canadian province of Saskatchewan has withdrawn its financial support for the troubled First Nations University, saying in February that the “government has lost confidence in the governance and management” of First Nations, Canada’s only aboriginally controlled university.

If the federal government too withdraws its funding, as it says it may after a re-examination of its support for the university, it could be the final nail in the coffin of the institution which has been in turmoil for over five years because of controversial hiring and firing decisions of senior officials, in addition to allegations of serious financial irregularities.

The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada put the university on probation in 2007.

– National Post
February 4, 2010

Canadians Discuss Implications of the Bologna Process

The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) has released a report of the 2009 AUCC Symposium on The Bologna Process and Implications for Canada’s Universities. Participants in the symposium – senior Canadian academic leaders and experts from Europe, Australia, Mexico and the United States – discussed the Bologna Process, its implications for Canadian universities, its challenges and opportunities.

– AUCC
January 2010

Canada Welcomes 10,000 Saudi Students Under Scholarship Scheme

The government of Saudi Arabia is currently funding overseas higher education for approximately 62,000 of its citizens, as it seeks to diversify the national economy from its dependence on oil. Currently, there are 10,000 Saudi students in Canada – a huge number when you consider there were just 1,500 in 2006 – with just over 8,000 of them there on King Abdullah scholarships.

In the space of just two years, Canada has become the third most popular destination for Saudi students, behind Britain and the United States. Most of the students begin their studies in Canada with months of language training before applying to programs in a field of study that has been approved by the Saudi scholarship commission.

At Toronto’s York University language school, they are turning Saudi English learners away as the school has reached its enrollment cap at 94 under a policy that no single group should account for more than one-third of students.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that more and more Saudis are choosing Canada because the word among current and prospective students is that the country is considered safe, more welcoming from a red-tape standpoint than the United States, although similar from a cultural and educational perspective.

The oil-rich Saudi government, attempting to move beyond its economic dependence on oil, gives its students studying abroad full-tuition scholarships and thousands in monthly “salary” payments to cover expenses. The program also covers 18 months of language training and provides “bench fees” of between C$5,000 and C$10,000 to universities that accept students into their graduate programs. To attract and fund graduate students, researchers usually must use money from their own budgets, but because the Saudi students come without these costs, they will enable researchers to spread tight budgets among more students.

– The Globe and Mail
March 6, 2010

For more information on the Saudi system of education and how to handle Saudi credentials, please visit the WES Resources and choose Saudi Arabia from the drop-down list.

Mexico

Cross-Border Studies Shuttered Due to Violence

The University of Texas at El Paso has suspended activities in neighboring Juárez as drug-related violence in the Mexican border town escalates. The University of Texas planned the new campus for its M.B.A programs with cross-border traffic in mind, building it just a mile from Mexico. But over the past year, escalating drug-related violence in El Paso’s sister city, Ciudad Juárez, has forced the university to suspend sponsored activities across the Rio Grande, including business-school exchanges.

And while students at the new downtown center will continue to study international business, they will mingle with their Mexican counterparts mainly over the internet, or on their home turf in El Paso.

“The violence across the border has had a devastating impact on us,” says Diana S. Natalicio, who joined the faculty in 1971 and has served as El Paso’s president since 1988. The violence directly across the border stems from a battle between the rival Juárez and Sinaloa drug cartels that has transformed a former tourist town into one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Last year alone, 2,600 people were murdered in Juárez, a city of 1.4 million people, after more than 1,600 killings in 2008.

The business school isn’t the only part of the university being affected. Teacher-education programs can no longer send students to assist in Mexican schools, while students in health fields, such as nursing and health promotion, cannot practice their skills in clinics across the border. All have been deferred until further notice. The loss is felt deeply at a university where nearly 75 percent of the students are Hispanic, and up to a quarter of the students in some programs are Mexican citizens. To make up for all but banning sponsored travel anywhere in Mexico, El Paso has stepped up partnerships and programs in South America and Asia.

Other border universities, including the University of Texas at Brownsville and the University of Texas-Pan American, in Edinburg, have similarly become more cautious about approving study in Mexico.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
February 14, 210

United States of America

UMass Cleared to Open State’s First Public Law School

The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education approved the creation of the state’s first public law school in February by green-lighting an application by the University of Massachusetts to offer a Juris Doctor degree, in essence endorsing the idea of affordable law degrees and more students choosing public-service careers in the state. The UMass application was reportedly challenged from three private law schools.

“We’ve been trying to do this in Massachusetts for nearly half a century, and we’ve been beaten back several times,’’ Richard Freeland, state commissioner for higher education, said in an interview after the board meeting at Bridgewater State College. “If we hadn’t gotten this done today, it would be another 50 years.’’

The board’s unanimous approval opens the doors for the first class of students to enroll in the fall. Under the plan, UMass Dartmouth will acquire Southern New England School of Law, a private institution that is donating its campus and assets to the state.

To Boston Globe reports that New England School of Law, Suffolk University, and Western New England School of Law campaigned hard against the public law school, lobbying legislators over the past four months and enlisting former state attorney general Thomas Reilly in an 11th-hour appeal that questioned the legality of the school’s financial plan.

The public law school, which still faces the challenge of getting accredited by the American Bar Association, will focus on public-service law with a curriculum in civil and human rights, legal support for operating businesses, community law practice, and economic justice. Massachusetts would become the 45th state with a public law school. New Hampshire is in the process of creating one. That leaves just Rhode Island, Vermont, Delaware, and Alaska as the only states without a public option.

– The Boston Globe
February 3, 2010

U. Phoenix Now Second Largest School System in the U.S.

With public higher education in the United States facing severe budget shortfalls, the for-profit sector appears to be capitalizing in a big way. For-profit universities now educate about 7 percent of the nation’s roughly 19 million students who enroll at degree-granting institutions each fall, and this year the University of Phoenix overtook California State University as the second largest higher-education system in the country, with 455,600 students as of February —behind only the State University of New York.

The figures come from Jeffrey M. Silber, a stock analyst and managing director of BMO Capital Markets, who estimates the for-profit sector brought in $26-billion in 2009, and of the roughly 3,000 for-profit institutions that currently operate in the United States, 40 percent are now owned by one of 13 large, publicly traded companies. Of the non-publicly traded companies, Kaplan Higher Education (owned by Washington Post Company) is the country’s largest, with approximately 103,800 students.

Aside from Phoenix (Apollo), large publicly traded companies include Education Management Corporation, with 136,000 students; Career Education Corporation, with about 113,900 students; and DeVry Inc., with 101,648 students.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education/
February 7, 2010

Online Enrollments Up 17 Percent in 2009

According to a study published in January, there was a 17 percent increase in online class enrollment last year among people enrolled in brick and mortar colleges and universities.

Approximately 4.9 million students took online courses last year, which is about 25 percent of college students, according to the “Learning on Demand” study released by the Sloan Consortium, an organization that aims to integrate online learning into mainstream higher education, with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

According to a summary of the findings in a video presentation by Professor I. Elaine Allen, the research director of the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson College, which undertook the research for the study, “higher education only grew by 1.2 percent, so the 17 percent growth rate [of online course enrollments] really is what’s driving the growth of higher education.”

More than 2,500 colleges and universities were surveyed for the study, which found that students may have been compelled to work more and make non-traditional class choices, like virtual ones, because of the economy.

– Sloan Consortium
January 26, 2010

New Open Doors Data on International Scholars and Community Colleges Released

New statistics were released in February from the Institute for International Education’s Open Doors 2009 report. The new data tables cover international student enrollment and study abroad participation at community colleges, international scholars in the U.S., and participation in Intensive English Programs.

In 2008/2009, 113,494 international scholars were teaching or conducting research at U.S. campuses, an increase of 7 percent from the previous year. The leading places of origin are: China, India, South Korea, Japan and Germany. Intensive English Programs enrolled 57,666 international students in 2008, an increase of 6 percent from the previous year. Leading places of origin are: South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, and China. International enrollments at community colleges were up 10.5 percent to 95,785.

– Institute for International Education
February 2010

New Jersey Tightens the Screw on Diploma Mills

In a bid to reduce abuses related to fake credentials from diploma mills, New Jersey legislators approved a measure in February that sets new requirements for schoolteachers and administrators who seek advanced degrees to obtain raises or tuition assistance.

Among other restrictions, the bill, S826, states that only degrees or credits from “duly authorized institutions of higher education” would be valid for such purposes. The bill, which requires the governor’s signature to become law, was approved by unanimous votes in State Senate on Monday and in the General Assembly on Thursday.

– NJ.com
February 22, 2010