Regional
20% of International Students Stay on in OECD Countries After Graduation
According to a new study from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a growing number of international students are staying put in the country where they received higher training – enticed by measures designed to encourage them to stay and work after graduation, meaning that international students have become an increasingly important route for high-skilled migration.
The OECD’s annual International Migration Outlook 2010 [1], released in late July, cites new policies designed to “attract and retain highly skilled immigrants,” as being a driving force behind the growth in international students as high-skilled immigrants. The report calculated for the first time ‘stay rates’ among students converting their status from student to migrant, suggesting that national policies had led to a big increase in those stay rates.
The report cited a number of examples including those of Finland and Norway, countries that have amended their naturalization laws to take into consideration the years of residence as a student when assessing eligibility for citizenship. It also cited Canada’s recently introduced immigration measures designed to facilitate permanent residence for international graduates.
Of the countries supplying data, the number of student-to-worker status changes ranked lowest in Austria and Belgium, with fewer than 300, and highest in France (14,700), followed by Canada (13,000), and Germany and Japan with approximately 10,000 each. The estimated stay rate for international students studying in all OECD countries is about one in five students on average. This rises to almost one in three in France and Germany. The figures are based on 2007 status changes. The majority of students (61%) who changed status did so for work-related reasons, according to the OECD, with a higher share of status changes due to marriage in Germany and for humanitarian reasons in Canada.
– OECD [2]
July 2010
European Universities Sweat Shanghai Rankings
Like it or not, the Shanghai Jiaotong [3] ranking of the world’s top 500 universities [4] has become an extraordinarily influential tool in the increasingly lucrative market for international students, and European education ministers are reportedly taking note.
France’s higher education minister travelled to Jiaotong University’s Shanghai campus in July to discuss the rankings, the Norwegian education minister came last year and the Danish minister visited in August. Dozens of university presidents have also made the trip.
“We believed the results would be of interest to university experts and scholars all around the world but we never imagined the rankings would be so influential,” Ying Cheng, the executive director of Jiaotong’s Center for World-Class Universities, told Agence France Presse in a recent interview.
The rankings are focused almost entirely on achievements in scientific research, and do not cover the humanities, a fact that has caused many to debunk the utility of the ratings. Nonetheless, they continue to spark great debate upon release each year. In France, the Jiaotong rankings prompted a surge of articles decrying the poor performance of the country’s universities. In Rome, not having a university in the top 100 leads to soul searching, but Spain will celebrate a top 200 placement as a national success, said Michaela Saisana, who analyzed the rankings’ methodology for the European Commission.
For seven years, Harvard University [5] has topped the survey. Stanford University [6] was runner-up last year and the University of California, Berkeley [7], was third. The only non-US schools in last year’s top 10 were the University of Cambridge [8] at number four and its rival Oxford [9] at number 10. This year, Stanford and UC Berkeley swapped places, while Cambridge slid one spot. And while the idea for the rankings was born in 1998, when Beijing decreed China needed several world-leading universities, the debates over the rankings mainly take place outside China.
“The Chinese universities are not ranked as well as some people expected, so they are not willing to talk about them,” Ying said.
France – keen to improve its results, which favor larger universities – is investing five billion euros (6.5 billion dollars) in “Operation Campus” to group universities into larger research centers. Higher Education Minister Valerie Pecresse visited Jiaotong in July to promote the campus campaign and lobby for French universities, Ying said.
– AFP [10]
August 12, 2010
Students Across Europe Protest ‘Americanization’ of Higher Education
The Christian Science Monitor reports that there has been a backlash by students against the Bologna European higher education reforms, and what they see as American-style privatization of a system that has been enshrined as an institution that should be free to all.
In Spain, students have occupied university buildings, blocked train lines, and interrupted Senate meetings. In Paris, they have paralyzed the metro. In Prague, protesters held graduate “auctions” where fictitious companies auctioned off the most “efficient” graduates. Philosophy majors reportedly did not sell well. In March, thousands of demonstrators protested the European education ministers at the Bologna Process’s 10th anniversary celebration in Vienna and Prague.
A voluntary agreement among 45 countries – from the European Union and 19 others, including Russia and Turkey – the Bologna Process [11] was initiated as a means of harmonizing degree structures across the region to promote international mobility in the work place and in academia, the sharing of ideas, and also to realign tertiary instruction with the needs of the labor markets. But to many, Bologna is synonymous with making students pay. England was the first European country to introduce tuition fees in 1998, paving the way for other countries, such as the Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal to do the same. However, fees remain minimal, except in England.
– Christian Science Monitor [12]
August 27, 2010
Germany
International Enrollments Grew 2.4% in 2009
According to figures released in July, the foreign student body at German institutions of higher education increased 2.4 percent in 2009 to 239,143, representing 11.8 percent of the total population of students in German higher education. Approximately 59,000 of those students graduated from German secondary high schools but are still considered foreign students. Foreign enrollment peaked in Germany in 2006 with just over 248,000 students.
The data from the annual Wissenschaft-Weltoffen [13] study shows that China is the largest source country, with a total of 24,746 students, followed by Turkey (22,335), Russia (12,378), Poland (12,252), and Bulgaria (9,544). However, if students who graduated from the German secondary system are discounted, then the top country of origin remains China (23,140), but is followed by Russia (9,740), Poland (9,401), Bulgaria (9,162), and Ukraine (6,324). Nearly all Turkish students in German higher education graduated through the German school system. The top three fields of study were Economics and Business, Information Technology, and Mechanical Engineering.
– Wissenschaft-Weltoffen [13]
July 15, 2010
Greece
US University Suspends Greece-based Masters Program
Carnegie Mellon University [14] has suspended a master’s program in Athens, because of the recession’s effect on Greece’s economy, reports the Associated Press. The university said its partner in Greece, Athens Information Technology, [15] can no longer afford to support the program.
Since 2002, Carnegie Mellon’s College of Engineering has offered a master’s of science in information networking in Greece. The program now enrolls just 15 students, who are receiving assistance to make sure they complete their degrees. When originally announced, the program had hoped to enroll a total of 150 students by 2008. University spokesman Ken Walters says the program has enrolled 132 students in eight years. Despite the suspension, the university’s other international programs in Qatar, India, and Portugal are reportedly doing well.
– Associated Press [16]
August 26, 2010
The Netherlands
Attracting British Students with Cheaper Tuition and Quality Instruction (in English)
According to a recent article in Times Higher Education, recent budget cuts at British universities will limit available places for domestic students, and Maastricht University [17] in The Netherlands was recruiting those rejected by their first-choice UK universities after A-level results were announced in August.
Maastricht University is offering degrees in English across eight subject areas, with the cost of tuition about half that charged by UK universities. The Dutch institution, which is about three hours from London by train, is aiming to tap into the huge mismatch between demand and supply in the UK, where as many as 200,000 students might miss out on a place this year.
Maastricht’s president Jo Ritzen said: “The university is a world-class institution. I am confident that UK students will get an even better education here and for less than half the price in the UK.”
Tuition fees are £1,500 a year provided applicants are under the age of 30. Applicants are also being offered cut-price accommodation near the university that will cost €400 (£328) a month.
– Times Higher Education [18]
August 16 2010
Poland
Higher Education Reforms
Barbara Kudrycka, the Polish minister of higher education, is putting together a series of legislative bills that she hopes will help transform a system of higher education that commentators say is suffering from a declining university-age population, low numbers in graduate programs and a failure to produce top-flight research.
Since the collapse of communism in 1989, the education system has been successful in educating millions of people, many of whom were already in the workforce and suddenly needed the training and skills to survive in a market economy. Part of that process was the rapid growth of private universities across the country, which now total 325 institutions, educating one-third of Poland’s two million post-secondary students (or about 40 percent of Poland’s 19- to 24-year-olds).
However, the rapid growth of private universities, and a similar expansion in public schools, has also contributed to some problems, as underlined by a report prepared for Ms. Kudrycka by Ernst & Young together with private think tank Gdansk Institute for Market Economics.
The report found that a majority of private universities are weak academically, relying on professors who often collect paychecks from multiple institutions. More than half of all students also are concentrated in a handful of fields, including management, marketing, media studies and sociology, which has led to overcrowding and a surplus of graduates with qualifications that are not in demand in the labor market.
The report also pointed to a weakness in research, which tends to be focused on local issues and published in Polish. While some might argue that university research needs to be focused on issues of local importance, the report notes that a lack of internationally published research from Polish institutions means that their performance in international rankings is comparatively weak.
A demographic shift toward smaller families means that the population is set to shrink after a boom in the latter years of the communist regime, meaning that weaker private schools will likely be forced to close, or they will have to consolidate with stronger partners.
The report has called for dramatic changes to the education system, including the creation of U.S.-style colleges that will grant four-year bachelor’s degrees, as well as institutions that will give practical professional training. At the top of the new structure would come top-flight research universities. The issue of tuition fees has also been floated, but that would require an amendment to the Polish constitution, which currently guarantees a free education to all.
– Global Post [19]
August 19, 2010
Republic of Ireland
Research Gets Major Cash Infusion
Irish research institutions are set to receive record levels of funding under the largest research investment plan in the history of the Republic of Ireland. According to Brian Cowen, the Irish Prime Minister, the government is planning to spend EUR359 million (US$473 million) to transform the country into ‘Europe’s innovation hub.’
Still staggering from the collapse of the property and banking markets, the government is hoping the so-called ‘smart economy’ will help reinvigorating Ireland’s stagnant economy. The new funding is in fact an extension of Ireland’s Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions [20] (PRTLI), which was launched in 1998 and to date has seen expenditure of EUR865 million over four cycles. The new cycle will run from 2010 to 2016.
The program has been credited with moving Ireland from a low value manufacturing economy to a high value knowledge economy, which has attracted many leading IT and pharmaceutical companies to its shores. Much of the program thus far has been focused on attracting talent to university faculties in addition to major infrastructure upgrades.
– Epoch Times [21]
July 22, 2010
Sweden
Applications from Abroad Surge in the Last Admission Cycle Before Tuition Fees are Introduced for Foreigners
Applications to Swedish universities from abroad increased sharply this year, with the introduction of tuition fees for students from outside the European Union set to go into effect in the fall of next year. Overseas applications to master’s programs beginning this spring were up by 43 percent, according to statistics from the National Admissions Office to Higher Education in Sweden (VHS). Applications among foreign students grew from 18,329 to 26,280, with the most popular programs being in information and computer technology, and in international relations and human rights.
Leading universities have recently announced the fees they will charge from 2011, with Uppsala University [22] stating that it will charge between EUR8,900 (US$11,400) and EUR20,000 a year, while Lund University [23] has set its range at EUR10,000-15,000 a year. The fees appear to be in line with those charged by British universities, which are the highest in Europe, both for domestic students and overseas students.
In 2009, students from outside the EU totaled approximately 24,000 – a 12 percent increase from the previous year and representing a quarter of all new students. Half came from Asia with the largest national groups from China, Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh and India.
– Stockholm News [24]
August 19, 2010
United Kingdom
Are British Universities Attracting Less Talented Chinese Students than US Universities?
According to a recent article and blog posting in the Daily Telegraph, British universities are attracting less-talented students than the United States. The two articles were published soon after the release of Shanghai Jiaotong’s annual Academic Ranking of World Universities [4] and drew a link between the perceived ‘dismal’ performance of British universities in the rankings, and Chinese perceptions as to the quality of tertiary study opportunities in the country.
Although Cambridge [8] and Oxford [9] made the top ten, in fifth and tenth place respectively, the list produced by Shanghai’s Jiaotong University was dominated by American institutions, which won 17 of the top 20 spots, the Telegraph articles point out. But with British institutions like University College London [25] (21), Imperial College London [26] (26), and the University of Manchester [27] (44) falling so far down the scale, Chinese students seemed likely to turn their sights towards America , according to a blog posting accompanying the lead article.
A British student studying for a doctorate at Peking University [28] said that most Chinese students she knows would “rather study in a B or C Grade” American university than take a paid-for place at a British establishment.
“Basically, taking a place at a British university is saying that you are not part of the elite. The really best minds will get funded positions in American and only the lesser ones, or the children of the wealthy and politically connected, would bother to go to Britain,” the unnamed doctoral students commented, adding that, “the UK university system thinks they are so great because so many Chinese are coming, but they don’t see which Chinese are coming.”
British universities in the top 100: Cambridge (5) Oxford (10) University College London (21) Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine (26) University of Manchester (44) University of Edinburgh (54) King’s College London (63) University of Bristol (66) University of Nottingham (84) University of Sheffield (88) University of Birmingham (99).
– Daily Telegraph [29]
August 16, 2010
– Daily Telegraph [30]
August 13, 2010
Secondary School Grade Inflation
The Economist blogger on all things Britain, Bagehot, posted a blog in August with some revealing statistics related to grade inflation at the secondary level of the British education system.
Stating that, “every year, the number of good grades goes up,” Bagehot backs up his claim – after berating the sterile argument between those who say exams are getting easier and those who say students are getting smarter – with some figures that are pretty hard to refute. He then concludes that neither side is right, suggesting that lots of students are working harder than before, but exams are also getting easier.
Bagehot cites data from 25 years of O-level and GCSE results at what he describes as “a ferociously academic, selective private school in the middle of London (Westminster School [31]), with inspiring, well-paid teachers, engaged (and often driven) parents and appallingly ambitious pupils who worked like stink, even back then in the supposedly laid-back 1980s.”
As the Economist blogger notes, in his day, “it was fantastically rare to get straight A grades. I think three pupils achieved this. Maybe another five got 10 As and 1 B grade. Now, I note, 98% of GSCEs passed at my old school are A or A* grade (a new top grade that did not exist in the old days).”
Take a look at the tables for GSCE and A level results at the school since 1988 [32], and see if you agree with Bagehot’s conclusion that “results show jaw-dropping grade inflation.”
– The Economist [33]
August 16, 2010
Net Migration Increase Fueled by Students
According to official government statistics, huge growth in the number of foreign students in the United Kingdom helped drive up net migration (the difference between incoming and outgoing migrants) by 20 percent last year.
The government issued 35 percent more foreign student visas from June 2009 to June 2010, granting a total of 362,015 students entry to study in the UK. The news came at a time when British students were scrambling for university places, with as many as 200,000 set to miss out on a place because of a government cap on the number of British students universities are allowed to enroll. Despite the record number of student applications – up 11.6 percent this year – there is no such cap on the number of foreign students.
The BBC‘s Andy Tighe said the increase in student visas revealed by the Home Office’s annual bulletin [34] was significant, and there was some concern within the government about how easy it appeared to be for people to move to the UK with their families on study-related permits.
– BBC [35]
August 26, 2010
Cambridge Ranked as Best University in the World by QS
Cambridge University [8] was ranked as the best university in the world in 2010, beating Harvard University [5] into second in the QS World University Ranking [36]. This was the first time since 2004 that Harvard was not ranked number one; however, the 2010 rankings remain dominated by American institutions, with 53 of the top 200 universities located in the United States.
This is the first year that Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd. is producing the influential rankings without the collaboration of Times Higher Education, after the publication and the research firm went their separate ways last year. Instead, Times Higher Education [37] produced its own league table of universities in partnership with the media company Thompson Reuters, releasing it a week after QS.
Cambridge benefitted this year from a greater number of academic citations per faculty member, while Harvard suffered from a slight increase in its faculty to student ratio. Yale [38] retained its third place from last year. The QS rankings are compiled by surveying each institution’s reputation among academics and employers, the proportion of international students and staff, the number of citations and the ratio of students to staff. More than 15,000 academics were surveyed, an increase from last year’s 4,000 survey responses.
The QS top 10 featured six U.S.-based universities and four from the U.K., with the University of Oxford [9] in sixth place behind University College London [25] in fourth and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [39] in fifth. Switzerland’s ETH Zurich [40] was the highest placed university outside of the U.K. and U.S. in 18th place, ahead of Montreal- based McGill University [41] and Australian National University [42] in Canberra completing the top 20. The University of Hong Kong [43] was the highest-ranked Asian university, moving up a place to 23rd.
– QS [36]
September 7, 2010