Regional

Audit Questions Oversight of Foreign Medical Schools

According to the findings of a recent audit, the U.S. Education Department’s federal student aid office has not adequately ensured that foreign medical schools are meeting federal requirements with regards to students passing licensing exams. This means that there is no guarantee that student loan funds were “disbursed only to students who attended schools that were eligible to participate in the Federal student loan programs,” according to the department’s inspector general in the January audit.

The audit found that the federal student aid office was “not timely in taking appropriate actions against schools identified as having failed to submit the required pass rate data or meet the pass rate threshold, inconsistent in its methodology for calculating pass rates, and accepted from some foreign medical schools pass rate data that were not complete or were not in the required format.”

– Inside Higher Ed
February 23, 2012

And Now a Ranking of Top-Tier, but Second-Choice Global Universities

The University of Sao Paulo and the University of British Columbia are two of nine institutions included in Foreign Policy Magazine’s listing of top flight international alternatives for U.S. students suffering the ignominy of potentially sending “Mom and Dad to the poor house for the $40,000 per year tuition at a middle-tier U.S. school.”

Also included are: the University of Hong Kong, the University of Melbourne, the University of Cape Town, Zurich Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, University of Tokyo, University of Barcelona, Cardiff School of Art and Design

– Foreign Policy
January 3, 2012

Australian Universities Seek Stronger Latin America Ties

A group of top Australian research universities visited South America in March to strengthen links with a region that has become an important education partner for Australia in recent years. The delegation visited Chile and Brazil for meetings with university leaders and education officials in Santiago, Brasilia, Belo Horizonte and Sao Paulo.

Many of Australia’s Group of Eight research universities already have links with the region’s top research-intensive universities such as the University of Sao Paulo, the University of Chile and the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. From 2004 to 2009, the number of agreements between Australian and South American universities almost trebled, from 80 to 230. During the same period the number of South American students across all sectors in Australia grew from 7,000 to more than 30,000.

In Chile the delegates met representatives from CONICYT, the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research, and members of the Chilean university rectors’ group, CRUCH. In Brazil the primary focus of the visit was a meeting with the Ministry of Education to follow up on the Science Without Borders program recently announced by President Dilma Roussef.

– Asian Correspondent
March 11, 2012

Canada

U.S. Students Migrate North to Beat Tuition Inflation

As public funding cuts bite and tuition fees continue to soar across the U.S., an ever increasing number of American students are seeing the benefits of a Canadian higher education, reports Reuters. Even at international rates, the typical price tag of a Canadian undergraduate education is significantly cheaper than it would be at top private universities in the U.S. or for out-of-state public schools.

Over the last five years, an average of 10,000 U.S. students per year have headed to Canada for higher education, according to the Canadian Embassy in Washington, up from just 2,300 15 years ago. That’s the case even though the exchange rate is now close to par compared to a decade ago when the Canadian dollar was worth just 60 cents on the U.S. dollar, making cross-border education significantly cheaper.

The average private four-year college in the United States costs an average of $28,500 a year in tuition and fees, according to the College Board –  and many much more than that – so it still can make financial sense for U.S. students to look across the border. At top Canadian schools such as McGill University in Montreal, international undergraduate fees are US$17,000 a year. In smaller cities, the options might be even better from a financial standpoint. Other benefits include the ability to work both on and off-campus during studies, the ease of procuring a student visa, and the broad recognition of Canadian degrees among graduate schools and employers in the United States

– Reuters
February 15, 2012

Credit Transfer Process Moves Forward in Ontario

A new agency established by the Ontario government last year has been mandated with broad powers to develop a new credit-transfer system for postsecondary students in the province, making it easier for them to transfer their studies between levels and institutions.

In March, the College University Consortium Council was wound down and officially replaced with the Ontario Council on Articulation and Transfer, or ONCAT. While CUCC mainly facilitated the transfer of students from colleges to universities, ONCAT will also try to smooth the way for students to move from universities to colleges, from one college program to another, and from one university program to another. It is hoped the changes will lessen the need for repeated courses by transfer students, allowing them to complete their studies sooner.

The current system is highly fragmented. While many transfer agreements are in place, no two look alike, and students struggle to make sense of which credits count where. The provincial government estimates that about 4,000 college graduates transfer to universities every year.

– University Affairs
February 29, 2012

Where are the Foreign Students?

As has been well documented in recent years, Canada is becoming an increasingly popular host of international students. Canadian degrees are cheaper than they are in the United States, perhaps more respected than Australia’s, and the country has more welcoming visa and immigration policies than the UK.

Some provinces are more aggressively recruiting than others. Nova Scotia decided in 2009 that foreign students are a solution to the province’s shrinking tax base. British Columbia’s premier said that she wants 50 percent more international students over the next four years.

The chart below uses figures from Statistics Canada to illustrate which provinces are bringing in the biggest numbers of students, both in absolute numbers and in comparison to their resident populations. Ontario and B.C. score well on both fronts, although British Columbia clearly has the highest concentration of international students, even if Ontario outperforms in absolute numbers.

International Students in Canada by Province (2011)
Province	Student Permits in Dec. 2011	Percent of total foreign permits	Percent of national population	Growth in permits over 2007
Ontario	96,808	40.4%	38.4%	48
British Columbia	66,556	27.8%	13.1%	33
Quebec	33,697	14.1%	23.6%	25
Alberta	16,618	6.9%	10.9%	20
Nova Scotia	8,553	3.5%	2.8%	37
Manitoba	5,780	2.4%	3.6%	10
Saskatchewan	4,849	2%	3.1%	38
New Brunswick	3,612	1.5%	2.2%	11
Newfoundland	1,803	0.8%	1.5%	31
P.E.I.	786	0.3%	0.4%	65

Source: Citizenship and Immigration Canada, RDM, Preliminary 2011 Data.

– Macleans
March 6, 2012

Colombia

More Public-Private Partnerships

Colombia is increasing its investments in public-private partnerships in higher education as it looks to increase student enrollments through the private sector. But the partnerships will likely be with non-profit universities only, as the for-profit sector is strongly opposed by students and university rectors alike.

Protesting students forced the Colombian government to retract a bill in November that, among other things, proposed allowing for-profit institutions to set up, and private companies to finance public universities. However, private non-profits, many of them church foundations, have operated for a long time in Colombia.

Colombia is unusual in that growth in public higher education enrollments is now outpacing private higher education enrollments due to rapidly increasing secondary graduation rates, especially outside large metropolitan areas.

In February, Colombian university leaders and students were invited by the government to help draft a new higher education reform bill intended to improve the quality of private institutions and the funding of public ones. The idea of allowing for-profit private universities in the bill seems unlikely given the strong public opposition to them.

– University World News
March 18, 2012

Ecuador

Private ‘Garage Universities’ Face Closure

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa recently called small private for-profit universities in Ecuador’s mushrooming private sector “garage universities,” in an interview with the New York Times in March during which he was discussing a round of institutional evaluations that may lead to the closure of a number of institutions.

There were 24 privately owned universities and two public schools that received a failing grade from the Ecuadorean government, meaning that if they do not make major improvements they will be closed. Results of a second round of evaluations of the failing schools will be announced in April, and it is expected that a number of institutions will have to close.

Mr. Correa’s leftist government is undertaking a major reset of the system, which includes 71 universities and 621,000 students. That effort began in earnest in late 2009 when the government conducted an evaluation of the country’s universities, grading them from A to E.

This year, for the first time, admission to the country’s 29 public universities, which enroll about 70 percent of all students, will be based on an aptitude test. That is meant to replace a chaotic, often unfair and, some say, corrupt admissions system. Unlike the SAT in the United States, the test measures basic learning skills, rather than knowledge, and the government hopes it will help increase university access among poorer students, including indigenous groups.

The government is also seeking to improve the quality of teaching. By 2017, all professors must have at least a master’s degree, and many will be required to have a doctoral degree. Due to a lack of capacity in research programs at Ecuador’s universities, the government has embarked on an ambitious scholarship program to send postgraduate students abroad. Last year, 1,070 students got the scholarships. This year, Mr. Ramírez expects that number to exceed 3,000. A few years ago, no more than 20 got the scholarships. Students who get the scholarships agree to return to Ecuador when their studies are finished and remain there for at least twice the time the government paid for them to be abroad. The government hopes they will become university professors or work in the private sector.

– The New York Times
March 18, 2012

Mexico

Pearson to Launch Online University

Pearson, a global publishing, media and education company, has signed an agreement with the Mexican curriculum and technology company INITE (Instituto Internacional de Investigación de Tecnología Educativa) to launch an online university for Mexicans that will be know as UTEL.

According to a Pearson news release, UTEL will be the first degree-granting university of its kind in Latin America, and will offer undergraduate- and graduate-level programs. In addition to its own online offerings, the university will also offer ‘co-branded’ programs with campus-based classes offered to part-time students who want a stronger connection to an institution or a traditional brand. In addition, UTEL will offer a platform for existing higher education institutions to offer online programs through its ‘Scala’ technology.

Pearson, which owns the Financial Times and a broad portfolio of education publishers, owns a number of educational companies and institutions around the world. These include CTI, a South African university enrolling more than 9,000 students; Wall Street English, a global group of language schools in 27 countries; and Pearson Learning Studio, an online learning platform.

– Pearson news release
March 1, 2012

United States

Quarter Systems Being Replaced By Semesters

Inside Higher Ed reports on a national trend where are an increasing number of institutions of higher education are replacing quarter systems with semester calendars in hopes of encouraging transfers and increasing internship and study abroad opportunities.

Semesters have long been more popular than quarters, but a recent stream of institutional switches has widened the gap significantly. In Ohio, the state’s public colleges are carrying out a request by the University System of Ohio to create a common calendar, and smaller private colleges are following that lead. By fall of this year, all public institutions will be on the semester calendar.

According to data provided by the National Association of College Stores, a trade group for campus bookstores, 71.2 percent of the 4,373 institutions it surveyed last fall were on a semester calendar. Only 14.7 percent of colleges used quarters. Other institutions use trimesters and other less common schedules. While NACS doesn’t have data for previous years, the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers tracked the use of the semester calendar between 1990 and 2001. That study found the percentage of institutions using a semester calendar increased from 62 percent to 70 percent in those 11 years.

– Inside Higher Ed
February 7, 2012

University Accreditors Hint at Tighter Regulations on Overseas Programs

At the annual conference of the Association of International Education Administrators, leaders from the nation’s six regional accrediting bodies warned that universities setting up collaborative degree or academic programs overseas would be subject to increased scrutiny.

Reviewing American colleges’ activities overseas has not been a major focus of regional accreditors in the past, but Richard Osborn, a vice president of the Western Association of Colleges and Schools, said his agency is paying more attention and recently approved new rules that tighten how credits can be awarded in dual-degree programs, limiting the number of credits in upper-level courses that can be counted toward both degrees.

As a result, a major Chinese-American dual-degree program, which has dozens of participating Chinese and American institutions, is out of compliance and could lose accreditation, he said. (The accrediting agency is allowing a three-year grace period.)

During the same session, Marsal Stoll from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools encouraged institutions beginning academic collaborations abroad to ask themselves a few key questions, such as which partner will vet course content and supervise students and faculty members, as well as how academic credit will be awarded. These are questions, she noted, that accreditors will be raising when they review international-degree programs and collaborations.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
February 22, 2012

A Plan to Revitalize a Battered Michigan Economy with Foreign Students

In June of last year, a program aimed at revitalizing the economy of southeast Michigan was awarded a three-year, $450,000 grant to harness the talent and economic potential of international students at Michigan’s colleges and universities.

The New Economy Initiative of Southeast Michigan awarded Detroit’s University Research Corridor (URC) a three-year, $450,000 grant to launch the Global Detroit International Student Retention Program. The program is based on recommendations outlined in a May 2010 Global Detroit study funded by the New Economy Initiative.

According to URC Executive Director Jeff Mason, the Global Detroit International Student Retention Program directly supports the URC’s mission to transform, strengthen and diversify the state’s economy.

“Michigan’s reinvention requires us to retain the best talent we can,” Mason said, “regardless of whether those students hail from Michigan or come here to study in our great universities. By attracting and retaining the best and brightest, we can accelerate the pace of change to a high-tech, highly skilled knowledge-based economy.”

Michigan hosted 23,500 international students at the time of the report, the 8th largest population of international students of any state, while immigrants file nearly 50 percent of Michigan’s international patents and are three times as likely to start a business, according to the report.

The Global Detroit Study noted research by Vivek Wadhwa at Duke University and Anna Lee Saxenian at the University of California-Berkeley, which shows that “foreign born talent already has had a profound impact on Michigan’s tech economy with an estimated 32.8 percent of all the high technology firms created in the state from 1995-2005 having at least one immigrant founder.”

– University of Michigan News Release
June 02, 2011

Universities Increasingly Interested in Recruiting From India

New survey results presented at the annual conference of the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA) show a growing interest among U.S. universities in recruiting Indian students, particularly at the graduate level. The survey of 83 higher education officials, 90 percent of whom were from the U.S., offered some examples of how these institutions are looking at the huge Indian education market.

• 86 percent expected to increase their presence in India over the next three years.
• Very few have or are interested in a branch campus in India.
• 46 percent of colleges with a presence in India rated their engagement to be good.
• While 85 percent of colleges had study abroad programs in India, only 20 percent said that engagement was good.

While there is without doubt strong demand for education among Indian students, AIEA members report much stronger demand at the graduate level.

– Inside Higher Education
March 9, 2012

Chinese Students Rate U.S. Universities Highly, But Find them Confusing

According to a new survey, American universities remain popular with Chinese students, although they are frequently confused by the country’s higher-education system.

Published by the Art & Science Group, a consulting company, the survey received responses from 647 high school students who said they were interested in studying in an English-speaking country. Among them, 78 percent said they wanted to go to college in the United States. The quality of American education and its focus on problem solving and critical thinking topped the list for why they were interested.

In the same survey, 41 percent of students indicated that they weren’t sure if they were prepared academically to study in the United States, and 37 percent said they don’t know very much about American colleges and universities. Of the students who said they were interested in going to America, 26 percent said they used an agent, 57 percent said they did not, and 17 percent said they didn’t know. Of those who did hire an agent, most said the primary reason for doing so was because “applying to American colleges is very confusing, and agents make it simpler.”

– StudentPoll China
February 27, 2012