Regional
Countries in Latin America Promote Study Abroad to Boost Standards
Countries in Latin America have among the lowest student mobility rates in the world, accounting for just 6 percent of the students who study abroad worldwide, according to the latest figures [1] from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. An October article from the Chronicle of Higher Education discusses the efforts of various Latin American countries to internationalize their higher education systems, as discussed by some 800 delegates from more than 30 countries at the third Conference of the Americas on International Education [2].
Brazil’s Scientific Mobility Program [3] is the most prominent of these efforts and is already halfway to its goal set in 2011 to send 101,000 students abroad by 2015, while Mexico announced in September that it intends to send 100,000 students to the United States by 2018 under a program known as Project 100,000. The initiative also seeks to bring 50,000 American students to study in Mexico during the same period. The region’s low student-mobility rates could start to change if Mexico succeeds in following Brazil’s lead, says the Chronicle article.
The number of foreign students in Mexico, and American students in particular, has plummeted because of the drug war, which has claimed more than 50,000 Mexican lives over the past seven years, according to the Mexican government. While 10,000 American students studied in the country in 2007, that number fell to below 4,000 after a spike in violence in 2010, according to U.S. Embassy officials in Mexico.
Other factors hindering internationalization in the region include the lack of a common credit system among universities, delegates said. They also cited the low level of interest among institutions in the United States in forming partnerships with Latin America, a sentiment shared within the region itself.
– The Chronicle of Higher Education [4]
October 18, 2013
Brazil
Education Company IPOs Suggests Boom Times in Brazilian Higher Ed
Brazilian education company GAEC Educação SA [5] launched an initial public offering (IPO) to raise as much as 626.3 million reais ($285 million) to fund expansion in Brazil’s highly competitive private university sector, thought to be worth $11 billion a year.
GAEC, which operates under the Anima Educação brand, operates three universities in the southeastern Brazilian cities of Belo Horizonte and Santos. It announced its debut in Brazil’s stock market the same week as another education company, Ser Educacional SA [6], disclosed a plan to raise 977 million reais through a share offering.
Reuters reports that IPOs have become a feasible fundraising option for Brazilian college operators, language schools and learning systems providers as merger and acquisition activity has heated up over the past two years. Brazil’s education industry has grown at a double-digit rate in recent years as a tight job market has demanded a skilled labor force with better technical knowledge, stronger analytical abilities and proficiency in foreign languages.
Anima says that the money it raises will allow it to carry out an aggressive acquisitions strategy. Today, it is already considering buying 42 institutions in 20 Brazilian states and a company that offers online distance learning programs, according to Reuters.
The Brazilian system of higher education only allowed for-profit companies in 1996, until which time higher education could only be provided by public or nonprofit institutions. Since then, private providers have been a popular option. Of the estimated seven million Brazilian students currently enrolled in postsecondary institutions, 73 percent are at private colleges and universities.
– Reuters [7]
October 4, 2013
Canada
Survey on Student Perceptions Towards Campus Internationalization
A new survey [8] of 1,398 students by Higher Education Strategy Associates seeks to gauge the opinion of domestic Canadian students towards the internationalization of their campuses.
The survey found that 43 percent of Canadian students had at least one international student among their five closest friends at university. Overall, the study found that students generally have positive attitudes toward the diversity that international students bring to their social lives and the classroom. However, the study also found that roughly a third said there have been occasions in which having international students in class hindered their learning experience.
Students in business and the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields – which attract large numbers of students from overseas – were least likely to agree that international students had enriched their learning experience.
With regards to international teaching staff, 70 percent of students said they took a course with an international instructor or T.A. who was difficult to comprehend because of his or her English or French ability. And 32 percent said an instructor’s language level had negatively impacted their ability to succeed in a course.
– Inside Higher Ed [9]
October 25, 2013
United States
New Private Pathway Provider & International Student Recruiter Inks Deals with U.S. University Partners
A new private-equity backed pathway provider and international student recruiter has emerged this year with the announcement of three deals with institutions in the United States and the UK in the last two months. Launched in January of this year, US-based Shorelight Education [10] says it has sufficient financial backing to support resources in 35 countries that are “primed and prepped” to recruit students.
Shorelight has signed agreements with the US’s second largest university, University of Central Florida, as well as Fordham University in Manhattan and Bath Spa University in the UK. Shorelight will invest in preparation programs, build infrastructure, provide student services and take care of back-end management – a model that a number of other competitor third-party pathway providers also offer. The universities will be responsible for the academic content of the courses and profits from the pathway program will be shared equally between the two entities.
Shorelight’s business approach comes from a whitepaper [11] written by co-founder Tom Dretler to guide college and university leaders to manage debt and be strategic in their spending in order to create profitable institutions.
– The PIE News [12]
October 7, 2013
For-Profit University Company Turns Heads
Laureate Education [13] counts 800,000 students among its student body, attending one of 78 institutions in 30 countries. Laureate operates the largest private university in Mexico, the 37-campus Universidad del Valle de México, and owns or controls 22 higher education institutions in South America (including 11 in Brazil), 10 in Asia, and 19 in continental Europe. Now, after 14 years of relatively under-the-radar growth, the company has been hitting the headlines.
In addition to its rapid growth abroad, the company has courted publicity by investing in the much-hyped Coursera, a massive open online course provider. And Laureate recently made news when the International Finance Corporation, a World Bank subsidiary, invested $150 million in the company – its largest-ever investment in education – for a tie-up with Monash South Africa [14] and a campaign to broaden access in developing nations.
The company has also stirred a degree of controversy over its affiliation with the struggling Thunderbird School of Global Management, a freestanding, nonprofit business school based in Arizona. The reaction from Thunderbird alumni, many of whom aren’t keen on a takeover by a for-profit, has dragged the company into the ongoing fight over the role of for-profits in American higher education, which Laureate had largely managed to avoid until now, reports Inside Higher Ed.
Laureate (previously known as Sylvan Learning Systems) is a U.S.-based entity (Baltimore) whose primary operations are outside the U.S. The company has moved into parts of the world where there are insufficient opportunities to pursue a higher education, investing heavily in developing nations. It’s based on this track record that the IFC invested in the company with the stated aim of helping Laureate expand access to career-oriented education in “emerging markets”: Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.
The company brought in approximately $3.4 billion in total revenue during the 2012 fiscal year, more than 80 percent of which came from overseas. For comparison, the Apollo Group – which owns the University of Phoenix and is the largest publicly traded for-profit chain in the U.S. – brought in about $4.3 billion in revenue last year. However, Apollo Global, which is an internationally focused subsidiary, only accounted for $295 million of that.
Company officials told Inside Higher Ed that they have no intention of slowing down, with continued plans for growth through buying and expanding institutions.
– Inside Higher Ed [15]
October 10, 2013
U.S. University Missteps Abroad
U.S. universities have been establishing campuses abroad for over two decades, in a bid to “burnish their reputation and attract foreign students,” says Bloomberg News in a recent article that goes on to posit that: “Now, controversies and stumbles at high-profile projects have led some to reconsider expansion.”
Among the setbacks: faculty dissent at New York University and Yale University, construction delays at Duke University’s campus in China, and lackluster enrollment at Persian Gulf campuses, all while politics in Russia are jeopardizing the success of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s project in Moscow.
Those experiences, together with the growth of online learning, where a professor in Chicago can easily connect with students in Mumbai, are giving colleges pause, said Ezekiel Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania. Like Harvard, Columbia and Stanford universities, Penn has chosen to establish small study centers in cities like Beijing rather than invest in campuses. Penn is also a partner of free online course provider Coursera Inc.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based MIT is being paid $300 million by Russia’s government to help develop the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology [16] as part of a $2.7 billion innovation hub on the outskirts of Moscow. However, its viability is threatened by a feud between Skolkovo’s founder, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and current President Vladimir Putin, who vetoed special benefits for the project’s technology park last year. In April, the offices of the foundation overseeing the university were raided by government agents as part of a corruption probe.
A lengthy laundry list of problems specific U.S. universities have faced in establishing overseas is detailed in the full Bloomberg piece [17].
– Bloomberg [17]
October 3, 2013
Medical School Applications & Enrollments Hit New Highs
The number of students applying to and enrolling at one of 141 accredited U.S. medical schools reached an all-time high this fall, according to figures released [18] in October by the Association of American Medical Colleges.
However, the number of government-supported residency positions, where medical-school graduates spend three to seven years training in a hospital or clinic with more-experienced doctors before they can practice independently, has been capped since 1997, and despite years of intense lobbying by medical and student groups, Congress has been unwilling to lift the cap.
In 2006 the AAMC called on medical schools to increase enrollments by 30 percent over the next decade to avert a predicted shortage of about 90,000 physicians.
“We’re on track to reach that goal in 2017, but here’s the rub,” Darrell G. Kirch, the medical-college association’s president, said during a recent news conference. “Unless we have a corresponding increase in residency positions,” growing numbers of medical-school graduates won’t be able to become fully trained physicians and the resulting shortage will be “a crisis for our nation,” he said.
The number of applicants increased by 6.1 percent, to around 48,000, exceeding the previous record, set in 1996. First-year enrollment was up by 3 percent this year, topping 20,000 for the first time. About half of the overall enrollment increase was due to four new medical schools that opened this year.
– Chronicle of Higher Education [19]
October 24, 2013