The appliance of extra science is no economic panacea | John Morgan | Times Higher Education | 26 August 2010
Analysis finds no correlation between number of STEM graduates and growth. An academic believes he has found evidence to refute the government’s case that increased university provision of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects is needed to aid the economy.
Sector faces ‘precarious future’ | Andrew Trounson & Bernard Lane | The Australian Higher Education | 25 August, 2010
UNIVERSITIES going for dramatic early growth have been urged to think again as political uncertainty casts a pall over plans to prosper. “If I was an institution looking at more or less limitless growth in the hope that sustainable funding will follow, I’d be rethinking that,” said higher education commentator Lynn Meek, who directs the L. H. Martin Institute.
Struggling colleges reach for BPP life raft in a bid to stay afloat | Simon Baker | Times Higher Education | 19 August 2010
Chief executive ‘interested’ in running excellent departments closed by cuts. Struggling universities and colleges are seeking partnerships with Britain’s only for-profit university college in a bid to survive the harsh economic climate, according to its chief executive.
Rankings leap boosts Melbourne | Guy Healy | The Australian Higher Education | 18 August, 2010
AUSTRALIA improved its performance in the Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings despite a stronger showing by Chinese and Saudi universities, analysis shows. The University of Melbourne, which leapt from 75 to 62 on the back of alumna Elizabeth Blackburn’s 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, recorded the biggest increase of any university in the top 100.
Gates’s Millions: Can Big Bucks Turn Students Into Graduates? | Elyse Ashburn | Chronicle of Higher Education | 13 August, 2010
The article discusses the impact of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on higher education in the U.S. Studies funded by the Gates Foundation have shown that too few students are completing their college degrees and that college dropouts are a problem. The critics and proponents of the Gates Foundation are discussed, including author Diane Ravitch and Hilary Pennington, who is the director of education, postsecondary success, and special initiatives at the foundation. The foundation’s efforts to reform higher education and give all students, including minorities and low-income people, better access to college and college choice are discussed. Highline Community College in Washington state has received grant money from the Foundation to change its remedial math program.
The heat is on: official hints that cuts could rise to 35% | John Morgan | Times Higher Education | 12 August 2010
Warning to v-cs suggests per capita funding could fall to lowest in living memory. Higher education should plan for cuts of 35 per cent to its public funding over the next four years, the Cabinet secretary has told vice-chancellors.
Details murky, but fees may rise | Guy Healy | The Australian Higher Education | 11 August, 2010
HECS fees could jump 10 per cent in the first year of price deregulation under a Coalition government. But it would be unlikely to drive even poor students away from university, higher education experts say.
Funding cuts will bring some down but not all will ride into valley of death, v-cs predict | John Morgan | Times Higher Education | 5 August 2010
Institution heads cite ‘intransigent staff’ as one of their greatest constraints. Some universities will “fail or disappear” within the next three years, according to three-quarters of UK vice-chancellors questioned about the outlook for higher education.
No Coalition guarantee on HECS cap | Guy Healy, Bernard Lane, Andrew Trounson | The Australian Higher Education | 04 August, 2010
PRICE deregulation is emerging as an election issue, with the federal Coalition refusing to rule out an increase in HECS fees. In reply to an academic union survey, campaign director Brian Loughnane said Labor had left public finances in too poor a state for the Coalition to promise to keep the cap on HECS fees.
Higher Education in the Headlines 