Budgets bitten by research funding | Jill Rowbotham | The Australian Higher Education | 27 July, 2011
PRESSURE to perform well in audits such as Excellence in Research for Australia and in international rankings has left universities juggling their budgets to cover an estimated $2.7 billion research spending shortfall.
And, says Frank Larkins, whose analysis of the situation is published today by the LH Martin Institute, it could get worse.
Great Colleges Reap the Benefits of Great Workplace Culture | Josh Fischman | Chronicle of Higher Education | 24 July, 2011
Great academic workplaces are filled with people who believe that their jobs are important to the college, that the institution is important to the community, and that the college gives them the freedom to do that job well. Those are some of the findings of The Chronicle’s Great Colleges to Work For survey for 2011, which identifies 111 colleges—small, medium, and large, all across the country—that are exceptional places to work.
Postgraduates ‘priced out of the market’ by sharp fee increases | John Morgan | Times Higher Education | 21 July 2011
Rising costs may herald a decline in uptake of higher degrees by home students. Universities are raising their fees for home and European Union postgraduate students sharply, a survey suggests, prompting warnings about access to academia and other professions.
Conflict at deals for top Year 12s | Andrew Trounson | The Australian Higher Education | 20 July, 2011
TENSIONS at the University of Melbourne over the fairness of providing guaranteed postgraduate pathways only to students with high Year 12 scores, has underlined the high-wire act institutions face in balancing equity and the pursuit of prestige. Melbourne’s decision recently to lower performance thresholds at undergraduate level for high-achieving Year 12 students in order to secure a guaranteed offer of a subsidised postgraduate place was hotly debated at an academic board before agreement was reached. It prompted one academic to complain to the HES that the decision represented the “revenge” of parents of elite private school students, upset that Melbourne doesn’t automatically give high Year 12 scorers direct entry into professional study.
Few Finance Chiefs Are Optimistic in Face of Slow Recovery | Goldie Blumenstyk and Jeffrey Brainard | The Chronicle of Higher Education | 15 July, 2011
Loss of state support and trouble raising tuition worry leaders. Fewer than one-third of college chief financial officers are more optimistic about the state of the U.S. economy today than they were a year ago, according to a new Chronicle-Moody’s survey of nearly 500 college CFO’s. Yet when it comes to the financial prospects of their own institutions, a tad more than that—39 percent—are more optimistic today.
Will Treasury coffers trump student pockets? | Simon Baker, David Matthews | Times Higher Education | 14 July 2011
Offa data raise fears that universities offering access bursaries will suffer. Ministers have been accused of restricting opportunity for poorer students by penalising universities that choose to help them through their studies with bursaries and other upfront financial support.
Women doing OK but men lagging behind | John Ross | The Australian Higher Education | 13 July, 2011
WOMEN have all but met the federal government’s higher education attainment goals, but the overall population can’t reach the target unless men’s participation rates improve drastically, according to a Sydney higher education researcher. International education consultant Alan Olsen said about 603,000 domestic female students had obtained higher education qualifications between 2000 and 2009, almost 50 per cent more than the 404,000 completions by their male counterparts. His 10-year analysis, which tallied domestic completions against the corresponding population of 25 to 34-year-olds, revealed a 39.1 per cent attainment rate among women.
Pucker up, piglets | Simon Blackburn | Times Higher Education | 7 July 2011
Having made a pig of university funding, the government had to dress it up. But who will be seduced by a brazen shade of ‘Student Experience’ lipstick or the White Paper’s other blandishments?
The tone of the government’s White Paper on higher education in England is set early on: “Higher education has a fundamental value in itself and our universities are, in many ways, world-class: in research; in attracting international students; and in contributing to the economy. But the challenge they face is putting the undergraduate experience at the heart of the system: that is the key issue addressed in this White Paper.”
Boom needs student skills: report | John Ross | The Australian Higher Education | 06 July, 2011
A UNIVERSITIES Australia-commissioned report has found the broad economy could take a bigger hit than universities themselves from the downturn in international education, which could cost 57,000 jobs and strip $6.2 billion from gross domestic product by 2015. However, experts say the modelling behind the report is flawed and some of the proposed solutions – a heavier investment in overseas campuses and exempting international students from skilled migration restrictions – are unworkable.
At Princeton, a Life Taken | Robin Wilson | Chronicle of Higher Education | 1 July, 2011
The suicide of a senior lecturer raises questions about his behavior, and the university’s. The undergraduates in Antonio Calvo’s advanced Spanish class at Princeton University had been waiting for 20 minutes, but their instructor still hadn’t arrived. It wasn’t like him not to show up. As some of the students started to trickle out of the classroom that Friday afternoon in April, they scrawled a message on the blackboard: “Que pasa, Antonio?”
Higher Education in the Headlines 