February 20, 2012, 11:54 am

Chinese Education Officials to Investigate Programs at North Dakota’s Dickinson State U.

China’s Ministry of Education has asked the education section of its embassy in the United States to “probe” the situation of Chinese students who had enrolled in dual-degree programs at Dickinson State University, according to news reports from China.

Ten days ago, Dickinson State announced the results of an audit that found hundreds of foreign students, primarily from China, had been awarded degrees even though they had failed to complete the necessary requirements on the American campus, as outlined in agreements with overseas university partners.

Dickinson is being presented by some Chinese news reports as a diploma mill, with observers wondering if China needs to do more to regulate its international university partners. “The embassy will fight for the welfare of Chinese students,” an official with the embassy told the Xinhua news agency.

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February 20, 2012, 11:49 am

Hundreds of Students Arrested at Sudan’s U. of Khartoum

Hundreds of students were arrested on Friday during a raid of dormitories at the University of Khartoum, in Sudan, according to Reuters. The university has been closed for about two months while students protested rising prices and unemployment. But many students had refused to leave the residence halls, some because they had nowhere else to go. The raids occurred before dawn, while students were sleeping. One student group said 317 students had been arrested.

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February 17, 2012, 3:14 pm

Business Schools Outside the U.S. Increase in Popularity Among Global Test-Takers

As the number of business programs around the world continues to multiply, business schools in the United States saw their market share slip again in 2011, with a growing number of students in Europe pursuing options closer to home. That’s according to a report released this week by the Graduate Management Admission Council.

The report compared the number of people taking the council’s Graduate Management Admission Test in 2007 and 2011 and examined trends in where they were sending their scores. Among the other findings: Middle Eastern citizens are sending more scores to programs in the United States, and those in East and Southeast Asia are applying in many different parts of the world. The percentage of test scores being sent to schools in the United States dipped from 83 percent in 2007 to 77 percent in 2011.

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February 17, 2012, 3:00 pm

Court Challenge Fails to Block Tuition Increase in England

The High Court of England and Wales has rejected a bid by two teenagers to block the impending rise in tuition at universities in England on the grounds that the increase, a near tripling of the current rates, is a violation of their human rights. The court agreed that “the government had failed to comply fully with its public-service-equality duties, but said it would ‘not be appropriate’ to quash the regulations bringing in higher fees because there had been ‘very substantial compliance,’” according to the BBC. The lawyer who represented the teenagers said they were disappointed that the court had not overturned the tuition increase, but were pleased with its criticism of the government’s actions, The Telegraph reported.

In a written statement, an official the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills, the cabinet department that oversees universities, said that …

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February 16, 2012, 5:24 pm

British Government Abandons Plan to Penalize Early Student-Loan Repayment

The British government has abandoned a proposal to charge a penalty to students in England who pay off their government-backed loans early, according to several reports, in yet another shift in strategy that adds further confusion to controversial higher-education reform plans that have already undergone several modifications. Undergraduate tuition at universities in England is set to rise later this year to as much as £9,000, or just over $14,000, a near tripling of the current maximum rate, but under the new system students are not required to pay anything upfront. Instead, they will be required to repay their loans only when their income exceeds £21,000, or nearly $33,000, a year, and the interest they are assessed will be pegged to their income level. The plan to charge a penalty of about 5 percent to those who repay early was intended to prevent wealthy students from evading…

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February 16, 2012, 12:20 pm

After Protests, Chief of McGill U. Says She’s Leaving as Planned

Heather Munroe-Blum, McGill University’s principal, says she will step down at the end of her second term in 2013, saying she had always intended to stay for only two terms, reports The Gazette. The news comes after labor unrest and student protests about Quebec’s planned increase in tuition and other issues have rocked the campus. In November, Ms. Munroe-Blum was criticized when riot police broke up a student occupation of an administration building. On Sunday, the university announced an interim set of guidelines on campus demonstrations, saying it did not want to stifle free speech but needed to make sure protests “occur in a safe, civil, and respectful manner.”

Ms. Munroe-Blum has served as McGill’s leader since 2003. The announcement of her departure has received a mixed reaction, with some on campus praising her for raising McGill’s international reputation and bolstering its…

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February 15, 2012, 2:53 pm

Rogue Publishing Sites Shut Down in Ireland

Two Web sites that earned millions of dollars by illegally publishing copyrighted material have been shut down after their operators were served with court orders on Tuesday in Ireland, where the sites are located, according to the Association of American Publishers.

The sites, www.library.nu and www.ifile.it, published more than 400,000 pirated books, AAP stated, offering the material for free but generating more than $10-million in annual revenue through advertising and donations to what claimed to be a genuine “Internet library.”

According to the association, which formed part of an alliance of international publishers whose efforts led to the legal action, the operations constituted “one of the largest pirate Web-based businesses in the world.”

The effort to shut down the sites took seven months and spanned several countries, as the operators of the sites, which were…

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February 15, 2012, 12:34 pm

Canadian Universities Face $3-Billion Pension Deficit

A report by the Canadian credit-rating agency DBRS Inc. warns that many of the country’s major universities have pension-fund shortfalls that have climbed to more than $3-billion in total, reports the Financial Post. The agency broke down the pension debt per full-time-equivalent student. The three universities with the largest gaps are the University of Toronto ($20,906), Queen’s University ($16,360), and the University of Guelph ($10,687). Brock University, Simon Fraser University, and the University of Ottawa have the smallest shortfalls. Although Tuesday’s assessment says the problem was made worse by the global financial crisis, many universities were already carrying large overall debt loads before the crisis.

While DBRS says some universities are taking action to curb the debt, the report warns that many universities may find their ability to borrow affected by the…

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February 13, 2012, 4:39 pm

Report Highlights Trends in European Education

University graduates can find jobs twice as quickly as people without degrees, according to a new report that analyzes education data from 37 systems in Europe. The report, “Key Data on Education in Europe 2012,” covers elementary, secondary, and higher education and highlights major trends across all three sectors, such as the increasing autonomy of education systems throughout Europe from direct government oversight. Although more people in Europe now have university degrees, the report says that one in five graduates appear to be overqualified for their jobs.

The report also notes that a growing number of countries have introduced tuition fees for students, but says that the simultaneous introduction of financial aid and other support programs has mitigated the effects of the new charges. As a result, grants and loans for students “are a major strand of public expenditure on…

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February 10, 2012, 3:38 pm

Canada Wants to Increase Educational Ties With China

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on a visit to China, and Chinese officials said they would like to increase student exchanges between the two countries. According to a joint statement, each government would like to admit 100,000 students a year from the other’s country within five years, reports the QMI Agency.

As part of Canada’s rise as an international academic destination, it has seen the numbers of Chinese students rise 35 percent in the past four years, to more than 60,000, reports CBC news.

While no strategies were offered on how to achieve further growth, Amit Chakma, head of a Canadian advisory panel on higher-education internationalization, is traveling with the prime minister. The panel is expected to recommend a general strategy soon. In an interview from Beijing, Mr. Chakma told the The Globe and Mail that just recruiting foreign students isn’t enough;…