The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Only Three Countries Represented In World's Top 10 Universities

Britain’s leading higher education publication, The Times Higher Education, Thursday released its 2012 reputation rankings for universities worldwide. Only three countries are represented in the top 10 – Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States – with Canada, Switzerland, Singapore, and China landing institutions in the top 30.  Hong Kong, Germany, and Australia squeezed into the top 50, and India once again fared poorly in the rankings, not even registering in the top 100. Read more at:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2012/0315/World-rankings-top-10-universities-around-the-globe/How-to-interpret-reputation-rankings

 

More American College Students Are Seeking Degrees On Foreign Soil

"It's not that schools in Europe aren't expensive," she said. "But I will be getting a Cambridge University education for the same cost of going to (the University of Illinois). I'm getting so much more bang for my buck." And there's a good chance Knoble will see peers from back home in her overseas classrooms. The number of Americans pursuing four-year degrees on foreign soil is on the rise, as students increasingly look to other countries for a relatively inexpensive alternative to U.S. schools while offering the same, if not more, prestige. The interest in Americans attending foreign universities is mutual. More and more, schools abroad are coming to the United States to recruit. Read more at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-irish-colleges-recruit-20120415,0,6268582.story

Slayings At USC Could Result In Decreased Enrollment Of International Students

For the last decade, USC has enrolled the largest number of international students of any college in the country: 8,615 last year. The Los Angeles university worked hard to achieve that — recruiting students from China, India and South Korea, among 100 countries in all, and providing services for the foreign students once they get here. Now campus officials are faced with the slayings this week of two graduate engineering students from China in a shooting about a mile off campus. While mourning this tragic event, they also hope the school won't lose its top position in international enrollment. But Barmak Nassirian, an official at the American Assn. of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said the slayings of Ming Qu and Ying Wu, both 23, could affect overseas perceptions if news coverage portrays Los Angeles as dangerous. Read more at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0414-usc-foreign-20120414,0,3226109.story

China Prosecutes Group That Sold Fake Diplomas From U.S. Universities

Nine suspects stood trial at a local court in Beijing on Monday for selling fake degree certificates from universities in the United States to defraud people of about 3.4 million yuan ($540,000). The suspects swindled more than 30 people across the country, including some senior executives of big enterprises, by selling them fake doctorates or master's degree certificates from foreign universities between 2007 and 2010. the nine suspects fabricated enrollment regulations for some US colleges, including the University of Washington, and claimed they could issue degree certificates from these schools as long as the applicants paid money and did some training. Read more at:
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-04/10/content_15008800.htm

UK Higher Education Experiencing A Building Boom

Universities are spending millions on new buildings as they compete to attract students - including campus hotels, an overseas student village and better bedrooms. Improved facilities for overseas and postgraduate students are planned by two-thirds of universities. Universities are having to pay more attention than ever to the so-called "student experience". And this includes the sleeping experience, with the quality of bedrooms identified as needing to be improved by one university. Read more at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17596728

Russia Works On Improving Its Poor Placement In World Higher Ed Rankings

After it was reported this month that not a single Russian university had cracked The Times Higher Education’s ranking of top 100 schools by academic reputation , Education Minister Andrei Fursenko said that Russia was in the process of creating its own rating system. A brain drain from Russia has been funneling its brightest minds to the West, while the nation’s embattled higher education system struggles to find its place in the post-Soviet world.  Each new rating announcement sets off hand-wringing about the predominance of the United States and the rise of China, both sore points and models for Russia. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/world/europe/russia-moves-to-improve-its-university-rankings.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

India Hopes To Attract More Russian Students To Its Universities

India is taking steps to expand links with Russian universities in an effort to reach out to this country’s younger generation. During a visit to Tatarstan, Russia’s predominantly Muslim republic, last week India’s Ambassador to Russia Ajai Malhotra signed an agreement on establishing a Centre of Indian Studies at the Kazan Federal University that will be headed by an Indian professor. It is the first Russian university outside Moscow to sign such a collaborative tie-up with India in social sciences.  Read more at:
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article3009214.ece

Asian Universities Move Up In World Rankings

University reputations in the East are gaining ground on the West in terms of academic prestige, according to Times Higher Education, a magazine in Britain. The upward movement of Asian schools is seen mostly in the rankings’ second tier. The United States has 44 of the top 100 universities in the world. Read more at:
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/asian-colleges-are-gaining-respect/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Ecuador Seeks Massive Reform Of Its Higher Education System

There are no ivy-covered walls at Alfredo Pérez Guerrero University. No quad. No soccer fields. The entire campus fits in four small, rented buildings on the fringes of a modest residential neighborhood.The school is one of 24 privately owned universities that have received a failing grade from the Ecuadorean government, meaning that if they do not make major improvements they will be closed. 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. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/world/americas/in-ecuador-garage-universities-are-bracing-for-reform.html?ref=education

China Attracts Western Researchers With Incentives

The rise in foreign academics at the law school reflects a broader trend. As institutions in Western countries continue to suffer from budget cuts, academics looking for opportunities farther afield are finding that China is welcoming foreign professors with open arms. Individual Chinese universities have been increasingly recruiting Western academics in recent years, but the Chinese government is also enticing foreigners with a new program that offers a range of incentives. Late last year, the Chinese government started the Thousand Foreign Experts program, which is designed to attract up to 1,000 foreign academics and entrepreneurs over the next 10 years to help improve research and innovation. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/world/asia/12iht-educlede12.html?partner=rss&emc=rss