The government is being urged to prevent universities being bought by private equity firms after the College of Law, a charity that provides teaches law courses in London and six other cities across England, was sold to a private equity firm for £200m.
Perturbed over key bills related to reforms in higher education being stuck in Parliament for over two years, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday accused private players running educational institutes of stalling passage of these legislations which seek to raise quality.
Nearly 500 private higher education institutions (IPTS) in the country will be affected if the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) is abolished, said Deputy minister in Prime Minister's Department, Datuk Ahmad Maslan.
Tensions are escalating between private colleges and public universities in a battle to win state education dollars. At issue is the $49 million in Iowa Tuition Grant money the state gave last year to more than 18,000 students attending Iowa’s private colleges and universities, even as the Legislature slashed funds to public universities.
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat, has been on a crusade over the past few years against for-profit colleges. You know, schools such as the University of Phoenix or the DeVry Institute, educational outfits operated by profit-seeking businesses.
The rapid growth of for-profit colleges over the past decade has been aided by billion-dollar ad campaigns on daytime television, the Internet and highway billboards across the country.
15%: Increase in private university tuition from 5 years ago New data shows that university endowments averaged total returns of over 19% for the fiscal year ending June 2011, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers and Commonfund, a nonprofit asset manager. Although this marks the second consecutive year of gains, parents shouldn't expect lower tuition costs until schools have had more years of strong growth.
Expanding access to public education should not be about punishing wealthier nonprofit universities. Rather, the solution lies in reinvigorating our cultural and economic commitment to public education, and making better use of public money to subsidize those nonprofit entities that work to benefit our communities, rather than shareholder wallets.
Even private universities, which educate around two-thirds of Indonesian students in some 3,000 institutions, are not happy with the draft, as the majority of its provisions relate to public universities. Although private universities outnumber the country’s 88 public universities, the association feels that the government did not accommodate their interests in the draft bill.
Some blame the problem on for-profit universities that have proliferated in the past two decades as a reaction to increased demand for higher education. The universities, which offer as little as one degree, have earned the moniker ‘garage universities’ because they often operate from houses, where each room is a ‘faculty’.
Figures show that leading Russell Group universities spent £382 million (US$613 million) on the highest paid academics and managers last year – twice as much as in 2003-04. It also emerged that the proportion of university spending on top staff – those paid at least £100,000 a year – increased from just 1.8% to 3.8%, writes Graeme Paton for The Telegraph.
Perturbed over key higher education reform bills being stuck in parliament for more than two years, India’s Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal last week accused private education institutions of stalling the passage of legislation that seeks to raise quality, reports The Times of India.
Chilean student leader Camila Vallejo accused Education Minister Harald Beyer of presenting a “contradiction” regarding the government’s stance on nonprofit higher education in his new higher education finance plan released on Monday.
222 of 2,181 private colleges and universities nationwide will raise their tuition rates by an average of 10 percent or P41.52 per unit when the next school year opens in June, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) said.
President Obama will sign an executive order today at a Georgia military base that will force colleges to disclose more information about financial aid and graduation rates, as well as requiring the Department of Defense to set rules for recruiting at military installations. It will also restrict the use of the term "GI Bill" in marketing and recruitment. While the order will apply to all colleges, it appears to be aimed at the for-profit sector.
Critics of recent efforts to regulate for-profit colleges have suggested that the Obama Administration is waging a “war” on for-profit universities. The reality is exactly the opposite: the for-profit sector is challenging a centuries-old practice of separating philanthropy from business.
The rapid growth of for-profit colleges over the past decade has been aided by billion-dollar ad campaigns on daytime television, the Internet and highway billboards across the country.
Under constant criticism allowing large-scale private universities in the state, Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal on Thursday said the government has decided to allow only 20 private universities to function in the state. The government has so far, already sanctioned 13 such universities, of which 11 are functional.
In light of weak federal regulations and lackluster completion rates at for-profit colleges, students should be armed with the kind of questions they need to ask to make sure the colleges deliver on what they promise.
The chairs and tables in the dining hall at Atlantic Union College in South Lancaster are lined up neatly, as if lunch is about to be served. But the doors are locked, the giant clock on the wall has stopped, and the notice on the window is anything but welcoming: “This building has been secured and is off-limits until further notice.”