Students Ask for More Transparency During Pandemic
College students say clearer communications with their institutions could improve learning during the COVID-19 pandemic that has limited most classes to online.Better communications include transparent decision-making, a 24/7 chatbot, text messaging and better IT support, according to a poll of 2,200 students and staff in Spain, the United States, Britain, Australia, France, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.While all students reported diminished trust with university leadership during the pandemic, students in the U.S., Britain and Spain reported the greatest amount of disconnect from their institutions.Students and staff also asked for testing for COVID-19 and personal protection equipment (PPE) such as masks. Contact tracing was another measure students and staff said was important.To date, COVID-19 has killed more than 1.8 million people worldwide, including 341,000 in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University.When asked, “What are your expectations of your institutions in moving forward?” students said they wanted more career advice, support and “credentials other than a degree,” such as internships or co-ops.Students also asked for more flexibility in their online education, such as course options and scheduling around other responsibilities, like jobs.Reduced tuition and more financial aid were ways institutions could help students during the …
Students Want Universities to Boost Communication During Pandemic
College students say clearer communications with their institutions could improve learning during the COVID-19 pandemic that has limited most classes to online.Better communications include transparent decision-making, a 24/7 chatbot, text messaging and better IT support, according to a poll of 2,200 students and staff in Spain, the United States, Britain, Australia, France, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.While all students reported diminished trust with university leadership during the pandemic, students in the U.S., Britain and Spain reported the greatest amount of disconnect from their institutions.Students and staff also asked for testing for COVID-19 and personal protection equipment (PPE) such as masks. Contact tracing was another measure students and staff said was important.To date, COVID-19 has killed more than 1.8 million people worldwide, including 341,000 in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University.When asked, “What are your expectations of your institutions in moving forward?” students said they wanted more career advice, support and “credentials other than a degree,” such as internships or co-ops.Students also asked for more flexibility in their online education, such as course options and scheduling around other responsibilities, like jobs.Reduced tuition and more financial aid were ways institutions could help students during the …
2020 Sees Higher Education Admissions Scandal, Visa Challenges for International Students
The coronavirus pandemic led to more than 1.7 million deaths and 79 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 — the disease caused by the virus — and international students around the world largely escaped health affects but were disrupted in their studies. Higher education in the United States also was roiled by a huge admissions scandal and immigration restrictions, which punctuated a chaotic and anxiety-ridden year. The issues: College admissions scandal Nearly three dozen parents, including “Full House” actress Lori Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, were sentenced in a high-profile college admissions scandal that revealed wealthy parents buying their children’s way into college. The family of Yusi “Molly” Zhao, who was admitted to the sailing program at Stanford University in 2017, paid to get their daughter into the highly selective school. The family of another student, Sherry Guo, paid $1.2 million to assist in her entry to Yale University in Connecticut. Another parent, Xiaoning Sui of Surrey, British Columbia, was sentenced to five months and ordered to pay a fine of $250,000 in addition to forfeiting the $400,000 she paid to William “Rick” Singer, who facilitated the admissions arrangements.FILE – Harvard University professor Charles Lieber is surrounded by reporters as he leaves the …
COVID-19 Dominates Rough Year for Universities
Higher education did not escape the reaches of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. U.S. colleges and universities struggled with decisions in the spring to send students home, and then whether to open campuses in the fall, all with an eye to trying to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Students still feel adrift, and the financial impact on the industry has been significant. The issues: COVID-19 begins In December 2019, international students celebrated the end of a semester’s hard work, with many flying home for the winter holidays. A month later, they traveled back to their U.S. schools for the beginning of a new semester. Simultaneously, a new coronavirus was discovered in Wuhan, China, home to several universities. Institutions were locked down in China and thousands of international students ordered to stay indoors. But COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, spread throughout Asia, and the world.Students from Wuhan Traveling Globally for HolidaysHundreds of students recently left for countries around the world for winter breakAs the virus spread quickly, students, their families and the general population were unsure how to respond because of a lack of information, direction and strategy across the world.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video …
US Actress Lori Loughlin Released After Prison Term in College Scam
“Full House” actor Lori Loughlin was released from prison Monday after spending two months behind bars for paying half a million dollars in bribes to get her two daughters into college. Loughlin was released from the federal lockup in Dublin, California, where she had been serving her sentence for her role in the college admissions bribery scheme, the federal Bureau of Prisons said. Her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, is serving his five-month sentence at a prison in Lompoc near Santa Barbara, California. Loughlin and Giannulli were both initially supposed to report to prison on Nov. 19, but prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed Loughlin could start her sentence on Oct. 30. Loughlin also agreed that she would not seek early release on coronavirus-related grounds, prosecutors said. Giannulli is scheduled to be released on April 17, the Bureau of Prisons says. Loughlin and Giannulli were among the highest-profile defendants charged in the scheme, which revealed the lengths to which some wealthy parents will go to get their children into elite universities. The famous couple admitted in May to paying $500,000 to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California as crew recruits even though neither girl was a rower. …
Duty-Free King Quietly Gives Away $8 Billion
Among the celebrity philanthropists who donate extreme amounts of money to education and lifting others, Chuck Feeney’s name is not as well-known as Bloomberg, Gates or Buffett.Those billionaires — Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett — are highly recognizable names of great wealth, and their efforts are well-known.But Feeney, 89, has donated more than $8 billion in the past 38 years more quietly, espousing the slogan “Giving While Living” through his Men look at cosmetic products in a Duty Free store at the Fraport airport in Frankfurt, Germany, Nov. 14, 2012.Numerous educational programs have benefited from Atlantic Philanthropies, but none more than Cornell, where Feeney graduated from its vaunted hotel management program. Cornell has received $1 billion from Feeney’s generosity.“Physical markers of his giving are sprinkled around all corners of Cornell’s campus, funding everything from student scholarships to North and West Campus living facilities, hospitality research support, the Martin Y. Tang Welcome Center and athletics programs,” the university reported to the Cornell Daily Sun. Feeney’s giving was “transformative,” said Cornell President Martha Pollack, and “deserves the highest recognition we can give,” the Cornell Daily Sun reported.Feeney has been giving internationally, too.“While his generosity towards Ireland and Cornell University is well-known, …
US Immigration Changes Won’t Happen Overnight, Biden Advisers Say
President-elect Joe Biden’s top advisers say the incoming administration will “need time” to undo what they regard as damaging U.S. immigration and border enforcement policies implemented under President Donald Trump.In an interview with Spanish wire service EFE this week, Susan Rice, Biden’s incoming domestic policy adviser, and Jake Sullivan, his pick for national security adviser, said U.S. border policies the Trump administration put in place to deter mass migration will not disappear overnight. “We will be able to take some steps to change policies right away. Others will take time to put in place, and the situation at the border will not transform overnight, due in large part to the damage done over the last four years. But we are committed to addressing it in full,” Rice said.Speaking with reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, on Tuesday, Biden said he had already discussed immigration issues with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and other Latin American leaders. He promised “a much more humane policy” but said “it’s probably going to take the next six months to put that in place.”Have already started #immigration issues with #Mexico president and other Latin American leaders, says @JoeBiden, promising “a much more humane policy.” — Steve Herman …
For South Korea’s Graduating High Schoolers, Entrance Exam Results Bring Relief
Twelve years of study boiled down into one eight-hour test for graduating high-school seniors — the suneung, South Korea’s college entrance exam, announced results on Wednesday.“I’m pretty satisfied with my results. I think I got what I worked for,” said Gi Tae Kim, a student who studied the liberal arts track at Daedong Taxation High School in Seoul. “Overall, I thought it was a bit easier than past tests.”Like U.S. students, many take annual aptitude and entrance exams more than once to improve their scores.“I thought that the Korean language section was alright. English was easy. The math and science sections were pretty difficult because there were many types of problems that I wasn’t accustomed to,” said Yun Jae Kim, a high school senior who studied the science course at Sangsan High School in Jeonju.There are five sections in the suneung: Korean language, mathematics, English language, history/social studies/science, and foreign language/hanmun (classical Chinese). Korean language, mathematics, and English language are deemed the major subjects.Depending on whether students opt for the liberal arts or science track, students are offered different versions of mathematics tests, and they choose different subjects for the social studies/science tests.Cha-Hong Min, the chairman of the Students wearing …
Thai Ensemble Turns Econ Student into Classical Music Enthusiast
To many people classical music evokes images of European musical masters like Mozart slaving over their symphonies. But the world of classical music is much wider, as Warangkana Chomchuen reports. …
For South Korea’s Graduating High Schoolers, Entrance Exam Results Brings Relief
Twelve years of study boiled down into one eight-hour test for graduating high-school seniors — the suneung, South Korea’s college entrance exam, announced results on Wednesday.“I’m pretty satisfied with my results. I think I got what I worked for,” said Gi Tae Kim, a student who studied the liberal arts track at Daedong Taxation High School in Seoul. “Overall, I thought it was a bit easier than past tests.”Like U.S. students, many take annual aptitude and entrance exams more than once to improve their scores.“I thought that the Korean language section was alright. English was easy. The math and science sections were pretty difficult because there were many types of problems that I wasn’t accustomed to,” said Yun Jae Kim, a high school senior who studied the science course at Sangsan High School in Jeonju.There are five sections in the suneung: Korean language, mathematics, English language, history/social studies/science, and foreign language/hanmun (classical Chinese). Korean language, mathematics, and English language are deemed the major subjects.Depending on whether students opt for the liberal arts or science track, students are offered different versions of mathematics tests, and they choose different subjects for the social studies/science tests.Cha-Hong Min, the chairman of the Students wearing …
Limited Funds or No English? No Problem at Community Colleges
Community colleges — sometimes seen as a lesser alternative for college students — can get many students started on a more flexible and less costly path toward a degree.These schools offer an associate’s degree in two years that is transferable to many four-year institutions for a bachelor’s degree. Once called junior colleges, they popped up in the U.S. around the turn of the 1900s.The biggest draw of community colleges is their affordability.While the average tuition at public four-year schools for the 2017-2018 academic school year was $26,261, and $46,014 at private institutions, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, those numbers understate the cost of many private competitive universities.The most expensive four-year universities in the U.S. include Amherst College ($82,008) and Tufts University ($70,000), both in Massachusetts. Third runner-up is Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania ($60,872), according to their websites.And that doesn’t include room and board, which, at Tufts, adds another $8,516 to the price.But at community colleges, the average cost of a two-year school was $3,564, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Some community colleges in recent years have offered free tuition in Arkansas, California and Delaware.“It’s a gateway for many students to transfer to …
Biden: Reversing Trump Immigration Policies Will Take Months
President-elect Joe Biden says it will take months to roll back some of President Donald Trump’s actions on immigration, offering a slower timeline than he promised on the campaign trail and one that may rile advocates pushing for speedy action on the issue.His Tuesday comments echo those made by two of his top foreign policy advisers in an interview with Spanish wire service EFE on Monday, hitting the brakes on rolling back Trump’s restrictive asylum policies. Susan Rice, Biden’s incoming domestic policy adviser, and Jake Sullivan, his pick for national security adviser, as well as Biden himself, warned that moving too quickly could create a new crisis at the border.Speaking to reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden said he’s already started discussing the issues with the Mexican president and “our friends in Latin America” and that “the timeline is to do it so that we in fact make it better, not worse.””The last thing we need is to say we’re going to stop immediately, the access to asylum, the way it’s being run now, and then end up with 2 million people on our border,” Biden said.He noted that more funding is needed for more asylum judges to process claims, he …
More Than 70 West Point Cadets Accused of Cheating on Exam
More than 70 cadets training at the U.S. Military Academy to be Army officers have been accused of cheating on a math exam taken online when they were studying remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic. Lt. Col. Christopher Ophardt, spokesman for the academy at West Point, said Monday that 73 cadets were accused of cheating on the calculus exam in May after instructors noticed irregularities in answers. All but one were freshmen, or plebes, in a class of 1,200. The other was a sophomore. “West Point honor code and character development program remains strong despite remote learning and the challenges brought by the pandemic,” Ophardt said. “Cadets are being held accountable for breaking the code.” After an investigation by an honors committee made up of trained cadets, two cases were dropped for lack of evidence and four were dropped because the cadets resigned, Ophardt said. Of the remaining 67 cases, 55 cadets have admitted cheating and have been enrolled in a six-month rehabilitation program focused on ethics. They will be on probation for the rest of their time at the academy. Three more cadets admitted cheating but weren’t eligible for the rehabilitation program. The remaining cadets accused of cheating face administrative hearings to …
US President-elect Biden, Mexico’s President Vow to Cooperate on Immigration
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Saturday committed to work on a humane strategy to regional migration by addressing its root causes in Central America and southern Mexico.The two leaders in a phone call “discussed working together on a new approach to regional migration that offers alternatives to undertaking the dangerous journey to the United States,” a summary of the call provided by Biden’s team said.The two leaders said they shared a desire to address the reasons for migration in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and southern Mexico.Biden pledged to build “the regional and border infrastructure and capacity needed to facilitate a new orderly and humane approach to migration that will respect international norms regarding the treatment of asylum claims,” the statement from Biden’s team said.Earlier this week Lopez Obrador suggested the two neighbors under Biden’s new Democratic administration work together on the thorny issue of immigration.Republican President Donald Trump’s unprecedented demands that the Mexican government do more to reduce the flow of U.S.-bound migrants, including harboring migrants in Mexico while they wait for their U.S. court dates and paying for a border wall, caused friction in the relationship.Biden emphasized the need to reinvigorate U.S.-Mexico …
US Supreme Court Throws Out Challenge to Trump Census Immigrant Plan
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday threw out a lawsuit seeking to block President Donald Trump’s plan to exclude immigrants living in the United States illegally from the population count used to allocate congressional districts to states. The 6-3 ruling on ideological lines with the court’s six conservatives in the majority and three liberals dissenting, gives Trump a short-term victory as he pursues his hard-line policies toward immigration in the final weeks of his presidency. However, his administration is battling against the clock to follow through on the vaguely defined proposal before President-elect Joe Biden takes office on Jan 20. The justices left open the possibility of fresh litigation if Trump’s administration completes its plan.The unsigned decision said that “judicial resolution of this dispute is premature” in part because it is not clear what the administration plans to do. The ruling noted that the court was not weighing the merits of Trump’s plan. Challengers led by New York state and the American Civil Liberties Union said Trump’s proposal would dilute the political clout of states with larger numbers of such immigrants, including heavily Democratic California, by undercounting state populations and depriving them of seats in the U.S. …
IOM Chief: Migrants Must Be Included in COVID-19 Vaccination Campaigns
The head of the U.N. Migration Agency said the coronavirus pandemic has affected people worldwide, including migrants — many of whom have gotten ill, lost jobs or been stranded in destination countries. “As usual in all crises, migrants are the first ones to lose jobs,” International Organization for Migration (IOM) Director General Antonio Vitorino told VOA ahead of International Migrants Day on Friday. “The World Bank forecasts, for instance, a drop in remittances to the countries of origin of around 20% this year, which will have a terrible impact in the living conditions of the countries of origin of those migrants.” FILE – Antonio Vitorino, Director General of the International Organization for Migration, attends a news conference in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 29, 2019.He said virus-related lockdowns, travel restrictions and border closures have also stranded about 3 million migrants all over the world. The IOM estimates there are 272 million migrants globally. A little less than half are women. The United Nations considers a migrant to be anyone who changes their country, regardless of the reason. But most move to seek economic improvement. According to IOM data, India has the largest number of migrants living abroad — 17.5 million — followed …
US Supreme Court Takes Up NCAA Appeal over Benefit Limits for College Athletes
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a bid by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to defend its limits on education-related compensation for college basketball and football players. The justices took up an appeal by the NCAA, the major governing body for U.S. intercollegiate sports, of a May decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that deemed the organization’s rules anticompetitive under a federal law called the Sherman Antitrust Act.The justices also agreed to hear a related appeal brought by major college sports conferences including all of the big-money so-called Power Five conferences: the Big Ten, Southeastern Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12 Conference and Pac-12 Conference.The case involves students who are players in the highest-level of college sports: NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball and those in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Football and basketball represent the major revenue-generating sports at the college level.The case does not focus on the contentious issue of pay for college athletes. It concerns only the non-cash payments related to education, including benefits such as computers, science equipment and musical instruments. The 9th Circuit found that the NCAA could limit non-education-related compensation.Lawsuits filed by college athletes in 2014 and …
Mackenzie Scott Gives $4.2 Billion to Help ‘Vulnerable’
MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, said Tuesday she has given $4.2 billion to groups helping the vulnerable, as the pandemic hits lives like “a wrecking ball.” Scott, who formerly went by the name MacKenzie Bezos, last year signed a “giving pledge” to donate the bulk of her wealth to charity. In a round of donations early this year, Scott gave nearly $1.7 billion to groups devoted to race, gender and economic equality, as well as other social causes. “This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling,” Scott said in a post detailing her second round of giving this year. “Economic losses and health outcomes alike have been worse for women, for people of color and for people living in poverty.” Meanwhile, she noted, the wealth of billionaires has substantially increased. Such billionaires include her ex-husband, although Scott did not mention his name. Bezos’s wealth has reportedly grown almost 80% during the pandemic. Scott said she enlisted a team of advisers that helped identify 384 organizations across the United States that support people suffering from the economic toll of the pandemic. Special attention was given to organizations working to combat hunger, poverty and racial inequity in communities, according to …
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