Education News

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What people told University of Minnesota officials about the budget for next year
Here are some highlights from the University of Minnesota regents’ meeting and public forum on next year’s budget. It attracted almost two dozen speakers from the U community. Kaler got kudos for getting the legislature to fund a two-year tuition freeze as well as its big MnDRIVE research initiative. Regents seemed fairly pleased with the…
Why a UMN alumnus called this year’s aid distribution a travesty
The public forum will begin at 12:30. Already a regent or two has mentioned potential concern over the level of need-based aid. Here’s a copy of a letter I received today, one sent by U alumnus Andy Howe to the Board of Regents about the budget and how it divvies up financial aid — something…
Here’s the docket item containing the FY14 budget report. The report itself begins on p. 5. President Eric Kaler will lay it out at 11 a.m. at a meeting of the Board of Regents, which will ask questions. A one-hour public forum will start at 12:30, though the list of people who can speak to…
Coursera Jumps the Shark It’s all over. Coursera did a weird strategy about-face by announcing that, rather than competing with public colleges, it’s going to start competing with Blackboard instead. (Higher Education Strategy Associates) Academy of Arts and Sciences Defends Its Leader’s Honesty The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has defended its president, Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, who is…
Other items in this next year’s University of Minnesota budget
Here a few more tidbits from the report on the University of Minnesota‘s operating budget for next year: Cost reductions. Before the legislature would grant the U full funding, it required in its higher-ed bill that the U come up with a list of $15 million in administrative savings. The report states U is cutting…
Who is getting more of a financial aid boost out of next year’s University of Minnesota budget?
The last post looked at some tuition-and-fee highlights of the upcoming FY2014 budget. But what about financial aid? The document shows an interesting split: merit-based aid gets a $2.9 million boost, while the Promise Scholarship, the U’s institutional need-based aid program, gets nothing. More specifically, the merit aid boost includes $2 million for merit-based recruitment…
UMN food-ag-natural-resources dean to step down
I don’t often post on the comings and goings of deans, but since it’s the U and it’s ag, I will. (One might also remember Allen Levine’s statement to MPR’s Stephanie Hemphill during the “Troubled Waters” agricultural documentary flap.) Here’s the U’s press release: University of Minnesota CFANS dean will step down in August Allen…
Some tuition and fee highlights of the University of Minnesota’s upcoming budget
Tomorrow University of Minnesota officials will take public comment on the U’s operating budget for the coming year. I’ll have more details soon, but U officials are clearly proud of their two-year tuition freeze, funding for which President Eric Kaler had made a main part of his plea to the legislature. CFO Richard Pfutzenreuter (FITZ-en-rider)…
Trade Schools Offer Hope for Rural Migrants in China While newly minted university graduates face a tight job market, skilled vocational school graduates are in high demand. (The New York Times) How are we doing higher education internationalisation?  When we talk about measuring the value of internationalisation, whose internationalisation are we talking about? (University World News)…