Search results for tag #universities
If you search for either "[Canadian university name] budget crisis", you're almost guaranteed to find reports of deficits and the drastic cuts planned. So far I've only found 1 Canadian university with a surplus.
What a cosmically cruel joke on youth:
- For at least a decade, Canadian colleges and universities have been mining international students to subsidise costs.
- Provinces directly pocketed much of these fees as reduced funding, while costs for domestic students continued to rise.
- Higher enrolment exacerbated the housing crisis, as no new student residences were built
- Feds have now responded by cutting international student visas
- So universities are stuck with lower revenue. And no province has stepped forward to restore funding.
As for the youth:
- Housing crisis continues
- University costs are rising and programs being cut
- Federal government is leading the charge to get rid of as many jobs as possible through "AI"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/post-secondary-cuts-1.7387175
As the crisis engulfing universities continues to grow, the shift most politicians think will resolve budgeting shortfalls, is a major reformation of student finance.
Nearly all reforms involve the introduction of a (new) graduate tax (GT) to replace what has become a GT masquerading as loan repayment.
The problem to surmount is the Treasury mindset, that does not accept hypothecated taxes; there's no guarantee the funds raised by a GT would reach the universities!
How do we know the financing of universities is dysfunctional?
Universities are suffering a financial/budgetary crisis... and;
students now graduate with average debts above all other developed countries.... and;
despite it being a loan system, around half of all student debt is currently written off, indicating a shadow subsidy few acknowledge... and;
So, we can safely say the current system of financing universities & their students is not really working!
If Rachel Reeves cannot see that university student loans are becoming a totemic issue among graduates, then she may be heading for her own Nick-Clegg-moment when one decision prompts a haemorrhaging of the graduate vote (from Labour).
The problem is that Labour still thinks they can bank on there being no vialable alternative on their left flank; which with Zack Polanski leading the GPEW, is no longer true; another Labour miscalculation?
#politics #universities #Greens
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3k4xdqyp1o
Here's an interesting Q.:
When university students sign up to the student loan process are they really properly informed consumers? indeed could they be, as the terms of the ongoing debt are changing (again) by fiat of Govt?
Might the student loan system actually be a case of mass miss-selling by the Govt., but if so, what could be done?
A growing campaign - Rethink Repayment - argues the rate of repayment should be reduced (at the very least).
#universities #students
h/t Clear Barrett/FT
New survey from the American Council of Education (#ACE): "Seven in 10 senior higher education leaders [in the US] say they are concerned about government interference in academic freedom and institutional autonomy."
https://www.acenet.edu/News-Room/Pages/Pulse-Point-Survey-Higher-Education-Federal-Policy.aspx
Serious question: Who are the 30% who are not concerned?
#Academia #AcademicFreedom #AcademicMastodon #Censorship #DefendResearch #Trump #TrumpVResearch #Universities #USPol #USPolitics
“for every dollar the Government of Saskatchewan invests in the university, USask generates $3.64 in GDP and $2.00 in labour income. USask’s per capita GDP impact is one of the highest in the country amongst benchmark universities”
Just imagine how much more impact with better provincial funding!
#Saskatchewan #Canada #Universities #skpoli #Saskatoon
https://news.usask.ca/articles/general/2025/usasks-economic-impact-measured-in-billions-new-study.php
"Until recently, Harvard was the most productive research university in the world, according to a global ranking that looks at academic publication.
That position may be teetering, the most recent evidence of a troubling trend for American academia.
Harvard recently dropped to No. 3 on the ranking. The schools racing up the list are not Harvard’s American peers, but Chinese universities that have been steadily climbing in rankings that emphasize the volume and quality of research they produce.
(...)
Look back to the early 2000s, and a global university ranking based on scientific output, such as published journal articles, would be very different. Seven American schools would be among the top 10, led by Harvard University at No. 1.
Only one Chinese school, Zhejiang University, would even make the top 25.
Today, Zhejiang is ranked first on that list, the Leiden Rankings, from the Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Seven other Chinese schools are in the top 10.
Harvard produces significantly more research now than it did two decades ago, but it has nonetheless fallen to third. And it is the only American university still near the top of the list. Harvard is still first in the Leiden rankings for highly-cited scientific publications.
The issue at top American universities is not falling production.
Six prominent American schools that would have been in the top 10 in the first decade of the 2000s — the University of Michigan, the University of California, Los Angeles, Johns Hopkins, the University of Washington-Seattle, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University — are producing more research than they did two decades ago, according to the Leiden tallies.
But production by the Chinese schools has risen far more."
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/us/harvard-global-ranking-chinese-universities-trump-cuts.html
I see the Office for Students is vexed about 'unexplained' levels of first class degrees being awarded, claiming only a small proportion of the rise can be accounted for by improved teaching.
I mean universities cannot win can they grades go up, its grade inflation... grades go down, their teaching is failing... grades remain stable, there's no dynamic of improvement.
Why doesn't the OfS admit it: they don't like or trust academics....
h/t FT
Well done #Trump 🤦🏼♀️
#Universities in #China Surge in Global Rankings as #US #Schools Slip
#Harvard still dominates, though it fell to No. 3 on a list measuring #academic output. Other American universities are falling farther behind their global peers.
#education #law #immigration #StudentVisas #WorkVisas #GovernmentInterference #FirstAmendment #AcademicFreedom #censorship #BrainDrain
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/us/harvard-global-ranking-chinese-universities-trump-cuts.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
@baldur In #science and at #universities , #AI stands for ‘#ArtificialIdiots.’
#Clankers also works for the #slop machines.
Even on school playgrounds, “That’s AI!” means “That’s fake!”
The kids are alright.
The exploitative character of academic publishing in a single cartoon.
#publishing #universities #research #academics
h/t Alexandra Kupferberg/LinkedIn
original illustration: Thailand by Tawan Chuntra.
https://www.irancartoon.com/site/artists/tawan-chuntra#&gid=1&pid=30 #TawanChuntra #Thailand
Alt...
Cartoon (meme - retitled) showing academic publishers at the ned of a plank over the void, supported by the weight of academics on the land-end, while one turns away (saying 'fuck this'), the publisher says: 'You will write papers for us & pay us to publish them. You will review those papers fo free. You will also pay us to read those papers'.
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@silicatefondue/115719590885402159
I've not found any peer-reviewed cost analyses thus far.
Calculating a total cost analysis is complicated and is very organization specific, as each organization weighs qualitative criteria differently. For example, what is the cost associated with privacy violations and data-sharing with foreign entities? Thread 1/5
At a university townhall, in response to a question about switching to opensource office suites, the VP Admin stated that no one has done a total costing comparison of using an opensource suite (such as LibreOffice) compared to using Microsoft's.
Anyone know of a recent reference to such a study?
Of course, rather than waiting for someone else to innovate, we could ask our world-class faculty to make such a comparison...
So, the cost of rejoining the Erasmus scheme is £570m for 2027; almost double the scheme contribution when we were members of the EU.
While its good to see the scheme back for university students, its difficult to see how this can be anything other than (another) aspect of the costs of Brexit.
What we once had is now nearly twice as expensive after five years. Keir Starmer may say its a win for the 'reset', but once again we're worse of than we were!
#Brexit #Erasmus #universities
h/t FT
At a university townhall, in response to a question about switching to opensource office suites, the VP Admin stated that no one has done a total costing comparison of using an opensource suite (such as LibreOffice) compared to using Microsoft's.
Anyone know of a recent reference to such a study?
Of course, rather than waiting for someone else to innovate, we could ask our world-class faculty to make such a comparison...
Grant cuts, arrests, lay-offs: Trump made 2025 a tumultuous year for science - In just the first weeks of Donald Trump’s second presidency…Officials appointed by the new president started firing thousands of researchers and other government employees. At the same time, it cut billions of dollars of US support for global-health programmes, including dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID). It arrested some scholars from outside the United States as it stepped up efforts to restrict entry into the country and limit political speech. Over the next few months, the US government took steps to exert unprecedented control over universities by withholding federal research funding. The administration cancelled tens of billions of dollars in research grants to universities to force the adoption of policies on hiring and admissions, policing of campuses, curricula and other factors. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04051-y #academia #science #research #universities #AcademicChatter #USPol #RepublicansOwnThis
The managerial class in universities is seldom really interested in the long term health of universities & more in burnishing their CVs for the next jump.
For example: Mark E Smith (a past VC of Lancaster) is taking a ProVC role at Oxford, having in the last fifteen years been ProVC at Warwick, VC at Lancaster & most recently VC at Southampton.
This peripatetic group have no real loyalty to particular institutions & bring generic managerial 'solutions' wherever they go.
It also requires #hospitals, #daycare facilities & public #universities to institute plans to prepare for #immigration enforcement actions, & bars them from sharing most residents’ info w/ federal agents.
“#Illinois, in the face of cruelty & intimidation, has chosen solidarity & support,” #JBPritzker said before signing the bill…. “Donald #Trump, #KristiNoem, & Gregory #Bovino have tried to appeal to our lesser instincts, but the best of us are standing up to the worst of them.”
almost 40% of undergraduates at #Stanford are now registered as "disabled", meaning they get more time on tests and other special accommodations
at #Brown and #Harvard it's better - only a 5th of the class consider themselves intellectually handicapped.
#IvyLeague #uspol #college #universities #university
Alt...
The surge itself is undeniable. Soon, some schools may have more students
receiving accommodations than not, a scenario that would have seemed
absurd just a decade ago. Already, at one law school, 45 percent of students
receive academic accommodations. Paul Graham Fisher, a Stanford professor
who served as co-chair of the university’s disability task force, told me, “I have
had conversations with people in the Stanford administration. They've talked
about at what point can we say no? What if it hits 50 or 60 percent? At what
point do you just say “We can't do this?” This year, 38 percent of Stanford
undergraduates are registered as having a disability; in the fall quarter, 24
percent of undergraduates were receiving academic or housing
accommodations.
Jacob Kennedy, a 28-year-old server and bartender living in Detroit, told NBC News that while he believes 'an educated populace is the most important thing for a country to have,' if people can’t use those degrees because of the debt they’re carrying, it undercuts the value.
#education #HigherEd #colleges #universities #StudentLoans #debt #careers #jobs #value #USpol
Radical action via Simple Sabotage/Malicious Compliance techniques.
It's scorchio.
From Dan McQuillan
https://www.danmcquillan.org/resisting_genai_highered_cjuu.html
#GenAI #ai #education #universities #highereducation #academia #academicchatter
Dan McQuillan is a Senior Lecturer in Critical AI. He has a degree in Physics from Oxford and a PhD in Experimental Particle Physics from Imperial.
Update. Well-put: "Supporters of [the firings of these professors] say they are justified because professors are straying from their syllabi. But that’s a dodge. If an instructor in Calculus 101 teaches 𝘏𝘢𝘮𝘭𝘦𝘵, the reaction would not be to ban Shakespeare instruction throughout the university."
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2025/11/25/professor-texas-used-to-have-universities/
"If a university is a place where students and educators engage in free inquiry in the service of understanding, #Texas now has fewer places that meet that definition."
#Academia #AcademicMastodon #AcademicFreedom #Censorship #Gender #Universities
Nothing like Adelaide uni merger 'has been attempted in Australia before' https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-19/sa-adelaide-university-co-vice-chancellors-on-uni-merger/106022624 #Federal-StateIssues #HigherEducation #Universities #Education
Excellent new paper.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
"The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science; we need the most powerful members of the research community – funders, governments and Universities – to lead the drive to re-communalise publishing to serve science not the market…The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge."
#Assessment #Funders #OpenAccess #OpenInfrastructure #Publishing #Universities
And now the Anti-Terrorism Police are getting involved.... focussing on the threats to SHU staff by (alleged) members of the Chinese Security Services...
this may be about to shift gears as a political issue....
This is what happens when you push universities into a business model that is built on the dependence on foreign students' fees; the university becomes sensitive to lobbying & actions by Govt's from states that 'provide' many of those students.
In this case China has put pressure on Sheffield Hallam U to halt the research of an academic looking at exploration in Chinese supply chains.
You'll not be surprised how *that* played out...
uspol [SENSITIVE CONTENT]
(28 Oct) Trump’s UCLA deal: Pay us $1B+, and we can still cut your grants again
The deal wouldn’t protect UCLA from the proposed university compact.
https://s.faithcollapsing.com/fwn9j
Archive: ia: https://s.faithcollapsing.com/gdx0j
#policy #science-funding #trump-administration #ucla #universities
Alt...
Image of a UCLA banner in front of brick buildings on a campus.
Since his second inauguration, #Trump has seized #authoritarian control over the #FederalGovernment & demanded the #obedience of the other powerful institutions of American society — #universities, #LawFirms, #media companies [& more]. The question weighing heavily on the minds of many Americans is whether Trump will subvert next year’s #midterm #elections or the 2028 presidential #election to extend his reign.
#law #ElectionLaw #Constitution #22A #autocracy #dictatorship #fascism #tyranny
"Universities, law firms, news companies are buckling under the president’s threats, and billionaires are treated like members of the royal family."
#Trump #universities #immigrants #ICE #WhiteHouse #EastWing #EpsteinBallroom #ballroom #military #Pentagon #DOJ #EconomicElites
/7
In August, the #Trump admin sent #UCLA a 27-page list of demands and settlement proposal, which UCLA wanted to keep confidential during the negotiations. The UCLA Faculty Association sued to compel its disclosure, and the California Supreme Court just decided in favor of the faculty.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-10-24/uc-publicly-release-trump-ucla-1-2-billion-settlement-offer
Here's the list of demands.
https://ucop.edu/communications/_files/confidential-rule-408-communication-ucla-08-08-25.pdf
#Academia #AcademicMastodon #DefendResearch #Trump #TrumpVResearch #Universities #USPol #USPolitics
Over the last week, the Trump administration has cancelled $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia University and $800 million in grants to Johns Hopkins University.Columbia made an attempt to pre-emptively please this administration, and they were still made to suffer. That's how this works. Laying low and/or cooperating does not help:So far, America’s leading universities have remained virtually silent in the face of this authoritarian assault on institutions of higher education. That must change. Harvard must stand up, speak out, and lead a public defense of our freedom to speak and study freely.
Not only is silence in the face of mounting authoritarianism morally objectionable, but, as the Columbia case suggests, it’s not working. Columbia’s leadership made repeated concessions to right-wing critics, only to be the first to come under attack.From https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/3/14/enos-levitsky-harvard-columbia-trump/ (be aware: the title evokes the Holocaust, which in this context is not great).
#USPol #Universities #Columbia #authoritarianism #HigherEducation #education #maine
The university has an obligation to interrogate the proposition that a world in which AI is widely used is desirable or inevitable. We don’t need to cheer for a vision of tomorrow in which scientists feel comfortable with not personally reading the articles their peers have written and students are not expected to gain insight through wrestling with complex concepts: a world in which creative and knowledge work is delegated to a mindless algorithm.From: https://uniavisen.dk/en/cut-the-ai-bullshit-ucph/
#LLM #AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #ChatGPT #GPT #Gemini #Claude #academics #universities #education
What, exactly, are universities like Columbia actually for in the US in 2024? They are making it very difficult to believe that they are for students. If not the students, who and what are they for, then?
#Columbia #US #Universities #HigherEd #FreeSpeech #FreeAssembly