The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on university enrollments around the world and caused significant challenges for students. This study examined how Canadian universities responded to the financial impacts of the pandemic on international and domestic students and how these responses differed. This work involved the identification and…

In this policy brief, we use research findings to illuminate experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic of U.S. rural college students from poor and working-class backgrounds. We offer institutional, state, and federal policy lessons gleaned from such experiences. We show how rural, poor and working-class students' higher education success was…

Crisis makes bold policy actions possible. In responding to socioeconomic and technological ruptures, policymakers create new imaginaries or revitalise existing ones. With the Australian Government's Job-Ready Graduates (JRG) reform during the COVID-19 pandemic as an empirical case, this paper shows how crisis instrumentalism and policy…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand US federal government policy during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and the connections to graduate education. Using the multiple streams framework, the paper outlines these actions through various streams (problems, policy and political) and perspectives (defining problems,…

To help students cope with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education institutions offered students flexible grading policies that blended traditional letter grades with alternative grading options such as the pass--fail or credit--no credit options. This study conducted an in-depth analysis of the flexible grading policy at a…

This report focuses on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on state tuition, fee, and financial aid policies for public institutions of higher education. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted several areas of state policy--most significantly through increased funding to state budgets. For higher education, states received federal funding that they…

In the past several decades, internationalisation, which is featured by people and ideas' unparalleled transnational mobility, has become a key discourse in higher education. Despite the spectacular outcomes that higher education internationalisation has achieved, scholars have detected weaknesses and vulnerabilities in its current policy and…

Teachers and teacher education are often presented as "problems" to be solved, with policy solutions that focus on ways to make teachers "better" and improve teacher "quality" by introducing prescriptive strategies. We investigate the ways COVID-19-related changes to university and school-based facets of Initial…

Purpose: Using sentiment analysis (SA), this study aims to examine the impact of COVID-19 on mental health and virtual learning experiences among 1,125 students at a public Argentinean faculty. Design/methodology/approach: A study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, surveying 1,125 students to gather their opinions. The survey data was…

This article presents a review of the current state and the potential of digitalization of Vietnam's higher education and makes recommendations in support of the digitalization process. It is mainly based on public documents. The paper discusses the extent of institutional digital transformation, its challenges, and opportunities in two contexts:…

The mental health of students in higher education is an increasing concern. Research indicates that university students are at a higher risk of poor mental health and wellbeing compared to the general population, which negatively impacts their studies. The main issue addressed in this study is the evident gap in mental health research dedicated to…

Following the 1989 unified higher education reforms, the Australian academic research system was built upon the notion of depoliticisation (i.e., keeping the political character of decision at one remove from governance) to govern the contradiction between research credibility and governmental economic priorities. The article argues that the…

The long-term shift toward online learning over the past two decades was greatly accelerated by COVID-19, heightening the urgency in higher education for policies meant to better optimize online environments for student learning. The determination of class sizes for online courses is one such policy. In this hierarchical linear regression of…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused major disruption in higher education, requiring rapid adaptation from colleges and universities worldwide. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the United States faced unique challenges serving their disproportionately low-income, first-generation racial minority students. This qualitative…

Course policies around attendance and submission deadlines have documented impacts on student outcomes within college courses, yet our understanding remains limited of instructors' own motivations behind the policies they adopt. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 43 college instructors, we find that faculty emphasize both student-centered and…