Concern has grown that the United States is losing its competitive edge in science and technology (S&T). The factors driving this concern include globalization, the rise of science centers in developing countries such as China and India, the increasing number of foreign-born Ph.D. students in the United States, and claims of a shortage of…

The 1947 President's Commission on Higher Education, popularly known as the Truman Commission, offered a remarkable vision, one of an expansive, inclusive and diverse system of postsecondary education in the United States. It appeared just as hundreds of thousands of former GIs poured onto the nation's campuses, taking advantage of a little…

The study examined the application of 1:3 in employments of academic and non-academic staff in Nigerian Universities, as recommended by the National Universities Commission (N.U.C.), following the general feeling that Nigerian Universities were highly bureaucratised; non-teaching staff was over employed while some universities lacked…

The federal government provides student loans for college and graduate school in two ways: by guaranteeing bank loans, and by lending directly to students. In the guaranteed loan program, banks lend students money and profit from the interest payments while the government guarantees the loans against default and makes subsidy payments to the…

This sixth edition of the State Governance Report summarizes the most relevant issues, legislative proposals, and proposed policies facing public higher education and its governance and oversight. The majority of coverage is devoted to the current or just recently completed 2009 legislative sessions. Other issues covered in this report include…

What are employer needs for staff trained in the natural sciences at the master's degree level? How do master's level professionals in the natural sciences contribute in the workplace? How do master's programs meet or support educational and career goals? "Science Professionals: Master's Education for a Competitive World" examines the answers to…

This article describes Israel's latest conflict--plummeting government spending and strikes by faculty members and students which are threatening the stability of the country's universities. The founders of the modern state of Israel considered higher education to be so important that they established the country's first two universities long…

The federal government's student loan programs for higher education convey substantial financial benefits to borrowers because of their broad availability and favorable terms. Of the various provisions included in a federal student loan contract, the option to consolidate individual loans contributes greatly to a borrower's benefits and the cost…

This testimony discusses issues related to degrees from "diploma mills" and other unaccredited postsecondary schools, also noting whether federal employees who held senior level positions had degrees from such schools. From February 2003-February 2004, researchers searched the Internet for nontraditional, unaccredited, postsecondary schools that…

Professional literature on American higher education is vast and varied. Bibliographic items on college and university administration alone indicate that perhaps twenty thousand books, pamphlets, and magazine articles have appeared in print since 1950. Because the range and quality of the literature on university administration are so great, the…

How is it that you can do human-subject research without ever seeing, touching, or talking to another human being? If you cannot answer that riddle, you could conduct an entire research project and be forbidden to publish the results. Young investigators may throw up their hands when faced by this maze of approval processes. How can an institution…

Presented in this paper are the top 10 issues most likely to affect public higher education across the 50 states in 2009, in the view of the state policy analysis and research staff at American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU). While numerous topics shape state higher education policy, each affecting the issues of…

The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) commissioned this paper to help policy leaders and decision makers understand the impact of selected state financial aid programs on students' choices--choices of which college to attend, where to attend college, and even whether to attend college at all. As the paper shows, states…

This chapter focuses on issues that community college leaders constantly grapple with to ensure that their graduates are globally educated and able to work and succeed in an independent and complex world. It also describes major obstacles that limit and confine international education and suggests strategies to overcome these obstacles.

Barack Obama agreed to answer a series of questions submitted via e-mail to his campaign. This article presents excerpts of "The Chronicle"'s exchange with the senator and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, in which he discussed his policy suggestions for student aid and college access; the appropriate role of the federal…