The number of students studying at U.S. colleges and universities sharply declined for the school year that started in September 2020. Experts attribute the decline to the COVID-19 pandemic.   A survey of almost 3,000 institutions of higher education in the U.S. showed a 15% decrease in the number of international students attending the 2020-2021 school year.   The number of new student enrollments was…

Some of Britain’s prestigious colleges — including the ancient universities of Cambridge and Oxford — are being accused of losing their moral compass by accepting donations from what critics say are dubious sources. The University of Oxford, London School of Economics and University College, London, have prompted a firestorm of criticism for accepting millions of…

Hong Kong’s universities have been under fire in a series of student arrests and university organization clampdowns since the territory’s controversial national security law was implemented in 2020. In the latest episode, the student union at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, one of Hong Kong’s most prestigious universities, dissolved itself in October under pressure…

Bomb threats at three Ivy League college campuses caused evacuations and police investigations Sunday, with at least two schools saying the threats there were unfounded. Cornell, Columbia and Brown universities alerted students to the threats. Authorities at Columbia and Brown said campus buildings had been cleared Sunday evening. In Ithaca, New York, Cornell police cordoned…

The president of Princeton University, which routinely leads the lists of best colleges and universities, advises applicants to be wary of choosing a school based on ranking lists. “My university has now topped the U.S. News & World Report rankings for 11 years running. Given Princeton’s success, you might think I would be a fan…

 Facing staff shortages, public schools in Nebraska’s largest city have turned to bilingual high school students to interpret when families talk with teachers during report card conferences. The Omaha school district has some full-time bilingual liaisons, but students and their families speak more than 100 different languages, and more than 18,000 students have received services…

Very few companies can boast of having their name also used as a verb. Zoom is one of them. The popularity of the videoconferencing platform continues to grow around the world despite continued questions about whether Chinese authorities are monitoring the calls. Since Zoom became a household word last year during the pandemic, internet users…

Students in Rhode Island are asking a federal appeals court to affirm that all public school students have a constitutional right to a civics education, saying that they aren’t taught how to meaningfully participate in a democratic and civil society and that the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was a symptom of such ignorance.  Students…

A Pakistani neuroscientist who came to the U.S. as an international student has died at 43, leaving behind a movement of support for diverse and nontraditional young scientists. “My campaign will provide awards to young scientists from backgrounds that are diverse, under-resourced, marginalized or traditionally under-represented in psychological and neural sciences,” Nadia Chaudhri wrote in…

Colby College is banning discrimination based on caste, a system of inherited social class, becoming one of the nation’s earliest colleges to do so. The private liberal arts college revised its nondiscrimination policy to add caste to its list of protections for the campus community. The efforts were led by a professor who took an…

Tyrone Iras Marhguy had to make a difficult decision after being accepted to the high school of his choice: his faith or his education. An official at the academically elite Achimota School in Ghana told the teen he would have to cut his dreadlocks before enrolling. For Marhguy, who is a Rastafarian, cutting his dreadlocks…

A former Chicago college student was convicted Monday of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group. Thomas Osadzinski, 22, wrote a computer code to help IS bypass programs designed to block the group’s propaganda, prosecutors said. The former DePaul University student, who was born in a Chicago suburb, was living in the city…

A congressman from California has introduced legislation that would give Afghan Fulbright scholars special immigrant visas.   The legislation would automatically issue a special immigrant visa to any Afghan who lived in the United States as a Fulbright scholar and to their immediate family members to help them “escape persecution by the Taliban and relocate safely to the United States,” according to a statement from the office of U.S. Representative John Garamendi, a Democrat. “Fulbright…

Not many computer science students command a lot of attention, especially from the American public. But Matt Amodio, a student at Yale University, is on a streak. He has persevered (at last count) 36 consecutive times on the wildly popular and geeky game show “Jeopardy!” where the goal is to know more than your fellow contestants…

Afghan semifinalists for next year’s Fulbright scholars’ program are asking the U.S. government about the status of their candidacies, following the closure of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as American troops withdrew from Afghanistan in August.  “After the fall of Kabul on August 15, we did not hear back from the U.S. State Department on…

The Biden administration is moving to relax the rules for a student loan forgiveness program that has been criticized for its notoriously complex requirements — a change that could offer debt relief to thousands of teachers, social workers, military members and other public servants. The Education Department said Wednesday it will temporarily drop some of…

Like many others, Azra Ozdemir’s parents sent her off on the first day of school with the usual sage advice about doing well so she could get into a good college.   That was her first day of kindergarten.    “I knew three words in English: Yes. No,” and the letter P to indicate the…

Investors younger than 34 surveyed by a financial services company said student debt, health care costs and financial jargon are barriers between them and investing. Of the 898 surveyed, 61% of the young investors said education costs, or paying down student loans, are the biggest barriers to retirement, tied with health care costs (61%), according…

Harvard University, often ranked first among the best colleges and universities in the United States, has received more than $45 million to expand its Asian American studies program. The donations come from 14 Asian American alumni leaders who graduated from the university between 1990 and 2003. The money will support new professorships, graduate fellowships and…

A second company that services student loan debt has asked the United States federal government to be relieved of its contracts. Navient, based in Wilmington, Delaware, announced Tuesday it had signed an agreement to transfer the loan servicing to Maximus. The deal is subject to the approval of the U.S. Department of Education’s office of…

Emmanuel Benson was planning to get his diploma in horticulture and landscaping from Nigeria’s Federal College of Forestry Mechanization next year. Now, he’s not willing to risk the return to school, after he was kidnapped by bandits with dozens of others earlier this year.   “Our lives are at risk — Nigerian students, especially in…

People who feel strongly connected to their country are more likely to practice social distancing and mask wearing amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to research that looked at nearly 70 nations worldwide.  “In pretty much every country we examined around the world, people who were strongly identified were more willing to make…