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ON FEBRUARY 3RD ArgentinaÔÇÖs new Peronist president, Alberto Fern├índez, joined Angela Merkel for dinner at the German chancellery in Berlin. According to press reports, Mrs Merkel asked her guest a question: ÔÇ£What is Peronism? I donÔÇÖt understand. Are you on the left or the right?ÔÇØ Bello imagines a conversation that might have followed.

Mr Fern├índez laughed. He was used to foreigners not knowing much about Argentina besides Evita, tango and hyperinflation. But something about Mrs Merkel suggested that she was only feigning ignorance. ÔÇ£Let me explain,ÔÇØ said Mr Fern├índez cautiously. ÔÇ£First of all, weÔÇÖre not populists. That was an invention of Mauricio Macri, my neo-liberal predecessor. We donÔÇÖt just stir up the masses.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£Really?ÔÇØ asked Mrs Merkel, sounding unconvinced.

ÔÇ£Really. IÔÇÖm a social democrat,ÔÇØ the president insisted. ÔÇ£The base of Peronism is the trade unions and the poor, whom we always look after. But we also have the industrialists behind us. They liked General Juan Per├│nÔÇÖs protectionism 75 years ago and they like it today. And we have the pope.ÔÇØ

ÔÇ£As always, Per├│n himself put it best,ÔÇØ Mr Fern├índez continued. ÔÇ£In 1972 he told a journalist: ÔÇÿLook, in Argentina, 30% are RadicalsÔǪ30% are conservatives and a similar amount Socialists.ÔÇÖ ÔÇÿSo where are the Peronists?ÔÇÖ asked the journalist. ÔÇÿAh,ÔÇÖ replied...

NAYIB BUKELE, the president of El Salvador, draws notice outside his country for his youth, his jet-black beard and his mastery of social media. Now his authoritarianism is a trending topic. The sight of Mr Bukele entering the National Assembly on February 9th, alongside soldiers toting machine guns, shocked onlookers at home and abroad. He plonked himself in the empty chair reserved for the president of congress. ÔÇ£I liked seeing those empty seats,ÔÇØ he tweeted. ÔÇ£It made it easier for me to imagine them full of honest people who work for the people.ÔÇØ

Congress accused the president of staging an ÔÇ£attempted coupÔÇØ. The Constitutional Court rebuked Mr Bukele. El Faro, a Salvadorean news website, called his stunt ÔÇ£the lowest moment that Salvadorean democracy has lived in three decadesÔÇØ. He retorted, not very reassuringly, ÔÇ£If I were a dictator, I would have taken control of everything.ÔÇØ

Eight months into his presidency Mr Bukele, who at 38 is the worldÔÇÖs second-youngest head of state, has an approval rating of 90%. But his left-leaning New Ideas party, founded in 2018, has not had a chance to win seats in congress. The legislature is dominated by two parties: the left-wing FMLN, the successor to a guerrilla movement that fought a decade-long civil war in the 1980s, and the right-wing Arena party, which...

IN JULY Bernie Sanders hopped on a bus in Detroit with some Americans who have diabetes. They rode across the Canadian border to buy insulin at a tenth of the price they would pay at home. For Mr Sanders, who won the New Hampshire primary on February 11th, joining an ÔÇ£insulin caravanÔÇØ had obvious appeal. He promises ÔÇ£Medicare for allÔÇØ, suggesting that every American should enjoy the lavish public health spending that the elderly receive. He praises Canada for its tough negotiations with drug firms. ÔÇ£We should be doing what the Canadians do,ÔÇØ he declared.

Canadians have their doubts. CanadaÔÇÖs pharmaceutical prices are 25% higher than the average in the OECD, a club of 36 mainly rich countries. American prices are higher still, largely because the United States has powerful drug firms, no price-setting regulator and lots of citizens who receive health insurance through their employers and have little idea how much it costs. Unlike Canada, the United States also lets drugmakers advertise directly to consumers. As a share of GDP, CanadaÔÇÖs pharmaceutical spending is the fifth-highest in the OECD (see chart).

It is the only country with publicly financed universal health care that does not provide universal coverage for prescription drugs. A fifth of Canadians have no drug insurance. Nearly 1m say they spend less on food or...

Turkey-based education agency┬áAcademix has announced a sister company ÔÇô┬áNext Study Abroad┬áÔÇô┬áthat will focus on Eastern Europe study destinations.

Announced during Academix’s Agent Training and Workshop in Istanbul in January, the new agency will focus on sending students to countries including the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Hungary, as well as traditional study destinations.

“Demand for East Europe is rapidly increasing”

According to branch manager at┬áAcademixÔÇÖs┬áTaksim Office in Istanbul Sel├ºuk Atmaca, Academix ÔÇô which expanded to Iran and Azerbaijan in 2019 ÔÇô covers many locations globally.

The new company has been created due to the rising demand for Eastern Europe.

“Demand for East Europe is rapidly increasing as they provide more achievable entrance requirements and lower fees than major countries,” he told The PIE News.

“They are also much closer to Turkey in terms of the distance concern.”

By having a┬ánew team, Next Study Abroad will ensure its agents are “experts” in the Eastern European study abroad market, he added.

Like Academix, Next will also offer language and junior courses, undergrad and postgrad degrees and VET programs in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Ireland, as well as other popular language destinations for Turkish students.

Next Study Abroad will operate out of Besiktas, in Istanbul.

The post Academix agency announces sister company appeared first on The PIE News.

Study Group is to acquire learning experience platform developer Insendi in what is seen by the provider as a significant opportunity for business growth in online, blended and international education.

Founded by staff from the Edtech Lab at Imperial College London, Insendi provides a learning experience platform and expertise in course development, staff training and consultancy to its university partners.

ÔÇ£Our shared view is that these technologies are increasingly important to students and teachers”

Insendi will operate as a separate company within Study Group to retain its focus on innovation in online higher education, while Study Group will also work closely with Insendi to develop its online student support and bespoke provision in the years to come.

The move has been described as an opportunity to enhance Study GroupÔÇÖs position as a leading provider of international education in an area of growing importance to students and universities.

Chief executive of Study Group, Emma Lancaster, said the provider is delighted to welcome Insendi to the Study Group family.

“I have been deeply impressed by the teamÔÇÖs technical credentials as a company which grew out of their work at Imperial College and their focus on engaging higher education learning using their platform,” Lancaster said.

“Together with Study GroupÔÇÖs 25 years of experience of working with university partners and helping international students succeed, we see significant opportunities,” she added.

Director and co-founder of Insendi, David LeFevre ÔÇô also the director of the EdTech Lab at Imperial College ÔÇô echoed Lancaster’s sentiments, adding that it was important for┬áInsendi to maintain its own “unique identity and reputation”.

“Together we see genuine complementary strengths and a real potential for business growth in the future.”

LeFevre said that increasingly, the teaching and support of students draw on the breakthrough technologies that are impacting our society.

ÔÇ£Our shared view is that these technologies are increasingly important to students and teachers and they will play a pivotal role in the future as international education addresses questions of access, resilience and environmental sustainability.

“We are excited about exploring these possibilities,” he added.

The post Study Group acquires edtech platform, Insendi appeared first on The PIE News.

Educators in the US have welcomed a ruling by a federal court judge that permanently blocks a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services policy which put international students at risk of three and 10-year re-entry bans for incurring a visa status violation.

Concerns were raised upon the introduction of the 2018┬ápolicy memo┬áthat it put international students at risk of being deported or barred due to clerical errors or delays in visa processing because it allowed the backdating of ÔÇ£unlawful presenceÔÇØ from the moment the violation occurred.

“It was a complex and unnecessary policy change that was deeply concerning”

Previously, unlawful presence was calculated from the day after a student was informed that USCIS had formally found a violation, and students were able to make corrections and request adjustments without risking accruing more unlawful presence.

Once an individual accrues 180 days of unlawful presence they can be barred from the US for three years, and a 10-year ban is levied after more than one year of unlawful presence.

The government said the changes were introduced due to ÔÇ£significant progress in its ability to identify and calculate the number of nonimmigrants who have failed to maintain statusÔÇØ through mechanisms such as the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.

But Heather Stewart, counsel and director of immigration policy for NAFSA, told The PIE News that “it was a complex and unnecessary policy change that was deeply concerning”, and would have resulted in students being penalised without even realising they were violating their immigration status.

“This was an attempt to change a long-standing policy applied to international students when they were notified of an alleged violation of their immigration status,” Stewart added.

Upon the announcement that US District Court judge Loretta Biggs had ruled that the language of the policy conflicted with the law, education organisations and institutes across the country responded positively.

ÔÇ£International students and scholars came to the United States to study relying on a promise that our nation made to treat them fairly and transparently,” said Haverford College’s president Wendy Raymond in a statement.

“I laud and commend judge BiggsÔÇÖ decision for the certainty and stability that it brings for our students”

“The administrationÔÇÖs unlawful presence policy belied that promise, placing our students at risk of serious immigration consequences. I laud and commend judge BiggsÔÇÖ decision for the certainty and stability that it brings for our students and campuses.ÔÇØ

Haverford College was one of a group of more than 60 institutions that launched a legal challenge against the policy soon after its release on that grounds that it ÔÇ£introduce[d] considerable uncertainty into the calculation of unlawful presence and needlessly exposes international students to devastating re-entry bansÔÇØ.

The group explained that students and exchange visitors can fall out-of-status due to unwitting clerical and technical errors, “often of someone elseÔÇÖs making”.

It argued that in many cases, the infraction will not be discovered until the individual reapplies for another immigration benefit, such as an optional practical training allowance or an H-1B visa.

Biggs later issued a preliminary injunction against the policy, followed by the permanent one earlier this month.

ÔÇ£Given the statuses identified in the memo, students and exchange visitors in higher education were being directly targeted by the new policy,ÔÇØ Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, told The PIE.

ÔÇ£On campuses across the country, international advisers began struggling with how to present this new reality without creating fear and confusion.ÔÇØ

Although Feldblum said that due to the speed with which the injunction was brought in she doesnÔÇÖt know of any specific cases were students or scholars were deported under the policy, educational organisations and providers had to adapt their visa advice for students.

ÔÇ£We urge the administration to not appeal this decision and instead recommit to restoring our nationÔÇÖs competitiveness in regards to international students,ÔÇØ added Jane Fernandes, president of Guilford College.

ÔÇ£We urge the administration to not appeal this decision”

USCIS told The PIE it was currently reviewing the courtÔÇÖs decision.

But even if USCIS choose not to appeal, further changes to immigration policy will likely continue to affect international students.

According to a report by┬áForbes, one upcoming policy is seeking to replace students’┬á“duration of status” with a “maximum period of authorised stay”.

This would “require them to gain new approvals at each stage of their studies in the US, such as a transition from an undergraduate to a graduate-level program” and “new approvals also would be needed if academic programs take longer than anticipated”.

The post US HEIs welcome ruling over int’l student “unlawful presence” policy appeared first on The PIE News.

Australia is bracing for more disruption with an extension of the travel ban from mainland China announced for a further week by PM Scott Morrison ÔÇô and concerns are also surfacing about visa applications in the pipeline, according to chair of the global reputation taskforce, Phil Honeywood.

The taskforce ÔÇô a panel of council of universities and education providers ÔÇô have met with education minister Dan Tehan and trade minister Simon Birmingham to discuss how they can limit the impact on the AUS$38 billion dollar industry.

In excess of 100,000 international students remain stranded offshore after the Australian government banned foreign nationals entering from China for 14 days from February 1 in an effort to minimise the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19).

Orientation week for many Australian universities commences on February 24.

“WeÔÇÖre pleased that the Chinese government has agreed to relax its internet restrictions to allow students who are banned from entering Australia to commence their studies online,” Honeywood told The PIE.

“This is something that hasnÔÇÖt been easy to achieve in the past so we welcome the move.ÔÇØ Online study has been suggested as an interim measure to ensure Chinese students can start programs as planned remotely.

Honeywood said learning options, regulatory flexibility and student visas were major discussion points ÔÇô but also flagged up concerns around a visa issuance freeze while the coronavirus crisis continues.

“It appears no student visas have been issued since the travel ban”

“It appears no student visas have been issued since the travel ban started on February 1,” he said. “There is no logistical reason for this and weÔÇÖre in negotiation with the federal government to lift the visa approval freeze.”

Hardest hit by the travel ban is the ÔÇ£Group of EightÔÇØ ÔÇô which comprises AustraliaÔÇÖs leading research-intensive universities. Chief executive of the Go8, Vicki Thompson, said they account for 63% of enrolments from Chinese nationals studying in Australia.

“Given the Go8ÔÇÖs exposure, it can be deduced that most of these students [who are stranded] are ours. This is potentially a financial hit estimated by S&P Global at up to AUS$3 billion for all universities.”

The economic impact isnÔÇÖt contained to just the higher education sector, with Thompson quoting a recent London Economics study showing that for every three international students studying at a Go8 university, the broader economic impact for Australia is a positive $1m.

Regulatory bodies TEQSA and ASQA are promising maximum flexibility on a provider to provider level around start dates, online learning and other options for students.

“With the support of these bodies, universities have been able to put in place a range of measures,” said Honeywood.

“Monash [the countryÔÇÖs biggest university] has pushed back the commencement of semester 1 for all students, while the University of New South Wales is offering to roll enrolments over from its first to second trimester and Australian National University (ANU) has announced a special winter semester.”

The Global Reputation Taskforce acknowledged that once the travel bans have been lifted and Chinese students start returning to campuses, there will be longer term issues to deal with.

“WeÔÇÖre looking to ensure all things such as deferment fees, additional visa fees and post study work right visas are facilitated in a way that doesnÔÇÖt disadvantage the students,” said Honeywood. “WeÔÇÖre pleased to see the government has an appetite for providing this type of regulatory fee support.”

“We need to let them know, that we care, that their health and mental wellbeing are important to us”

Individual student welfare is also a focus for the taskforce. “In addition to practicalities including student housing availability, we also need to ensure these students are supported,” said Honeywood.

“We need to let them know, that we care, that their health and mental wellbeing are important to us and that Australia is still an attractive and welcoming place.”

Other prominent stakeholders echoed this, with the premier of Western Australia calling out reported racist behaviour as ‘disgraceful and un-Australian’.

StudyPerth said now was the time to rally behind communities that are feeling the effects of the outbreak and extend a helping hand.

Phil Payne, CEO at┬áStudyPerth, commented, “I feel particularly for the thousands of Chinese students who have been prevented from commencing or resuming their studies in Western Australia.

“I look forward to an early resolution of this outbreak, and a lifting of the travel restrictions, so we can welcome these students with open arms into the Western Australian community.”

The post 100K Australia-bound Chinese hit by extended travel ban appeared first on The PIE News.

The biggest story in international education over the last decade was, in a word, China.

As the number of students from China studying in the U.S. grew rapidly, fueled by a big increase in tuition-paying undergraduates, colleges and universities grew reliant on them to balance their budgets. And as Chinese universities grew in stature, American colleges created innumerable partnerships with their Chinese counterparts in research and other areas.

Now the global public health crisis precipitated by an outbreak of a new coronavirus, COVID-19, in China -- and the imposition of travel restrictions barring entry to the U.S. of most foreign nationals who have traveled to China within the last 14 days -- threatens student flows and other forms of collaboration. More than 1,100 people have died from the virus, which was first identified in December in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the center of the outbreak.

Some colleges are reporting they have students in China who are unable to return for the spring semester due to travel restrictions. Colleges have canceled study abroad programs and university-sponsored travel to China, including recruitment travel, in response to U.S. government travel warnings. February dates for college entrance exams such as the ACT, TOEFL, IELTS, GMAT and GRE in mainland China have been canceled. Regular visa services at the U.S. embassy in Beijing and consulates in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenyang Provinces have been suspended. China remains largely shut down, and schools and universities there have suspended classes.

“This is a blow to many universities, particularly those universities that put so much of their effort into Chinese student recruitment, that in a way became dependent in terms of that cash flow, looking particularly at undergraduates from China,” said William Brustein, vice president for global strategies and international affairs at West Virginia University. Chinese students make up the biggest group of international students in the U.S., accounting for slightly more than a third of all international students at American colleges.

“If this continues and students aren’t able to complete their application by being able to take a TOEFL test or SAT, boy, the bottom line is going to be affected,” Brustein said. “I think it’s going to send a message about dependency in terms of the Chinese flow. I think that is going to be with us for a while even if we’re able to catch our breath from this and things improve dramatically over the next few weeks and we’re able to rebuild that pipeline. I feel that schools are now going to need to take seriously becoming much more open to putting their resources into recruitment in other parts of the world.”

Just how severe the impact will be will depend on many unknown variables, among them: how long the outbreak will last, whether or to what degree it can be relatively contained, when local and international travel restrictions may be lifted, whether Chinese colleges and schools reopen in time to finish their terms more or less on schedule, and how damaging the virus ultimately ends up being to the Chinese -- and indeed the global -- economy. After the SARS outbreak in China in 2003 -- perhaps the closest but in many ways an imperfect parallel -- Chinese enrollments to the U.S. dipped by 4.6 percent in 2003-04 before beginning to recover the following year with a 1.2 percent increase. Chinese student enrollments in the U.S. have increased every year since then.

“We are cautious in not knowing yet what the ultimate outcome will be. What likely will predict how much this will affect international education is how long the health crisis goes on,” said Mirka Martel, the head of research, evaluation and learning at the Institute of International Education, which tracks international enrollments through its annual Open Doors survey. “We do already know that outreach and recruitment are being disrupted. We know that this will likely impact the Chinese economy. We know that enrollments in the short term are being disrupted.”

From an enrollment management perspective, the uncertainty throws yield calculations into serious question. Admission officials at selective institutions in the U.S. will be shaping their classes and finalizing admissions offers over the coming weeks in time to send acceptance letters to students on April 1. It's an open question whether they will be able to count on admitted Chinese students coming at similar rates as in past years.

“Right now, what we can say is that institutions are trying to assess various scenarios and there are going to be varying and diverse ways that institutions deal with it depending on their risk aversion and their flexibility with how they can accommodate going over enrollment,” said Lindsay Addington, director of global engagement at the National Association for College Admission Counseling. She added that there may be a heavier reliance on wait lists. NACAC issued a Jan. 31 statement encouraging colleges to be flexible in their admissions policies for affected prospective students.

As for current Chinese students, because of the timing of the academic calendar, the majority already would have been in the U.S. before the U.S. government travel restrictions were put in place Feb. 1. But colleges with later spring semester starts are already seeing significant impacts on enrollments. The University of Delaware, which started its spring classes this week after a winter session, reported that it has 226 students who were not able to return to campus for the spring semester. The university granted those students the option to take a leave of absence or complete courses online when possible.

Some intensive English language programs are reporting cancellations or deferrals of enrollments, as well as cancellations of short-term customized programs for Chinese students scheduled for February or March, according to Cheryl Delk-Le Good, the executive director of the membership association EnglishUSA. "It’s too early to tell about the summer and fall," she said.

Meanwhile, in Australia, where the fall semester starts in late February or early March, an estimated 107,000 Chinese students -- 56 percent of the total Chinese student population -- are still outside Australia and increasingly unlikely to be able to return in time to resume classes.

“This is the worst possible time for Australian education providers, because it comes at the very start of our academic year,” said Phil Honeywood, CEO of the International Education Association of Australia. “Even many of our continuing students, they went home for Chinese Lunar New Year. They have leases on apartments in Australia, they in some cases have pets in boarding kennels … and they’ve been caught by our government’s travel ban.”

Christopher ZigurasÔÇï, a professor of global studies at RMIT University, and Ly Tran, a fellow at Deakin University, both located in Australia, described the coronavirus outbreak as "the biggest disruption to international student flows in history."

"Australia has never experienced such a sudden drop in student numbers," they wrote in an article in The Conversation, a news outlet that features articles written by academics. "The reduced enrollments will have profound impacts on class sizes and the teaching workforce, particularly at master's level in universities with the highest proportions of students from China … If classes are too small, universities will have to cancel them."

Back in the U.S., Cheryl Matherly, vice president and vice provost for international affairs at Lehigh University, a Pennsylvania institution that hosts more than 700 Chinese students and scholars on its campus, said the university has one student in Wuhan and three others who are elsewhere in China unable to return for the spring semester.

“Those are very real impacts here on the community,” she said. “Another thing that’s a near-term immediate impact -- we have a number of graduate programs that were still accepting applicants, and with all the testing centers closed, we’ve had to come up with some emergency or temporary arrangements for students who have not been able to complete their GREs, GMATs, TOEFLs or IELTS. Those are the kinds of things that are very immediate. And then I might add the last one is just being very mindful of the stress that this is putting on our Chinese student community here.”

Like many colleges, Lehigh has reached out to its Chinese students on campus to offer support and make them aware of available resources.

“Next we need to start turning our attention to what happens if this continues,” said Matherly, who is the current president of the Association of International Education Administrators. In addition to outreach to admitted students from China, Matherly said Lehigh officials are looking at possible contingency plans for summer abroad programs.

“We’ve suspended our summer programs in China, but we have a lot of programs that happen in other parts of Asia,” she said. “We have students in Singapore, the Philippines, Kazakhstan -- all places where, depending upon the spread of the virus, this could have some very real impact on the ability to continue with those summer programs.

“More than anything, this is really making clear what we all knew -- how central China is to our international education efforts: inbound, outbound, research collaborations. When we think about all the dimensions that are part of robust international education programs, they all intersect with China,” Matherly said.

Rajika Bhandari, an expert on international enrollment trends and the president and CEO of the IC3 Institute, an organization focused on promoting access to college and career counseling globally, said this is an unprecedented situation for international education.

“While I think there is a tendency to compare it with SARS, the overall sector, international education, is in a very different time and place from 2003, when the SARS epidemic was playing out. The prominence of China has changed over time,” she said.

“What’s new and what’s different has been this growth of a whole range of engagements with Chinese institutions, coupled with China’s own rise as a higher education destination, which has really only happened in the last five or six years,” Bhandari said. “What will this crisis mean for those sorts of engagement? A lot of students from South Asia go to China, and there have been stories of many of them being stranded and not being able to get out. I think it’s going to really rebalance how countries have been rising as destinations and global partners, because it is so much more than just that very narrow lens of ‘can Chinese students come to the U.S., and can American students go to China.’”

Fanta Aw, the vice president of campus life and inclusive excellence at American University and a former president of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, said she is cautiously optimistic that the impact of coronavirus on international education might be limited. But, she said, “time is of the essence, and as time goes by with the admission cycle, with the visa cycle, we have to watch this carefully.”

“I do think this cycle is going to be a challenging cycle from an admissions perspective, from a study abroad perspective. The 2020 cycle is going to be a challenging time,” she said.

“It once again affirms how in international education there are so many interdependencies,” Aw said. “This is what a global world looks like. Events in one area have repercussions in so many different areas as well, whether in this case it’s the coronavirus or whether it’s political situations. This is one of those realities of international education.”

The share of federal student loan debt with relatively generous repayment options -- in income-driven repayment plans -- is growing rapidly, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office.

And the CBO, a nonpartisan agency, found that borrowers with graduate and professional degrees are benefiting most from the increasingly expensive federal program.

About 45 percent of the volume of federal loans was being repaid through income-driven plans in 2017, the report said, up from 12 percent in 2010. The share of undergraduate borrowers who enrolled in income-driven plans grew to 24 percent from 11 percent during this period. And the portion grew to 39 percent from 6 percent of borrowers who took out direct loans for graduate study.

Borrowers in income-driven repayment default on their loans at much lower rates, the CBO found. The federal government also spends much more on these loans -- it loses almost 17 cents on every dollar that goes into income-driven repayment while making nearly 13 cents on each dollar repaid through standard fixed-payment plans.

Graduate borrowers also tend to have larger balances, because their loans are not subject to annual or lifetime limits. More than half of the volume of federal loans (56 percent) held by graduate borrowers was in income-driven plans in 2017.

As a result, the CBO projected that government subsidies for graduate student loan borrowers will be substantially larger.

Among federal loans disbursed from 2020 to 2029, the report estimated that undergraduate borrowers would have $40 billion of their student debt forgiven. But the federal government would forgive $167 billion of graduate borrowers’ student loans, meaning that they would receive roughly 80 percent of that federal subsidy.

The CBO projected that graduate student borrowers in IDR would have an average of 56 percent of their loan balances forgiven, compared to 21 percent of the amount disbursed to undergraduates.

“Up until now, concerns about graduate students earning windfall benefits in the income-based repayment program were dismissed as hypothetical,” Jason Delisle, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in an opinion piece published today by Inside Higher Ed. “The CBO analysis puts those rebuttals to rest. Income-based repayment absolutely is providing the largest benefits to those who need them least.”

Jessica Thompson, associate vice president of the Institute for College Access and Success, said income-driven repayment is a “critical safety net” for borrowers. The CBO backs this up, she said, by finding that borrowers in IDR are half as likely as other borrowers to default on their loans.

Calls for Downsizing

Congress created the income-based repayment program in 2007, with backing from President George W. Bush's administration, to make student loan repayment more manageable and to provide financial relief for borrowers who were at risk of defaulting. The Obama administration later expanded the program.

Monthly payments are capped at 10 or 15 percent of borrowers’ discretionary incomes under the most popular IDR plans. And borrowers who have not paid off their loans within 20 or 25 years can have their outstanding balances forgiven. Those who qualify for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program can have their loan balances eliminated in 10 years.

If current laws remain unchanged, the CBO estimated that $490 billion of the $1.05 trillion in federal student loans projected to be disbursed to students over the next decade would be repaid through income-driven plans. The total estimated federal subsidy for income-driven plans would be $83 billion. In contrast, the federal government would earn $72 billion on the $563 billion in loans it is projected to issue over the next decade that will be repaid through fixed-payment plans.

The government’s projected cost as a percentage of loan dollars, the so-called subsidy rate, would be 16.9 percent on average for income-driven plans and -12.8 percent on average for fixed-payment plans.

Borrowers in income-driven repayment tend to have larger loan balances. One reason, the CBO said, is the disproportionate share of graduate student borrowers who enroll in those plans. But these borrowers also may be more aware of their financial options, said the report.

The average loan balance of graduate borrowers in income-driven repayment was $92,000 in 2017, according to the CBO report. Undergraduate borrowers in those plans had an average loan balance of $25,100.

Government agencies have in the past raised alarms about the cost of IDR.

For example, the U.S. Government Accountability Office in 2016 faulted the Education Department for seriously underestimating the price tag for these programs. And the GAO last year said the feds should do more to verify borrowers’ income, arguing that about 76,000 borrowers who were making no monthly payments may have been earning enough to pay down some of their loans.

The new numbers from the Congressional Budget Office already began fueling calls by congressional Republicans to rein in income-driven repayment.

Senator Mike Enzi, a Republican from Wyoming who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, said the “explosive growth” of income-driven repayment plans was unsustainable for the federal government.

“Moreover, as this report finds, the significant majority of the benefits of these programs are going to forgive graduate student loans,” Enzi said in a written statement. “While higher education provides valuable opportunities, including increased earnings potential, it is crucial that lawmakers review these programs to ensure they are targeting limited federal resources appropriately and slowing the unsustainable growth in the cost of higher education.”

The CBO report considered options to change income-driven repayment by limiting the availability of those options or by adjusting how much borrowers would repay under those plans.

For example, delaying the forgiveness of student loans by five years would decrease the federal subsidy by more than $17 billion over the next decade.

The Trump administration has proposed scaling back IDR for graduate students, in part by extending their loan forgiveness period to 30 years, and redirecting those savings to undergraduates.

TICAS in a recent analysis pointed to bipartisan proposals to simplify and improve income-driven repayment, in part by insuring that borrowers always make payments based on their income and that married borrowers are treated consistently regardless of how they file taxes.

The number of advertised full-time faculty jobs in history declined slightly last year, after increasing slightly the year before. Yet the relative stability in job numbers in 2018-19 signals that the history job market is normalizing after years of steep declines prior to 2017-18.

At the same time, fewer Ph.D.s in history are being awarded.

The new data appeared in the American Historical Association’s annual jobs report, released Wednesday. The report is based on jobs posted to the AHA Career Center and the separate H-Net Job Guide. About 25 percent of historians work outside academe, so the report does not reflect the entire jobs outlook, but it is considered representative of overall disciplinary trends.

“We may have reached a point of stability in the academic job market,” reads the report, written by Dylan Ruediger, an AHA staffer. During the 2018-19 hiring cycle, the AHA Career Center hosted ads for 538 full-time positions, making for a 1.8 percent decline year over year.

Ads for jobs beyond the professoriate, in particular, dropped from 59 to 51, accounting for much of the overall decrease.

Tenure-track jobs declined from 320 to 318, as postdoctoral fellowships rose from 78 to 79, and non-tenure-track positions increased from 91 to 92.

On H-Net, the number of history job ads dropped by about 9 percent.

Together, Ruediger wrote, “the two leading job boards indicate a modest 2.9 percent decline in tenure-track positions and a 5 percent decline in contingent faculty positions compared to 2017-18.”

Like the humanities generally, “history has seen decreased enrollments and a decline in the number of majors since the recession of 2008-09,” the report also says. “This long-term trend might have finally bottomed out, thanks to the creativity and determination of faculty who are reinvigorating history courses, and departments willing to put student interests and outcomes at the center of their curricula.”

Meanwhile, “departments have responded to years of difficult academic hiring cycles by shrinking the size of their doctoral programs.”

Ruediger’s analysis says that history Ph.D.s who graduated in the past decade faced fewer opportunities and more competition “than any cohort of PhDs since the 1970s when departments significantly cut admissions to their doctoral programs.”

As some historians are calling for similar steps to be taken now, he said, some departments have “quietly been shrinking for some time, a trend that continued last year.”

In 2018, for example, 1,003 students earned history Ph.D.s, compared to 1,058 in 2017. It’s “no blip,” Ruediger explained, as the annual number of new history Ph.D.s has declined 15 percent over all since 2014, reflecting “programmatic decisions made five to seven years earlier.”

The “shrinking size of Ph.D. programs is a lagging indicator of a discipline with a diminished footprint inside American colleges and universities,” the report says. “It also reveals that departments are not complacently carrying on with business as usual but making hard decisions about how many students to admit and how best to prepare those they have.”

Ruediger notes that the “ongoing sluggishness of academic hiring exists within the context of demographic changes transforming higher education as a whole.” Overall enrollment in colleges and universities has declined for eight consecutive years, down two million students since 2011. History majors and enrollments have declined even faster than that, “as general education requirements have shifted and data showing positive career outcomes for history majors have been ignored.”

While academic hiring doesn’t directly follow these trends, Ruediger wrote, faculty members “consistently report feeling that their ability to make the case for replacing or adding tenure lines hinges on the number of students enrolling in history courses or, in some cases, the number of majors.”

The AHA’s report warns that overall college and university enrollment is projected to decline further in the years ahead.

Over all, in 2018-19, the two job boards advertised a total of 691 faculty positions open to historians, 499 of them tenure-track positions. Most of those were assistant professorships. From a survey of advertisers on the AHA’s Career Center, the association determined that each of the 53 newly hired assistant professors on which they compiled data had graduated recently, about two-thirds within two years of hire. Still, 13 percent of tenure-track openings for assistant professors went to applicants six or more years beyond their Ph.D.s.

Contingent positions -- instructors, lecturers, clinical professors and visiting appointments -- made up 28 percent of full-time faculty positions advertised last year, unchanged from 2017-18. Adjunct jobs are underrepresented in the report.

As they did last year, when the AHA began tracking jobs by institution type, research universities dominated academic hiring: 56 percent of all tenure-track positions in 2018-19 were at research universities, according to the report, as were 51 percent of full-time, non-tenure-track positions and two-thirds of all senior hires.

These numbers stand unchanged from last year and are at odds with the overall composition of history faculty, “most of whom are employed at teaching institutions,” the report says. “The concentration of tenure-track positions at research universities, should it continue, clearly pertains to Ph.D. candidates entering the academic job market.”

Over all, Ruediger wrote, “We are now entering our second decade of anemic academic hiring, during which thousands of early-career historians have experienced disappointment, anger, and despair at the limited number of entry points into stable faculty employment.” This should “prompt us to recognize the accomplishments of historians building careers and contributing to our community from outside the professoriate: we will need their help to demonstrate the value of historical thinking beyond the academy.”

Even so, he said, “majors and undergraduate enrollments remain the foundation of the discipline within higher education, and improving the faculty market means strengthening that foundation.”

In good news, there are signs that years of declines in enrollments and majors may be leveling off and even beginning to “rebound,” Ruediger said. “But challenges to the discipline remain considerable: arguing for the value of that discipline is work we must do together.”

The Modern Language Association released its annual jobs report in November. It reflected similar trends to the AHA’s. For the sixth year in a row, that MLA report says, the number of positions advertised in the MLA Job Information List (JIL) decreased. But the decline for 2017-18 was “significantly smaller than it was in 2016-17, when both editions, English and languages other than English, suffered a drop of 11.5 percent.” In 2017-18, meanwhile, “the number of English positions dropped from 837 to 828 (a 1.1 percent decline), and the number of positions in languages dropped from 808 to 770 (a 4.7 percent decline).”

Robert Townsend, director of the Washington office of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is currently completing the 2017-18 departmental survey of faculties in the humanities fields. Details are forthcoming, but Townsend said Wednesday that data indicate there has been little change in the “number of faculty or the mix of tenure and non-tenure-track faculty in these departments” since the first such survey, in 2012.

A decade ago, Bucknell University was among 700 other higher education institutions and groups that spent about $100 million to hire lobbyists in Washington -- many of them hitting up members of Congress for earmarks to pay for things like a new campus lab or building.

But in the years since 2011, when federal lawmakers stopped handing out earmarks to their favorite projects, much has changed in how higher education lobbies.

Many smaller and midsize institutions, like Bucknell, have decided to not spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on D.C. lobbyists if they can no longer get a line inserted in the budget for new equipment or a building. The number of higher education institutions and groups hiring lobbyists to influence Congress has dropped by about a fourth between 2010 and 2019, from 683 to 396, according to an Inside Higher Ed analysis of federal lobbying disclosure data.

All told, the industry spent about $74.5 million to lobby Congress in 2019, roughly $22 million less than the $96.4 million it spent in 2010.

Disclosure records also show changes in which institutions are lobbying Congress.

“We noticed a trend where the smaller or midsized schools pulled back from lobbying,” said Leslee Gilbert, vice president of Van Scoyoc Associates, which represents a number of institutions, including the University of New Mexico, University of Utah and University of Toledo.

However, some larger research institutions, including the University of California system, have ramped up spending on federal lobbying, a shift Gilbert said has made it harder for smaller colleges to get federal funding.

“In 2010, Congress was still using earmarks in the appropriations process, and a lot of work was devoted to this particular part of advocacy,” said Terry Hartle, the American Council on Education’s senior vice president for government relations and public affairs.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives reportedly are considering a return to earmarks, at least on a limited basis, although lobbyists like Hartle and Gilbert are skeptical House Democrats will do it. If that change happens, lobbyists and some institutions say more colleges will go back to hiring D.C. lobbyists.

"It's logical that if a pool of funds like this again becomes available, organizations will engage firms to assist them in accessing those funds," David Surgala, Bucknell’s vice president for finance and administration, said in an emailed statement.

Bucking the Trend

The drop in congressional lobbying by higher education reflects an overall drop in spending on educational lobbying, including K-12, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a D.C.-based group that tracks campaign contribution and lobbying spending.

Inside Higher Ed’s numbers are based on spreadsheets created by the center on education lobbying.

According to the center, $80.9 million was spent last year to lobby on education, down from $109.1 million in 2010. That runs counter to lobbying trends over all. About $3.5 billion was spent on federal lobbying last year, the center said, an amount that didn't change much from the previous year.

One caveat about the numbers, Hartle said, is that lobbying rules only require the disclosure of spending to influence Congress, not federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health, where higher education lobbying continues to draw federal dollars.

Another factor in the decline, Hartle said, is that not as much is happening in Congress as in 2010, which featured major legislation like the Affordable Care Act, the Dodd-Frank Act regulations on financial institutions and a revamp to the federal guaranteed student loan program.

While lobbying Congress may have dropped off, efforts to influence the U.S. Department of Education and other agencies has continued, if not increased, at a time when agencies consider changes to policies around accreditation and how campuses deal with allegations of sexual assault and harassment.

“The paralysis on Capitol Hill has reduced the amount of legislation that gets enacted, and this reduces the amount of time we spend lobbying,” Hartle said in an email. “But we are probably spending more time interacting with the executive branch now than ever before.”

As for lobbying Congress, institutions like Bucknell, California State University, the State University of New York and the City University of New York have scaled back or stopped entirely.

Bucknell, for instance, spent $120,000 on federal lobbying in 2010. Over the years, “Bucknell has received a few earmarks for capital items -- e.g. scientific equipment and maybe some help with facilities projects,” said Mike Ferlazzo, a university spokesman. But it spent $90,000 in 2018 and nothing last year.

"Federal earmarks from legislators are no longer the same as they were in prior years. Our focus has changed from lobbying for earmarks to engaging a firm to help us with grants from places such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the National Endowment for the Humanities," the university said in a statement.

According to lobbying data, Cal State, which spent $1.3 million in 2010, spent about half as much ($724,000) last year. SUNY's spending dropped from $1.8 million to $220,000 during the same period. CUNY spent $30,000 in 2010 but nothing last year.

A SUNY spokeswoman attributed the decline to becoming more efficient and having university staff handle lobbying. Cal State in a statement said, “It does seem likely to us that Congress’s decision to ban earmarks in 2011 has contributed to a decline in lobbying expenditures by institutions of higher education, including the California State University.” But other factors like the recession, greater emphasis on seeking competitive grants and the inability of Congress to reauthorize the Higher Education Act since 2008 contributed as well, the statement said

Return to Earmarks?

For smaller colleges, it’s still possible to get federal dollars from agencies, even though members of Congress representing their area can no longer get a line in the federal budget for a pet project.

However, lobbyists who represent small and medium-size institutions say it has become more difficult for them to get funding. Without earmarks, the action has shifted to getting money from federal agencies, and major universities are also chasing those dollars. The battle for funding “is highly competitive, highly,” said one lobbyist who represents smaller institutions.

That’s unfair to students who attend smaller institutions, the lobbyist said. “Most kids go to college within 50 miles of where they live. All students in the U.S. should have access to really quality experiences and great scientific resources.”

The lobbyist complained, “The big ones have gotten bigger.”

The University of California, for instance, spent $1.3 million in 2019, nearly twice the $700,000 it spent in 2010.

Stett Holbrook, a UC spokesman, said lobbying expenditures have risen because of a number of factors, including "issues before Congress and the administration, and the amount of time associations spend on lobbying done on members’ behalf." He also said in an email that “UC has not relied on directed funding or so-called earmarks. As such, our lobbying efforts have not been tied to that process. We strongly support the peer-reviewed, competitive grants process through which our researchers have achieved great success.”

A lobbyist who represents research universities said many of those institutions ramped up their presence in Washington after the end of earmarks in order to build deeper relationships with agencies that fund research. Another lobbyist said institutions that conduct work on detecting viruses are talking to agencies as the government deals with the coronavirus outbreak.

As first reported by Politico in January, House Democrats are considering bringing back earmarks by allowing the funding of a controlled number of lawmakers' local projects from limited pots of federal cash. New restrictions would bar money from going to for-profit businesses but would allow nonprofit colleges and universities to again be able to receive earmarks.

While the practice has been derided, some said there would be advantages in bringing back earmarks.

Influential interests can still seek money even without earmarks, said Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center. “But while they used to do it overtly, now they’re calling up the heads of agencies behind the scenes,” he said. “The irony is that in the interests of greater transparency, we’ve driven discussions further underground.”

In addition, he argued that restoring earmarks could make it easier for lawmakers to make tough decisions on a national scale, such as getting the national deficit under control. “We want members of Congress to have the courage to make decisions that will not be received well back home,” he said. “To do that, they’re going to need some political capital.”

However, lobbyists are also skeptical Congress will take the risk of being seen as bringing back what’s been derided as wasteful pork during an election year.

The House under Republican and Democratic leadership in the last few years has considered bringing back earmarks, Grumet noted. “But in the 11th hour, they’ve gotten cold feet,” he said. “Earmarks are one of those things that have been caricatured.”

• Berkeley College is starting a bachelor of science in business data science.
• Daemen College is starting an M.B.A. program that students can finish in 12 or 18 months.
• Rocky Mountain College is starting a doctor of medical sciences program for practicing physician assistants who already have their master of physician assistant degrees.
• Suffolk University is starting a master of science in law.

Digital education provider 2U has launched an extension of its partnership with the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The expanded collaboration will see the number of undergraduate degrees offered with the London institution ÔÇô the first of which was announced in 2019 ÔÇô rise to seven.

“The new courses are specifically designed to accommodate adult learners looking to accelerate their careers”

The new courses will range from┬áeconomics and management to data science and business analytics, and “are specifically designed to accommodate adult learners looking to accelerate their careers”.

“Bringing these degrees online is an extension of our founding charter to create programs that remove traditional barriers and expand access to high-quality education for students globally,” Craig O’Callaghan, director of operations and deputy chief executive at the University of London Worldwide, said in a statement.

The seven courses 2U will be offering on its platform with LSE are an extension of existing textbook-based distance learning programs that the University of London member institution provides.

“Students will now be able to log on to a laptop or mobile device from anywhere to engage with courses… and earn an undergraduate degree from the University of London,” said Chip Paucek, co-founder and CEO at 2U.

The expanded partnership with the University of London and LSE is a “powerful example of higher education delivering on the promise of access, quality, relevance, and flexibility”, he added.

“These degrees provide the means for talented students to access the academic excellence and social engagement that LSE is globally renowned for,” said Paul Kelly, dean of University of London Programmes at LSE.

“This partnership with 2U will enable the University of London and LSE to ensure the continued evolution of the student experience to remain engaging and relevant for our times.”

Four of the seven programs will launch in 2020, while details of the remaining three programs are yet to be confirmed.

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