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Elizabeth Warren’s departure from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination has left two candidates with different approaches to dealing with college affordability and other higher education policy issues. In addition to having different price tags, the plans released by Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders differ in how much detail they provide.

Price Tag:

Biden: $750 billion

Sanders: $2.2 trillion

Debt Forgiveness:

Sanders: Would cancel the entire balance of $1.6 trillion in outstanding student debt in the U.S.

Biden: Would take a more targeted approach, enrolling all existing and new borrowers in income-based repayment plans, except for those who choose to opt out. Borrowers who make $25,000 or less per year would not owe any payments on their undergraduate federal student loans and wouldn't accrue any interest on those loans. Others would pay 5 percent of their discretionary annual income above $25,000 toward loans. The plan would forgive 100 percent of any remaining debt for those who have made payments for 20 years. It also would change the tax code so that debt forgiven through income-based repayment wouldn’t be taxed.

Biden's plan also would revamp the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, giving $10,000 of undergraduate or graduate debt relief for every year of national or community service worked, up to five years. Individuals who work in schools, government and other nonprofit settings would automatically be enrolled in the forgiveness program. It would seek to address the problem of applicants for PSLF being rejected for not enrolling in the right repayment plan. Adjunct professors would be eligible for forgiveness, depending on the amount of time devoted to teaching.

Free College:

Sanders: Would spend $48 billion per year to eliminate tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities, tribal colleges, community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs. His plan would create a federal-state partnership in which the federal government would pay two-thirds of the cost of providing free tuition, with the state responsible for the other third.

Participating states and tribes must meet several requirements to be eligible, including reductions of their reliance on low-paid contingent faculty members. Funds generated by the program could not be used for administrator salaries, merit-based financial aid or the construction of nonacademic buildings such as stadiums and student centers.

Biden: Would make up to two years of community college free for all students, including those who attend part-time, the children of undocumented immigrants and those who did not graduate high school recently. The program also would be created through a federal-state partnership, in which the federal government would provide 75 percent of the cost, with states picking up the remainder. The federal government would cover 95 percent of the cost of eliminating tuition at tribal community colleges that serve low-income students. Those who would receive two years of college tuition-free could then get another free two years at historically black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions.

Other Student Aid:

Sanders: Because tuition would no longer exist at public institutions, low-income students would be free to use federal Pell Grants for books, transportation, housing and other costs. The plan would require states and tribes that participate in the federal-state partnership for free college cover any costs that are left over, after grants, for low-income students. It also would triple spending on Federal Work-Study, with a focus on institutions that serve large numbers of low-income students.

Biden: For community college students, the federal-state partnership for free college would be so-called first dollar, meaning that student aid grants could cover other costs of attending college besides tuition.

To help students at four-year institutions pay for costs other than tuition, the plan would create a new grant program to provide support services for students, especially veterans of the U.S. military, single parents, low-income students, students of color and students with disabilities. The grant could be used for public benefits, textbook and transportation costs, and childcare and mental health services. Institutions also could use the money to create emergency grant programs for students who experience an unexpected financial challenge that threatens their ability to stay enrolled in college.

The plan would double the maximum award amount of Pell Grants, increasing the number of middle-class students who’d be eligible for the program. It would allow Dreamers and the formerly incarcerated to receive the grants. Biden would prioritize the use of Federal Work-Study dollars for jobs that either provide skills that are valuable for students' intended careers or that contribute to their communities by mentoring students in K-12 classrooms and community centers.

For-Profit Institutions:

Sanders: The plan does not mention for-profit colleges or debt cancellation for students who were deceived by for-profits.

Biden: The plan would require for-profit institutions to prove their value to the U.S. Department of Education to be eligible for federal aid. It also would eliminate the 90-10 loophole that, according to several veterans' groups, gives for-profits an incentive to aggressively market to service members and veterans. The plan would empower the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to take action against private lenders who mislead students about their options and do not provide an affordable payment plan during times of financial hardship. It would restore the Obama administration’s borrower-defense rule, making it easier for people deceived by for-profit institutions to have their student debt forgiven. It also would allow private student loans to be discharged through bankruptcy.

Improving College Performance:

Sanders: His plan would create a federal-state partnership that would differ from the one eliminating tuition. That program would provide a dollar-for-dollar federal match for states and tribes to increase academic opportunities for students, hire new faculty members and provide professional development opportunities for professors.

Biden: His plan would create a grant program to help community colleges implement evidence-based practices to increase student retention and completion of credential programs. It would invest $8 billion to help community colleges improve the health and safety of their facilities and acquire new technology. It would provide grants to states that work to accelerate students’ attainment of bachelor's degrees and other credentials, such as through offering dual-enrollment programs for community college and four-year degree tracks.

HBCUs and Other Minority-Serving Institutions:

Sanders: The plan would spend $1.3 billion per year to eliminate or significantly reduce tuition and fees for low-income students at roughly 200 HBCUs and minority-serving institutions. To be eligible, at least 35 percent of students at the institution would have to be low income.

Biden: The plan would invest $18 billion in grants to provide two years of free tuition to low-income and middle-class students at HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions. In return colleges must invest in lowering prices, improving retention and graduation rates, and closing equity gaps for students of color.

It would spend another $10 billion to create at least 200 new centers of excellence that serve as research incubators and connect underrepresented students in career fields like climate change, globalization, inequality, health disparities and cancer. Would boost funding for agricultural research at land-grant universities, including HBCUs and tribal colleges or universities, and would dedicate additional federal funding or grants and contracts for HBCUs and minority-serving institutions. The plan would require any federal research grants to universities with an endowment of over $1 billion to subcontract with an HBCU, tribal college or minority-serving institution. It also would spend $20 billion to build research facilities and labs at HBCUs, tribal colleges and minority-serving institutions. And the plan would invest $10 billion in programs at HBCUs, tribal college and minority-serving institutions that increase enrollment, retention, completion and employment rates.

Funding:

Biden: He would pay for the $750 billion plan by closing the “stepped-up basis” loophole, which lowers the capital gains tax liability for property passed on to an heir. Biden also would cap itemized deductions for high-income taxpayers at 28 percent.

Sanders: He would pay for the $2.2 trillion plan by taxing Wall Street trades.

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A number of George Washington University students and faculty have lost confidence in President Thomas LeBlanc and are calling for his resignation over what they perceive as negligence toward meeting the university’s diversity and inclusion goals.

A wave of opposition to LeBlanc’s plans for GW reached a breaking point in early February after he made a racially insensitive comment on video that was widely shared on campus and cemented critics' impression of him as insufficiently committed to those goals. They point to the administration's five-year strategic plan as a stark example.

Under the plan, commonly referred to as the 20/30 plan, overall enrollment at the university would decrease by 20 percent while enrollment of students majoring in STEM subjects would increase by 11 percent and raise the total proportion of STEM students to 30 percent.

The plan has been fiercely questioned by members of two GW faculty associations, who point to projections of significant revenue loss and a decrease in diversity as a result. Tuition for incoming undergraduates will no longer be fixed starting next fall, and students and faculty members worry the university will not be able to provide as much financial aid because of revenue loss from the enrollment reduction.

Many fear that by making the university less affordable, GW will undo years of efforts to diversify the student body, said Harald Griesshammer, a physics professor and member of the Faculty Senate’s educational policy committee.

“We will become whiter and richer, which means that we are now suddenly confirming a stereotype that we have been fighting for 20 years,” he said.

Eptisam Kassim, a member of the Progressive Student Union, or PSU, which represents a relatively diverse group, said taken together, the projections of reduced numbers of students of color on campus and the controversial analogy LeBlanc used to argue that majority rule should not be used to silence the views of the minority -- "What if the majority of the students agreed to shoot all the black people here," he said in a conversation with a student -- are evidence that LeBlanc does not "value having a diverse community," Kassim said.

Griesshammer analyzed scenarios in the plan and determined that one of the most likely outcomes is an 8 percent drop in first-year nonwhite, non-Asian students, GW’s most underrepresented groups, and a 5 percent drop in international students, he said. This data has not been disputed by the administration, Griesshammer said.

Of the 12,546 undergraduates ÔÇïenrolled at GW in fall 2018, 50 percent were white, 11 percent were Asian, 10 percent were Latino and 7 percent were black, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Bryce Maples, a member of the PSU, is concerned about the end of fixed tuition for incoming students and the possibility of reduced financial aid as a result of the 20/30 plan. Maples uses a wheelchair and said he would not be attending GW without university-provided financial aid, which helps offset the cost of living in accessible housing.

“It’s time for LeBlanc to leave,” Maples said. ÔÇï“This is not a diverse school as it is now. This is an incredibly rich and incredibly white school. It’s almost unfathomable the idea of making it even more white and rich. It doesn’t seem possible. The administration’s own models have shown that that’s what the 20/30 plan will do. We need to move forward, and this is moving us back.”

The percentage of first-year students at GW who are eligible for federal Pell Grants, a widely used indicator of low-income status, would decrease from 22 percent to 10 percent under the plan, based on projections Griesshammer presented during a Feb. 25 faculty assembly that LeBlanc and Provost Brian Blake attended. Blake and LeBlanc were not available for comment, said Maralee Csellar, director of media relations.

According to minutes from that meeting, Blake said enrollment diversity is up this academic year compared to previous years. He also said the scenarios on which Griesshammer based his analyses are “models on the margins and included targets GW does not intend to implement” despite the fact that the outcomes were provided to the Faculty Senate by the administration.

The GW Faculty Association, or GWUFA, a grass-roots organization that is separate from the Faculty Senate, began circulating a petition calling for LeBlanc’s resignation shortly after the Feb. 25 assembly. The petition denounces the president’s “unwillingness to listen” to faculty members’ repeated requests for more information about the 20/30 plan, said Andrew Zimmerman, a history professor and interim president of GWUFA. The timing of the petition for LeBlanc to resign, however, is tied to the president’s “racist remarks” on Feb. 1, Zimmerman said.

While speaking to a student activist and member of Sunrise GWU, an environmental organization, about demands for the university to cut ties with fossil fuels, LeBlanc used an “insensitive example” to make an argument “that majority rule should never suppress the human rights of others,” he said in an apology the next day.

“What if the majority of the students agreed to shoot all the black people here?” LeBlanc said. He was unknowingly being recorded, The Washington Post reported.

The apology did not resolve any of the “underlying issues” that students of color face at such a white institution, said Kassim. She said she frequently feels she has to justify her presence on campus as a black Muslim woman who wears a hijab. She made a connection between LeBlanc’s comment and the strategic plan.

"There has been a lot of conversations about inclusivity and acceptance and things that are appropriate to say," Kassim said. "If there was implementation of the strategic plan, it shows the school will become a richer and whiter school, on top of you not understanding what’s appropriate to say."

This sentiment was echoed in GWUFA’s petition, which calls LeBlanc’s comment the “latest evidence of his disregard for both diversity and democracy at GW.”

“Lots of faculty of color and students and staff too felt that was making light of their basic safety and right to be at GW,” Zimmerman said. “People who don’t have respect for democracy also lack respect for diversity, and that seems to be the case here, too.”

Some 115 faculty members had signed the petition as of March 3. The petition also noted that the selection committee that hired LeBlanc as president in 2017 did not include any faculty members of color, Zimmerman said.

Griesshammer does not think LeBlanc is malicious in pushing forward with the 20/30 plan despite projections of decreased diversity, and he said it could be explained as "stupidity."

The GWUFA’s calls for LeBlanc’s resignation could jeopardize the “productive discussions” the Faculty Senate has been having with administration members about the plan, Griesshammer said. He ended his membership with the association because of the petition.

“GWUFA is too radical for its own good,” Griesshammer said. “We need to see how the administration reacts. If the administration makes constructive alternative proposals and not only listens but also digests what students and faculty tell them and act accordingly, then GW can move forward productively. If the administration just hunkers down and says, ‘We have the board behind us, we can do whatever we want,’ then nobody knows what the next steps will be.”

Zimmerman said the GWUFA sees the pursuits of both faculty associations as a “parallel struggle.” He hopes the petition pressures LeBlanc into giving the Faculty Senate the information they've been seeking for months.

In a March 4 letter to faculty members, LeBlanc and Grace Speights, chair of the Board of Trustees, committed to increased cooperation in decision making and providing more data on “key metrics” associated with the 20/30 plan, such as diversity and student financial need. LeBlanc and Speights said the results of the plan will be reassessed annually as it is implemented. The board will vote on the plan at the end of June.

“If the circumstances do not support the current strategy, the administration and the Board of Trustees will adapt the plan and targets as appropriate,” the letter said. “These commitments reflect our belief that our faculty is indispensable -- integral not only to our mission of teaching and research but also to the vigorous discussions that will guide our future.”

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As the health threat brings visa headaches, travel concerns, and financial uncertainty for overseas students in the United States, colleges must plan for different scenarios.

The transition to remote teaching involves a lot more than flipping a switch.

There are the logistics, like getting food to quarantined residential students, and then there’s the question of how to ensure people keep to quarantines that aren’t legally mandated.

Kaplan International Pathways has signed a partnership agreement with Queen Mary University of London to recruit and prepare international students for entry into the Russell Group institution.

Students will be prepared for a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes with the first intake entering Kaplan in September 2020 and the first cohort of students progressing to the Queen Mary in September 2021.

“Queen Mary is a truly global university and our international outlook informs our approach to everything we do”

Queen Mary has more than 27,000 students and over 160 nationalities represented on its London campuses.

The deal marks the first time that a Russell Group university in London has partnered with Kaplan International Pathways. 

“Queen Mary is a truly global university and our international outlook informs our approach to everything we do, from our international partnerships and research collaborations to transnational education and student recruitment,” said Colin Bailey, president and principal of Queen Mary University of London.┬á

“Our wonderfully diverse student population and global outlook make us a natural choice for international students.┬á

“Kaplan are world leaders in international education, and their teaching ethos, support for international students, global recruitment network and central location in London all provide a great fit with our Strategy,” he added.

Students will be located in central London at Kaplan International College London, and will participate in degree preparation courses covering specialist subjects, study skills and English language. 

Kaplan International Pathways works in partnership with leading universities to prepare more than 25,000 new international students each year wishing to progress into higher education studies.  

“We are delighted to be working with Queen Mary,” said Linda Cowan, managing director of Kaplan International Pathways.

She explained that UCAS recently released their 2019 International Insights report which showed that international students rank ÔÇÿquality of teachingÔÇÖ highest among factors when choosing a university.┬á

“With Queen MaryÔÇÖs strong reputation for excellence in teaching along with their emphasis on diversity and innovation, we are confident this will be a highly successful partnership providing an exciting opportunity for international students who want to experience a world-class education.”

The post KIP & Queen Mary University sign partnership appeared first on The PIE News.

In a Friday message, the university said it planned to restart in-person instruction on March 30. Seattle has seen the most reported cases of the novel coronavirus in the United States so far.

The impact of coronavirus travel restrictions on Chinese students studying in the US  has been low, as the vast majority were already on campus when measures were put in place, a survey by IIE has found. 

IIEÔÇÖs survey was conducted to show the effects that travel restrictions related to the outbreak are having on international student mobility, US study abroad programs and international student recruitment for the fall 2020 semester.

“According to the institutions the vast majority of enrolled students from China were already on their campuses”

The survey revealed that 87 respondent institutions (37%) had international students from China enrolled at their institutions who were affected by travel restrictions related to CovidÔÇÉ19.

The total number of Chinese students affected was 831. This represented less than 0.4% of the total population of students from China at respondent institutions.

Mirka Martel, IIEÔÇÖs head of research, evaluation, and learning spoke about the potential causes of this low number during a press call.

“According to the institutions, the vast majority of enrolled students from China were already on their campuses,” she explained.

“Either they had not left for the winter holidays or they had already returned to campus when the travel restrictions went into effect.”

Some 234 institutions responded to the survey which was administered February 13 –┬á26.

Participating institutions hosted 175,398 students from China in 2018/19, or 47% of the total population of Chinese students in the US.

Moreover, 19 of the top 20 hosts of international students from China completed the survey.

The rather limited impact is in contrast to Australia, where in excess of 100,000 international students were stranded offshore after the Australian government banned foreign nationals entering from China for 14 days from February 1.

IIE’s survey also found that 100% of all the respondent institutions which had students from China impacted by travel restrictions have been in communication with them.

Some 94% of institutions involved academic advisors, faculty, and various other departments to offer a comprehensive approach to these students.

Regardless of how many students were affected by the travel restrictions, most institutions indicated frequent communications with students regarding their status on their US campus.

Martel explained that “46% offered options for independent or remote study and 38% offered online or distance education classes”.

“40% of institutions specifically mention that they have students finishing in this semester and that they are working with these students to ensure that they would be able to complete their degree,” she added.

However, the survey showed less positive results when it came to the recruitment of prospective Chinese students.

The latest Open Doors 2019 report found that one in three international students in the US was from China, and many institutions rely on this income to balance their books.

According to the survey, 76% of respondent institutions noted that outreach and recruitment of future Chinese students have been affected by Covid-19.

Just over half (51%) of recruitment events in China have been cancelled and 43% of respondents said that the suspension of testing in China is delaying their receiving of student scores (e.g., IELTS, TOEFL).

Institutions also noted concerns about students not being able to obtain official transcripts for applications due to school closures.

About one in five institutions (20%) indicated that they do not have current plans in place for alternative recruitment.

According to the report, many of these institutions said that they are waiting for the situation to evolve and most are hoping to travel once the restrictions lift, although they are aware that this will affect enrolment for the 2020/21 academic year.

Institutions are largely relying on online communication with prospective students, hosting virtual webinars and yield events.

“What we are hearing that it is a multi-pronged approach,” said┬áMartel.

“We saw that there is a really concerted effort to also have messages and virtual communications with prospective international students and international students who are abroad.”

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Student accommodation marketplace Student.com has announced an expansion to India as the company anticipates growth in the number of Indian studying abroad.

The company’s new office in the Indian city of Bangalore will┬áprovide a free service to students searching for student accommodation overseas.

“Changes in visa regulations for Indian students looking to study abroad is a key driver of this”

“We have seen strong growth in demand in the region over the past two years and even though we have had people on the ground supplementing the infrastructure of our global team, we have now decided to invest in a physical presence on the ground,”┬áLuke Nolan Student.com CEO and founder said.

The opening of the office in India is a part of Student.com’s wider global presence expansion strategy, the company said.

UK government statistics show that┬á63% of Indian students are choosing to study in the UK ÔÇô one of Student.com’s key markets.

The company also provides accommodation options in Canada, Australia, the US and a range of European study destinations.

“Changes in visa regulations for Indian students looking to study abroad is a key driver of this growth and we are really excited about the future for Indian students going forward,” Nolan added.

“WeÔÇÖve been able to set up incredibly fast and this is all down to the startup spirit of Bangalore and the commitment to growth in India.

“Our existing team are now joined by a super-strong growth team who are ready to take our journey to the next level.”

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Coventry University has announced the launch of five scholarships for Chinese nationals living in China who are involved in combatting the coronavirus outbreak.

The ‘National Hero Award September 2020’ will be offered to ÔÇ£courageous, committed and professional healthcare workers fighting the coronavirusÔÇØ and provide full funding for tuition fees in the first year of study at┬áundergraduate or postgraduate level.

In order to qualify, applicants must hold a conditional offer to study a course at Coventry University or Coventry University London, and have applied as a self-funded student paying international tuition fees.

ÔÇ£We’ve got a very active Chinese student community…[and] we thought it was a great idea”

ÔÇ£We’ve got a very active Chinese student community and this particular suggestion came from the Chinese Students and Scholars Association,”┬áDavid Pilsbury, Coventry UniversityÔÇÖs deputy vice-chancellor (international development), told The PIE News.

“We thought it was a great idea and we very quickly operationalised it.”

Pilsbury said the team is conscious of the global nature of the outbreak and is actively considering extending the program to some of the other countries that are affected.

“We want to demonstrate that our mission is about attracting talented young people who feel a real passion for making a difference to the world,” he added.

Pilsbury said that he is confident there won’t be any restrictions preventing the scholarship awardees from taking up their positions come September, but if there were they would be ÔÇ£more than welcomeÔÇØ to come in January.

With nearly 10,000 international students, Coventry University has already established a hotline and additional services to help any students who may have been affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

While many of those who apply will likely be healthcare workers, applicants from outside the sector are also welcome.

“But we know that many heroes may want to broaden their skills and knowledge outside traditional healthcare, and many ÔÇÿunsung heroesÔÇÖ may not fit into traditional healthcare roles,” the university noted on its website.

ÔÇ£Many of these heroes have risked their own health to support patients and communities as professional caregivers, nurses, doctors and emergency staff. So weÔÇÖre proud to be able to pay tribute for their service and bravery with the brand new National Hero Award.ÔÇØ

Additionally, Coventry University will be holding an event on March 16th at the local cathedral in response to the outbreak, the details of which have yet to be confirmed but will be published here.

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CanadaÔÇÖs St. Clair College has launched a $23 million fast-build accommodation project on its South Windsor Campus to address shortages in student housing.

The new 110,000 square foot international student residence will provide on-campus housing for 512 students and will be built within approximately 45 days.

“This welcome wave of newcomers desperately needs a home away from home”

This will be achieved with the use of an innovative process that uses Z-Modular units, which are constructed in a factory and then shipped to the site of the new building. 

During the building work, 300 units will be stacked and connected through a phase-by-phase process. 

Global Education Milhome Corporation, St ClairÔÇÖs educational partners, will cover the cost of construction and management of the residence.┬á

CanadaÔÇÖs international student population continues to grow┬áand the increasing numbers have put pressure on universities who have to provide them with accommodation.┬á

“This welcome wave of newcomers desperately needs a home away from home and this new residence project will provide just that,” said St. Clair College president, Patti France.

Nancy Jammu-Taylor, chairwoman of the college’s board of governors, said that as student enrolment skyrocketed during the past several years, the availability of affordable local housing reached “a crisis stage”.

“The board was confronted with a new issue: not dealing with the quality of education, but rather with our students’ quality of life,” she added.

The Z-Modular Corporation’s building process is seen as a solution to this problem.┬á The Corporation is a subsidiary of Zekelman Industries, which is owned by the college’s corporate patrons Barry and Stephanie Zekelman.

David Piccini, parliamentary assistant to the minister of colleges and universities, said the project “is at the forefront of innovation”.

“St. Clair College has been a leading proponent of public college-private partnerships in Ontario for some time.┬á

“This new residence is an example of the potential economic benefits partnerships between Ontario’s public colleges and private education providers can offer,” he added.┬á

“It will ease the stress of hundreds of our students as they find comfortable, convenient and affordable accommodations right on campus.”

Kiara Clement, president of the Student Representative Council, said the development will alleviate the burden for international students of finding a place to live after arriving in Canada.

“We commend the administration and its project partners for recognising the dire need for more campus house, and for doing something to remedy this shortcoming,” she said.┬á

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Boston-based Cambridge College, a private nonprofit institution, plans to acquire the for-profit New England College of Business and Finance, it announced Thursday -- moving to increase its size, ability to serve working adults, strength online and ties to corporate employers.

The deal combines two institutions of relatively small size and with a focus on adult, part-time and working students. Cambridge College reports head-count enrollment of about 3,700 students across three locations in Massachusetts -- Boston, Springfield and Lawrence -- plus California and San Juan, Puerto Rico. New England College of Business is entirely online with 1,500 students.

Nonetheless, the tie-up reflects national trends. Public and private colleges have sought to grow online through mergers, acquisitions and other arrangements with existing providers as demographic and other pressures make it increasingly hard to compete for students. Meanwhile, many for-profit institutions have been seeking to convert to nonprofit status after years of public scrutiny and regulatory pressure during the Obama administration.

It also represents the last chapter for a lingering component of the now-defunct Education Corporation of America, an Alabama-based for-profit chain that collapsed at the end of 2018 when it lost accreditation. The New England College of Business, based in Boston and with a history long predating Education Corporation of America, had a different accreditor than its parent company and was able to remain open.

Cambridge College’s acquisition is pending until regulators and accreditors give their approval. The deal is structured as an asset-purchase agreement. Upon the agreement's closure, Cambridge will have no further relationship with the New England College of Business’s current owner, Monroe Capital LLC. Plans call for Cambridge to create a new umbrella within its own structure for the acquisition, to be called the New England Institute of Business and Finance.

“In the near term, our goal is to keep them intact, because they have a wonderful business model,” said Cambridge’s president, Deborah Jackson, in a telephone interview Thursday. “What we hope the students will feel is they were online on Friday, they logged off, and on Monday they logged on and it will feel no different.”

Over time, Cambridge will work to fully integrate the two operations.

The acquisition would enable Cambridge to add 27 online programs spanning certificates to doctoral degrees. A key addition are associate degrees, which Cambridge is not currently authorized to offer, Jackson said.

“With the exceptional record that Cambridge College has built for close to 50 years, and its sound commitment to advancing a diverse body of adult student learners, this affiliation will enable NECB to expand its reach to a broader universe and to have expanded resources with which to do so,” the New England College of Business’s president, Howard Horton, said in a statement.

Horton will be executive director of the New England Institute of Business and Finance once it’s set up within Cambridge College.

Additional terms of the deal, including any purchase price, are not being made public at this time. The two sides are working to close in a short time frame, which could affect some of the mechanics of the acquisition, said Cambridge’s chief financial officer, John Spinard.

“The way it is structured as an asset-purchase agreement helps mitigate the risk that Cambridge College was taking on, as well as offer us the opportunity to acquire this book of business,” he said in a telephone interview. “I would say the terms were favorable.”

Although Cambridge is the buy side in the transaction, it didn’t initiate the deal. The New England College of Business was reaching out to colleges in the Boston region, Jackson said. She and Horton first talked in December, and more formal discussions between the two sides began in January.

“We both are committed to serving adult learners,” Jackson said. “We realized we really were focused on the same cohort, the same population, and are probably the only two institutions in this area fully committed to the adult learners.”

Cambridge also sees opportunity to grow in size and connection to corporate America. Its leaders estimate the New England College of Business will add between 30 and 35 percent to its top-line tuition revenue. Over the last five years, the New England College of Business has demonstrated positive net income and operating cash flow, according to Spinard.

That could be important for Cambridge College, where tuition and fees booked as revenue slid from $41.9 million in its 2009-10 fiscal year to about $22 million in 2017-18, according to federal tax filings.

Cambridge is extending employment offers to the New England College of Business’s faculty and staff. The college being acquired has about 35 employees plus 80 adjunct faculty members. Cambridge employs about 150, plus 20 faculty members and 300 adjuncts, many of whom are professionals who teach nights and weekends, Jackson said.

She touted the New England College of Business’s corporate connections. Its students come from 300 different corporate partners. Many of those companies pay for employees’ tuition.

“Part of our strategy at Cambridge College has been to broaden our network of corporate partners,” Jackson said. “Corporate partners are the primary source of their students. And those corporate partners, when they send their students to NECB, they are actually covering tuition.”

Insiders knew that Monroe Capital was seeking to change the New England College of Business’s status. The college was a “great little jewel of an asset” that emerged from Education Corporation of America’s meltdown “unscathed” with a “reasonably strong reputation,” said Trace Urdan, managing director at Tyton Partners.

Urdan had informal conversations with some of the college’s owners but didn’t represent them in any way. They were exploring a range of options from converting the institution to a nonprofit to spinning out services and functioning as an online program manager, he said.

“They were trying to figure out what to do,” he said. “I was not aware they were in conversation with Cambridge, but seeing that resolution does not surprise me.”

From the seller’s perspective, the only reasonable move in this environment is to convert to a nonprofit institution, Urdan said. Selling to Cambridge accomplishes that. And from Cambridge’s perspective, the acquisition provides a foundation for growth and more online capabilities.

Part of a Trend

Similar deals in which nonprofit institutions acquired for-profits include National University acquiring North Central University in a move announced in 2018. A public institution, Purdue University, acquired Kaplan University to form Purdue Global under a 2017 agreement.

Those acquisitions involved much larger operations and thousands more students than the one announced Thursday.

Urdan said future cases in which nonprofits acquire for-profits are likely on the way, especially involving for-profit institutions with solid reputations.

To some, the New England College of Business stands out from other for-profits -- even its former owner -- in part because of a unique history and niche. It was founded in 1909 by the New England banking industry. It is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education, the regional accreditor for the area, and has traditionally focused on working professionals in the business and financial industries.

The number of such esteemed colleges could be a limiting factor for future deals. But that limit could lift over time.

“There aren’t a huge amount of assets, and there aren’t a whole lot of them of a sufficient caliber and quality that a nonprofit would be comfortable acquiring them,” Urdan said. “Let enough time go by. This becomes more mainstream, and even some of the schools you would think would be too hot to touch would fall into this category.”

For now at least, for-profits selling to nonprofits continue to draw attention from consumer advocates. Clean acquisitions in which a nonprofit college takes full control of the for-profit are likely to be a positive for quality and consumer protection, said Bob Shireman, a former deputy undersecretary of education in the Obama administration who is now a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. Not all transactions are structured that way, though.

“Some transactions have left the former owners in a position to control and profit, which is misleading to consumers and often an attempt to dodge regulation,” Shireman said in an email.

In addition to size and scale, some deals between nonprofit and for-profit institutions are likely to be driven by a need for traditional nonprofit colleges to add certain abilities. As some experts expect students to grow older on average and increasingly be working as they attend class, campuses may need to add abilities like serving adult students and better coordinating rolling admissions.

Public institutions could be the next set of colleges and universities to add those capabilities by acquiring and absorbing for-profit institutions, according to Urdan. Most public universities have online programs, but they aren’t always as effective as top competitors -- a gap in their missions to serve the public.

“They’re all having these conversations right now,” Urdan said. “It’s just the politics are daunting to get something like this done.”

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Colleges looking for expert advice on how to prepare for possible coronavirus cases have a whole new suite of resources to turn to.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College Health Association both released guidance this week on how to prepare for emergence of the new coronavirus, which causes the respiratory illness COVID-19, on college campuses. The Department of Education also issued guidance Thursday about compliance with federal financial aid requirements in the event of related disruptions and campus closures.

The CDC guidance includes information on reviewing and updating emergency operations plans; sharing informational resources with faculty, students and staff; making decisions on whether and when to suspend classes or cancel events in coordination with state and local public health officials; and ensuring continuity of safe housing and provision of meals. The CDC has also separately released guidance suggesting that colleges consider canceling study abroad and exchange programs and bring students back to the U.S.

"IHE [institutions of higher education], working together with local health departments, have an important role in slowing the spread of disease," the CDC guidance states. The guidance also notes the fact that some individuals are experiencing stigma and discrimination related to COVID-19, including people of Asian, specifically Chinese, descent -- the virus originated in China but has quickly spread to many other countries -- as well as returning travelers and emergency responders who may have been exposed.

"It is important for IHE to provide accurate and timely information about COVID-19 to students, staff, and faculty to minimize the potential for stigma on college and university campuses," the CDC guidance states. "It is also important to provide mental health support to promote resilience among those groups affected by stigma regarding COVID-19."

The guidance from the American College Health Association focuses on recommendations for preparations by student health centers as well as for the larger campus community.

The association recommends that student health centers develop a COVID-19 planning and response committee, arrange for appropriate staff training, prepare the facility for triage and isolation of possibly infected patients and develop triage and evaluation protocols, develop an internal and external alert system regarding the arrival of a potential patient, stock personal protective equipment in accordance with CDC guidelines, ensure appropriate environmental cleaning and disinfection procedures are in place, and develop a surge care plan in the event of increased demand for student health center services.

As for the broader campus community, the ACHA guidance recommends creating a campuswide working group focused on preparing for COVID-19 and developing a communications plan and plans for the possible arrivals on campus of individuals from areas affected by COVID-19 and for international travel by students, faculty or staff. The guidelines also recommend universities develop business and financial continuity plans that take into account the potential financial ramifications of the outbreak and estimated emergency funding needed to continue operating; the costs of stockpiling food, medical and other supplies; policies and procedures for rapid procurement of supplies; and continuation of payroll, among other issues.

"The ACHA COVID-19 Task Force has been hard at work fielding concerns from the college health community, posting resources and updates, and rapidly responding to new developments related to COVID-19," Jean Chin, the chair of the task force, said in a press release accompanying the new guidelines. "Our hope is that these guidelines, paired with existing campus resources and coordination with local and state health agencies, will assist schools nationwide in preparing for COVID-19 and its implications for campus communities."

The Department of Education also issued guidance on Thursday responding to concerns from colleges about how they can comply with federal financial aid policies for current students whose studies are disrupted by COVID-19. The guidance addresses financial aid implications for three groups of students -- those whose study abroad experiences have been disrupted or canceled; those who had a clinical rotation, internship or other class canceled, causing them to fall below the 12-credit-hour minimum needed to maintain enrollment as a full-time student; and those who miss classes due to illness or quarantines. It also addresses scenarios in which a college suspends face-to-face classes to prevent transmission of the virus.

“Our goal is to work with institutions and find ways to enable you to accommodate students and help them continue their education despite interruptions caused by COVID-19,” the guidance said. “The Department is providing broad approval to institutions to use online technologies to accommodate students on a temporary basis, without going through the regular approval process of the Department in the event that an institution is otherwise required to seek Departmental approval for the use or expansion of distance learning programs … We are also permitting accreditors to waive their distance education review requirements for institutions working to accommodate students whose enrollment is otherwise interrupted as a result of COVID-19.”

The guidance notes, however, that the department is not able to offer the flexibility to transition to online learning for foreign schools that participate in the federal financial aid program, as the Higher Education Act does not allow foreign institutions to provide distance learning to Americans participating in federal financial aid programs.

In addition to offering distance education in the event regular classes are disrupted, the guidance says that institutions "may also enter into temporary consortium agreements with other institutions so that students can complete courses at other institutions but be awarded credit by their home institution. In addition, in instances where accrediting agencies require students to complete a final number or percentage of credits in residence at the institution, accrediting agencies may waive that requirement for students impacted by COVID-19 without objection by the Department."

The guidance from the department authorizes colleges to continue paying wages to students through the federal work-study program in the event of a campus closure if certain conditions are met, and it provides flexibility on allowing students to take leaves of absence for reasons related to COVID-19 "even if the student notifies the institution in writing after the approved leave of absence has begun. In such a case, the institution may retain those Title IV funds to apply when the student continues enrollment." (Title IV is the part of the Higher Education Act that authorizes federal financial aid programs.)

It also includes instructions for returning aid funds for students who were unable to begin attending classes this term due to coronavirus-related closures (as in the case of students whose study abroad programs were canceled before the term began), and for those who withdraw for reasons related to COVID-19. The guidance also states that the Education Department does "not have the authority to waive the requirement to award or disburse Title IV funds based on a student’s actual enrollment status. For example, assuming an institution defines full-time enrollment as 12 credit hours, when a full-time student enrolled for 12 credit hours drops or withdraws from three credits, that student is now enrolled at three-quarter time status."

Jill Desjean, a policy analyst with the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, which published an analysis of the Education Department guidance, praised the department's flexibility. She noted that while there are certain things the department can't do under the law, it has tried to accommodate the varied needs of higher ed institutions.

"The big concern we had were students who had gone abroad to start study abroad programs and had been pulled back," she said. "I think the department did a good job of addressing that by mentioning all the relief schools could get by offering distance ed ad hoc without having to go through department approval or accreditor approval."

Desjean said the departmental guidance is also helpful for colleges as they consider what would happen if they need to temporarily close. "The distance ed option on the table is a good one to allow schools to start making a plan," she said.

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Latinx students make up only about 8 percent of the enrollment at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, but the university has dedicated resources to helping those students succeed and feel included on campus. In recognition of its efforts, the university even won an inaugural Seal of Excelencia last year.

Despite not yet reaching a critical mass of Latinx or Hispanic students, which is defined as about 20 percent of enrollment, according to Deborah Santiago, co-founder and CEO of Excelencia in Education, a nonprofit committed to Latinx student success in higher education, staff at the university are being intentional about serving these students.

"Their efforts and strategies perpetuate beyond an individual," Santiago said. "What really stood out about Grand Valley was that their intentionality spread across the institution's leadership. That’s core for us."

While the public four-year institution's Latinx population is fairly small right now, it's growing, which is what prompted the university to start an umbrella initiative targeted at those students, said Jesse Bernal, vice president for inclusion and equity.

"The thinking was, we know this population was going to grow, and we also want to serve our current students in ways that are culturally responsive and sensitive," Bernal said. "If you center underrepresented students, you benefit everyone."

In 2012, about 50 people from across all units of the university -- from police to marketing to financial aid -- came together in a committee to figure out how to think more holistically about students.

What Bernal predicted happened. When the committee was first convened, the university's enrollment was about 2.5 percent Latinx. Now it's at about 8 percent.

ÔÇïThe increase reflects what's happening across the state, but especially in Ottawa County, the western part of Michigan where Grand Valley is located. Statewide, the Hispanic population increased from 446,000 to 515,000 since 2010, according to Eric Guthrie, state demographer. In Ottawa County, the increase was more significant, from about 22,000 to 28,000, or about 26 percent. This is still only about 10 percent of the county's total population

"The western part of the state is where we see population change," Guthrie said. "It’s the fastest-growing metro region in the state, and there’s a lot of dynamism in that particular part of the state."

Inclusion, Data and Training

The campus response to this change includes special orientations, a Latinx student group, retention efforts and training for both university staff and regional companies. These programs have helped contribute to an increase in Latinx enrollment, an 83 percent year-to-year retention rate for Latinx students and a 16 percent increase in the graduation rate for Latinx students. Latinx students in the 2013 cohort actually had a higher graduation rate by 2019 than the general population, at about 68.1 percent versus 67.4 percent. They were only slightly behind white students, who graduated at a rate of 69.2 percent within the six years.

Students who are part of Grand Valley's Latino Student Union praised the early orientation, called Laker Familia, which specifically welcomes Latinx students to the university. Gabriela Herrera, secretary of the student union, said she "would truly have felt lost and not at home" without the ÔÇïprogram.

"It can be hard to adjust to such a different environment when growing up and constantly being surrounded by culture," Herrera said in an emailed statement. "Having that support system of students and faculty that understand what it feels like is very important especially for incoming freshmen where college is already a hard and scary transition."

The university also uses a lot of data. The relatively new president, Philomena Mantella, who started last July, pushed the university to think about retention rates, Bernal said. There is now a multivariate retention analysis team that looks at data from multiple systems and triangulates it to determine how to help students succeed.

For example, Bernal said, they can look at the graduation rates of students of color depending on the type of housing they live in and see the differences and come up with solutions to problem areas. They can also layer participation in programming, financial aid awards and majors on top of those data points. They then contact students about concerns, provide student mentorship or cohort programs, and reach out to students about finishing certain tasks, like registration.

"We can provide interventions to that student," he said. "At the macro level, if we find a lot of commonalities, we can change the system to make things better."

There's also a lot of training, both within and outside the university. Grand Valley employees and potential employers of Grand Valley students can attend trainings and events focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, said Marlene Kowalski-Braun, associate vice president for inclusion and student support.

This past year, the university held an inclusive recruitment, retention and culture conference with the goal of helping local companies create better cultures for the diverse students who will eventually work there. Kowalski-Braun said they plan to host it annually. The first discussed topics ranging from antiracism to recruiting a diverse workforce to the importance of an interfaith workspace. About 160 people from dozens of companies attended.

Companies can also request continuous trainings. For example, one requested long-term training that started with focus groups and policy analysis, Kowalski-Braun said.

The training doesn't focus solely on Latinx issues, but rather intends to provide tools that companies can use to better work with any community, she said. They've held trainings on LGBTQ issues and helped employers with many Spanish-speaking employees understand Latinx culture, to name a few.

The idea to train local companies was actually sparked by stories from transgender students, who had bad experiences during internships. Now, all employers who want to do internships or co-ops with Grand Valley students learn about these issues.

"Our hope is that, by working with them, we motivate them to think about hiring diverse students and how that can benefit them," Kowalski-Braun said. "Just getting these companies to understand this and see it as an asset is what we’re trying to do."

Ed Wierzbicki, facilities supervisor at Grand Valley, attended a training that he said improved him both professionally and personally.

"We have a pretty diverse group in our department, and I think that certainly contributed to my interest," he said, adding that at the training, "there were opportunities to have candid conversations with colleagues across campus that just gave me a better understanding."

While it was uncomfortable for him in the beginning, Wierzbicki said he felt better and like he had improved after completing the training, so he recommends it to other staff.

The university also requires an "inclusive advocate" be on all search committees when hiring new staff and faculty, Bernal said. Faculty also have access to several programs through the Faculty Teaching and Learning Center.

Continuing to Improve

But there's always room for improvement. Several students in the Latino Student Union pointed out areas where Grand Valley could do better, such as with supporting transfer students and commuters, improving faculty diversity, and providing more supports for other students of color, like Native American students.

Bernal agrees that Grand Valley needs to diversify its faculty and staff, which is part of its strategic planning. So far, the number of Latinx faculty has increased by more than 20 percent and the number of Latinx staff has increased by nearly 50 percent since 2015, he said.

As far as supports for other students of color, Bernal said the Latinx student initiative model is being replicated for other populations, including Native Americans.

"Still, I am certain that no one at Grand Valley is satisfied with our racial and ethnic diversity representation. As a public institution, we believe that our university should closely model the demographic makeup of the community in which we exist. We have work to do to make that happen -- to increase access for all learners," he said in an email.

In the last year, the university has added a staff member to focus on Native student support and community engagement. Grand Valley is also the only college in Michigan with a Native American Advisory Council.

"Our work is multipronged -- focused on equity and structural diversity, inclusion and campus climate, and learning and development. This all occurs within a social justice, international and data-driven approach," he said. "And we have much work to do to reach our ideal. We are neither where we want to be nor are we ignorant to the realities of where we are."

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The University of Washington is, among higher education institutions, somewhat of a ground zero for the new coronavirus. Of the 11 people killed by the virus in the United States, 10 were in Washington State.

Last week an online petition was posted asking the university, which enrolls 59,000 students on three campuses, to close. It had nearly 24,000 signatures on Thursday.

Behind the scenes, many colleges have been planning and prepping for a potential escalation of the outbreak. College officials are tasked both with maintaining the safety of students and staff and with limiting the virus’s spread beyond campus. Traditional-age college students are not at a high risk of dying of the disease the virus causes, known as COVID-19, but the people they come in contact with -- grandparents, immunocompromised strangers -- may be.

At Washington, an advisory committee on communicable diseases, chaired by a medical expert and with representation from different campus units, has been preparing for just this situation for decades. The group meets regularly under normal circumstances but is now doing so daily.

A leadership team at the university is similarly meeting every day to go over recommendations from the advisory committee. And the university has coronavirus plans in place for its food service, police, housing and hospital operations.

“Everything is on the table for us, because we are really cooperating incredibly closely with the public health agencies in Seattle,” said Denzil Suite, UW’s vice president for student life. “We are not either predicting or precluding any course of action at this point.”

Despite the pressure from students and some faculty members, who said they signed the closure petition because they felt unsafe, university officials emphasized that only recommendations from public health officials will lead to a suspension of operations. (A spokesperson for the university said the campus never truly “closes,” as it is a public space that houses thousands of students and a hospital.)

Suite added that if the university’s own medical experts, at the hospital and elsewhere on campus, were to recommend a suspension while government agencies did not, that guidance would be taken seriously.

Currently, the university has an extensive coronavirus website, including answers to common questions and looking ahead at potential hypotheticals. Suite said the campuses are prepared with emergency relocation spaces -- spread throughout the university’s housing stock -- that could be used in the event that students need to be relocated.

Other universities also have put out extensive guidance for their communities. The University of California system’s latest coronavirus information document is 19 pages long, for example.

Chuck Staben, a biology professor and former president of the University of Idaho (and an occasional columnist for Inside Higher Ed), said that in order to work how they’re intended, university plans need some level of granularity at this point.

“Let’s say you move classes online,” he said. “You do some form of live classes over a communication utility like Zoom. Do you have an enterprise license for Zoom that’s going to allow you to do that, or do you have a more limited license?” And recording video for students to watch might stretch the boundaries of what a college’s learning management system is capable of, he said.

Leadership should also be considering older faculty, Staben said, who face a greater health risk than their students from the worst effects of the virus and may feel unsafe coming to class.

He noted that beyond faculty and students, universities should also consider staff members who can’t work remotely. Food service and facilities workers need to be on campus and often aren’t granted the financial and scheduling flexibility to stay home when sick, potentially putting them at risk for spreading the virus.

“If we go into some form of isolation, you are still going to need people to clean the bathrooms and make the food and keep the lights on,” he said. “How do you protect those people?”

“It’s hard to write down a plan for everything that can happen,” he said. “The structure may need to be fairly flexible and appropriate for the situation.”

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This week U.S. colleges grappled with the initial impacts of the novel coronavirus outbreak in this country, even as they continued to deal with complications over international travel and to prepare for a dizzying array of likely disruptions in coming weeks and months.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday issued guidance recommending that colleges “consider” postponing or canceling student foreign exchange programs and asking students to return to the U.S.

Many institutions have canceled spring break trips and study abroad programs in China, Italy, South Korea and other countries where large numbers of people have COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. That trend accelerated throughout the week. New York University, for example, canceled all nonessential international university travel.

However, the vague wording in the CDC statement confused many in higher education. Some college leaders, for example, wondered if the guidance applied to foreign exchange students hosted by U.S. institutions as well as Americans studying abroad.

Some clarity came Tuesday when the president of NAFSA: Association of International Educators issued a statement saying the group had confirmed with the CDC that the guidance was not intended to apply to international students studying in the U.S.

Meanwhile, 76 percent of U.S. colleges said last month that recruitment of students from China has been affected by the coronavirus, according to the results of a survey the Institute of International Education conducted in February. Among responding institutions, 70 percent said they were evacuating students from China. And 94 percent said study abroad programs in China had been canceled or postponed.

Domestic Travel and Conference Cancellations

More than 210 U.S. cases of the virus had been confirmed by Thursday afternoon, with 12 deaths. Most of the cases were on the West Coast, and almost all the deaths have been in the Seattle area. So far California, Washington and Florida have declared states of emergency due to concerns over the coronavirus.

Some college officials have begun preparing for limitations on domestic travel.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was among the first to restrict university-affiliated travel for students, faculty and staff members to locations in the U.S. where a state of emergency has been declared related to the coronavirus. The university also strongly discouraged personal travel to these areas.

“Given the rapidly changing nature of the virus, if you choose to travel to these affected areas you may be asked to undergo a 14-day self-quarantine off-campus upon return,” the university said in a statement.

Brandman University on Thursday announced that faculty and staff members were "generally prohibited" from traveling by air to conduct university business -- both domestically or internationally -- through the end of April. 

Many higher education-related organizations faced uncertainty about conferences they were scheduled to host in coming weeks and months. Some have made the call to cancel or take precautions for those who might attend.

The American Physical Society on Saturday announced that it would cancel its annual meeting, which had 10,000 expected attendees and was slated to begin Monday in Denver. Some attendees had traveled long distances to get to Denver, sparking criticism on social media about the late cancellation notice.

On Sunday, Educause canceled its meeting on advanced learning technology that had been scheduled to begin Monday in Bellevue, Wash. And Ellucian, a higher education software firm, on Tuesday canceled its Ellucian Live 2020 event in Orlando, Fla., instead offering a free online version to 2,700 expected attendees.

Organizers of the ASU GSV Summit, which is scheduled to begin in San Diego at the end of March, announced this week that the conference would conduct mandatory temperature screenings for all attendees. The summit also will not admit attendees from China, South Korea, Iran or Italy and will “strongly encourage” a no-handshake policy -- a move likely to spread across higher education.

More Guidance From Feds, ACHA

Traditional-age college students face relatively low risks of dying from COVID-19, which is considered most dangerous for people over 60.

Yet college campuses could play an outsize role in helping to spread the coronavirus, given their dense concentrations of people, heavily used public spaces and large numbers of frequent travelers. Colleges also employ older faculty and staff members, and officials were scrambling this week to minimize health risks posed even to younger students.

The CDC and the American College Health Association both released guidance this week about how college campuses should prepare.

The guidelines from the CDC included how to update emergency operations plans, share information with employees and students, make decisions about canceling classes or events, and preserve safe housing and meals.

The ACHA focused on preparations for student health centers, including how to triage and isolate possibly infected patients. The group's guidance also covered protective equipment for health-care workers, procedures for cleaning and disinfection, and how to prepare for a surge in demand for student health center services.

Several college students already have been exposed to the coronavirus while working in clinical settings and are in quarantine.

A group of students from Lake Washington Institute of Technology in Washington State has been self-quarantined at home after possible exposure. Some are nursing students who, along with four professors from the institute, visited a long-term nursing facility where seven residents have died from COVID-19. Lake Washington closed on Wednesday after a faculty member tested positive for the virus, and will remain shuttered through the weekend.

After a student at Yeshiva University tested positive for the virus, the university on Wednesday shut down its Washington Heights and Midtown campuses in New York City until next week.

Likewise, public health officials directed four students at California’s Los Rios Community College District to self-quarantine after they performed medical duties and came in contact with a patient who later tested positive for the virus.

The U.S. Department of Education also issued new guidance Thursday with a focus on financial aid policies for students who experience disruptions due to the coronavirus.

The department, which last week said it was forming a coronavirus task force, explained how to comply with financial aid regulations a well as adding new temporary flexibility, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators said in a written statement.

Some of the department’s guidance dealt with possible disruptions to the Federal Work-Study program. It also seeks to help colleges more quickly offer online education options to cope with disruptions to courses and academic programs.

“While some institutions would normally have to go through an approval process with the Education Department to use or expand distance learning programs, the Education Department is providing ‘broad approval’ to accommodate students ‘on a temporary basis’ without going through that process,” NASFAA said. “It is also allowing accrediting agencies to waive their review requirements for offering distance education for institutions that may need to do so to accommodate students impacted by the spread of the coronavirus.”

Both the department and the CDC also this week addressed stigma and discrimination related to the coronavirus.

The department cited news reports about stereotyping, harassment and bullying of people who are perceived to be Chinese American or of Asian descent, including some students.

“Ethnic harassment or bullying exacerbates hatred, harms students and is never justified,” Kenneth L. Marcus, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a written statement. “These incidents can create a climate of misunderstanding and fear. This hurts all of us.”

March Madness Without Fans?

The National Collegiate Athletic Association this week announced that it had convened a panel of health experts to help while the NCAA considered “all circumstances” in contingency planning for the virus.

Those scenarios include possibly holding its March basketball tournaments without spectators, Donald Remy, the NCAA’s chief operating officer, told Bloomberg. The men’s tournament brings in more than 80 percent of the NCAA’s total revenue of more than $1 billion, mostly through TV deals.

The National College Players Association said in a statement that the NCAA and colleges should act quickly to help protect athletes. “There should be a serious discussion about holding competitions without an audience present,” the group said. “The NCAA and its colleges must act now, there is no time to waste.”

Several colleges and universities have begun limiting the travel of intercollegiate sports teams. Chicago State University and the University of Missouri at Kansas City canceled men’s basketball games that had been scheduled this week at Seattle University. Chicago State also canceled basketball games with Utah Valley University.

Kean University went a step further on Wednesday, canceling out-of-state travel next week for five athletics teams during the university’s spring break. Kean made the move out of an “abundance of caution,” news outlets reported.

"This is consistent with the university's recommendation for the entire campus community to postpone spring break travel to limit possible exposure to COVID-19, avoid travel disruptions and reduce the risk of needing to self-quarantine upon their return," a spokeswoman for the university told NorthJersey.com.

Campus Preparations Ramp Up

Most colleges and universities appeared to have kept busy with their own planning and preparation amid the flurry of action by the CDC and federal government.

The University of Washington, for example, was preparing for scenarios of a possible escalation of the outbreak.

“Everything is on the table for us because we are really cooperating incredibly closely with the public health agencies in Seattle,” said Denzil Suite, UW’s vice president for student life. “We are not either predicting or precluding any course of action at this point.”

Many institutions have had coronavirus task forces in place for weeks or months. And colleges are publicly posting a wide range of information for students and employees.

Dr. Mark S. Schlissel, the University of Michigan’s president and a medical doctor, said Wednesday that the university has instructed students about recommended protocols for washing hands, covering sneezes and coughs, and socially isolating themselves if they think they’ve been exposed to the virus or might have it.

The university is publishing daily updates to a COVID-19 information page on its website.

“There’s a huge amount of uncertainty and a lot of concern,” Schlissel said. “We’re looking at it every single day and asking ourselves, ‘What is the right thing to do?’”

-- Several reporters and editors at Inside Higher Ed contributed to this article.

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The Chinese government has signaled that it will downgrade the importance of Science Citation Index (SCI) research metrics in assessments of academics and universities and, potentially, funding decisions.

Guidelines, issued jointly by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology in the form of a 10-point directive, discourage institutions from rewarding individuals and departments based primarily on how many articles they have in the SCI and suggest that a lack of SCI papers should not be a barrier to granting degrees or qualifications. They also say institutions should stop the practice of paying financial bonuses for publication. SCI, which is owned by Clarivate Analytics, is one of the world’s main bibliometric indexes of published research, covering thousands of the world’s top journals.

“It is a significant policy change that will affect not only evaluation systems for doctoral students, faculty members and researchers at the institutional level, but also the doctoral-degree awarding system,” Futao Huang, a professor at the Research Institute for Higher Education at Hiroshima University, told Times Higher Education.

Shen Wenqin, an associate professor at the Graduate School of Education at Peking University, also voiced concern about the plan’s potential consequences. “If this policy is seriously implemented, it will have a great impact on the entire higher education system -- in evaluations, teacher recruitment and doctoral training,” he said.

The policy change comes during an unprecedented boom in Chinese research. In 2019, China was ranked second worldwide in the Web of Science Group’s list of highly cited researchers, behind only the U.S. As recently as 1973, China published only one SCI paper.

“This is not to say that China did not have scientific research capabilities at the time,” Shen said. “But it shows that China was then separated from the international academic community.”

Today, the opposite is true. Chinese universities’ aggressive drive for research citations, which have quickly bolstered them in global rankings, has led to what the new government document calls a problem of “SCI supremacy.” SCI authorship has now become a core consideration in job evaluations and funding decisions, which has led to an “excessive pursuit” of such citations.

The shift away from SCI citations has been at least a few years in the making. The government directive cites comments on the issue made by President Xi Jinping in 2017.

Li Guojie, former head of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Computing Technology, has long been critical of SCI-dominated assessments. He told Times Higher Education that the policy was a good first step in a larger process. “It is well intended, but how talent is being evaluated is still a problem. It will take time to cultivate a good academic environment. SCI is just one aspect of evaluation.”

Shen said that one possible reason for the policy change was public dissatisfaction with the current research system. “The government has invested huge amounts of money on scientific research, but universities and research institutions have not performed very well in solving practical social problems,” he said.

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The chancellor says it’s about protecting undergraduate education, but strikers argue it’s about who has access in the first place.

Mary-Louise McLaws is a professor at the University of New South Wales who studies how infectious diseases spread.

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In an address that touched on formidable challenges such as raging bushfires and the COVID-19 outbreak that 2020 has so far brought, chair of Universities Australia, Deborah Terry, has commended Australian higher education institutions for their “powerful contribution” in the face of global threats.

In a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra on 26 February, Terry highlighted the benefits of university expertise during what has been a “summer of sorrows”.

“We are so grateful to each of these university experts who have shared their knowledge”

“Our university researchers have been some of our most valuable guides and interpreters in countless news stories during the bushfires, drought, hailstorms, and dangerous smoke,” Terry told the audience.

“So, too, in the face of coronavirus, university expertise has been crucial. A team at the University of Queensland has been at the forefront of the global race to develop a vaccine in record time.

“We are so grateful to each of these university experts who have shared their knowledge to help Australia and the world contain this threat,” she added.

Attempts to contain the coronavirus outbreak has left almost 300 million students out of school due to closures in a growing number of countries, while in others, total bans on study abroad activity are being enacted.

During her address, Terry also discussed the cultural and societal value of international education, which she described as one of the great Australian success stories over the past six decades.

As of 2020, she told the audience, the country’s 39 universities have almost half a million international students, bringing nearly $40 billion a year into the Australian economy.

Australia has grown into one of the world’s most compelling choices for young global scholars who could choose to study anywhere,” she noted.

“[And] when we bring AustraliaÔÇÖs best researchers together with others at the leading edge of that same field in Japan or China or Singapore or Germany, the UK or the US, we speed advances.

“Rather than retreating into isolation… we must always remain open to the world ÔÇô and engage deeply in the world.”

Taking questions from the audience, Terry lamented the “deeply stressed” students and staff who were forced to remain in China due to the travel ban, and explained that it is “too early to tell” the full extent of the financial impact of the situation.

It is estimated that around 100,000 Chinese students ÔÇô┬á approximately half of the total Chinese student population in Australia ÔÇô┬á were unable to return to campus┬áfollowing the February travel ban.

According to University of Sydney vice-chancellor, Michael Spence, a worst-case scenario┬áwhere most Chinese students fail to attend for all of 2020 would result in a $2.2 billion hit to NSW’s gross state product.

“Our focus at the moment, and as it should be, is entirely on public safety and our role and on the wellbeing of our students… ensuring that we are communicating with them regularly [and that] we are able to provide them with the assistance they need where possible,” Terry continued.

“In the background, we are looking at what the implications of that [may be] but that is not what is taking up our time at the moment.”

Terry┬ásaid that UA has been looking at alternative delivery methods for many courses across the country’s universities, such as utilising online delivery where possible in a bid to┬ákeep students caught up in the travel ban going with their studies.

Responding to a question from The PIE News as to whether UA will be recommending a fee reduction for the period in which students learn online, Terry explained that each university is looking at ways to acknowledge that the student experience for many has been less than what was expected.

“We are all looking forward to and are hoping to welcome our students to each of our campuses as soon as possible [and the]┬ástudent experience is one of the major factors that attract so many international students to our universities,” said Terry.

“We understand that in this semester particularly, the experience that students are going to have is different from what they had anticipated.┬á

“There may be fee remission arrangements, there may be other arrangements”

“There may be fee remission arrangements, there may be other arrangements. They are being actively looked at in each university because we understand that the experience for the students this year is not as as as it would have been if we weren’t dealing with this [coronavirus] situation,” she added.

Terry concluded by addressing concerns that the country has have become overreliant on China for research, as well as international students. 

“All of our institutions recruit international students from all over the world. Many of our universities have offshore campuses, transnational arrangements and other vehicles for teaching offshore,” she said.

“We do obviously have large numbers of students from China who are attracted to study here because of the quality of what we offer in terms of research.┬á

“And the strength, the great strength of Australian research is that we are internationally connected, we are globally-connected,” Terry added.

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