A burning question for developing countries is whether low quality private higher education is better than none at all, in circumstances where public systems cannot meet soaring student demand. Brazil decided it was and set about rapidly expanding its higher education system, including by opening it to private institutions. Today the country has one of the largest private sectors in the world and it enrols a staggering 75% of all post-secondary students.
Recent years have witnessed a boom in private education opportunities across the Central American isthmus. To some, it seems that private entities cannot open classrooms fast enough. Whereas 30 years ago there were virtually no private universities, today there are more than 151 and every year more emerge.
Chile’s Ministry of Education has launched a web portal offering with unprecedented detail employment and earnings data to prospective applicants to higher education. The portal, called “Mi futuro” is a searchable database that lists hundreds of degree programs, professional and technical, from Medicine to Auto Mechanic, displaying for each program of every institution of higher education in the country the following information: drop-out rate, average time to degree, average earnings of the graduates after 4 years of graduation, current tuition fees for the program, and accreditation status of the program.
Peru has authorized two private universities to reorganize as corporations. The country's National Council for the Authorization and Operation of Universities decided last month that Peruvian Applied Sciences University and Saint Ignatius Loyola University could register as corporations while still maintaining their status as universities.
La universidad privada, contra una nueva ley de educación superior | "Los problemas no son jurídicos", dijo el presidente del Consejo de Rectores - lanacion.com
En México sólo 10 por ciento de las universidades privadas cuenta con acreditación de calidad; apenas 37 escuelas tienen carreras reconocidas por el Consejo para la Acreditación de la Educación Superior, y sólo 49 posgrados son válidos para la SEP y el Conacyt. Además, entre 2000 y 2008, a 432 instituciones se les negó el Registro de Validez Oficial y a 99 se les retiró el reconocimiento de sus planes de estudio.
Las universidades privadas surgen por exceso de demanda de estudiantes señaló el supervisor de educación superior zona 010, Moisés Torres Lechuga, pero reconoció que un porcentaje de esos alumnos deserta antes de concluir sus estudios universitarios.
A rapidly growing number of students in Mexico are attending private universities, but there are increasing concerns about the quality of many of the new institutions.
Recent years have witnessed a boom in private education opportunities across the Central American isthmus. To some, it seems that private entities cannot open classrooms fast enough. Whereas 30 years ago there were virtually no private universities, today there are more than 151 and every year more emerge.
The school is one of 24 privately owned universities that have received a failing grade from the Ecuadorean government, meaning that if they do not make major improvements they will be closed. Two government-run schools also received failing grades and may be shut down.
Hoping to improve access to higher education, Brazil is giving tax incentives to private universities that provide scholarships to needy students, with added incentives for those who are indigenous or Afro-Brazilian. Such people are far less likely to attend Brazilian universities than white students are.
A new campus rises almost every week, but critics worry that some may be 'junk universities' With its endless expanse of bleak, cinder-block tenements, this city north of the Mexican capital seems an unlikely setting for a business success story.
The Mexican government has shut down 88 private universities over the past two years for failing to comply with basic standards, education officials said this week.
Private colleges in Central America have long been viewed as little more than proprietary schools. But now they have established an accreditation system that they hope will win them respect at home and abroad.
Colombia is experimenting with more public-private partnerships in higher education in an effort to increase student enrolments through private sector expansion. But allowing for-profit universities is still highly controversial and opposed by students and university rectors alike, according to the country’s former education minister Cecilia María Vélez.
Laureate Education Inc, a for-profit higher education provider that boasts former U.S. President Bill Clinton as honorary chancellor, is planning to launch an initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.
Only 16% of higher education spending comes from public sources, compared with an OECD average of nearly 70%. Three-quarters of Chile's universities are privately owned. The government says this private sector involvement should be welcomed, but the students argue that it effectively turns education into a commodity, governed by market forces.
Last week, the government put forward a package of 21 reforms, including an offer to increase funding, improve teacher training, increase university scholarships and help resolve unpaid student loan debts. But students rejected the plan, saying it failed to meet a key demand that private universities invest their income in educational improvements.
Presents information on the success of the University of the Americas, which was owned by Sylvan Learning Systems, in Chile. Consequences related to the growth of the university; Impact of the university's marketing on its growth; Criticisms on the education provided by the university.
Presents information on Pitágoras College owned by Apollo International and Pitágoras Group in Brazil. Number of students enrolled in the college; List of disciplines offered by the institution; Teaching methodology used by the college.
Focuses on the growth of private universities in Chile. Increase in enrollment in higher education; Amount of tuition fees charged by the universities; Complaints of the universities on the government's ruling on student loans.
The police and education officials on Thursday moved to shut down 14 universities that the government determined did not meet basic academic standards. The schools, with a total of about 38,000 students, were on a list of failing universities, sometimes called “garage universities” because of accusations of their low quality.
Some blame the problem on for-profit universities that have proliferated in the past two decades as a reaction to increased demand for higher education. The universities, which offer as little as one degree, have earned the moniker ‘garage universities’ because they often operate from houses, where each room is a ‘faculty’.
When Jesús Ignacio Lechuga applied to college three years ago, he was looking for an education that would be affordable and allow him to work and study at the same time. So he applied to the International College for Experienced Learning, or Universidad ICEL, a for-profit university in Mexico City, where tuition is 10 percent of what it is at the city's elite nonprofit universities and classes are offered at nights and on weekends.
As Mexico’s last baby boom comes of age, more young people than ever aspire to a college degree. A rush of private higher education institutions has arrived to meet rising demand.
Rosemir Soares always wanted to go to university but could never afford the fees. Then she discovered Prouni, a scholarship program of the Brazilian government that has guaranteed a college education for more than one million low-income students since it began, in 2005.
Recently DeVry Inc. (DV - Analyst Report), one of the largest providers of higher-education in North America, acquired Faculdade do Vale do Ipojuca (“FAVIP”). FAVIP, which is based in Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil will form a part of DeVry Brasil.
Universities in Brazil have long been for the privileged few. Only 11% of the population of working age has a degree – and such scarcity has brought rich rewards. Graduates earn, on average, 2.5 times more than those without degrees, and five times as much as the majority who never finish secondary school, reports The Economist.
There are strong indications that demand for higher education is outstripping supply. In January, Gloria Sekwena died and at least 20 other people were seriously injured when about 5,000 people stampeded in a desperate attempt to register at the last minute with the University of Johannesburg. The university received more than 85,000 applications for fewer than 12,000 places last year.
Camila Vallejo has come to the UK to deliver its students a message: learn from what privatisation did to higher education in Chile or your universities will suffer the same fate.
The Ministry of Education submitted its request to the National Council of Education (CNED) on Monday for the closure of Universidad del Mar, following a five-month audit. University officials, employees and students were not officially notified of the request and were instead informed of the possible closing upon reading local press publications.
With its endless expanse of bleak, cinder-block tenements, this city north of the Mexican capital seems an unlikely setting for a business success story. But within days of opening a new campus here in 2002, the privately run Technological University of Mexico was mobbed with more than 2,000 applicants. The reason: It offered a mix of practical, job-oriented education and brand recognition, at a price residents could afford.
In recent years, the government of Colombia has faced several obstacles in its attempts to catalyze socioeconomic progress, not the least of which has been working to end a drug war and regain control of most of the territory that had been lost to guerrilla groups. However, as Colombia enters a phase of economic stability and growth, it faces yet another enormous challenge: offering high-quality education to its citizens.
Thursday’s march was held in solidarity with the former students of the Universidad del Mar, a private institution that was shut down by the government after the extent of its financial irregularities came to light. The university, on the Chilean coast just north of Valparaíso, educates 8,000 students who are now scrambling to find a way to graduate, relocate or get a refund on their pay-as-you-go education before the school closes in December of 2014.
DeVry Inc.'s CEO Daniel Hamburger said Thursday that he sees better times ahead for the for-profit education company given a recent acquisition, cost-cutting measures and improving enrollment trends at some of its schools.
But students say it's not enough because the system is still fails them with poor public schools, expensive private universities, unprepared teachers and unaffordable loans.
As Chile prepares for its first free presidential election in nearly two decades, its system of higher education is tilting dramatically toward the private sector...
However, such programs could be hit hard by the proposed law, which would cap government support to subsidized private institutions such as Loja. The university, which has some 22,000 students, was founded in the 1970s during a government campaign to expand access to higher education in provincial areas.
Uncovered confidential contracts reveal that millions of dollars may have been illegally funneled from private universities to fund the success of a club soccer team.
Catherine Wannier always felt that she'd attend one of Argentina's public universities. What attracted her wasn't only the prestige of national institutions like the University of Buenos Aires...
At the height of the civil war in El Salvador, a massacre of six Jesuit. A Phoenix in El Salvador priests brought life at a private university in the capital to an abrupt though...