International Drop Continues
After three years of declining international student enrollment, business schools in the United States can officially call it a trend. And while this shift seems to be affecting nearly everyone, certain types of institutions appear to be bearing the brunt of it. For example, some Southern schools are showing enrollment declines in excess of 20%, while several top schools reported declines averaging 6.5% in recent years. Thirty-six schools with full-time MBA programs saw declines from 2016 to 2018, and another 32 saw a decline in the past year. Additionally, in 2016 there were two schools with more than half of their MBA student population made up of international students; in 2017 they had no international students.
Source: Poets & Quants
Changes to California Admissions Suggested
In the wake of the admissions scandals, some members of the California State Assembly want to level the playing field. Five Democrats have made several suggestions, which include requiring at least three administers to sign off on special admissions, with one of them being the school’s chief executive. Other proposed requirements include banning preferential admissions for relatives of alumni or donors, reassessing the use of standardized tests and requiring admissions consultants to register with the state. Another possible strategy could be to stop promoting admissions acceptance rates during enrollment season, due to the belief that low acceptance rates are seen as a selling point and end up increasing application volume at highly selective schools. The U.S. News & World Report recently dropped acceptance rates from its published rankings.
Source: Education Dive
Democrats Against Student Loans
Alleviating the burden of student loan debt is a common theme among Democratic presidential candidates, yet they lack a consensus on how to achieve that goal. The amount of college debt has approximately tripled since 2006 and now tops $1.5 trillion, making it the second largest category of debt (after mortgages). There are now more than 43 million student loan borrowers in the United States. Ideas proposed by Democrats running for president include extending and expanding Pell grants, providing free two-year community college education, allowing borrowers to refinance at lower rates and creating new student loan forgiveness programs.
Source: NBC News
Mumps in College
Amid the nationwide debate on vaccinations comes news of more than 100 probable and confirmed cases of mumps at Temple University. College students are generally more susceptible to outbreaks of contagious diseases, in part because of the close quarters in which they live. The outbreak at Temple is believed to have originated with someone who traveled internationally, to an area where mumps vaccinations are not standard. Temple added a measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination requirement after the outbreak; it did not previously have such a policy in place. The University also held a free vaccination clinic and provided almost 5,000 booster shots. The effectiveness of the mumps vaccination increases from 78% to 88% when a second dose is administered, the CDC said.
Source: Inside Higher Ed