The United States has contracted the University of Indiana and the University of Massachusetts ‘ Center for International Education to help reform universities in Afghanistan. The two will partner together with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to provide assistance to 18 Afghanistan universities.Together, they will work with Afghanistan’s Minister of Higher Education to provide assistance with program change, budgeting, management, and strategic development to help meet the country’s higher education initiative. Priority will go to retraining teachers, providing internet access, and developing a modern library. Two masters programs will be developed; English and Public Policy/Administration. A teaching program provides a 4 year training program for new teachers.
Afghan Universities are praising the move, saying that it is essential that Afghan students move into to the 21st century. Speaking English, learning web based applications and having access to books, are all listed as major contributions towards that goal.
Currently, there are 22 universities in Afghanistan. They run on a combined budget which amounts to only about 1.5% of the countries entire budget. USAID will be providing an additional $20 million dollars. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Higher Education said that additional money is a great asset because, up till now, a higher education was considered by most Afghans as being a luxury. One of the goals is to put a higher education in the reach of every Afghan student.
The University of Massachusetts will receive a $9.9 million grant from USAID to help offset their costs.
To learn more about Massachusetts University please visit www.umass.edu. ]]>
Southern New Hampshire University recently announced the launch of a new online degree program in finance that is geared toward students who wish to enter the banking industry.
Officials said that the finance-economics degree program helps prepare students for jobs in the banking, insurance, securities as well as corporate and personal finance industries. The curriculum will include courses in financial investment, budget strategies and the study of economic behavior.
Students can participate in the online or the on-campus program, both of which cover the same topics in the same amount of time. Enrollees will learn to apply the theories of international and domestic finance and economics, which will involve courses on global issues.
Graduates of this course of study may be able to launch lucrative careers as financial managers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that professionals in this field can earn average annual salaries that are close to six figures.
Meanwhile, job opportunities for financial managers are expected to increase by 8 percent over the next seven years, which translates to 41,200 available jobs.
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The State Senate Finance Committee recently met to discuss the Texas higher education budget, according to the news station KXAN.
Some state legislators told the news provider that there is too much wasteful spending in higher education. As a result, Senator Dan Patrick, R-Houston, is proposing that colleges offer bachelors degrees for only $10,000 and suggests that they use more online programs to achieve that goal.
Officials found that tuition and fees for 60 credit hours at the Austin Community College cost $3,480. Meanwhile, the same number of hours at the University of Texas costs more than $18,000.
"It is time for a bold, Texas-style solution to their challenge that I am sure the brightest minds in their universities can devise," Rick Perry, Texas governor, told the news source. "I am challenging our institutions of higher education to develop bachelors degrees that cost not more than $10,000 including textbooks."
Perry added that goals can be reached by using online classes and innovative teaching techniques, which could help drive down the price of earning a bachelors degree. Furthermore, the proposal aims to freeze college tuition costs and fund an incentive plan that would award colleges for the number of students who graduate rather than the amount of enrollees at the institutions.
According to the 2010 Sloan Survey Learning, out of more than 2,500 colleges and universities in the U.S., nearly 5.6 million students were enrolled in at least one web-based course in the fall 2009 semester.
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