Chinese Students in US Reflect on COVID Chaos

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Ryan Wang was among hundreds of thousands of Chinese students at U.S. colleges or universities who struggled over whether to return home to China or remain in the United States when the COVID-19 pandemic surged in the spring of 2020. “When the pandemic started in China [months earlier], I felt lucky I was already back to the U.S. for the new semester,” Wang, a Chinese undergraduate studying economics at Columbia University in New York City, told VOA. Unlike Wang, many international students had not returned to the United States from winter break in January 2020 and fretted that they wouldmore

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 US Colleges, Universities See Sharp Losses During Pandemic

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The number of students studying at U.S. colleges and universities sharply declined for the school year that started in September 2020. Experts attribute the decline to the COVID-19 pandemic.   A survey of almost 3,000 institutions of higher education in the U.S. showed a 15% decrease in the number of international students attending the 2020-2021 school year.   The number of new student enrollments was slashed by 45.6%.  This brings the total of enrolled international students to 914,095, the first time since the 2015-2016 academic year the number fell below the 1 million mark after a decade of swift increases.   International students comprise 4.6% of the nearly 20 million students enrolled in U.S. higher education.   The number ofmore

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Are Britain’s Top Universities for Sale?

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Some of Britain’s prestigious colleges — including the ancient universities of Cambridge and Oxford — are being accused of losing their moral compass by accepting donations from what critics say are dubious sources. The University of Oxford, London School of Economics and University College, London, have prompted a firestorm of criticism for accepting millions of pounds from the charitable trust of the late motor-racing tycoon Max Mosley, whose fortune was largely inherited from his father Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists during the 1930s and 1940s. Oxford was given $8 million from a charitable trust set upmore

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Hong Kong Student Group Shutdown Seen as Move Against Critics

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Hong Kong’s universities have been under fire in a series of student arrests and university organization clampdowns since the territory’s controversial national security law was implemented in 2020. In the latest episode, the student union at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, one of Hong Kong’s most prestigious universities, dissolved itself in October under pressure to register legally as an independent organization rather than just being recognized by the university. Established half a century ago, the student organization became history after the collective resignation of its student council – its governing body – and the organization’s decision to dissolve itself.more

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Bomb Threats Investigated at Brown, Columbia, Cornell

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Bomb threats at three Ivy League college campuses caused evacuations and police investigations Sunday, with at least two schools saying the threats there were unfounded. Cornell, Columbia and Brown universities alerted students to the threats. Authorities at Columbia and Brown said campus buildings had been cleared Sunday evening. In Ithaca, New York, Cornell police cordoned off the center of campus on Sunday after receiving a call that bombs were placed in four buildings. In New York City, Columbia University police issued a campuswide emergency alert after receiving bomb threats at university buildings about 2:30 p.m. The university deemed the threatsmore

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Ivy League President Calls College, University Rankings ‘Daft’

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The president of Princeton University, which routinely leads the lists of best colleges and universities, advises applicants to be wary of choosing a school based on ranking lists. “My university has now topped the U.S. News & World Report rankings for 11 years running. Given Princeton’s success, you might think I would be a fan of the list,” wrote Christopher Eisgruber in The Washington Post on October 21. “Not so. I am convinced that the rankings game is a bit of mishegoss — a slightly daft obsession that does harm when colleges, parents or students take it too seriously,” Eisgruber wrote,more

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Nebraska School District Hires Students as Interpreters

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 Facing staff shortages, public schools in Nebraska’s largest city have turned to bilingual high school students to interpret when families talk with teachers during report card conferences. The Omaha school district has some full-time bilingual liaisons, but students and their families speak more than 100 different languages, and more than 18,000 students have received services for limited English speakers at some time while in the district.  Lisa Utterback, the district’s chief student and community services officer, told the Omaha World-Herald that the district has about 20 students contracted as interpreters. The students are paid $18 an hour to help withmore

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Zoom Gets More Popular Despite Worries About Links to China

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Very few companies can boast of having their name also used as a verb. Zoom is one of them. The popularity of the videoconferencing platform continues to grow around the world despite continued questions about whether Chinese authorities are monitoring the calls. Since Zoom became a household word last year during the pandemic, internet users including companies and government agencies have asked whether the app’s data centers and staff in China are passing call logs to Chinese authorities. “Some of the more informed know about that, but the vast majority, they don’t know about that, or even if they do,more

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Students in US State Sue for Right to Civics Education

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Students in Rhode Island are asking a federal appeals court to affirm that all public school students have a constitutional right to a civics education, saying that they aren’t taught how to meaningfully participate in a democratic and civil society and that the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was a symptom of such ignorance.  Students nationwide need to know how to participate in the political process, effectively exercise their constitutional rights and learn skills like media literacy to distinguish accurate from false information, their lawyers argue. The plaintiffs have asked the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Boston,more

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Neuroscientist Leaves Rich Legacy for Students From Diverse Backgrounds

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A Pakistani neuroscientist who came to the U.S. as an international student has died at 43, leaving behind a movement of support for diverse and nontraditional young scientists. “My campaign will provide awards to young scientists from backgrounds that are diverse, under-resourced, marginalized or traditionally under-represented in psychological and neural sciences,” Nadia Chaudhri wrote in May, when she started a GoFundMe page to help students pay to attend the annual conference for the Research Society on Alcoholism. “I am targeting funds to these groups to provide a specific leg up to young scientists who may face hardship due to systemicmore

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Caste System Seen as Diversity Issue on US Campuses

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Colby College is banning discrimination based on caste, a system of inherited social class, becoming one of the nation’s earliest colleges to do so. The private liberal arts college revised its nondiscrimination policy to add caste to its list of protections for the campus community. The efforts were led by a professor who took an interest in caste discrimination across the country and realized the college needed to recognize it as a form of discrimination, the Bangor Daily News reported. “You have to first name what it is to say: This exists, we name it, we stand against it,” saidmore

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US Student Faces Prison for Helping Islamic State

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A former Chicago college student was convicted Monday of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group. Thomas Osadzinski, 22, wrote a computer code to help IS bypass programs designed to block the group’s propaganda, prosecutors said. The former DePaul University student, who was born in a Chicago suburb, was living in the city when he was arrested in 2019 during an FBI sting. He faces up to 20 years in prison. His attorney, Joshua Herman, said during closing arguments that the case centered on the right to free speech and that Osadzinski had the right to watch and share themore

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Rastafarian Teen Fights to Keep Dreadlocks

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Tyrone Iras Marhguy had to make a difficult decision after being accepted to the high school of his choice: his faith or his education. An official at the academically elite Achimota School in Ghana told the teen he would have to cut his dreadlocks before enrolling. For Marhguy, who is a Rastafarian, cutting his dreadlocks is non-negotiable, so he and his family asked the courts to intervene.  “I manifest my faith through my hair,” Marguy, 17, told The Associated Press. “I assume it to be like telling a Christian not to read the Bible or go to church.” Hair ismore

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Law Would Give Afghan Scholars Special Visa to US

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A congressman from California has introduced legislation that would give Afghan Fulbright scholars special immigrant visas.   The legislation would automatically issue a special immigrant visa to any Afghan who lived in the United States as a Fulbright scholar and to their immediate family members to help them “escape persecution by the Taliban and relocate safely to the United States,” according to a statement from the office of U.S. Representative John Garamendi, a Democrat. “Fulbright Scholarships are one of the most vital U.S. cultural exchange programs that help to improve intercultural relations, diplomacy, and coordination between the United States and other countries,” Garamendi’s statement read. “This is the right thing to do for our Afghan allies who stood with the Unitedmore

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Winner in Popular Game Show Reads This Encyclopedia Every Night 

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Not many computer science students command a lot of attention, especially from the American public. But Matt Amodio, a student at Yale University, is on a streak. He has persevered (at last count) 36 consecutive times on the wildly popular and geeky game show “Jeopardy!” where the goal is to know more than your fellow contestants and win a lot of money. Amodio is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in computer science at the Ivy League university in New Haven, Connecticut. He ranks second in number of games won (36) on “Jeopardy!” to Ken Jennings, who won 74 consecutive times in 2004,more

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Fulbright Applicants in Afghanistan Seek Help

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Afghan semifinalists for next year’s Fulbright scholars’ program are asking the U.S. government about the status of their candidacies, following the closure of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as American troops withdrew from Afghanistan in August.  “After the fall of Kabul on August 15, we did not hear back from the U.S. State Department on the Fulbright program regarding the status of our applications,” said Maryam Jami, a law school graduate and applicant from Herat, referring to the Taliban takeover of the Afghan capital on that date.  The Fulbright Foreign Student Program “enables graduate students, young professionals and artists frommore

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Troubled Student Loan Forgiveness Program Gets an Overhaul

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The Biden administration is moving to relax the rules for a student loan forgiveness program that has been criticized for its notoriously complex requirements — a change that could offer debt relief to thousands of teachers, social workers, military members and other public servants. The Education Department said Wednesday it will temporarily drop some of the toughest requirements around Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a program that was launched in 2007 to steer more college graduates into public service but, since then, has helped just 5,500 borrowers get their loans erased. Congress created the program as a reward for college studentsmore

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Student Lawyer Fights to Diminish Might of Misdemeanors

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Like many others, Azra Ozdemir’s parents sent her off on the first day of school with the usual sage advice about doing well so she could get into a good college.   That was her first day of kindergarten.    “I knew three words in English: Yes. No,” and the letter P to indicate the need to use the facilities. But by the end of that first year, “the teacher was already telling my parents that I was talking too much in class.” Now a law student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Ozdemir speaks for others who mightmore

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Young Investors Eager to Learn Stock Market

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Investors younger than 34 surveyed by a financial services company said student debt, health care costs and financial jargon are barriers between them and investing. Of the 898 surveyed, 61% of the young investors said education costs, or paying down student loans, are the biggest barriers to retirement, tied with health care costs (61%), according to ETrade Financial Services, which conducted the poll. And financial jargon continued to confound, respondents said. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of the Gen Z and millennial investors note that financial jargon hinders their ability to invest on their own. That was an increase of 8% frommore

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Harvard Gets $45 Million for Asian American Studies Program

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Harvard University, often ranked first among the best colleges and universities in the United States, has received more than $45 million to expand its Asian American studies program. The donations come from 14 Asian American alumni leaders who graduated from the university between 1990 and 2003. The money will support new professorships, graduate fellowships and academic research in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Asian American studies program. It will also attract respected scholars who will foment collaboration and innovation, according to FAS. The university reported that the initiative was cultivated by Claudine Gay, dean of the FAS, “to strengthenmore

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US Student Loan Servicer Asks to Bow Out

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A second company that services student loan debt has asked the United States federal government to be relieved of its contracts. Navient, based in Wilmington, Delaware, announced Tuesday it had signed an agreement to transfer the loan servicing to Maximus. The deal is subject to the approval of the U.S. Department of Education’s office of Federal Student Aid. “Navient and Maximus are committed to working together and believe this plan gives the government a reliable approach to support borrower success and advance its vision for next-generation servicing,” stated Navient in a press release. The companies stated that they expected themore

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After Abductions, Nigerian Students Seek Overseas Education

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Emmanuel Benson was planning to get his diploma in horticulture and landscaping from Nigeria’s Federal College of Forestry Mechanization next year. Now, he’s not willing to risk the return to school, after he was kidnapped by bandits with dozens of others earlier this year.   “Our lives are at risk — Nigerian students, especially in Kaduna state where we are,” the 24-year-old said. As much as he wanted to complete his studies “the kidnapping and everything that is going on haven’t stopped yet … staying here anymore doesn’t benefit anybody.” Benson is among a growing group of Nigerian students seekingmore

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Study Confirms Political Influence on Preventing COVID Spread

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People who feel strongly connected to their country are more likely to practice social distancing and mask wearing amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to research that looked at nearly 70 nations worldwide.  “In pretty much every country we examined around the world, people who were strongly identified [with their country] were more willing to make personal sacrifices to promote public health,” lead researcher Jay Van Bavel told VOA.  However, there’s a catch: The research also found that in the United States, someone’s political party or philosophy can affect their compliance with public health initiatives. “For example, one study that usedmore

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China Imposes Local Lockdowns as COVID-19 Cases Surge  

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China tightened lockdowns and increased orders for mass testing in cities along its coast Wednesday amid the latest surge in COVID-19 cases.Checks have been set up in toll stations around the city of Putian in Fujian province, with a dozen of them closed entirely. The nearby cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou have also restricted travel as the delta variant spreads through the region.The National Health Commission on Wednesday said an additional 50 cases had been diagnosed in various parts of Fujian, most of them in the Putian region.Since the start of the pandemic, first detected in late 2019 in themore

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