University System News:
www.ajc.com
Enrollment a record high at Georgia college system
By Eric Stirgus, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nearly 329,000 students are getting educations this fall at the University System of Georgia, a record high enrollment, officials announced Wednesday. The enrollment is a 1.1 percent increase from the prior year, according to its data. Much of the increase comes from Georgia Tech, where enrollment is up 11 percent, to nearly 33,000 students. Georgia State University has the largest enrollment in the system, with nearly 53,000 students. …The annual enrollment report was not all rosy. Enrollment increased at 12 University System institutions but declined at 14 colleges and universities.
www.bizjournals.com
University System of Georgia enrollment at all-time high
By Dave Williams – Staff Writer, Atlanta Business Chronicle
Enrollment in the University System of Georgia’s 26 colleges and universities is at an all-time high. The fall semester finds 328,712 students attending classes on a university system campus, an increase of 1.1 percent over the fall of last year and continuing a five-year trend of modest enrollment increases. At the same time, more students than ever are graduating from a university system institution. Since 2011, when the system launched the Complete College Georgia initiative aimed at increasing graduation rates, the number of students earning degrees has risen by 21 percent. “With this success, we remain committed to our goals of making college more affordable, finding greater opportunities to be more efficient and ensuring more Georgians enter the workforce with a college credential,” system Chancellor Steve Wrigley said.
www.albanyherald.com
University System of Georgia releases enrollment numbers
USG currently enrolls more than 300,000 students
From Staff Reports
ATLANTA — The University System of Georgia released its enrollment numbers Wednesday morning in the USG’s Fall 2018 Semester Enrollment Report. The report breaks down enrollment by institution, class, race and ethnicity, in-state students, out-of-state and international students, as well as gender and age. “While the University System of Georgia continues to see modest increases in enrollment, more students than ever are graduating from our institutions,” Chancellor Steve Wrigley said. “The number of USG students annually earning degrees is up 21 percent since 2011, when the Complete College Georgia initiative related to college attainment launched. With this success, we remain committed to our goals of making college more affordable and accessible, finding greater opportunities to be more efficient and ensuring more Georgians enter the work force with a college credential.” Fall 2018 enrollment in the University System of Georgia’s 26 colleges and universities totaled 328,712 students, an increase of 1.1 percent (or 3,509 more students) over the previous year. This fall’s enrollment continues a five-year trend of slight increases in USG student enrollment. This fall also marks the fourth consecutive year that enrollment continued to reach an all-time high in the USG’s total student enrollment.
www.bizjournals.com
Emory, Tech make list of Top 30 business schools
By Mark Meltzer – Executive Editor, Atlanta Business Chronicle
Bloomberg Businessweek today has released its 30th annual ranking of the best U.S. business schools, based on data compiled from more than 10,400 students, 15,000 alumni, 1,170 corporate recruiters and compensation and job-placement data from each school. Stanford takes the No. 1 spot among 92 full-time U.S. MBA programs, followed by Pennsylvania (Wharton), which comes in at No. 2; Harvard at No. 3; MIT (Sloan), at No. 4; and Chicago (Booth) at No. 5. Two Georgia schools made the Top 30: Emory’s Goizueta Business School ranked No. 24 and Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business ranked No. 27.
www.albanyherald.com
ABAC ag ed students participate in program at national FFA convention
Four students from ag ed cohort ‘hand-selected’ to take part in National Agriscience program
From Staff Reports
TIFTON — Four students from the Agricultural Education cohort at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College were hand-picked to participate in a special program at the recent National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Ind. ABAC Ag Education majors Sarah Beth Hammond from Covington, Emily Dean from Jasper, Casey Elias from Monticello, and Samantha Wilhoite from Ringgold were selected to participate in the National Agriscience program at the convention. National Agriscience program personnel invited only 30 students from across the country to learn more about special agriscience teaching techniques that are considered effective for agricultural education. These four were among 37 students attending the convention with the ABAC collegiate FFA chapter. Jessie Jackson, another ABAC Ag Education major from LaGrange, was selected as an official at the National Parliamentary Procedure Leadership Development event. Selected through an application process, Jackson worked with 27 other students from across the country as a collegiate assistant, ensuring that the parliamentary procedure contests proceeded on schedule.
www.ajc.com
Georgia Tech couple violated nepotism rules, report says
By Eric Stirgus, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An employed couple at Georgia Tech violated the school’s nepotism policy, and concerns from colleagues that the wife assisted her husband in getting involved in a project went “mostly uninvestigated” for about a year, says a report released Wednesday by state officials. Five employees from Georgia Tech Research Institute’s Information and Communications Laboratory complained about the relationship to the institute’s ethics director in September 2017, but it was not fully investigated until one year and a day later, by the University System of Georgia. “The substantive components of the concerns identified went mainly uninvestigated for a lengthy period of time,” University System of Georgia Vice Chancellor John Fuchko wrote in his report, dated Monday, to Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson. The report also found institute officials ignored advice from Georgia Tech’s legal affairs office that a “management plan” between the husband and wife to address nepotism policy concerns was not in compliance with state rules.
Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.com
A Divided Congress Is Unlikely to Compromise on Higher Ed. But What if It Did?
By Eric Kelderman
In the wake of Tuesday’s election results, there will inevitably be talk of reauthorizing the Higher Education Act, the main federal law governing student aid and other key higher-education policies, during the next two years. Democrats, who come January will hold a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, could put forward a bill based on the Aim Higher Act, a blueprint for higher education that they drafted earlier this year. Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, can serve just two more years as head of that committee and would like to cement his legacy by pushing through a reauthorization bill, a piece of legislation that he has been considering since at least 2015 and that is already five years overdue. …While lawmakers in both parties agree on a number of things they would like to change in the current Higher Education Act — such as how to ensure accountability through accreditation, how to lower student-loan defaults, and how to give colleges incentives to control the price of tuition — they are far apart on proposed solutions.
www.insidehighered.com
Cash Cows No Longer
As states compete for a shrinking group of freshmen, historic out-of-state tuition premiums may no longer be a sure source of income for state higher ed systems.
By Greg Toppo
…Recent research shows that many state systems have relied on the higher tuition and fees generated by out-of-state students to help balance budgets in times of tight state appropriations. Researcher Ozan Jaquette, an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, last year noted that the typical “once glorious” flagship university in most states “is now the repository of a majority out-of-state students, many of whom are dramatically less academically oriented” than deserving, but in many cases lower-income, in-state students, but who can pay full out-of-state tuition. A March 2018 analysis of enrollment data by The Washington Post found that at 11 state flagship universities, more than half of incoming freshmen hailed from out of state in 2016, the latest year for which data were available. In that group, figures for in-state students ranged from 49 percent at the University of Arkansas to as little as 21 percent at the University of Vermont. Jaquette said that as state university systems have become more tuition-reliant, “the out-of-state solution is a solution every flagship is trying to play. If everyone’s in this market, you’re ultimately competing [for] the same students private liberal arts colleges are competing for — students whose families are willing to pay those super-high tuitions.”