When he looked to the future, Grayson Hart always saw a college degree. He was a good student at a good high school. He wanted to be an actor, or maybe a teacher. Growing up, he believed college was the only route to a good job, stability and a happy life. The pandemic changed his…
Schools Ban ChatGPT amid Fears of Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Cheating
U.S. educators are debating the merits and risks of a new, free artificial intelligence tool called ChatGPT, which students are using to write passable high school essays. So far, there isn’t a reliable way to catch cheating. Matt Dibble has the story. …
Cheaters Beware: ChatGPT Maker Releases AI Detection Tool
The maker of ChatGPT is trying to curb its reputation as a freewheeling cheating machine with a new tool that can help teachers detect if a student or artificial intelligence wrote that homework. The new AI Text Classifier launched Tuesday by OpenAI follows a weeks-long discussion at schools and colleges over fears that ChatGPT’s ability…
Art Professor Sues After Firing Over Prophet Muhammad Images
Attorneys for an adjunct art professor said Tuesday she is suing the Minnesota university that dismissed her after a Muslim student objected to depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in a global art course, while the university admitted to a “misstep” and plans to hold public conversations about academic freedom. In her lawsuit, Erika López Prater…
Foreign Students Returning to US Since Pandemic Decline
International students are returning to the United States after a significant drop during the pandemic, according to the Open Doors 2022 Report on International Educational Exchange (IEE). During a recent conversation with reporters, higher education officials said enrollment of international students increased almost 4% in the 2021-2022 academic year, from the year before, and almost…
US Schools Clash With Parents Over Bans on Student Cellphones
Cellphones — the ultimate distraction — keep children from learning, educators say. But in attempts to keep the phones at bay, the most vocal pushback doesn’t always come from students. In some cases, it’s from parents. Bans on the devices were on the rise before the COVID-19 pandemic. Since schools reopened, struggles with student behavior…
China Quarantines College Students Under Strict COVID Policy
Almost 500 students at China’s premier college for broadcast journalists have been sent to a quarantine center after a handful of COVID-19 cases were detected in their dormitory. The 488 students at Communication University of China, along with 19 teachers and five assistants, were transferred by bus beginning Friday night. Quarantining anyone considered to have…
US Colleges Report Rise in Foreign Student Applications
As a new school year begins in the United States, institutions of higher education are voicing optimism that international student numbers are bouncing back given an increase in applications for the 2022-2023 school year. The Institute of International Education (IIE), in a report published in June, said U.S. colleges saw an increase in applications for…
Incomplete Grade? Columbia Loses Ranking over Dubious Data
U.S. News & World Report has unranked Columbia University from its 2022 edition of Best Colleges, saying in a statement that the Ivy League institution failed to substantiate certain 2021 data it previously submitted, including student-faculty ratios and class size. The decision to rescind the school’s No. 2 rating among national universities in the 2022…
US Visa Called Too Expensive for Afghan Students
For Breshna Salaam, the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan last year meant a return to the same extreme poverty she and her mother had experienced under the Taliban’s first time in control of the country. In 1996, the Taliban fired Salaam’s mother from a public service job, denying the widow and her daughter…
US to Cancel $6 Billion in Student Loans for 200,000 Defrauded Borrowers
The United States will cancel $6 billion in student loans for 200,000 borrowers who claimed they were defrauded by their colleges, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden said. A settlement agreement between the borrowers and the U.S. Department of Education was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on…
Cornell University Event Calls for School’s Disentanglement With Chinese Partners
The tweeted invitation for a teach-in at Cornell University featured a photograph of “Pillar of Shame,” a sculpture that commemorates the deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which authorities removed from Hong Kong University last year. The topic: “Academic Freedom, Global Hubs and Cornell Involvement in the People’s Republic of China.” The speakers: Three Cornell…
Muslim Students at Princeton University Break Ramadan Fast Together
For many students, living and studying at one of the most prestigious schools in the United States can be stressful and sometimes a little lonely. But some Muslim students at Princeton University can find comfort in their community during the month of Ramadan. VOA’s Nida Samir reports. …
Harvard Pledges $100 Million to Atone for Role in Slavery
Harvard University is vowing to spend $100 million to research and atone for its extensive ties with slavery, the school’s president announced Tuesday, with plans to identify and support direct descendants of dozens of enslaved people who labored at the Ivy League campus. President Lawrence Bacow announced the funding as Harvard released a new report…
Struggling Marymount California University to Close
Marymount California University, a half-century-old private Catholic institution, will close this summer, its board of trustees announced. The liberal arts school located on the Palos Verdes Peninsula south of Los Angeles has been struggling in recent years due to declining enrollment, rising costs and the coronavirus pandemic, the university said in a statement Friday. “This…
Mask Mandates Return to US College Campuses as Cases Rise
The final weeks of the college school year have been disrupted yet again by COVID-19 as universities bring back mask mandates, switch to online classes and scale back large gatherings in response to upticks in coronavirus infections. Colleges in Washington, D.C., New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Texas have reimposed a range of virus measures,…
Azerbaijani Student Held in Russian Captivity in Mariupol, Ukraine Describes Torture
A 20-year-old Azerbaijani university student is describing near-daily beatings during his time as a prisoner of Russian forces near Mariupol, Ukraine last month. Huseyn Abdullayev, who was studying at Mariupol State University when Russia invaded Ukraine, tells VOA Azerbaijani he was held from March 17 until April 12 after Russian military personnel kidnapped him at…
New Mexico Hails Expanded Free College, but Some Remain Wary
Even after failing a test that set her back a semester, Maribel Rodriguez will be heading back to nursing school this fall with a generous new state scholarship that abandons eligibility criteria to help more working adults get a college degree. New Mexico is expanding its “Opportunity Scholarship,” which has already paid for Rodriguez’s tuition…
Jill Biden to Discuss Community Colleges
US first lady appearing at event hosted by Clintons …
Biden to Extend Student Loan Repayment 3 More Months
The Biden administration is set to extend the moratorium on repayment of student loans until August 31. The payments were scheduled to resume May 1 after the moratorium went into effect early in the pandemic when the economy contracted sharply, and many Americans lost their jobs. Now, some lawmakers say the extensions are needed because…
Ukrainian Students Overseas Fret About Relatives, the Future
At a boarding school in the Rocky Mountains, a group of Eastern European teenagers made crepes to raise money for the millions of people whose lives have been uprooted by Russia’s war on Ukraine. The students, studying at a pine-dotted campus in northern New Mexico, worry from a world away about their relatives in the…
Campus Ministries Soothe, Rally Students Shaken Over Ukraine
Entering Yale University’s St. Thomas More Catholic Chapel, Oksana Goroshchuk spotted sunflowers adorning a candlelit altar and thought of the fields full of her country’s national blossom near her grandmother’s home in Ukraine. A mezzo-soprano launched into a traditional folk tune that Goroshchuk used to sing growing up, and the postdoctoral medical researcher broke down…
California Lawmakers Vote to Increase UC Berkeley Enrollment
The California Legislature voted unanimously Monday to overturn a recent court ruling that would have forced one of the nation’s most prestigious universities to turn away thousands of students from its incoming freshman class. If signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the bill will ensure that about 2,600 freshmen admissions slots for this that…
Advocates Urge Protected Status for Ukrainians in US
As Russian troops march through Ukraine, Ukrainians in the U.S. are anxious about their future and that of their homeland. Roman Korol, a graduate student at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, is concerned for his family’s safety here in the U.S. when his visa expires and his extended family in Ukraine. “They’re all in…
Battles Erupt Over Banning LGBTQ Topics From US Classrooms
Does a teacher’s ability to mention sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom pose a threat to primary school students or further a well-rounded, inclusive educational experience? Americans are confronting the question as initiatives advance in several states that would muzzle public school teachers on LGBTQ-related topics. In Florida, a state legislative panel recently…
From Campus to Congress, Colleges Urged to End Legacy Boost
America’s elite colleges are facing growing calls to end the decades-old tradition of giving an admissions boost to the children of alumni — a practice that critics say is rooted in racism and bestows an unfair advantage to students who need it least. Fueled by the national reckoning with racial injustice, opponents say they are…