higher education

(Newser) - The House OKed a major shakeup of student loans yesterday, in a plan that will eliminate $19 billion in subsidies to lending companies and send the cash directly to students. The bill will increase funding for Pell grants and cut the interest rates on all federally-funded loans—assuming it survives...

(Newser) - A new device designed to monitor tests remotely helps distance-learning providers keep an eye on students who are taking exams thousands of miles away. The virtual proctor locks down the terminal so users can't search files or the Internet for answers, a 360-degree camera captures the student's actions, and a...

(Newser) - Polarizing poli-sci scholar Norman Finkelstein has been refused tenure at DePaul University in Chicago. The school's president said that Finkelstein, a virulent critic of Israel who's been accused of anti-Semitism for his remarks on the Holocaust, stirred too much controversy and ill will for the nation's largest Catholic University.

(Newser) - Top-tier European universities like Oxford, Cambridge and the Sorbonne will fall behind competitors in China and India within 10 years, the EU's education commissioner warns. The Times of London reports underfunding and outmoded curricula could cost the mossier Western schools their international reputations, and international enrollments with them.