Sau hơn 10 năm hoạt động, đến nay đã có trên 450 suất học bổng VEF cấp cho sinh viên Việt Nam. Ngân sách VEF hiện nay là 5 triệu đôla để tài trợ cho 40 sinh viên mỗi năm. Quỹ sẽ chấm dứt hoạt động vào năm 2018 nếu không được quốc hội gia hạn.

Khung pháp lý hoàn chỉnh và truyền thống hiến tặng được xem như những lý do chủ yếu giúp các đại học tư thục ở Mỹ phát triển theo định hướng nghiên cứu. Tuy vậy, thực tế này không phải là không có những bất cập. Bài viết dưới đây của nhà báo Joe Pinsker, đăng trên The Atlantic ngày 21/10 vừa qua chỉ ra những bất cập này.

After Philippe de Montebello agreed at breakfast two decades ago to name the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Roman Sculpture Court, in perpetuity, for the philanthropists and antiquities collectors Leon Levy and his wife, Shelby White, Mr. Levy predictably, but politely, posed an impertinent question.
“I asked him, How long is ‘in perpetuity’?”
“For you, 50 years,” Mr. de Montebello, the museum director, replied.
The couple’s daughter was only in her 20s then, so to spare her any bruised feelings if the family name were supplanted during her lifetime, Mr. Levy proposed to redefine perpetuity at 75 years. Mr. de Montebello agreed; the Metropolitan got its $20 million gift, the largest cash donation up to that time.
“It’s like in ‘Alice in Wonderland’: ‘When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less,’ ”

The university’s Board of Regents voted, 14-7, to approve tuition increases of up to 5 percent in each of the next five years, a compounded increase of as much as 27.6 percent. The elected officials on the board, led by Gov. Jerry Brown, opposed the plan, which had been proposed and championed by Janet Napolitano, the president of the university system.

The North Carolina State Board of Education has issued a warning to a charter-school chain for failing to comply with an agency order to disclose the salaries of school administrators. The schools have been put on "financial probationary status," which could lead to sanctions if their board does not comply within 10 business days.

A group of Harvard students, frustrated by the university’s refusal to shed fossil fuel stocks from its investment portfolios, is looking beyond protests and resolutions to a new form of pressure: the courts.
The seven law students and undergraduates filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in Suffolk County Superior Court in Massachusetts against the president and fellows of Harvard College, among others, for what they call “mismanagement of charitable funds.” The 11-page complaint, with 167 pages of supporting exhibits, asks the court to compel divestment on behalf of the students and “future generations.”

Opportunities for higher secondary and university placement do not come easily for students who live in poor and rural communities in Nepal, one of the world’s poorest countries. Passing the S.L.C. — a requirement to go on for higher secondary school — is the first barrier. According to Nepal’s Central Bureau of Statistics, the total passing rate this year was 43.9 percent, of which 78 percent came from private schools.
Fewer than 30 percent of public school students passed the exams. For those who did pass and who live in poor rural communities, public higher secondary schools are often too far away for a daily commute.

While Teach For America may lack insider influence in certain progressive media outlets, the organization, which represents less than 0.2 percent of America’s teaching force, enjoys disproportionate sway in the political realm, from local school districts to federal agencies. Sixty-three percent of recruits work, as Teach For America puts it, “full time in education,” yet a 2010 study found that 80 percent of Teach For America recruits quit after three years. The disparity suggests that while TFA recruits may not be able to stomach teaching, they do feel up to the task of other education-sector activities, like policy reform and foundation management. In fact, TFA founder Wendy Kopp designed the organization to facilitate just such a transition for corps members.

Minnesota’s attorney general has accused Savers Thrift Stores of pocketing more than $1 million that should have gone to charities including the Lupus Foundation of Minnesota and Vietnam Veterans of America.
The legal office said that Savers, a privately held company based in the Seattle area, routinely misrepresented how much money it raised for nonprofit groups through clothing drives and other donations from customers. Savers would keep nearly all the money it raised from the sale of such items, the attorney general said in a report released on Monday.

TT - Thời gian qua, nhiều sinh viên đang học ĐH hệ cử tuyển của tỉnh Tây Ninh theo học không nổi hoặc ở lại lớp khiến nhiều người nghi ngại.
Đơn cử trong năm học 2013-2014, UBND tỉnh Tây Ninh cử 17 sinh viên đi học theo chế độ cử tuyển nhưng có đến sáu sinh viên lưu ban. Trong đó có hai trường hợp phải cho nghỉ học, một trường hợp không theo học nổi xin nghỉ học và một trường hợp xin xuống hệ CĐ học, nhưng trường không có hệ CĐ nên Sở GD-ĐT tỉnh Tây Ninh phải cho nghỉ.