Panel Unveils Ways to Improve New Jersey’s Public Universities

The recommendations came in a report halfway through a fiscal year in which Mr. Christie cut state operating aid for higher education by $130 million as he sought to close an $11 billion budget gap. But he has pledged to increase financing for the state’s colleges and universities as the economy improves.

“In many ways, this report confirms what we all know: New Jersey’s higher education system is in need of focused improvement if it is truly going to serve our students and prepare our state for the future,” the governor said in a statement. He appeared with the task force chairman, former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, in a news conference in Trenton on the recommendations.

In an echo of a battle just waged and lost in New York, the New Jersey task force urged the state to let Rutgers and the other public colleges and universities set their own tuition levels “appropriate to raise the funds needed to support their operations and maintain educational excellence.” In New York, Gov. David A. Paterson and officials of the state university system had sought such a change, but it was blocked by the Legislature.

A spokesman for Mr. Christie, Kevin Roberts, said after the news conference that the governor would evaluate the issue. The governor has already endorsed a plan to give college administrations authority to negotiate labor agreements. “It needs to be addressed in a holistic way that gives college presidents more control and flexibility over management of their institutions,” Mr. Roberts said.

Other recommendations in the 140-page report, which was given to Mr. Christie on Dec. 1 but made public on Tuesday, included the creation of a five-member council on higher education. While acknowledging the current budget crisis, the task force also called on the state to increase financing as soon as possible, by issuing bonds. The report did not specify a sum.

Mr. Christie signed two executive orders during the conference, one to create the council and another to form an advisory committee focused solely on graduate medical education.

The task force proposed merging some schools of the University of Medicine and Dentistry with Rutgers, a move that has previously been rejected. As the United States attorney for New Jersey, Mr. Christie pursued criminal fraud charges against the University of Medicine and Dentistry, which was faced with financial and Medicaid abuses. But the school agreed to a federal monitor to avoid prosecution.

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The Texas Tribune: Universities Are Challenged as Demographics Shift

White students, who accounted for 51 percent of U.T.’s freshman class in 2009, made up 48 percent in 2010. Black and Hispanic students represented about 5 percent and 23 percent, respectively, with Asians and other races making up the rest.

The state’s flagship university passed the demographic milestone earlier than some had anticipated, reflecting a similar shift that is rapidly taking place at other top-level educational institutions across the country.

Although the changing demographics of college campuses may be grabbing the headlines, the more compelling issue is how the growing number of minority students presents serious social and academic challenges for financially strapped universities, even as the schools are under pressure to boost graduation rates.

Nationally, 52 percent of Hispanic students and 58 percent of black students are unable to earn a bachelor’s degree in six years, compared with 40 percent of white students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

“What is increasingly evident now that wasn’t evident 10 or 20 years ago is the extent to which this is a national phenomenon,” said Steve Murdock, a sociology professor at Rice University and previously the state demographer of Texas and head of the United States Census Bureau. “This is not a Texas issue. It’s not a California issue. It’s a national issue.”

For the United States to maintain — let alone grow — a college-educated work force, Mr. Murdock said, those graduation numbers will have to change.

Stan Jones, former Indiana commissioner of higher education and the current president of Complete College America, a national nonprofit group dedicated to boosting the number of college graduates, said the numbers have been telling the story for years. “But it hasn’t necessarily gotten through to policy-makers that this was going on, and clearly not to the general public,” Mr. Jones said. “All of us are seeing it happening faster than we had expected.”

For example, although their birth rate is growing at a significant clip, Mr. Jones said, Hispanics do not graduate from high school, go on to college or graduate in the same numbers as white students. “If you look at the freshman class everywhere in this country, it is more representative than it’s ever been,” he said. “But in four years, if you look at the graduating class, it is not going to be representative of the country, because many of those students from the underrepresented groups won’t make it to graduation.”

Educators give several reasons for the disparity, including economic differences, the comparative quality of college preparation at urban, rural and suburban schools, and a sense of isolation among those who are the first in their families to go to college.

“These are terrific students,” said William Powers Jr., president of U.T. “Often, they may have gone to a high school where they didn’t have a calculus class or Advanced Placement classes. The challenges are also financial and what I call cultural. They might be away from home, and they don’t have parents and aunts and uncles who have already been here.”

In 2007, recognizing the demographic shift — and its accompanying challenges — U.T. set up a Division of Diversity and Community Engagement. With an annual budget of $30.4 million, it encourages minority high school students to apply to college and then supports them with a complex framework of programs that include tutoring and personal advising.

“The question is, can we get them the support to help them over the gaps?” said Gregory J. Vincent, vice president of diversity and community engagement.

The results, so far, have been promising. Generally, students in the division’s programs have grade point averages and retention rates as good as or better than the average in their respective classes. “The good news is that our students come highly motivated, so our challenges aren’t as great as you’d expect, despite assumptions some people might make about their backgrounds,” said Aileen Bumphus, executive director of the Gateway Program, an initiative under the Diversity and Community Engagement umbrella that works with about 300 first-generation students in each class.

rhamilton@texastribune.org

This article was produced by The Texas Tribune in partnership with The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet affiliated with the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, based at Teachers College, Columbia University.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 3, 2011

An article on Sunday about the demographic shift at the University of Texas had an incorrect credit for the picture. It is Spencer Selvidge, not Caleb Bryant Miller.

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Japanese Universities Draw Foreign Students With Manga

That is precisely the blend Mr. Wood, who grew up in the United States and is now studying at Kyoto Seika University’s manga program, is angling for.

Mr. Wood, a 25-year-old graduate of Stanford University in California, and students like him have gravitated toward the modern Japanese arts, feeling they may help them advance their careers in animation, design, computer graphics and the business of promoting them.

And as Japanese universities work harder to attract students to fill their classrooms while the country’s birth rate declines, more are offering degrees in manga and animation.

“I like it here because you get totally immersed in the skill training” of manga and animation, Mr. Wood said. “It has turned out to be a lot of fun.”

Once they are armed with unique technical and industry knowledge, many international students are eager to gain work experience here upon graduation before heading back home.

Li Lin Lin, 28, a student from northeastern China who attends Digital Hollywood University, a school in Tokyo that specializes in animation and video games, said that upon finishing her degree, it would probably be “easy” to find a job in the animation field in China. The real trophy, she said, was getting job experience in the country of manga. Ms. Li is especially interested in working for a Japanese animation studio.

“I think you can do almost anything back home once you get a degree and animation working experiences in Japan,” said Ms. Li, emerging from her class on digital animation coloring one Saturday afternoon.

Hidenori Ohyama, senior director of corporate strategy at Toei Animation, said it was possible that international students could end up at Japanese companies like his. “If they apply, take our tests and pass, they will become employees just like anyone else,” he said.

His company, a leading animation company that has produced “Dragonball” and “Slam Dunk” films, has Romanian and Korean producers, among other foreign citizens, Mr. Ohyama said.

None of the animation-themed Japanese university programs seem to be on the international radar yet, said Kison Chang, a training manager at Imagi Studios, an international animation production studio based in Hong Kong.

But he said students studying in Japan who ended up with solid work experiences at Japanese studios could be prime candidates for international recruitment.

“They would certainly be a great benefit to our professional line,” he said. “They might bring in some kind of spirit which we may not know, or something we didn’t realize that would be a benefit to us,” he said.

Such individuals are not yet on his teams, nor at any of his rivals, he said.

Another possible reason that the programs have not received international attention is that the language of instruction is Japanese.

Tomoyuki Sugiyama, president of Digital Hollywood University, conceded that language might be a serious barrier, especially for Western students.

“If we had an English-based program at the graduate level, for example, we would be inundated with Western students almost instantly,” he said.

Nevertheless, at Kyoto Seika University, which established the country’s first manga program, the number of foreign students in it has risen to 57 currently out of a total of 800 students in the program from just 19 in 2000.

Since it was founded in 2005, Digital Hollywood University has seen its international students grow to 84 this year, roughly 20 percent of its student body, from just one when the school began.

“I want to see it grow to 50 percent of the entire students in the very near future,” Mr. Sugiyama said.

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Briefly: Education: India Will Survey Colleges and Universities

While there are reliable statistics about primary and secondary schools, currently available numbers for higher education are severely inadequate, said Sunil Kumar, additional secretary for higher education at the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

Addressing a conference organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry late last month, he said the survey would map the number of students according to their course of study. Preparations for the exercise are due to be finalized early this year.

The survey is part of a drive by the government as it plans a decade-long expansion to more than double the number of higher education institutions in India. India’s education minister, Kapil Sibal, has pledged to increase the proportion of students enrolled in colleges and universities from 12.4 percent to 30 percent by 2020.

Experts have warned that sharply increasing capacity could affect the quality of education. To address these and other concerns, the government has introduced a bill to set up a new regulatory body, the National Commission for Higher Education and Research.

— VIR SINGH

France adds 22 universities to ‘autonomous’ list

An additional 22 French public universities will be granted control of their budget and personnel choices in 2011, bringing to almost 90 percent the proportion of universities to become “autonomous” from the central government, the Ministry of Higher Education and Research announced last week, though the schools will continue to depend upon state funding.

In a first in France, five universities will also gain control of the real estate of their campuses.

The changes come as part of a 2007 reform, brought by the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy, that aims to see the country’s 83 public universities managed as independent institutions. Historically, the central government has maintained control over each university’s spending, personnel and real estate management, and even course offerings.

The government hopes to spur the universities to become more streamlined and competitive.

French student organizations and professors’ unions have broadly contested the reform, saying it will create inequalities between institutions and place undue stress upon instructors and researchers. — SCOTT SAYARE

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