- MOOCs: Who Pays The MOOCs Bill ?
- Russia: Demand Up for Russian Language
- UK: £50m unpaid fees of EU graduates
- Japan: Govt. Encourages Study-Abroad
Millions of students have signed up for massive open online courses, and hundreds of universities are offering some form of Web-based curriculum. Most students aren’t paying much for these classes, if they’re paying anything at all. So where is all that knowledge—and all the cash—coming from? Who pays the bill for MOOCs ?
The strengthening of economic ties between Russia and other emerging markets has created a boon for the country’s language sector, according to stakeholders. Educators and agents confirm that the demand for Russian has increased mostly due to student’s seeking to benefit professionally from the country’s growth.“Our traditional markets have always been Western Europe mainly German speaking countries, ” Walter Denz, owner of Russian language school Liden and Denz. “But now we see the demand is growing in emerging markets. We have a foot in Korea and Turkey. The next step is Latin America because of worldwide globalisation.”
More than £50m of tuition fee loans to EU graduates have not been repaid over the last five years, according to the Student Loans Company. The SLC has hired specialists to track down hundreds of overseas graduates from UK universities who have gone off the radar.More than £15m of loans for graduates from Cyprus are not being repaid and the SLC lacks information about where some European graduates are living, as well as whether they are working, in regard to loans totalling £41m. The figures are contained in a reply to an Independent on Sunday freedom of information request.
The Education Ministry said it will be doubling its study scholarships for the 2014 academic year to encourage more college students to pursue studies abroad.The reason for this is so that more workers and employees in Japan will have had international experience due to their studies. In 2010, only 58,000 Japanese students studied outside the country, a large decrease from the record high 83,000 during the 2004 academic year. This is largely due to the struggling economy which affected families and increased their financial burdens. The ministry said it will increase its grants to around 20,000 and the scholarship base to 71 million dollars.
