Category: Analysis

  • In Los Angeles, 45 Elementary Schools Beat the Odds in Teaching Kids to Read – The 74

    In Los Angeles, 45 Elementary Schools Beat the Odds in Teaching Kids to Read – The 74

    This article is part of Bright Spots, a series highlighting schools where every child learns to read, no matter their zip code. Explore the Bright Spots map to find out which schools are beating the odds in terms of literacy versus poverty rates.

    This story is part of The 74’s special coverage marking the 65th anniversary of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Read all our stories here.

    When The 74 started looking for schools that were doing a good job teaching kids to read, we began with the data. We crunched the numbers for nearly 42,000 schools across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. and identified 2,158 that were beating the odds by significantly outperforming what would be expected given their student demographics. 

    Seeing all that data was interesting. But they were just numbers in a spreadsheet until we decided to map out the results. And that geographic analysis revealed some surprising findings. 

    For example, we found that, based on our metrics, two of the three highest-performing schools in California happened to be less than 5 miles apart from each other in Los Angeles. 

    The PUC Milagro Charter School came out No. 1 in the state of California. With 91% of its students in poverty, our calculations projected it would have a third grade reading rate of 27%. Instead, 92% of its students scored proficient or above. Despite serving a high-poverty student population, the school’s literacy scores were practically off the charts.  

    PUC Milagro is a charter school, and charters tended to do well in our rankings. Nationally, they made up 7% of all schools in our sample but 11% of those that we identified as exceptional. 

    But some district schools are also beating the odds. Just miles away from PUC Milagro is our No. 3-rated school in California, Hoover Street Elementary. It is a traditional public school run by the Los Angeles Unified School District. With 92% of its students qualifying for free- or reduced-price lunch, our calculations suggest that only 23% of its third graders would likely be proficient in reading. Instead, its actual score was 78%. 

    For this project, we used data from 2024, and Hoover Street didn’t do quite as well in 2025. (Milagro continued to perform admirably.)

    Still, as Linda Jacobson reported last month, the district as a whole has been making impressive gains in reading and math over the last few years. In 2025, it reported its highest-ever performance on California’s state test. Moreover, those gains were broadly shared across the district’s most challenging, high-poverty schools. 

    Our data showed that the district as a whole slightly overperformed expectations, based purely on the economic challenges of its students. We also found that, while Los Angeles is a large, high-poverty school district, it had a disproportionately large share of what we identified as the state’s “bright spot” schools. L.A. accounted for 8% of all California schools in our sample but 16% of those that are the most exceptional. 

    All told, we found 45 L.A. district schools that were beating the odds and helping low-income students read proficiently. Some of these were selective magnet schools, but many were not. 

    INTERACTIVE

    Map of Los Angeles Area Bright Spots

    

    Some of the schools on the map may not meet most people’s definition of a good school, let alone a great one. For example, at Stanford Avenue Elementary, 47% of its third graders scored proficient in reading in 2024. That may not sound like very many, but 97% of its students are low-income, and yet it still managed to outperform the rest of the state by 4 percentage points. (It did even a bit better in 2025.)
    

    Schools like Stanford Avenue Elementary don’t have the highest scores in California. On the surface, they don’t look like they’re doing anything special. But that’s why it’s important for analyses like ours to consider a school’s demographics. High-poverty elementary schools that are doing a good job of helping their students learn to read deserve to be celebrated for their results.
    

                    
    
                                    
    

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  • More international students find home on US community college campuses

    More international students find home on US community college campuses

    As Thu Thu Htet, “T”, was nearing graduation at her high school in Burma, she knew she wanted to go abroad to study engineering. She wanted to study at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York State, but didn’t want to spend tens of thousands of dollars a year in tuition, since international students don’t qualify for federal aid. 

    Instead, she decided to start her higher education journey at Monroe Community College, also in Rochester, where tuition is cheaper. T, now in her second semester, has made friends with dozens of other international students at MCC, who have helped her feel less lonely being so far away from family. 

    “There are times where I don’t feel like I fit in. Or I feel alone sometimes. The most important thing is the friends that you have,” she said.

    International student enrolments have surged at US community colleges ever since the pandemic, including this fall. As community colleges host more international students, administrators are looking for ways to make them feel welcome on campuses where most students are local commuters.

    One way international students at MCC can find support is through campus life. T serves as the president of the Global Union – a student-run club for international students, immigrant students, and anyone interested in learning about other cultures. Through her role, she greets new students, helps them to overcome challenges, and organises events to help them showcase their cultures. 

    “Sometimes, you need to be around people that have the same feeling as yours. When we are in the same club with immigrants, refugees, or other international students, we feel like we fit in with each other,” T said.

    An unexpected increase

    Because of President Trump’s policies, analysts predicted a 15% drop in total international students at American colleges and universities this fall. Experts warned that the Trump administration’s near month-long pause on visa interviews, travel bans, and war against many of the nation’s most prestigious universities would harm enrolment. 

    Instead, this fall’s international student enrolment across all degree programs, including OPT, grew by 0.8%, according to the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) data that the Department of Homeland Security publishes.

    Community colleges have helped to move the needle. For associate degree programs, international student enrolment increased by 9.1%, with community colleges welcoming nearly 5,500 more students than last year. Meanwhile, enrolment shrunk slightly for master’s programs and hardly changed for bachelor’s programs.

    Rather than choosing not to study in the US this fall, it seems like students are choosing different kinds of degrees or schools. That’s according to Chris Glass, director of Boston College’s higher education program, who recently analysed the latest SEVIS data.

    “If we’re to take this data at face value, the system is far more resilient than the tumultuous headlines would suggest,” Glass previously told The PIE News .

    Based on his analysis, the over 9% growth of international students at community colleges may not be a fluke. Glass argues that international students gravitate toward schools with less political spotlight, more affordable tuition, and access to opportunities after graduation. Community colleges check all of those boxes.

    MCC is hosting more international students now than before the pandemic. This fall, the campus’ international student body grew by 35%, hosting 120 students from over 30 countries.

    MCC’s international recruiting efforts for soccer, baseball, and other sports has helped to draw students from across continents, said Carly O’Keefe, MCC’s assistant director of global education and international services. The current men’s and women’s soccer team roster has a combined 34 international students.

    In addition, unlike many other community colleges, MCC has dorms. For T, attending a college with on-campus dorms was critical, since she had no family or friends in Rochester to live with.

    O’Keefe said international students at MCC bring ideas and culture from across the globe, enriching a campus where most students are local. Some local students – limited by jobs, financial constraints, or family obligations – have never traveled overseas.

    “They’re able to make friendships with people from other countries that they maybe would have never connected with otherwise,” she said.

    Finding a community through campus life 

    The wall of the Global Union office is decorated with dozens of paintings of hot air balloons containing flags, created by students to represent their countries. Colourful cloth flags and souvenirs from across the world fill the room.

    “At the time when I saw the Korean flag, I was so proud,” said Onyu Cha, a first-semester international student from South Korea studying nursing.

    Hot air balloon paintings at Global Union office. Photo: MCC Global Union

    Onyu made friends with other Koreans through campus life and through her sister, who also lives in Rochester. Recently, she and other Korean students went to her sister’s house to cook food for the holiday of Chuseok, a mid-autumn harvest festival often referred to as Korean Thanksgiving. 

    Through her role as the vice-president of the Global Union, Onyu has got to learn about the cultures of other students. Currently, the club is planning for an event to celebrate holidays from across the world, all on one day. That’s similar to last year’s Global Fusion Festival – an event in the campus atrium to celebrate the cultures of all MCC students. It featured African drummers, Ukrainian dancers, and food from across the globe.

    Judichael Razafintsalama – a student from Madagascar who graduated from MCC last May – said serving as the Global Union president allowed him to support his fellow international students.

    Having international students on campus at a community college can be really enriching to a local community

    Dr. Melissa Whatley, William & Mary

    The summer before starting his first year at MCC, Razafintsalama landed in Rochester around 2am. When he got to his dorm, he realised he had no food. The vending machines were empty, the campus’ food services were closed, and he hadn’t set up rideshare on his phone. To get groceries, he walked two hours to a Walmart and back, carrying four bags while jet lagged. 

    Now, international students come together to help the Office of Global Education provide packages of canned food, granola bars and utensils for incoming international students. 

    “We even helped two of our students move into their apartment and make sure that everything is settled after going through what I went through,” Razafintsalama said.

    Razafintsalama said he’s had the chance to teach others at MCC about his country and his culture. Most students he encountered had never met anyone from Madagascar, the island nation off the southeastern coast of Africa.

    “They usually attach it to the cartoon movie,” he said. “It’s great because I can see that people are interested in my country and to see what it actually is like.”

    Supporting international students’ social and housing needs is critical to making them feel welcome, said Dr. Melissa Whatley, an assistant professor of higher education at William & Mary University. Her research group recently released a report on international education at community colleges, finding that 82% hosted international students. 

    Whatley hopes that these colleges are providing international students with campus life opportunities and, if they don’t have dorms, are helping students to find housing.

    “Having international students on campus at a community college can be really enriching to a local community, to the extent that the community is equipped to welcome them,” she said. 

    Concerns over travel ban

    Currently, the US hosts over 1.2 million international students or recent graduates, according to SEVIS data. The dataset doesn’t distinguish between students and graduates working temporarily through Optional Practical Training (OPT). More in-depth statistics will become available once the Institute of International Education publishes its annual report later in November. 

    However, because of President Trump’s travel ban, some prospective international students have been restricted from studying in the US. That includes Burmese students who didn’t secure a visa before June 9. 

    MCC has seen an uptick in Burmese students ever since a civil war broke out in the country, interrupting higher education for many students. The war began in 2021 when military forces toppled the country’s democratically elected government. Last spring, MCC still hosted more students from Burma than from any other country, O’Keefe said.

    Now, Burma is among the 12 countries included in Trump’s travel ban, impacting all immigrant and non-immigrant visas. Seven more countries are under a partial travel ban that impacts international student visas.

    As for international enrolments at MCC? “We’ll see how the trends change over the next few semesters. I would be surprised to see such a significant level of continued growth but we can hope things at least stay stable,” O’Keefe said in an email.

    The takeaway from this fall’s enrolment data is that students’ perceptions take a long time to change, said Gerardo Blanco, academic director of the Centre for International Higher Education at Boston College. He previously told The PIE that the 0.8% international student increase revealed in SEVIS records came as a surprise, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a decline in coming years.

    “I hope the takeaway message is not that the US is invincible, in that even hostile policies towards international students cannot change perceptions,” he said.

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  • Mindfulness is Gaining Traction in American Schools, But It Isn’t Clear What Students Are Learning – The 74

    Mindfulness is Gaining Traction in American Schools, But It Isn’t Clear What Students Are Learning – The 74

    In the past 20 years in the U.S., mindfulness transitioned from being a new-age curiosity to becoming a more mainstream part of American culture, as people learned more about how mindfulness can reduce their stress and improve their well-being.

    Researchers estimate that over 1 million children in the U.S. have been exposed to mindfulness in their schools, mostly at the elementary level, often taught by classroom teachers or school counselors.

    I have been researching mindfulness in K-12 American schools for 15 years. I have investigated the impact of mindfulness on students, explored the experiences of teachers who teach mindfulness in K-12 schools, and examined the challenges and benefits of implementing mindfulness in these settings.

    I have noticed that mindfulness programs vary in what particular mindfulness skills are taught and what lesson objectives are. This makes it difficult to compare across studies and draw conclusions about how mindfulness helps students in schools.

    What is mindfulness?

    Different definitions of mindfulness exist.

    Some people might think mindfulness means simply practicing breathing, for example.

    A common definition from Jon Kabat-Zinn, a mindfulness expert who helped popularize mindfulness in Western countries, says mindfulness is about “paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, nonjudgmentally, in the present moment.”

    Essentially, mindfulness is a way of being. It is a person’s approach to each moment and their orientation to both inner and outer experience, the pleasant and the unpleasant. Fundamental to mindfulness is how a person chooses to direct their attention.

    In practice, mindfulness can involve different practices, including guided meditations, mindful movement and breathing. Mindfulness programs can also help people develop a variety of skills, including openness to experiences and more focused attention.

    Practicing mindfulness at schools

    A few years ago, I decided to investigate school mindfulness programs themselves and consider what it means for children to learn mindfulness at schools. What do the programs actually teach?

    I believe that understanding this information can help educators, parents and policymakers make more informed decisions about whether mindfulness belongs in their schools.

    In 2023, my colleagues and I conducted a deep dive into 12 readily available mindfulness curricula for K-12 students to investigate what the programs contained. Across programs, we found no consistency of content, teaching practices or time commitment.

    For example, some mindfulness programs in K-12 schools incorporate a lot of movement, with some specifically teaching yoga poses. Others emphasize interpersonal skills such as practicing acts of kindness, while others focus mostly on self-oriented skills such as focused attention, which may occur by focusing on one’s breath.

    We also found that some programs have students do a lot of mindfulness practices, such as mindful movement or mindful listening, while others teach about mindfulness, such as learning how the brain functions.

    Finally, the number of lessons in a curriculum ranged from five to 44, meaning some programs occurred over just a few weeks and some required an entire school year.

    Despite indications that mindfulness has some positive impacts for school-age children, the evidence is also not consistent, as shown by other research.

    One of the largest recent studies of mindfulness in schools found in 2022 no change in students who received mindfulness instruction.

    Some experts believe, though, that the lack of results in this 2022 study on mindfulness was partially due to a curriculum that might have been too advanced for middle school-age children.

    The connection between mindfulness and education

    Since attention is critical for students’ success in school, it is not surprising that mindfulness appeals to many educators.

    Research on student engagement and executive functioning supports the claim that any student’s ability to filter out distractions and prioritize the objects of their thoughts improves their academic success.

    Mindfulness programs have been shown to improve students’ mental health and decrease students’ and teachers’ stress levels.

    Mindfulness has also been shown to help children emotionally regulate.

    Even before social media, teachers perennially struggled to get students to pay attention. Reviews of multiple studies have shown some positive effects of mindfulness on outcomes, including improvements in academic achievement and school adjustment.

    A 2023 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites mindfulness as one of six evidence-based strategies K-12 schools should use to promote students’ mental health and well-being.

    A relatively new trend

    Knowing what is in the mindfulness curriculum, how it is taught and how long the student spends on mindfulness matters. Students may be learning very different skills with significantly different amounts of time to reinforce those skills.

    Researchers suggest, for example, that mindfulness programs most likely to improve academic or mental health outcomes of children offer activities geared toward their developmental level, such as shorter mindfulness practices and more repetition.

    In other words, mindfulness programs for children cannot just be watered down versions of adult programs.

    Mindfulness research in school settings is still relatively new, though there is encouraging data that mindfulness can sharpen skills necessary for students’ academic success and promote their mental health.

    In addition to the need for more research on the outcomes of mindfulness, it is important for educators, parents, policymakers and researchers to look closely at the curriculum to understand what the students are actually doing.

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • The PIE meets Taylor Shead

    The PIE meets Taylor Shead

    “Who am I? I’m one of the people that can see the future well before it’s created.”

    Meet Taylor Shead, the athlete-turned tech entrepreneur who is on a mission to change the way students access and absorb education in the 21st century.

    A former college basketball scholar, her original goal was to train as a reconstructive plastic surgeon alongside her sporting career.

    But like many students, while sports held her attention, she found STEM subjects inaccessible due to the dense language of mathematical equations and chemical symbols.

    “Frankly, I was a little annoyed,” Shead explains. “I was in the best private schools in Texas, and I thought: if I’m in this privileged position where I’m going to college level and I don’t feel prepared, then what about everybody else from all kinds of backgrounds?

    “As an athlete, you have tutors [to help you succeed academically] and so I had a moment when I realised that the education system isn’t working.”

    The statistics back up her hypothesis. In the US, approximately 86% of kids graduate from high school, but only about 37% of them graduate from college. Only 66% of US students reach Level 2 proficiency in mathematics and fewer than 30% of high school students feel prepared to pursue a postsecondary pathway.

    “It was like, this isn’t a problem that’s black or white, it’s not male or female, it’s not rich or poor. This is a problem that impacts everybody,” says Shead.

    “There’s a problem with the current system, the way schooling and college prepares you for each next step, even when it’s the best of the best – so what’s the solution?”

    Building on a three-year stint as an Apple mentor and volunteering in inner city schools in Dallas and Fort Worth, Shead took the leap and founded Stemuli in 2016 as a platform to support kids in STEM subjects.

    Shortly after, the pandemic hit and the world pivoted to online learning. The moment catapulted the business forward and Shead became only the 94th black woman in the history of the world to raise over a million dollars in venture capital.

    The company raised over USD$10 million overall and won the prestigious United Nations AI for good competition in 2024.

    The Stemuli mission is to gamify the curriculum to engage a generation of learners who have grown up on video games. This isn’t online learning for the sake of it; the aim is to create learning opportunities in the co-creative worlds that exist in games.

    “There are 3.3 billion gamers around the world playing right now,” Shead explains. “Yet all the kids I meet in classrooms are bored. Games like Roblox and Minecraft have set the example of STEM learning crossing over to where kids want to be.”

    Stemuli is currently beta testing the third iteration of the platform, a one-world gaming environment where there are infinite possibilities to explore and learn.

    Only 66% of US students reach Level 2 proficiency in math and fewer than 30% of high school students feel prepared to pursue a postsecondary pathway

    “We used to produce a lot of work simulation games but now nobody knows what the future jobs are going to be. Technology is moving so fast,” explains Shead.

    “So we’ve created a much more entrepreneurial gaming experience where, together with an AI prompt assistant, you can test and learn all sorts of ideas in a safe environment. We’ve created a game for entrepreneurship.”

    Shead is keen to stress that there is a misconception that entrepreneurship means that you must aspire to be the boss of your own company. She equates entrepreneurship to a curiosity skillset that builds problem solving and resilience in a fast-changing world.

    “We are a Walton family funded organisation and they partnered with us at Stemuli to scale stimuli across 20 states in the heartland in order to make sure people in rural America have access to AI literacy skills through our video game,” she says.

    “I am obsessed about the idea of a little boy or girl sitting in a rural, remote town that’s seeing with their own eyes the problems that need to be solved in their community. They’re going to create the best technology because they understand the problem, whereas somebody on the coast or Silicon Valley, they’re not even thinking about it.”

    It is also is significant that Shead has achieved so much success in the edtech field, despite coming largely from an athletic background rather than a tech education.

    “Most people think athletes are dumb, but maybe we’re stubborn and hardworking and relentless enough to be the ones that actually can endure the pressure to make something like this happen, right?

    “I like to flip the narrative on its head to say it might take an athlete to go up against established systems and to believe that, in a world that is so structured, that education can actually change for the better. They don’t call athletes game-changers for nothing.”

    There will be many people who feel the status quo in education should be preserved, but the great promise of technology is the potential for companies like Stemuli to open access up for the majority rather than the privileged few.

    “It’s going to be hard, but there are people like me out there who feel inspired by this mission and that means it’s the best time to be alive” says Shead.

    Having seen Shead in action at The PIE Live Asia Pacific, we are inclined to believe her.

    Talor Shead was interviewed by The PIE’s Nicholas Cuthbert and took part in our conference debate – Will AI improve or damage higher education? at The PIE Live Asia Pacific. Watch Taylor explain why it’s the best time to be alive below.

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  • the reality of the US student visa system

    the reality of the US student visa system

    Min, a student from Bangladesh, remembers his excitement after learning he had been accepted into a US university. It meant he would be learning from some the world’s leading medical experts in healthcare – learning skills he hopes to use to improve the healthcare system in his home country.

    Min, who asked not to use his name due to the enhanced US screening policies, was recently granted a visa and is due to start his freshman year this fall.

    The road to get there, however, was not a smooth one. Following the State Department’s three-week worldwide pause on interviews in June, and the implementation of enhanced screening policies, many of Min’s peers had their interview appointments delayed.

    It took Min three months to secure his required interview at the embassy for his student visa. He said the software used to schedule the interview kept crashing and the embassy had limited appointment times, checking multiple times a day for openings. 

    While Min saw his visa approved, several of his friends had their student visas denied at the end of their interview, he said, leading some of them to apply for universities in other countries. Most often, it’s another English-speaking country, since that’s the most common secondary language for Bangladeshi students, he said.

    “In recent, years, a lot of my friends have applied to Australia, because for the US, there are more uncertainties,” Min said.

    The student visa application process has come into the spotlight recently. That’s because of the Trump administration’s changes to how visa officers review students’ social media activity. Some visa applicants have expressed concerns that the policies could lead to an increase in visa denials.

    However, education nonprofits have for years raised alarms about high rates of visa denials and long interview wait times – warning it could hinder the global competitiveness of US higher education.  

    Visa denials differ for world regions

    The US State Department rejected over 650,000 student visa applications worldwide from 2018 through 2022. Students from developing nations in South Asia and Africa have their visas rejected at much higher rates compared to those from wealthier countries. 

    That’s according to a study that looked at eight years’ data – authored by The Presidents’ Alliance and Shorelight student support company. The report shines a light on experiences of students from Asia and Africa, who struggle with long wait times to schedule visa interviews.

    For European students who apply to study in the US, getting denied entry is rare – fewer than 8% in 2023, according to the study. That’s a stark difference from Africa, where 61% of students were denied a visa that year, not including South Africa and some neighbouring countries with very low denial rates. For South Asia, including Nepal, between 36% and 55% students have their visas denied each year.

    The world’s population of young, smart minds is exploding out of sub-Saharan Africa

    Carly O’Keefe, Monroe Community College, Rochester

    Rajika Bhandari, a senior advisor with the Presidents’ Alliance who led the study, said the findings reflect patterns that college administrators have noticed for decades.

    “From the campus perspective, these students have been fully vetted and deemed worthy of being offered admission,” said Bhandari, once a US international student herself. “Yet they’re facing this final barrier.”

    A visa officer decides whether to grant a student entry after interviewing them at an embassy or consulate. One goal of the interview, lasting several minutes at most, is to assess whether the student is likely to return to their homeland after graduating.

    If the student can’t demonstrate strong homeland connections – such as through owning property, having a job lined up after graduation, or strong family ties – it can be grounds for denial. The visa officer will also review documents showing the student’s eligibility to study internationally, including financial statements showing the student can afford college.

    Many students, Bhandari said, have expressed concerns to college leaders that they’ve met every requirement but are still denied – leaving them bewildered. Visa officers rarely share the specific reason for the denial with applicants. 

    “You may go back a second time and be denied yet again because you don’t know what it is that you need to fix,” Bhandari said.

    The State Department didn’t directly respond to a request for comment but has said in the past that it’s committed to a fair visa review process. The department said that applications, especially from Africa, have skyrocketed in the past few years and “a commensurate increase in denials is expected.” 

    According to the department, more visas were issued to African students in 2023 than ever before, with Nigerian students granted the highest share. However, the visa denial rate for African students grew that year by three percentage points, according to the study, while the denial rate for European and South American students dropped. 

    The State Department doesn’t publish data on visa denials but does disclose how many student visas are issued for each country every month. So far this year, the number of F-1 visas issued for Nigerian students is 23% less compared to this time last year, based on data published through May. For Bangladeshi students, like Min, the number of visas issued is about the same as last year.

    Experience with getting a visa denied

    Sooraj Sahani, entering his sophomore year at Texas State, knows how confusing and emotional it can be to have a visa denied. He had his visa denied on the first try, before applying again and getting it approved three weeks before the start of freshman year in fall of 2024.

    In his village in the plains of Nepal, Sahani fed his fascination for physics by taking online classes from some of the world’s top experts. He aspired to be like the professors who mentored him virtually through the World Science Scholars program, a nonprofit based in New York City. That’s why Sahani decided he wanted to study at a US university, determined to become a theoretical physics researcher.

    When he learned that Texas State was offering him a full undergraduate scholarship, he thought he was on track to fulfil his dream. His scholarship meant the US couldn’t deny his student visa for financial reasons, Sahani said. But he still ran into issues.

    When Sahani tried last summer to book a visa interview appointment for the US embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal, all the slots were full for weeks. Instead, he traveled to New Delhi for an interview with a visa officer. Sahani said that, at the end of the roughly one-minute interview, the officer told him he wasn’t eligible for a visa without any explanation.

    Students can wait up to nine months for a US visa interview in Dhaka, Bangladesh

    US State Department data

    “With a very sad face, I had to come back from India. It took me some time to tell myself that, OK, it happens. I’m not giving up,” he said.

    After getting his visa denied, Sahani scheduled his second visa interview appointment at the embassy in Kathmandu. To secure a slot, he repeatedly woke up in the middle of the night to check online for appointments.

    “I woke up at 2am, 3am, 4am, just to see if there was a visa slot. We have a lot of students applying for the US but we just have one embassy,” he said.

    Since releasing its study, the Presidents’ Alliance and other education nonprofits have met with State Department leaders about improving visa processing. The department says it’s made progress in lowering wait times worldwide by hiring more staff and giving visa officers the authority to waive some interviews. 

    However, some countries still have too few embassies or staff members to keep up with the high number of students, Bhandari said. For the embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, it’s currently a nine month wait time for a student visa interview, according to the department’s website.

    “Academic loss and economic loss”

    Higher education leaders warn that if visa issues persist, they’ll hinder the US’s global competitiveness. In January NAFSA wrote a letter to the incoming Trump administration calling for action to make visa processing times more predictable. The letter also advocates for creating a pathway for international students to become permanent residents after graduation, which, according to Bhandari, may help to address visa denials.

    If students can choose to live and work in the US after graduation, they wouldn’t have to prove their intentions to return to their home country – a source of many denials. In April, Congress introduced the Keep STEM Talent Act with bipartisan support, aiming to create this kind of “dual intent” pathway for international students pursuing science, technology, or maths degrees. Most of the 1.1 million international students who came to the US last academic year chose STEM fields.

    The high rate of visa denial for African students is both an academic loss and an economic loss, said Carly O’Keefe, the designated school official for international student enrolment at Monroe Community College in Rochester, NY.

    Like many other states, college enrolment in New York has been declining. New York’s comptroller warns that 2025 could mark the start of an “enrolment cliff” – a sharp decline in applications reflecting the steady decline in US births since a historic high in 2007. Several colleges in the state have closed in recent years due to low enrolment. 

    Meanwhile, Africa’s young population is increasing. By 2050, Nigeria is expected to become the world’s third most populous country, behind only India and China. Africa isn’t just full of college-aged youth, O’Keefe said, but also innovation led by youth. As technology is becoming more available in Africa, the number of youth-led startups is booming. 

    “The world’s population of young, smart minds is exploding out of sub-Saharan Africa,” she said. “Just think of the brain power and the potential talent in the world.”

    Last fall, MCC welcomed about 90 international students, the most since 2018, from 30 countries. However, as with most colleges that host international students, the number enrolled was fewer than the number who planned to come because of visa denials. Colleges across the US, O’Keefe said, are missing out on talent because of the denials.

    “We’re potentially missing out on very qualified students enrolling at our colleges and universities across the country that could be doing amazing academic work,” she said.

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  • AI and Art Collide in This Engineering Course That Puts Human Creativity First – The 74

    AI and Art Collide in This Engineering Course That Puts Human Creativity First – The 74

    I see many students viewing artificial intelligence as humanlike simply because it can write essays, do complex math or answer questions. AI can mimic human behavior but lacks meaningful engagement with the world.

    This disconnect inspired my course “Art and Generative AI,” which was shaped by the ideas of 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger. His work highlights how we are deeply connected and present in the world. We find meaning through action, care and relationships. Human creativity and mastery come from this intuitive connection with the world. Modern AI, by contrast, simulates intelligence by processing symbols and patterns without understanding or care.

    In this course, we reject the illusion that machines fully master everything and put student expression first. In doing so, we value uncertainty, mistakes and imperfection as essential to the creative process.

    This vision expands beyond the classroom. In the 2025-26 academic year, the course will include a new community-based learning collaboration with Atlanta’s art communities. Local artists will co-teach with me to integrate artistic practice and AI.

    The course builds on my 2018 class, Art and Geometry, which I co-taught with local artists. The course explored Picasso’s cubism, which depicted reality as fractured from multiple perspectives; it also looked at Einstein’s relativity, the idea that time and space are not absolute and distinct but part of the same fabric.

    What does the course explore?

    We begin with exploring the first mathematical model of a neuron, the perceptron. Then, we study the Hopfield network, which mimics how our brain can remember a song from just listening to a few notes by filling in the rest. Next, we look at Hinton’s Boltzmann Machine, a generative model that can also imagine and create new, similar songs. Finally, we study today’s deep neural networks and transformers, AI models that mimic how the brain learns to recognize images, speech or text. Transformers are especially well suited for understanding sentences and conversations, and they power technologies such as ChatGPT.

    In addition to AI, we integrate artistic practice into the coursework. This approach broadens students’ perspectives on science and engineering through the lens of an artist. The first offering of the course in spring 2025 was co-taught with Mark Leibert, an artist and professor of the practice at Georgia Tech. His expertise is in art, AI and digital technologies. He taught students fundamentals of various artistic media, including charcoal drawing and oil painting. Students used these principles to create art using AI ethically and creatively. They critically examined the source of training data and ensured that their work respects authorship and originality.

    Students also learn to record brain activity using electroencephalography – EEG – headsets. Through AI models, they then learn to transform neural signals into music, images and storytelling. This work inspired performances where dancers improvised in response to AI-generated music.

    The Improv AI performance at Georgia Institute of Technology on April 15, 2025. Dancers improvised to music generated by AI from brain waves and sonified black hole data.

    Why is this course relevant now?

    AI entered our lives so rapidly that many people don’t fully grasp how it works, why it works, when it fails or what its mission is.

    In creating this course, the aim is to empower students by filling that gap. Whether they are new to AI or not, the goal is to make its inner algorithms clear, approachable and honest. We focus on what these tools actually do and how they can go wrong.

    We place students and their creativity first. We reject the illusion of a perfect machine, but we provoke the AI algorithm to confuse and hallucinate, when it generates inaccurate or nonsensical responses. To do so, we deliberately use a small dataset, reduce the model size or limit training. It’s in these flawed states of AI that students step in as conscious co-creators. The students are the missing algorithm that takes back control of the creative process. Their creations do not obey AI but reimagine it by the human hand. The artwork is rescued from automation.

    What’s a critical lesson from the course?

    Students learn to recognize AI’s limitations and harness its failures to reclaim creative authorship. The artwork isn’t generated by AI, but it’s reimagined by students.

    Students learn chatbot queries have an environmental cost because large AI models use a lot of power. They avoid unnecessary iterations when designing prompts or using AI. This helps reducing carbon emissions.

    The Improv AI performance on April 15, 2025, featured dancer Bekah Crosby responding to AI-generated music from brain waves.

    The course prepares students to think like artists. Through abstraction and imagination they gain the confidence to tackle the engineering challenges of the 21st century. These include protecting the environment, building resilient cities and improving health.

    Students also realize that while AI has vast engineering and scientific applications, ethical implementation is crucial. Understanding the type and quality of training data that AI uses is essential. Without it, AI systems risk producing biased or flawed predictions.

    Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Graeme Turner’s ‘broken’ universities – Campus Review

    Graeme Turner’s ‘broken’ universities – Campus Review

    AnalysisCommentary

    Graeme Turner’s new book on the sector surveys the wreckage and offers some solutions

    Susan FordeJuly 14, 2025Last Updated: July 14, 2025

    0

    The Australian university sector has come under considerable pressure in recent years. It is currently in a parlous state.

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  • Survey of 1500 Kids Suggests School Phone Bans Have Important but Limited Effects – The 74

    Survey of 1500 Kids Suggests School Phone Bans Have Important but Limited Effects – The 74


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    In Florida, a bill that bans cellphone use in elementary and middle schools, from bell to bell, recently sailed through the state Legislature.

    Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law on May 30, 2025. The same bill calls for high schools in six Florida districts to adopt the ban during the upcoming school year and produce a report on its effectiveness by Dec. 1, 2026.

    But in the debate over whether phones should be banned in K-12 schools – and if so, how – students themselves are rarely given a voice.

    We are experts in media use and public health who surveyed 1,510 kids ages 11 to 13 in Florida in November and December 2024 to learn how they’re using digital media and the role tech plays in their lives at home and at school. Their responses were insightful – and occasionally surprising.

    Adults generally cite four reasons to ban phone use during school: to improve kids’ mental health, to strengthen academic outcomes, to reduce cyberbullying and to help limit kids’ overall screen time.

    But as our survey shows, it may be a bit much to expect a cellphone ban to accomplish all of that.

    What do kids want?

    Some of the questions in our survey shine light on kids’ feelings toward banning cellphones – even though we didn’t ask that question directly.

    We asked them if they feel relief when they’re in a situation where they can’t use their smartphone, and 31% said yes.

    Additionally, 34% of kids agreed with the statement that social media causes more harm than good.

    And kids were 1.5 to 2 times more likely to agree with those statements if they attended schools where phones are banned or confiscated for most of the school day, with use only permitted at certain times. That group covered 70% of the students we surveyed because many individual schools or school districts in Florida have already limited students’ cellphone use.

    How students use cellphones matters

    Some “power users” of cellphone apps could likely use a break from them.

    Twenty percent of children we surveyed said push notifications on their phones — that is, notifications from apps that pop up on the phone’s screen — are never turned off. These notifications are likely coming from the most popular apps kids reported using, like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

    This 20% of children was roughly three times more likely to report experiencing anxiety than kids who rarely or never have their notifications on.

    They were also nearly five times more likely to report earning mostly D’s and F’s in school than kids whose notifications are always or sometimes off.

    Our survey results also suggest phone bans would likely have positive effects on grades and mental health among some of the heaviest screen users. For example, 22% of kids reported using their favorite app for six or more hours per day. These students were three times more likely to report earning mostly D’s and F’s in school than kids who spend an hour or less on their favorite app each day.

    They also were six times more likely than hour-or-less users to report severe depression symptoms. These insights remained even after ruling out numerous other possible explanations for the difference — like age, household income, gender, parent’s education, race and ethnicity.

    Banning students’ access to phones at school means these kids would not receive notifications for at least that seven-hour period and have fewer hours in the day to use apps.

    Phones and mental health

    However, other data we collected suggests that bans aren’t a universal benefit for all children.

    Seventeen percent of kids who attend schools that ban or confiscate phones report severe depression symptoms, compared with just 4% among kids who keep their phones with them during the school day.

    This finding held even after we ruled out other potential explanations for what we were seeing, such as the type of school students attend and other demographic factors.

    We are not suggesting that our survey shows phone bans cause mental health problems.

    It is possible, for instance, that the schools where kids already were struggling with their mental health simply happened to be the ones that have banned phones. Also, our survey didn’t ask kids how long phones have been banned at their schools. If the bans just launched, there may be positive effects on mental health or grades yet to come.

    In order to get a better sense of the bans’ effects on mental health, we would need to examine mental health indicators before and after phone bans.

    To get a long-term view on this question, we are planning to do a nationwide survey of digital media use and mental health, starting with 11- to 13-year-olds and tracking them into adulthood.

    Even with the limitations of our data from this survey, however, we can conclude that banning phones in schools is unlikely to be an immediate solution to mental health problems of kids ages 11-13.

    Grades up, cyberbullying down

    Students at schools where phones are barred or confiscated didn’t report earning higher grades than children at schools where kids keep their phones.

    This finding held for students at both private and public schools, and even after ruling out other possible explanations like differences in gender and household income, since these factors are also known to affect grades.

    There are limits to our findings here: Grades are not a perfect measure of learning, and they’re not standardized across schools. It’s possible that kids at phone-free schools are in fact learning more than those at schools where kids carry their phones around during school hours – even if they earn the same grades.

    We asked kids how often in the past three months they’d experienced mistreatment online – like being called hurtful names or having lies or rumors spread about them. Kids at schools where phone use is limited during school hours actually reported enduring more cyberbullying than children at schools with less restrictive policies. This result persisted even after we considered smartphone ownership and numerous demographics as possible explanations.

    We are not necessarily saying that cellphone bans cause an increase in cyberbullying. What could be at play here is that at schools where cyberbullying has been particularly bad, phones have been banned or are confiscated, and online bullying still occurs.

    But based on our survey results, it does not appear that school phone bans prevent cyberbullying.

    Overall, our findings suggest that banning phones in schools may not be an easy fix for students’ mental health problems, poor academic performance or cyberbullying.

    That said, kids might benefit from phone-free schools in ways that we have not explored, like increased attention spans or reduced eyestrain.

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.


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  • Happie place: good vibes only

    Happie place: good vibes only

    Let’s face it, the news cycle is a pretty gloomy place at the moment, so we’ve decided to take a different perspective. This is our attempt to find our happie place (notice the pun we’ve got going here?).

    This regular column aims to bring you positive news, flashes of inspiration and a warm, fuzzy feeling that will nourish your soul. We want to celebrate international student success and colleagues who go above and beyond. Get involved and send us the good stuff so we can share the love.

    We recognise that in this unpredictable market, real challenges exist – and that this is nothing more than a sticking plaster – but sometimes there’s strength in looking for the positives.

    I was born in Lagos, but I was made in Swansea
    Michael Ijaiyemakinde, international student

    This week, we decided to check in with some of the international graduates we’ve met in the UK over the years to see how they’re getting on.

    These stories are a simple reminder of why we believe in the transformational power of study abroad and the power to change individual lives (including our own).

    Franka Zlatic – Studying abroad reinvigorated my worldview

    “Spending six years studying in the UK profoundly shaped my academic and personal development.

    “Immersed in a diverse, intellectually stimulating environment, I gained both theoretical grounding and the confidence to pursue independent research. Living abroad also allowed me to travel extensively across Europe and beyond, which broadened my horizons in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

    “I met people from all walks of life, encountered different worldviews, and had the time of my life – experiences that have deeply influenced how I relate to others and approach my work. Later, working at a law school in India further deepened my understanding of migration, identity, and postcolonial dynamics – topics central to my academic focus.

    Franka cuddling an elephant while teaching in India

    “Engaging with students and scholars in a culturally different yet intellectually rich context challenged me to adapt, reflect, and grow. Both experiences, academic rigour in the UK and practical, cross-cultural engagement in India, equipped me with a unique combination of analytical insight, global perspective, and resilience.

    “Returning to my home country, Croatia, I brought back not only knowledge but also a sense of purpose and a desire to contribute to local academic debates with a broader, transnational understanding.

    “These international experiences positioned me competitively for a postdoctoral role in Croatia and reaffirmed my commitment to inclusive, globally engaged scholarship.”

    Michael Ijaiyemakinde – studying in Wales was the making of me

    “I was born in Lagos, but I was made in Swansea.

    “Every time I say this, I get the same reaction – raised eyebrows, shocked expressions, and sometimes even pushback: you’re not patriotic.

    “But here’s what I really mean. Growing up in Nigeria, life was fast-paced, driven by results, and often defined by expectations. While it gave me resilience, it didn’t speak my love languages or give me the space to find myself. I was always doing – but rarely being.

    “At 17, I moved to study at Swansea University in Wales. Swansea’s a small city, often overlooked. But for me? It became a sanctuary. It was in Swansea that I experienced support that wasn’t transactional. I met managers, mentors, and everyday people who lived out values like empathy, service, and patience – people just like you who are reading this now.

    Michael found his happie place on the southwest coast of Wales thanks to people just like you

    “You didn’t just teach me – you showed me. Through kindness. Through consistency.

    “You helped me shed temper issues, rebuild my self-esteem, and rediscover my voice. Swansea didn’t change who I was. It simply gave me permission to become it.

    “What positive message am I trying to pass on here? What thoughts to help my colleagues stay positive in difficult times?

    “The right environment can change everything: not because where you’re from is bad – but because sometimes you need a new setting to unlock the next chapter of your growth.

    “Is the current environment you’re in helping you become the best version of yourself? Or is it holding you back from discovering who that version really is?

    “If not, maybe it’s time to find your Swansea.”

    Filip-Matej Pfeifer

    Born in Slovenia, Filip attended the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Sport, then transferred to the UK in September 2024 to pursue his master’s degree and continue his rowing career.

    This summer he will not only graduate with his degree in international business from Oxford Brookes University (OBU) – he will also compete at the world-famous Henley Royal Regatta in July.

    Imagine if we could get everyone in the sector all rowing in the same direction. Kudos to Filip for showing us the way.

    Filip represented OBU at the 2025 BUCS Regatta where he took the silver medal in the men’s Single Sculls, setting a new rowing record for his UK university team and has competed internationally in both the European Rowing Championships and the World Rowing Cup.

    On May 30, he reached the semi-finals of the Single Sculls at the 2025 European Rowing Championships in Bulgaria.

    Huge thanks to the Student Sports Company for keeping us up to speed with Filip’s achievements as an international student athlete in the UK. We’re all cheering him on!

    Have you got some positive news to share?

    Help us to showcase the best of international education by sending us your testimonials, love letters and inspirational thoughts to [email protected] labelled ‘Happie place’. And remember – good vibes only.

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  • why Nepalese students are choosing the UK

    why Nepalese students are choosing the UK

    • Restrictive immigration policy in Australia has boosted numbers coming to UK.
    • 75% of the market is searching for undergraduate options with affordable fees.
    • Medium-of-instruction (MOI) English language waivers are common, and often linked to TNE college partnerships.

    Nepal has been a key recruitment market for both Australia and the UK for many years – but as the number of students applying to the UK rises, many more universities are starting to explore the market.

    In the year ending March 2024, according to ONS data, 9,003 Nepalese students were issued study visas for the UK, with the number undoubtedly larger for the intakes since.

    According to Enroly, the number of CASs issued for the January 2025 intake was up 200% while CAS issuance for its entire UK portfolio was only up 23%. Overall, the total market share of CAS issuance for Nepal grew from 3% to 7% in 2024.

    This impressive growth has come at a time when some British universities have seen falling demand from other international markets, and the government has announced a student visa clamp-down on Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria and Sri Lanka – linked to asylum claims.

    So why are Nepalese students choosing the UK and will it last?

    Over 60,000 Nepalese students previously chose to study in Australia each year, making it the third biggest source market for the country.

    Recent visa restrictions imposed by the Albanese government, however, are now forcing many students to seek an alternative destination.

    While the Australian visa process requires detailed evidence on income, the UK system allows students to show a mature bank account, often supplemented by private student loans.

    Enroly estimates that 78% of Nepalese students are now funded through education loans, or a combination of an education loan and university discount.

    Affordable fees and scholarships

    Despite economic growth, projected to be 4.61% this fiscal year, Nepal is still a price-senstitive market.

    As a consequence, there are 15-20 British universities from the ‘Million Plus’ and ‘Alliance’ groups attracting a large market share in the country.

    Many of these institutions are the same UK universities that are diversifying income through franchise activity, brand campuses and TNE articulations.

    Offering average annual fees of between £11,500 and £13,500 enables them to attract a large number of predominently undergraduate students to supplement their numbers.

    According to HESA statistics, some of the biggest recruiters are BPP, University of Sunderland and Coventry University.

    The latter have validation partnerships with local providers such as ISMT College and Softwarica College of IT and eCommerce, respectively, creating a pipeline of students that can top-up with a final year in the UK or progress easily on to masters degree.

    The UK universities recruiting the most students from Nepal:

    • University of West Scotland, London
    • BPP
    • Coventry University
    • University of Sunderland
    • University of Roehampton
    • York St John University
    • Ravensbourne University London
    • University of East London (UEL)
    • University of West London
    • University of Wolverhampton
    • University of Central Birmingham (UCB)
    • University of Hertfordshire
    • University of Greenwich
    • Ulster University

    The trend for universities to accept Nepalese students directly has significantly reduced the demand for foundation programmes in the region.

    Accpetance of MOI letters as proof of English

    Another key factor is the widespread acceptance of MOI letters as a waiver of additional English language tests.

    These letters are used as proof that the qualification gained by a prosepctive student was both taught and assessed in English to a level acdepted by a university as having met English language requirements. The UK government is currently consulting with the sector on the way universities make English language self-assessment decisions for admissions purposes.

    Agents and immigration consultants use English language waivers as one of the areas to save prospective students money and support partner universities.

    According to Enroly, 82% of course deposits paid by Nepalese students for the UK, come from applications supported by an education agent.

    The PIE News visited Nepal to better understand the challenges education agents face in a competitive market. Read the full report here.

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