By the time Tufts University announced its $1.2 billion fund-raising campaign last fall, it had already raised $615 million in the quiet phase. About half of those early donations came from just 39 people--the university's Board of Trustees. In an era when nearly every higher-education institution seems to be in the midst of or planning a capital…

This article presents a report released by the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a nonprofit group promoting access and quality in postsecondary education around the world. With college enrollments mushrooming in many nations but public support generally unable to keep up, the world is seeing a historic swing from public to private financing…

Politicians nowadays want higher education institutions to become more actively involved in the economic development of their communities. However, as much as they want to do so, they need financing. Therefore, it is crucial for politicians to be educated on what universities can realistically do for economic development. In this article, the…

In this article, the author, taking the view of the foundation or the grant giver, shares the basic steps on how funders assess requests for grants. Each of these steps may be waived if a key member of the selection process, such as a board member, has a personal interest in the application. The following are 10 tips from the funders' point of…

Following a 2003 survey that benchmarked the research and publication activities of Florida librarians, administrative support for these efforts was investigated. Library administrators were asked to identify various types and funding levels of travel and research assistance. Results suggest that Florida librarians receive support comparable to…

One of the ways that Movement for Canadian Literacy (MCL) fulfills its mandate is by providing a forum where people from provincial/territorial and national organizations can work together to identify, discuss and address issues of common focus. This project, Mapping the Field of Family Literacy, reflects MCL's goal of building consensus, capacity…

Many out-of-school time programs want to learn more about how the children and youth they serve are faring. Outcome evaluations allow programs to do just that. This brief provides a basic review of outcome evaluations, discusses why they are important and when they are useful, and presents guidelines, strategies, and techniques for their use in…

The purpose of this paper was to analyze the court case Pontiac v. Spellings, a legal challenge to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act filed in 2005. The methodology was to examine and analyze the briefs filed and the court decisions to analyze the legal arguments made by the parties to the lawsuit. The results were that the U.S. Circuit Court for…

On Thursday, January 10, 2008, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger released his proposed budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year. The proposal attempts to address an estimated $14.5 billion deficit projected for the next 18 months by reducing 2008-09 State funding for most programs by an average 10% below the figure projected based on growth in workload and…

Scaling Effective Programs is a category of giving that is quite unique. Philanthropists have many different interests that guide their giving, but Scaling Effective Programs offers an approach that can produce lasting transformation. This guide speaks to funders who: (1) view their giving as venture capital that stimulates other giving; (2) want…

Examining the charitable behavior of 56,663 US households, this paper evaluates the distinctive characteristics of educational donors as compared with donors to noneducational charitable organizations and with nondonors. In general, educational donors had significantly greater income, wealth, and education than other donors. Educational donors…

International activities of FCS professionals take many forms, most often at the grassroots level making a difference in the daily lives of people and their communities, far from their own communities. A 2 1/2-year project, supported by the Monsanto Fund and an International Federation of Home Economics (IFHE) project grant, developed school…

The issue of education vouchers has been widely researched as they are seen by many people as an effective strategy for improving the quality of education services. Striving to enhance the quality of the kindergarten education service in Hong Kong, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has committed a substantial sum of…

In this article, the author discusses the problems facing Ontario's community colleges' faculty as educators whose "craft" is to teach. The author contends that the problems educators face haven't really been the focus of the three constituencies that have dominated the conversations about the colleges: (1) college management; (2) the…

Thousands of children were deprived of schooling in the difficult aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq five years ago. During those times, more than 2 million Iraqis have fled their homeland, mainly to Jordan and Syria. Even though the schoolchildren who came to these neighboring Arab lands with their families are now given seats in…