The university is to hold virtual classes after protests on campus culminated in the arrest of more than 100 students Over 100 students at Columbia were arrested last week after refusing to leave a pro-Palestine protest encampment set up on the university’s main campus. The arrests have since set off a chain of events, including the re-establishing of the encampment and solidarity protests on other US college campuses. On Monday, Columbia announced it will hold classes virtually to try to “reset” the situation on campus. Here’s what we know so far about what’s happening at Columbia ..read more

Pro-Palestinian students interrupted a dinner held by a top free speech defender at Berkeley. A polarized and very public controversy has followed During a dinner for students that the dean of the University of California, Berkeley law school held in his house’s backyard earlier this month, a woman wearing a hijab and checkered Palestinian scarf suddenly stood up with a microphone and amplifier. What followed lasted only a couple of minutes, but has led to a fierce debate about the limits of free speech, drew death threats to those involved, and created a “media firestorm,” as the dean, Erwin ..read more

Minouche Shafik appeared beleaguered as House members grilled her over reported upsurge in antisemitism on campus The head of a prestigious US university clashed with members of Congress today in highly charged hearings over a reported upsurge in antisemitism on campus in the wake of Israel’s war in Gaza. Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University, appeared beleaguered and uncertain as one Congress member after another assailed her over her institution’s supposed inaction to stop it becoming what one called “a hotbed of antisemitism and hatred ..read more

The pandemic showed that remote learning is effective. It’s absurd that universities are going back to processes that exclude us Rosie Anfilogoff is the winner of the 2024 Hugo Young Award (19-25 age category) recognising young talent in political opinion writing My route to university was never going to be simple. While my friends were flicking through university brochures and choosing Ucas options, I was signing chemotherapy consent forms in the teenage cancer unit at Addenbrooke’s hospital and throwing up in its weirdly tropical island-themed bathrooms. Even before then, my severe chronic ..read more

With rising house prices, a decade of wage stagnation and ballooning student debt, young people in Australia are living through what author Jill Filipovic describes as ‘a series of broken promises’. In episode one of this new series from Guardian Australia, Full Story co-host Jane Lee and reporter Matilda Boseley sort through these broken promises, investigating why young people are living in a time of such economic strain. In this episode, we hear from a handful of experts featured in Who screwed millennials? – including author Jill Filipovic, youth researcher Intifar Chowdhury, author Malcol ..read more

The scheme to incentivise students into other disciplines has failed to stem the ‘massive swell’ of demand for humanities Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Owen Magee knew how high his student loan would be if he enrolled in an arts degree – he saw the headlines in 2020, when he was still in early adolescence. But measures introduced by the former Morrison government that doubled the price of some degrees to incentivise students into other courses didn’t dissuade him, nor did recent cost-of-living increases ..read more

Arts education is essential – yet on both sides of the Atlantic, the humanities and critical thinking are under attack. With massive redundancies announced at this London institution, is it the canary in the coalmine? It is a couple of days before Easter, and the students who have been holding a sit-in in the Professor Stuart Hall building in Goldsmiths, University of London are packing up. The large basement smells of duvets and camping mats and solidarity and liveliness, and deodorant sprayed on in a hurry under a T-shirt, and it smells like a place where people have slept, which 20 of them ..read more

Booker-winning author says course ‘shouldn’t be seen as dispensable’ as university seeks to cut 130 academic jobs The Booker prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo has criticised the “amputation” of Black British literature and queer history courses at Goldsmiths University in London, as part of a cost-cutting programme in which 130 academic jobs are to go. Evaristo, along with former students and writers, issued a plea to Goldsmiths to reconsider the removal of “pioneering” postgraduate courses after plans were announced to cut the jobs in 11 departments ..read more

Nancy Fraser, professor of philosophy at the New School, condemned killings in Gaza carried out by the Israeli military A leading Jewish American philosopher has been disinvited from taking up a prestigious professorship at the University of Cologne after signing a letter expressing solidarity with Palestinians and condemning the killings in Gaza carried out by Israeli forces. Nancy Fraser, professor of philosophy and politics at the New School for Social Research in New York, said she had been cancelled by the university, which has withdrawn its invitation to the Albertus Magnus Professorship ..read more

Education secretary Gillian Keegan will also squeeze funding for programmes to widen access to higher education Ministers will cut funding for performing and creative arts courses at English universities next year, which sector leaders say will further damage the country’s cultural industries. The cuts, outlined by the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, in guidance to the universities regulator, will also reduce funding for Uni-Connect, which runs programmes aimed at widening access to higher education for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to £20m, a third of its 2020-21 budget ..read more