The Fifteen: December 12, 2025

Welcome to The Fifteen, a global round-up of the stories animating higher education institutions and systems around the globe. Let’s get to it.

1. China is at it again, creating entirely new fields of academic study. Earlier in the year it was programs in the “low-altitude economy”, now it is “in Embodied AI”, with most of the top institutions (the so-called C9) opening programs in this area this year. 
2. In Peru, 10 students at a teacher training college died in a fire at a karaoke bar where they were celebrating a birthday. Three days of provincial mourning were declared.
3. Student aid has been a major topic in Africa this past fortnight. In South Africa, the chair of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme’s board resigned, citing a toxic culture and fears for personal safety. In a sign of how the dysfunction at NSFAS is being viewed, the Finance Minister is now openly fantasizing about eliminating the organization. Meanwhile, in Senegal, violence broke out at Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar as Master’s students continued to protest a 13-month delay in student aid payments.
4. From Alberta, a fascinating tale about how the provincial government tried to offer well-known 19^th century thinker and pub bore Jordan Peterson a hand in helping his “university” achieve accreditation. It’s as bad as it sounds. 
5. The crisis at Panjab University reported in the last Fifteen has been resolved, with the government fully capitulating to student demands to keep the Senate an elected body and to allow Senate elections to proceed. Attention now turns to Tezpur University, a central university in Assam, were the campus has been shut down for nearly three months over allegations of corruption and mismanagement by a perennially absent vice-chancellor. Final exams have now been cancelled as authorities in Delhi ponder how to defuse the situation.
6. Some South Korean universities – many of which used to have large agricultural programs – still have substantial commercial dairies, which they use to help brand their institutions.  Meanwhile, in the United States, the latest branding craze is “College Bed Parties”. (Don’t ask, just click!)  
7. New Zealand issued a new tertiary education strategy for the next quinquennium, and in line with recent moves by the governing party, it is a fairly naked push for a university system more overtly focused on economic growth (decent summary here). Its five priorities are: learner achievement; economic impact; access to higher education; integration and collaboration with non-university partners such as industry; and growth of international education. Meanwhile, the Austrian government has commenced consultation on a strategic plan for higher education that is meant to last to 2040, and the Malaysian government says that its slightly-delayed ten-year plan is actually already done and will be released just as soon as Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim can be corralled to give it its formal launch.
8. The deadly apartment fire in Hong Kong prompted the Hong Kong Baptist University Student Union to allow one of its bulletin board to be used as a “Democracy Wall”, with students posting calls for justice for the dead. The university quickly suspended the student union, citing a low membership rate, lack of commitment to improving student welfare, and a failure to “abide by regulations”.
9. You might think your university has it bad, but at least you’re not in Nicaragua, where the government – which tends to view universities as a breeding ground for opposition – has cut overall higher education spending by 36%.
10. Some interesting stories about the intersection between higher education and national service. Armenia has altered its rules with respect to military service by providing deferments to any youth studying at a global top-50 university as measured by the Shanghai Rankings (not sure about the significance of this given there are no top-50 universities within 2000 miles of Armenia). Meanwhile, students in Ethiopia have recently been protesting a decision made several months ago to require students to do a year of national service (though not military service) before graduating.
11. The Georgian government continues to roll out major changes to higher education in that country. The pro-Putin government there announced that it would make tuition at all public institutions free, with the measure to be paid for by ending financial support for private universities (currently, students receive vouchers to go to whatever university they want). At the same time, the government also announced that international students would no longer be accepted at state universities.
12. Lots of news on AI this past couple of weeks. An American labour market analysis suggests 12% of all US jobs can already be replaced by AI; while projections for the United Kingdom suggest 3 million low-income jobs there might be gone in ten years’ time due to AI (but they aren’t the ones you’d think). Australia has issued a National AI plan in which universities are given a hefty role. Tsinghua University became the first in China to issue guidelines on student and staff use of AI. And, finally, here’s an interesting round-up of ways that GPT-5 has made concrete contributions to frontier research across a range of disciplines including mathematics, biology and materials science. 
13. Big fracas in France over continuing allegations of antisemitism in universities. As part of a follow-up to a law on antisemitism in universities passed earlier this year, the government asked universities administer a survey to academic staff so as to suss out any antisemitic beliefs. Upon reading the survey, universities refused to distribute it, noting that the wording of many questions was, to put it gently, cack-handed. The government then decided to withdraw the survey.
14. Wishful-thinking federalism alert! Some people think Swiss higher education funding is “too important to be left to the cantons” (sound familiar?). So now there’s a proposal to fund all universities out of profits generated by the Central Bank. I am sure this sounds good while the bank is posting record profits, but it still sounds a bit risky to me (profits can fall, but university payrolls will stay the same). Perhaps I am missing some nuances here.
15. Finally In Japan, Tohoku University in Sendai – a public university which is rapidly coming to be seen as a serious rival to Tokyo U – has decided to raise its international student fees by 70%. In response, Waseda University, which is probably the private university with largest international student population, is now contemplating a 50% fee rise. 

That’s it for now. The next Fifteen will return on January 9. See you then.