The Fifteen: January 30, 2026

Hi all. The Fifteen is back with the choicest higher education stories from around the world over the past two weeks.   

1. A couple of months ago, a South Korean student was murdered in Cambodia, having been lured there by one of those industrial-level scam gangs, which targeted South Korean students with offers of lucrative employment. The murderer was arrested a couple of weeks ago, and a general crack-down on the scam industry is now underway. One of the ways the scam industry got so embedded in Cambodia was because of the way its chief players, like the Prince Group ingratiated themselves in the state, for instance by creating scholarship programs. Now that its founder has been deported to China, the foundation is reneging on scholarship commitments. The Cambodia government has now promised to make sure those students’ tuition fees are covered. 
2. It’s been a rough couple of weeks for senior university admins and the law. In Japan, the head of the university of Tokyo’s hospital was forced to resign after a series of bribery scandals at his institution. In Mexico, one former university rector was arrested on grounds of embezzlement; a second was arrested on charges of drug possession, though the rector’s backers saw the arrest as an attempt by certain in government to break the institution’s academic autonomy. 
3. Things are getting interesting in Indonesia. The government has asked UK institutions to open ten “world-class” institutions in the country with a focus specifically on medical specialties. In addition, the country is also instituting a system of performance contracts with institutions and boosting the National Research Fund by 50%. Maybe an early runner for HESA’s Outstanding Policy Movers award?
4. Malaysia has finally released its new plan for higher education (full document available here in Malay, brief summary in English here). Among the big changes: control of the final year of pre-higher education (i.e. Grade 12) has been moved to the higher education ministry, and the country is finally moving to a unified university entrance exam to counter the perception that Malays are given preference in the current two-exam system. Also in the plan is the creation of an Academic Credit Bank somewhat on the South Korean model, and an increase in the number of scholarships for students. 
5. In Thailand, there’s a somewhat unusual three-institution alliance taking shape. The country’s top three universities (Chulalongkorn, Mahidol and Chiang Mai) have announced the creation of the “MC² Tri-University Partnership”, which is meant to shift Thai higher education away from ranking-driven competition towards measurable social, economic and policy impact. We’ll see how that goes, I guess – the lure of chasing prestige is hard to resist.
6. A new report from India suggests that 65 students at IIT have died by suicide over the past five years. Alumni groups are calling for action.
7. The UK government has just published its new International Education Strategy. It’s big, ambitious, and most importantly, contains a big steer for universities to start setting up partnerships abroad (not necessarily branch campuses though that is implied), particularly in India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. Read it: this will shape the provision of transnational education for some time to come.
8. The Irish government has announced its five-year spending plans for the higher education and innovation sector, and they are amazing: 4.55 billion, up from 2.9 billion in the last quinquennium, a rise of over 50%.
9. In France, students on bursaries have long been able to get meals for 1 euro at cafeterias run by the national student services agency CROUS. Now, the National Assembly, which may not be able to agree on a national budget, did see its way clear to vote through  an extension of this privilege to all students later in 2026. Cafeteria managers are more than a little skeptical, noting it’s not clear how they will physically be able to accommodate greater demand. And all this with over 80% of universities in deficit this year and many institutions cutting back on admissions officers in consequence. No problem at all, nothing to see here.
10. Speaking of universities in deficit, a new report in Colombia suggests that despite the government’s claims of big new investments, only one of the country’s 34 public universities is in a sustainable financial position. The report, from the Comptroller General, makes for some pretty sobering reading.
11. The venerable university of Havana, which insists that its anti-capitalist bona fides are unmatched, is nevertheless seeking private-sector sponsorships to help it host the Caribbean games later this year. This is causing some snickering.
12. Brazil has long had a rather unique tradition of assessing program quality: that is, by periodically requiring graduates of specific programs to take an exit exam to see how well they have absorbed the material that is supposed to be covered in their courses. This year, the results for medical graduates were particularly dire: results from 30% of medical programs (107 in total) were deemed to be “inadequate”, which means they will likely be required to limit enrolment for the next few years (there’s a market opportunity here, folks!).  Universities are undecided between downplaying the results and blaming the Ministry for the way the exam was designed and conducted.
13. January is admissions season in South Africa and the big issue this year is simply that there is nothing like the number of places at universities to accommodate all that wish to enter.  At top universities, the ratio of applicants to places is about 20 to 1 – in the Nursing Faculty at Stellenbosch, it is 450 to 1. It’s expected that the country’s public universities will reject about half a million students this year. One result? A new private Afrikaans university is opening up to cater to wealthier (and, one assumes, whiter) students.
14. A number of good pieces from the US this month. First, it turns out post-secondary enrolment is rising again. Second, the Trump administration has dropped its appeal of a court ruling that blocked its campaign to defund universities for continuing to run programs deemed as being related to “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (which, let’s face it, is pretty embarrassing for all those universities who pre-emptively bent the knee on this issue). And third: the proposed House Budget more than reverses all of Trump’s cuts to Science and Education. Never a dull moment.
15. Loads of interesting developments on the Artificial Intelligence front. In South Korea, which is still reacting to a big AI cheating scandal, the government is moving forward with a plan to select ten universities to become “AI-centered universities” to support talent development in the sector. In Portugal, a group of academics is pushing for a complete ban on AI in universities. In the US, where the news cycle has been dominated by i) data showing a lack of notable effect of AI on productivity and ii) a new paper which (somewhat tendentiously, IMHO) declares AI to be a destroyer of institutions, some interesting new data appeared on the AI disconnect within the higher education workforce. Two other must-read pieces: one from the good folks at WONKHE on “making human learning visible in a world of invisible AI”, and a fantastic sitrep for early 2026 on Higher Education and AI from the ever-excellent Bryan Alexander.

That’s all for now: see you back here in two weeks.