Welcome back to another edition of The Fifteen, your source for new and developing stories in Higher Education from around the world. As usual, we start in Canada, where universities are sounding the alarm as their finances continue to weaken. A similar situation unfolds in the UK and Australia, and we’re taking a look at how governments and institutions are reacting there. We also have three stories in foreign languages this week (Italian, Ukrainian and Spanish), which you can read with the help of the Google Translate plugin for your browser of choice. Enjoy.

1. A report from Ontario shows that universities are facing a “financial cliff,” and might be short by up to 100k seats by 2030. COU Statement on the One-Year Anniversary of the Blue-Ribbon Panel Report. (Council of Ontario Universities) The news cycle is picking up stories at Carleton, Windsor, uOttawa and Waterloo as institutions raise the alarm.
2. It looks like the UK is about 12 months ahead of us in sounding the alarm on the financial state of Higher Education, although some fear it may still be late. 72% of UK universities are facing a deficit. The regulator does not have a handle on the financial state of English higher education. (WONKHE)
3. Tapping former WWE executive Linda McMahon to head the education department might somehow be the least inappropriate cabinet appointment Donald Trump has announced this week. Trump Picks McMahon as Education Secretary (Inside Higher Education)
4. India has added hundreds of universities and thousands of colleges over the past two decades in its bid to have a massified system.  But to get to a developed-country level, it still needs a whole heap more of them: India needs 2,500 universities to accommodate 50% students: NITI Aayog CEO (The Economic Times: Education). At the same time, the country has overtaken China as the top source of foreign students in the US as students continue to look overseas. A New Era in International Enrollment. (Inside Higher Education)
5. Systematic analysis of the internationalization of higher education in Asia explores the challenges of integrating a predominantly English language system, especially in China. From local to global: Systematically reviewing higher education internationalization in Asia. (Frontiers in Education)
6. Mass casualty events on campus used to be a North American (American) thing.  Now, it’s happening in China. China’s second mass attack in a week spurs soul-searching. (Reuters)
7. Mexico’s federal budget cuts about 8% of its post-secondary expenditures; about half the hit will be absorbed by the country’s largest university, UNAM. PEF 2025 recorta 10 mil mdp a educación superior; UNAM perderá 5 mil mdp. (LaJourdana)
8. A really interesting paper about the expansion of Vietnamese higher education, showing how increasing access to HE induces firms to shift from agriculture to services.  Some important ideas here, that apply more broadly across developing countries.  Higher Education Expansion and the Rise of the Skill-Intensive Service Sector. (Khoa Vu)
9. Unlike Canada, Australian universities are not taking the visa cap issue lying down – they are fighting back.  Joint IRU and RUN statement on international education. (Innovative Research Universities)
10. A US social science research scandal that just keeps on going: The Business-School Scandal that Just Keeps Getting Bigger. (The Atlantic)
11. Interesting data showing that elite US universities are not – and have never been – engines of social mobility: The G.I. Bill, Standardized Testing, and Socioeconomic Origins of the U.S. Educational Elite Over a Century. (NBER)
12. Ukraine looks set to close about 15% of its universities in order to deal with ongoing demographic challenges. The number of universities in Ukraine will be significantly reduced: how much will remain. (OCBITA) (In Ukrainian, use Google Translate plugin)
13. In Greece, students get a number of benefits relating to housing and transportation – and keeping those benefits creates a lot of incentive to never graduate.  The government is cracking down. Greece Renews Push to Expel ‘Eternal Students’ Despite Opposition. (The National Herald)
14. Italy joins the large group of countries where student rents are going through the roof. Affitti per studenti: quanto costano nelle principali città italiane (Idealista/news)
15. As usual we’re finishing with a piece on AI: Google Scholar is an incredible resource public resource, but many academics and researchers are beginning to use new AI tools as their default for search. Can Google Scholar survive the AI revolution? (Nature)