September 4th, 2014 In 2000, at the Millennium Summit of the United Nations, all 189-member nations (today the UN has 193 members) committed to help meet ambitious development targets across categories such as primary education, nutrition, health, mortality, sanitation and others. The new Millennium Development Goals Report 2014 examines the latest progress made towards achieving […]
ACEI BLOG - POLITICS
The High Cost of Higher Education and Emergence of Affordable Alternatives.
August 28th, 2014 The Good Old Days According to a 2013 Bloomberg Report, “the cost of higher education has surged more than 500 percent since 1985.” Seventy years ago, most Americans thought college was only for the wealthy elite. This perspective changed after World War II with the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, better known […]
Yachay: A South American Silicon Valley in Ecuador
August 14th, 2014 Ecuador is creating a new city of knowledge called Yachay; a Quechua Indian word that means knowledge, or learning. It is building a research university and city in Urcuquí, Imbabura Province to function as an academic, technological and scientific. The campus expands over an area of approximately 12,000 acres near the snowcapped […]
10 Fast Facts on Mauritania
August 7th, 2014 Recently, I saw a performance by the Mauritanian singer Noura Mint Seymali, who plays the 9-string harp, the ardin (reserved only for women), and her talented musicians at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. The Skirball hosts free summer concerts bringing in international artists and performers to give us Angelenos a […]
15 Fast Facts on Higher Education in Armenia
July 17th, 2014 Brief Overview: Armenia is the smallest of the former Soviet republics. It sits landlocked and earthquake ridden in rugged mountains tucked between Turkey (to the west) and Azerbaijan. It covers an area of 29,743 sq km.(slightly smaller than Maryland). It has a population of 3,060,631 (July 2014 est.) with 1,079,000 residing in […]
Fourth Of July Fun Facts
July 4th, 2014 The Fourth of July: The day Americans celebrate their country’s independence. It’s a day you probably know well, and one that you anticipate with pleasure; but there are probably a lot of fun facts about the nation’s birthday that you aren’t familiar with. Click to see slide show of 10 interesting facts […]
IRAN: Happiness, Stealthy Freedom, and Faces of Iran on FB
June 12th, 2014 Happiness is… If you’ve been following the news from Iran recently, you must have heard the one about the group of six young women and men who posted a clip of themselves happily dancing to Pharrell Williams’ hit song “Happy!” As quickly as their video had gone viral, Iran’s morality police had […]
Student Loans: Up in Smoke!
June 5th, 2014 Imagine you had a fairy godmother or godfather for that matter who with the wave of a wand erases all your debt to creditors, in this case, your student loan debt? Well, students at the Universidad Del Mar, a private for-profit tuition based institution, in Chile had their wish come true last […]
Chinese student challenge: How to support them in succeeding in the U.S. educational system
May 29th, 2014 On May 20, 2014, Jasmin Saidi-Kuehnert, President & CEO of the Academic Credentials Evaluation Institute (ACEI) and Sid Krommenhoek, Founder of Zinch, presented a webinar hosted by CGACC on China and the challenges Chinese students pose for U.S. colleges and universities. According to the 2013 Educational Exchange Data from the Institute for […]
Russian Rock: Then and Now
May 23rd, 2014 I was Music Director of KCRW and host of Morning Becomes Eclectic during the 1980s and we did regular programs featuring the latest in Soviet-era Russian pop and rock music. Back then, the Cold War was alive and well, with Reagan and Brezhnev regularly rattling their swords. Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny once […]