Essay on Most-Read Articles on Higher Education

Higher education has many problems, events, discussions, topics, and publications covering all these topics. In 2019 the majority of the articles included first-person stories about difficulties in starting an academic career and supporting teachers and researchers.

For example, one historian told us about spending her own money that she had been saving for traveling on buying study materials and printing high-resolution quality images to be presented in class.

She accepted that writing essays and publishing her books cost her fortune, and no one took care of these expenses. Another highly discussed topic became the plight of international students with coverage of language requirements in the Netherlands and expert opinions on what difficulties students face applying to colleges in the US. Let`s dive more deeply into top-rated articles in higher education that were highlighted in 2019.

Top educational articles you should check today

With a quick research, we narrowed down our list to top publications in higher education that were highly discussed last year:

1. One paper a year article. This one caused a massive reaction among scholars who get used to publish dozens, if not hundreds of research papers preferring quantity over quality. The former president of the British Science association suggested restricting them from publishing just one article a year. Uta Frith stated that such a slow approach in science could make researchers do less but better. Later she accepted that her proposal was somewhat utopian, but she still hopes it can start a debate to decrease the number of useless scientific publications;
2. Becoming a PhD supervisor. The relationships between students and their supervisors become one of the most important in college and at the same time, tense. As many supervisors receive no or less training, six academics give their advice on how to be a good one and make your students succeed. They include clear and understandable explanations, one-two-one meetings with a specific plan, deadlines, milestones, and other useful things. You can still check it out and add your comments to the discussion;
3. People of the year. This article highlights 12 academics and administrators who kept conversations with our journalists during the last year. They are Joyce Lau who published the first UK study about experiences of black women trying to build a career in education, baroness Wolf who was the main driving force in post-18 education review in the government, and other figures;

1. New Dutch rules. The article highlights how the Dutch Ministry of Education tried to force international students to perform the part of their degrees in Dutch. The problem had arisen from the increasing number of international students in the Netherlands and ended up in giving universities a legal right to put stricter criteria and make international students increase their Dutch proficiency or prove why they should be taught in another language;
2. Cheating among international students. Recent research has shown that students (an exceptionally significant number of international students whose first language is not English) try to plagiarize or hire essay mills to avoid writing assigned papers. Although many academics accept the fact of cheating, at the same time they don`t blame students as the admission standards have sufficiently grown;
3. Real costs of research and publishing. This is the story of the professor who has to get a second job to support his research and be able to publish his works. He states that his position in education literally leads him to poverty. Thus, he includes his list costs for conferences to present his works, prices for publishing high-resolution images for students, paying for data storage, production and copyright fees, and other expenses. Many of these aspects are highlighted in another article about the real costs of research and publishing among college professors;
4. Winning a research grant. Getting a grant demonstrates others the value of research and work performed by the scholar and thus becomes a noble reward. Six academics provide information about funding and give their recommendations on how you can win a grant.

These and other higher education articles are considered to be the most influential in 2019.