We’re proud to announce the release of our latest issue of i-LASH, which explores courses in the Liberal Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities across the globe.

The LASH subject areas are vast and offer the opportunity to study a wide range of different subjects, whether this is within a liberal arts degree or in a more specialised programme. This issue has plenty of interesting articles about studying some of the popular subjects within these areas, and will give you an idea of what types of courses are available in different countries around the world. You can find articles about studying theology in New Zealand, politics in the UK or sociology in the USA, to name just a few!

We’d like to say thank you to all of our contributors for their time and effort, and their help in creating this guide. Their expertise and experience are invaluable, and here they share their knowledge with you.

We hope that you enjoy reading this guide. If you have any comments or suggestions for the next issue, or are interested in contributing to any of the i-studentadvisor resources, please contact us at editorial@i-studentgroup.com

And don’t forget, there are more articles, plus country-specific information about visas, fees and more, on the i-studentadvisor website.

Flinders University, established in 1966, enjoys a well-deserved reputation for excellence. The university welcomes international students, attracting students from over 100 countries.

Interested? Want to find out more? Download the Flinders app and get all of this:

• Learn more about Flinders University and South Australia
• Browse through course information – undergraduate and postgraduate
• Discover entertainment, sport and sightseeing in Adelaide
• Navigate through Adelaide with campus and city maps
• Complete the step by step international student application checklist
• Check out videos, photo galleries and student testimonials
• Stay up to date with the latest news and events

Other features include information about getting around Adelaide and where to eat, plus local weather forecasts. Users will also be able to use the app to join Flinders on Facebook and Twitter. All this for free.

Louise Singleton, head of design here at i-studentgroup, and part of the team who created the app says: “This app is great for international students who want to know more about Flinders University. There’s so much content and it’s easy to use, allowing users to have all the information they need to know about Flinders and Adelaide at their fingertips.”

Flinders University says: “Our app is unique in its structure and rich interactive content, and will be an instrumental tool in the promotion of our university to the international student market. It has the potential to enhance and revolutionise the Flinders experience for prospective and current students.”

To download the Android app, visit the Android Market here.

Have you downloaded the Flinders app? Tell us what you think in the comments below!

The system measures the scientific performance of 500 major universities across the globe and ranks them accordingly. Having been recognised for its objective methodology, it may prove to be a useful alternative to ranking systems such as The Times Higher Education.

Specifically, it ranks universities by their scientific impact and number of collaborations. For instance, it looks at the average number of citations of university publications and the proportion of publications that have been coauthored with other institutions. Leiden University claims these methods are more ‘transparent’ than those used in other, more popular ranking systems, that largely base their figures on opinion surveys.

The system this year has improved in a number of ways. For instance, it offers universities the possibility to exclude non-English speaking language publications from the research, as these publications will have a smaller readership and receive fewer citations. It’s hoped such changes will produce fairer, more objective results.

Interestingly, eighteen of the top twenty universities are American institutions, according to this system. The top university worldwide is Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed by Princeton and Harvard. Switzerland’s École Polytecnique and ETH Zurich also feature in the top twenty. Cambridge was the top UK University at number 31.

Time will tell whether this updated system will prove more popular than the ever-growing list of competing rankings systems.

This issue is full of helpful articles about learning English overseas, along with hints and tips about finding a course that is right for you. English as a Second Language courses vary, and are offered at a wide range of overseas institutions. Hopefully after reading this guide you will have an idea of where might be the best place for you to study – be it in sunny Australia, the historical UK, or one of the other fantastic and exciting countries featured in this guide.

Once you have read through this guide and have an idea of where you would like to study, head over to our Country pages to find out all about fees, visas and more in your chosen country.

As always, we’d like to thank all of our contributors who have shared their experience and advice in this issue of i-ESL.

We always love to hear feedback from our readers, so please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any comments or suggestions – please email us at editorial@i-studentgroup.com

We hope you enjoy reading this issue of i-ESL. Remember, you can find all of our other 2011 subject guides through the Subjects page.

The guide contains a range of interesting and informative articles exploring the study of specific subjects overseas, written by experts and professionals from within the six main areas of higher education and industry. The guide also contains select articles from counsellors and students about their own experience and their advice about overseas education.

The guide is divided into sections according to subject, with correspond with our interactive online subject guides, where you can find even more useful articles and information.

We’d like to thank all of our contributors who have shared their knowledge and expertise to make this guide as extensive and informative as possible. We are confident that the articles and information within this guide will help students to embark upon the wonderful experience of international study.

If you would like to request a free copy of The Subject Guide 2012, please click here and provide us with your name, school name and address. You can also preview some of the pages from The Subject Guide 2012 in the gallery below.

Interested in contributing to the next issue of The Subject Guide? We are always looking for new associations, organisations and counsellors to contribute to our guides. Please contact us at editorial@i-studentgroup.com

If you are from an institution and are interested in featuring in any of the i-studentadvisor resources – online or in print – please contact us at editorial@i-studentgroup.com

View a gallery of sample pages from The Subject Guide 2012…

The department has reportedly already cancelled 15,066 visas, due to students breaking the terms under which they where granted. Around 3,624 students are faced with deportation for failing their course or poor attendance, whilst a further 2,235 visas were cancelled because students had quit their courses and begun working illegally.

The crackdown, which has seen a 37% spike in the number of cancellations compared to the previous year, particularly targets students who are studying vocational courses. Of the 332,709 international students in Australia mid-2011, a third were on a vocational training visa studying for diplomas, and more than half were studying at a university. The immigration department offers eight different student visas, depending on the type of study that is being undertaken.

It seems that Indian students have been most affected by the crackdown, whilst Chinese students have fared much better, as they are more likely to be studying academic courses.

There are a large number of students who become ‘unlawful’ when they do not leave or apply for a new visa once their student visa has expired – 8,309 in the past year. Currently, it is planned that university students will be able to stay in Australia for two years after they graduate. Vocational training students are waiting for the outcome of changes due next year to find out whether they will be granted to same rights.

To find out more about Australian student visas, please click here.

This issue contains articles about study and careers within some of the different areas of medicine and health sciences, including dentistry, medicine, veterinary science, optometry, physiotherapy and sport science, plus many more. Also featured is an interview with three different psychologists in very different careers, plus we speak to a PhD student about her studies in cancer research.

We’d like to thank all of our contributors who have provided articles and information for this issue of i-MHS and for making this one of the best and most comprehensive i-MHS issues yet.

Once you have read through this guide and have an idea of what, and where, you would like to study, head over to the Country pages to find out all about fees, visas and more in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.

We always love to hear feedback from our readers, so please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any comments or suggestions – email editorial@i-studentgroup.com

A surprise result has shown that the California Institute of Technology is now the number one university in the world, according to THE. Harvard University and Stanford University come next in joint second place, followed by the UK’s University of Oxford.

The rankings show that the USA and UK are still leading the way in terms of the number of top universities, with 75 of the top 200 being institutions in the USA, and 32 in the UK. They are followed by Germany (12), the Netherlands (12) and Canada (9).

This great video by THE explains how the rankings are measured and runs through the top ten universities:

Value for money

Analysis of the rankings has shown that when the rankings are adjusted for national spending on higher education, Switzerland and the UK have the best value higher education systems in the world, with the most universities per $200 billion spent. In this table, the USA comes in at 16^th place.

Affordability for international students

There has also been analysis to determine which country is the most affordable for international students. This analysis has shown that the USA account for two-thirds of the 100 most expensive institutions.  One of the cheapest universities for international students was found to be the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, with an average annual fee of just $789.

Method

The rankings employ thirteen separate performance indicators, from teaching to research to knowledge transfer. These are put into five categories:

• Teaching – the learning environment (worth 30% of the overall ranking score)
• Research – volume, income and reputation (worth 30%)
• Citations – research influence (worth 30%)
• Industry income – innovation (worth 2.5%)
• International outlook – staff, students and research (worth 7.5%)

Users of the rankings are able to manipulate the tables on the website in order to rank institutions by any of the five categories that are most important to them.

Top ten

The top ten universities in the rankings are:

1. California Institute of Technology

=2. Harvard University

=2. Stanford University

4. University of Oxford

5. Princeton University

6. University of Cambridge

7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

8. Imperial College London

9. University of Chicago

10. University of California, Berkeley

To see the full listing of the 400 top universities for 2011-2012, along with analysis and more information, visit the THE site here.

What do you think about the new rankings? Are you surprised by the new number one? Let us know your comments below!

The top ten places are dominated by UK and US universities, with four UK establishments featured. Although claims that the new regulations and changes to the fees system may have an impact on 2012 results have already began circulating. Ben Sowter, Head of Research at QS told the BBC that he believed that is was “inevitable” that financial pressures would impact UK universities rankings in the future years, due to staffing, research productivity and the result of UK students looking to go overseas for their education.

The top ten institutions are as follows:

1 – University of Cambridge – UK (100.0)

2- Harvard University – US (99.3)

3 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – US (99.2)

4 – Yale University – US (98.8)

5 – University of Oxford – US (98.8)

6 – Imperial College London – UK (97.6)

7 – University College London – UK (97.3)

8 – University of Chicago – US (96.1)

9 – University of Pennsylvania – US (95.7)

10 – Columbia University – US (95.3)

For a full list please click here.

Amongst those featured in the top 100 were eight Australian institutions, with Australian National University ranking an impressive 26^th and the University of Melbourne not far behind at 31^st.

East Asia has seen a distinct increase in their rankings with universities from Japan and Singapore leading the way as the University of Tokyo ranked 25^th , the National University of Singapore at 28^th and Kyoto University reaching 32^nd.

Amidst the lower rankings, it has emerged that a number of universities from Latin America and the Middle East making an appearance on the list.

Now it has emerged that students from Libya studying in Australia, Britain, Egypt and South Africa, as well as the USA, face having their monthly stipend from the Libyan government suspended as early as the end of this month. This has resulted in students having to face the possibility of returning home, though many fear persecution if they return to Libya whilst it is under the Gaddafi regime.

Since 2007 the Libyan Committee for Higher Education has awarded scholarships for more than 7,000 students to studies overseas, for both graduate and postgraduate courses, but during the continued turmoil within Libya it appears that these scholarships will be stopped.

Governments around the world say they will do all they can to help Libyan students finish their courses.

• Australian universities are trying to help over 600 higher education students, and a further 500 language and college students, but that the Libyan embassy in Canberra can no longer access funds in Tripoli which usually helps to pay for tuition fees and living expenses. The funds are expected to dry up by the end of August, causing concern for students who cannot afford to stay on without the funds

• In the US, the government froze Libyan assets after the outbreak of the civil war in Libya in February. This includes the Libyan-North American Scholarship Program, which pays for the tuition fees, medical cover and living allowances for most of the 1,900 students studying in the USA

• The Canadian Bureau for International Education has since March had permission to use around USs$1.3 million from Libya’s Ministry of Education to help Libyan students in the country, but this barely makes a dent in the $200 million expected to be needed this academic year to continue the support

• In the UK, there are an estimated 8,000 Libyan students and their dependents in the country, but the Foreign Office has said that money for students would be ring-fenced. Foreign Secretary William Hague has said that the UK has put off expelling diplomats loyal to Gaddafi until it was sure that students would continue to receive financial support

Students facing the end of financial aid may have to return to Libya but fear persecution, and even torture, if they return home whilst Gaddafi is still in power, especially those who have held protests and whose photos may have been published in the Libyan press. It is expected that many students will apply for asylum if they face the prospect of returning home.

Are you a Libyan student studying overseas? How does this news affect you? Let us know your stories below.