USA

Last week's sixth annual EnglishUSA Professional Development Conference was the biggest of its kind with attendance up by almost a third on last year. One hundred seventy five delegates attended the event in San Francisco denoting the organisation's first meeting since last year's deadline for all IEPs to be accredited.

US Secretary of State John Kerry will announce $1 million of Department of State funding on January 17 to bolster student exchange between universities in the US and Latin America and the Caribbean. The launch event of the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund will be live-streamed on Friday.

Global language school chain, ILSC Education Group is set to open its second US location in New York in April 2014, and will be fully accredited by CEA to offer I-20s to international students. The company is currently building the school centre in downtown Manhattan with capacity to hold 300 students.

The University of Pennsylvania is launching a Massive Online Open Course aimed to help foreign students and non-native English speakers applying to undergraduate degree programmes in the USA better understand the US university application and admission process.

What international education has done for me has been my aspiration for what it can do for generations of students

A record 1,000 educators, exhibitors, speakers and agents attended ICEF's North America workshop in Miami this month, making the three-day event the largest of its kind in North America. 14% of the 402 agents attending had not been to an ICEF workshop before, contributing to an increase of 24% in participants overall.

Quality and transparency in the use of agents in student recruitment were key themes in the fifth annual AIRC conference last week: the first held since NACAC reversed its policy against the use of commissioned agents in international recruitment.

UK-based Cambridge Education Group has been sold to a US-based private equity firm, Bridgepoint Capital, it was announced today, for an enterprise value of UK£185 million. Ex-owners, Palamon Capital, acquired CEG in 2007 and achieved an acquisition multiple of 11 times the current year trading forecast.

A US study abroad company with offices in Tacloban, the Philippines, is coordinating direct on-the-ground relief in the wake of the strongest tropical cyclone ever to make landfall, Typhoon Haiyan. GoAbroad.com founder, Troy Peden, has been helping people leave the area and bring in food and medical supplies.

International students in the United States and their families supported 313,000 jobs and contributed US$24 billion to the economy in the 2012-2013 academic year according to the latest estimates by NAFSA. For every seven international students enrolled, three US jobs are created or supported by spending in tuition and living costs.

The number of international students at US HEIs grew by 7% to a record 819,644 students in 2012-13, according to the Institute of International Education's (IIE) latest Open Doors report. China and Saudi Arabia posted the strongest growth inclines in international students. The number of US students studying abroad was also at a record high.

Last week INTO University Partnerships signed a letter of intent to form a joint venture with George Mason University in Virginia marking its fifth US partner institution. The company also reports that the 2013 fall intake for its established US partnerships has exceeded enrolment expectations.

The latest figures from the Council for Graduate Schools show a radical shift in top source markets for graduate students as first-time enrolments form Indian students at US graduate schools jump 40% offsetting a slow down of growth from Chinese students to 5%.

We’re focusing on under-representation – we’d like to see more minorities study abroad, more men. And we’re quite happy with our work fighting the rich kid myth that study abroad is only for affluent white females.

Cambridge Education Group (CEG) has acquired US English language teaching operation Boston Academy of English, rounding out its portfolio of education institutions in the American city and marking another first in its campaign to expand internationally.