No 4 (2024)

The article aims to examine the state of higher education in the USA during the third decade of 21st century. The author reviews the best US universities still leading in global educational rankings. The paper highlights the increasing proportion of the population with a bachelor degree or higher, including among racial and ethnic minorities. It also addresses longstanding issues within the US education system, including the high cost of tuition, inequal access to university education among different racial groups of population. It also identifies new challenges including growing bureaucracy in universities and rising dissatisfaction with higher education as a factor of professional success.

The article presents an analysis of the political divisions between the United States and its European allies concerning the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program. The first section of the article elucidates the key aspects of the research program, which is grounded in the theoretical framework of neoclassical realism to interpret the goal-setting and motivations of European participants' actions. The subsequent section delineates the circumstances surrounding the U.S. departure from the Iranian nuclear agreement, while the third part outlines the context and manifestations of foreign policy responses by European participants of the JCPOA, offering initial conceptual insights into challenging the U.S. exit from the Agreement. The article suggests that emerging contradictions stem from varying assessments by partners regarding the international-political ramifications of the JCPOA's breakdown and conflicting interests among involved parties. The response of European allies (EU/E3) was influenced by specific conditions at that time, shaping responsive actions and reaction forms based on a set of political and economic factors. In these circumstances, European participants aimed at a) maintaining constructive politico-diplomatic relations with Iran and fostering multilateral cooperation; b) sustaining mutually beneficial trade and economic ties, alongside established infrastructures for engagement with Iran.

Approximately 50% of the world's largest financial technology companies were created and successfully operate in the United States, many of which conduct transactions with digital assets. Meanwhile, about 7 million Americans do not have a bank account, another 24 million rely on costly non-bank services, such as check cashing and money transfers. Those with traditional bank accounts face prohibitively slow and expensive financial transactions, especially for cross-border payments. The Executive Office, the Legislature, and the financial regulatory agencies in the United States all agree that the digital economy must work to the benefit of all Americans. In other words, it is necessary to develop financial services that are safe, secure, affordable and accessible to all, providing convenience for low-income consumers and minimizing the risks of predatory financial policies. Regulators are concerned about the volatility of prices for digital assets, the actions of sellers who mislead consumers about expected profits and do not comply with the law, the growing volume of thefts in digital asset markets, the characteristics of cryptocurrency exchanges, where there is no central governing body with which regulators can interact, instead there are pseudonymous nodes distributed throughout the world. At the same time, the relationship between traditional finance and digital assets is strengthening, along with the crisis transmission channels.