Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

With Ramadan now underway, a pattern has become clear. Muslims in Asia are celebrating the

Holy Month in much the usual way, praying, fasting and feasting together. We ask why

Asian leaders find it so hard to enact and enforce lockdown policies.

And counting a population is practically impossible without a proper census. In North

Macedonia one was abandoned and one is being delayed, so it's unclear whether the Balkan

country has a million and a half people or a third more than that.

First up though.

Many universities in Britain and America were already set for a difficult year. Now COVID-19

has hit finance as hard. Yesterday the British government dismissed a two billion pound bailout

request from universities for research funding, offering instead to help just with tuition.

Across the Atlantic the American Council on Education believes revenues in higher education

will decline by 23 billion dollars over the next academic year. For the one third of American

universities operating with deficits that will make a precarious financial position

dire. With students sent packing and classes shifted online indefinitely, it's becoming

clear that not all institutions will make it through the pandemic.

McMurray College has a very long and colorful history.

Beverly Rogers is president of McMurray College in Illinois.

It was begun as a college where women could learn more about politics in the state and

those types of things. And it wasn't until the mid-50s that at college for gentlemen was

also established. And then of course, McMurray became a co-ed institution in every sense

...