Posts Categorized: Commentary

From Arab Spring to Academic Blossoming? Transforming Nations after their Liberation

Those nations trying to propel themselves into the global economy face a daunting task. And those emerging from dictatorships, theocracies and bloody revolutions face even greater challenges. Many had been drained of their best minds and most entrepreneurial spirits. Corruption and violence now need to be supplanted by a stable, civil society that can transact business with the rest of the world. ...

New Directions for Higher Education: Q&A with Muriel Howard on Public Higher Ed

Nearly a year ago, NEJHE launched its New Directions for Higher Education series to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices. Past installments of the series featured Philip DiSalvio, dean of the College of Advancing & Professional Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, interviewing: Carnegie Foundation Pr...

Warren Recommendation on Student Debt: What Will Work to Help America’s Students?

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has had concerns about student debt for decades. Her recent solution seeks to redistribute tax revenue from the richest Americans to enable students to refinance their post-graduation indebtedness; this would allow students to benefit from the low interest rates in today’s financial markets. The Massachusetts Democrat is right in noting that the inability of studen...

Confronting Costs, Controlling Destiny

Mature higher education markets are drifting headfirst into the perfect storm. The convergence of shifting demographics, increased competition, decreased government funding and the reality of a global marketplace has become our new normal here in Canada, like in many other parts of the world. Most within the academy have come to accept this reality, and so the question is not if this storm will co...

New Directions for Higher Education: Q&A with Judith Eaton on Self-Regulation

Nearly a year ago, NEJHE launched its New Directions for Higher Education series to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices. Past installments of the series featured Philip DiSalvio, dean of the College of Advancing & Professional Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, interviewing: Carnegie Foundation Pr...

DACA-lamented? Spared Deportation, Immigrant Students Still Face Higher Ed Barriers

Well, you see, we don’t want to get their hopes up. I am on the phone with a woman from a small liberal arts college in New England, trying to convince them to accept an application for their diversity weekend from one of my clients. I am an immigration lawyer who also runs a cooperative center, Atlas: DIY (www.atlasdiy.org), for undocumented youth and their allies in Brooklyn, New York. Atla...

How NE Higher Ed Helped Build Radio Free Boston (Book Review)

Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN; Carter Alan (with foreword by Steven Tyler); Northeastern University Press; 2013; $25.95 Paperback; $19.99 Ebook Love it or hate it, modern radio entertainment is a child or at least a stepchild of Boston-based radio station WBCN when it was in its hippest prime, from the late 1960s and well into the 1990s. Running through this fascinating and we...

Small Colleges Need “Gold Medal Selfies”

Higher education has been a favorite news topic for months. Stories have addressed every issue from rising costs to access for vulnerable students and completion of a college degree, to the importance of “fit” in the college selection process. President Obama and the first lady have entered the national conversation, particularly around issues of cost and graduation rates for low-incom...

A Look at the Condition of Education in Massachusetts

Leaders engaged in Massachusetts’ public higher education system—including at community colleges, state universities, and UMass—have demonstrated their strong commitment to improvement in recent years. The state Department of Higher Education’s Vision Project is focused on reforms necessary to “produce the best educated citizenry and workers in the nation,” and demonstrates a clear wil...

Courage of Convictions

Barring access to higher education for people with criminal histories ... It is becoming a source of growing outrage and disgrace that the U.S. comprises about 5% of the world's population, but is responsible for incarcerating 25% of the world's prison population. Massachusetts—along with many other states—spends more of its annual budget on corrections and warehousing criminals than on pu...