Posts Categorized: The Journal

A Modest Proposal to Save the Planet

Nonprofit institutions with large endowments have been facing challenges from various stakeholders contesting the management of their investment portfolios. While these challenges are most commonly associated with institutions of higher education, pension funds and private foundations will increasingly face similar challenges regarding how the management of their endowments affects socially import...

A Former Southern Vermont College Provost Comforts Colleagues at the Endangered School

I was born in Lawrence, Mass., the first son of first-generation, working-class Italian-American parents—my mother, a nurse, and my dad, a shoe cutter in the old Everett Mills. The Everett Mills are across the street from the Holy Rosary Church. In that church, I walked barefooted down the aisle when I was 7 in an unsuccessful attempt to barter God for the sight back in my left eye, its cornea b...

Prospective College Students: Hiding in Plain Sight

As an unprecedented number of colleges and universities close their doors forever while others struggle to survive, a deep pool of prospective students—and the key to accessing them—is hiding in plain sight. Students from rural America attend college at lower rates (59%) than their urban (62%) and suburban (67%) counterparts and comprise only 29% of all students ages 18-24 enrolled in highe...

Could Addressing College Food Insecurity Be a SNAP?

Food insecurity—defined by the nationally respected Wisconsin HOPE Lab as the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or the ability to acquire such foods in a socially acceptable manner—is a troubling trend on college campuses across the country, including in New England. For example: A 2016 survey by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education...

Certificates of Failure Given By Colleges: Yes, Really

The news is filled with stories about the admissions scandals at elite colleges and universities. And recently, some of the wrongdoers have pled guilty and await punishment. Apparently, prosecutors are seeking jail time. Apart from jail time, I have already suggested approaches to punishment that involve fines that go into a cy pres fund to be redistributed to small non-elite colleges and their st...

College Completion and the Future of Work: Implications in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

College completion matters, especially from the perspective of equity. Who finishes, how long it takes them, how much they benefit economically and how their citizenship benefits local communities all matter. This is especially true of knowledge-driven, innovation economies in New England. For Massachusetts—a state that ranks third highest in the nation for cost of living—a local educated w...

Faster, Cheaper, Better: It’s the Curriculum, Stupid!

During my 40-plus years working in higher education I have witnessed a remarkable transformation in a wide range of industries—telecommunications, computing, transportation, media, publishing, manufacturing and retailing, to name a few. In almost every case these transformations have resulted in an improved product and/or service that is more responsive to consumer needs, more efficient and effe...

New England Legislative Sessions: Emerging Trends in Higher Education and Workforce Development That We’re Watching

Across New England, the days are starting to get longer, everyone is hoping spring weather is just around the corner, and each state’s legislative session is firmly underway. While it’s still relatively early in the current sessions, at NEBHE we’re taking a first look at the major issues and trends we see emerging in the region’s legislatures related to higher education and workforce de...

The Votes Are In … Now, the Hard Work

Editor's Note: New England and the nation have long suffered from an underrepresentation of women and people of color in higher elected offices. In the 2018 midterms, that began to change. Below, Carolyn Morwick, director of government and community relations at NEBHE and former director of the Caucus of New England State Legislatures, takes a state-by-state look at New England elections and s...

From the Corner Office: New England Governors’ Budget Proposals

Connecticut Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont delivered a two-year budget plan of $43.1 billion to lawmakers, emphasizing that the state’s crushing fixed costs relative to its pension funds must be addressed. To accomplish this, he proposed restructuring, refinancing the systems’ payments and slowing the rate of increase in the teachers’ pension fund and the state employee pension fund, both of ...