NEBHE’s upcoming annual Leadership Summit scheduled for this coming October poses the question, “How Employable Are New England's College Graduates, and What Can Higher Education Do About It?”
The Summit will address numerous well-chosen, commonly current questions in and around this topic, predicated on the assertion that “New England employers consistently claim that they can't find s...
The New England Educational Opportunity Association (NEOA) drew more than 250 TRIO and college access professionals to its 40th annual conference in Massachusetts earlier this spring.
NEOA's mission is to advocate for access to and success in postsecondary education for low-income individuals, “first-generation” college students, and students with disabilities—and to develop the...
Amy Lapierre sat on the bleachers at Thomas College in Waterville, Maine, adjusting the tassel on her cap. She was surrounded by graduates who are years older than her getting ready to line up, and she nervously peered through the crowd looking for her classmate, Reid Lanpher.
On May 14, Lapierre and Lanpher, both 18 years old, marched for their associate degrees from Thomas. On June 12, they wil...
With roots going back to the 13th century, the modern system of academic degrees functions as one of the most important ways to signal mastery of knowledge. The degree serves as a currency for accessing opportunities.
Yet as new areas of knowledge and demand for particular competencies expand, traditional ways of measuring mastery may fall short of fully capturing the learning that happens in t...
More Underrepresented Groups. Even before Americans began retreating from educational equity amid the recent backlash against "political correctness," our empathy was directed at a fairly traditional set of underrepresented populations: African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Native Americans and students with disabilities (many of whom are being reminded only now that their student loans can...
My talk is about Experiential Education and Liberal Learning. This topic has been on my mind ever since I graduated from a liberal arts college many years ago and began my first real job, whereupon I discovered—to my surprise and at some cost to my ego—how much I did not know about putting my ideas to effective use in the world beyond academia. But in addition to my personal interests, the rel...
Poaching. Florida Gov. Rick Scott invited Yale University to bring its $25 billion endowment to his state after Connecticut legislators proposed taxing Yale to address the state's budget shortfall. Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy (who incidentally was just named winner of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for his decision to publicly welcome a Syrian refugee family to Connecticut) rej...
In June 2015, we argued in a NEJHE article “Reducing Math Obstacles to Higher Education,” that intensified efforts to improve math education may make sense for many students, but for other students–those who lack ability or interest in math–the prescription of more math limits their ability to attain a college credential. As a result, heightened math requirements can limit some students’...
Sir Ken Robinson called it “academic inflation.” Boston analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies called it “upcredentialing.” One person who calls himself Biffo the Bear in an Internet chat room called it “degreeification.” Whichever term you pick to discuss the increasing demand for higher education degrees in our workforce, the fact remains that we need our citizenry to be college p...
In 2010, I wrote an essay, "The New Indentured Educated Class," for The New England Journal of Higher Education. This piece was pivotal in raising public awareness about a new group of Americans, an enormous group of us—educated and deeply in debt. At that point, few were talking about the student loan debt crisis, aside from me and a couple of others. However, things have changed—politicians ...
NEBHE’s upcoming annual Leadership Summit scheduled for this coming October poses the question, “How Employable Are New England's College Graduates, and What Can Higher Education Do About It?”
The Summit will address numerous well-chosen, commonly current questions in and around this topic, predicated on the assertion that “New England employers consistently claim that they can't find s... 
The New England Educational Opportunity Association (NEOA) drew more than 250 TRIO and college access professionals to its 40th annual conference in Massachusetts earlier this spring.
NEOA's mission is to advocate for access to and success in postsecondary education for low-income individuals, “first-generation” college students, and students with disabilities—and to develop the... 
Amy Lapierre sat on the bleachers at Thomas College in Waterville, Maine, adjusting the tassel on her cap. She was surrounded by graduates who are years older than her getting ready to line up, and she nervously peered through the crowd looking for her classmate, Reid Lanpher.
On May 14, Lapierre and Lanpher, both 18 years old, marched for their associate degrees from Thomas. On June 12, they wil... 
With roots going back to the 13th century, the modern system of academic degrees functions as one of the most important ways to signal mastery of knowledge. The degree serves as a currency for accessing opportunities.
Yet as new areas of knowledge and demand for particular competencies expand, traditional ways of measuring mastery may fall short of fully capturing the learning that happens in t... 
More Underrepresented Groups. Even before Americans began retreating from educational equity amid the recent backlash against "political correctness," our empathy was directed at a fairly traditional set of underrepresented populations: African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Native Americans and students with disabilities (many of whom are being reminded only now that their student loans can... 
My talk is about Experiential Education and Liberal Learning. This topic has been on my mind ever since I graduated from a liberal arts college many years ago and began my first real job, whereupon I discovered—to my surprise and at some cost to my ego—how much I did not know about putting my ideas to effective use in the world beyond academia. But in addition to my personal interests, the rel... 
Poaching. Florida Gov. Rick Scott invited Yale University to bring its $25 billion endowment to his state after Connecticut legislators proposed taxing Yale to address the state's budget shortfall. Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy (who incidentally was just named winner of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for his decision to publicly welcome a Syrian refugee family to Connecticut) rej... 
In June 2015, we argued in a NEJHE article “Reducing Math Obstacles to Higher Education,” that intensified efforts to improve math education may make sense for many students, but for other students–those who lack ability or interest in math–the prescription of more math limits their ability to attain a college credential. As a result, heightened math requirements can limit some students’... 
Sir Ken Robinson called it “academic inflation.” Boston analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies called it “upcredentialing.” One person who calls himself Biffo the Bear in an Internet chat room called it “degreeification.” Whichever term you pick to discuss the increasing demand for higher education degrees in our workforce, the fact remains that we need our citizenry to be college p... 
In 2010, I wrote an essay, "The New Indentured Educated Class," for The New England Journal of Higher Education. This piece was pivotal in raising public awareness about a new group of Americans, an enormous group of us—educated and deeply in debt. At that point, few were talking about the student loan debt crisis, aside from me and a couple of others. However, things have changed—politicians ...