Posts Categorized: Demography

Online Leadership at the Vortex of Academic Destiny

This is the first of a two-part essay on the organizational implications of online distance education. As online education becomes more ubiquitous nationally, it becomes even more strategic locally on each college campus. But these efforts are not dispersed comparably across institutions. Some higher education institutions have been more dynamic and decisive, and others paralyzed to act. The very...

Community College Transfers Can Thrive at Best Colleges and Universities

Not surprisingly, low-income students are more likely than their higher-income peers to start postsecondary education at lower-cost community colleges than at four-year institutions. Add this fact to the booming enrollment at community colleges—approximately 7 million students or nearly half of all undergraduate students today—and one can quickly surmise that community colleges are an importan...

Remember to Just Think

"I was just thinking" was columnist Mike Barnicle's lazy motif in the Boston Globe. Still, it's hard not to copy a lazy motif. So … I was just thinking ... Business leaders confirmed for the record this spring what they’ve been grousing about for years: Too few recent graduates have the skills to be good workers. That was the key finding in Northeastern University’s third annual survey on t...

MIA: Accuplacer Prep

Reports of the redesign of the SAT resonate with many parents and their school-age children who have had personal experience with the controversial college gatekeeper. But another test in the College Board portfolio, though not in the news, is arguably even more important to the future—or lack of a future—of high-school age students. It’s the Accuplacer. Accuplacer is, like the SAT, a ...

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...