Posts Categorized: Economy

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...

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 ...

Turning Points: Reflections on What the Historic 2018 Midterm Elections Could Mean for New England

The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University estimated 31% turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds voting in the fall midterm elections—the highest youth vote in the past quarter century. NEBHE, meanwhile, has been fortunate to work with three 2018 NEBHE policy interns, all of whom are graduate students at Harvard Graduate School of Education­—and...

Declining Enrollment Brings Risk Business to Higher Ed

Significant demographic changes to college enrollment projected over the next decade mean colleges and universities need to find new ways to drive down costs as they reconfigure their approach to attracting students and generating new revenue. Drawing students from the traditional, now-dwindling applicant pool who are not keen on loading up on loan debt is one of higher education’s growing chall...

Guides to Ascending the On-Ramp in Higher Education: Connecting Dots

A review of The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux, by Cathy N. Davidson (New York, Basic Books, 2017); a summary of the recent announcements of a major restructuring of MIT, and a synthesis of other relevant developments. It is increasingly obvious that we are living in one of the greatest ages of paradigm-shifts in Western history, compa...

Besides Enriching New England Life, International Students Help Bolster College Enrollments and Local Economies

New England faces a concerning dip in its higher education enrollment, due in significant part to declines in the region’s birth and high school graduation rates that are both projected to continue through 2029. Despite these trends, New England’s postsecondary institutions continue to attract a large number of international students to the region, according to the 2018 Open Doors report relea...

Educational Attainment, Foundational Skills and Worker Earnings

The earnings advantages to adults with more schooling are well-documented. High school graduates typically have higher earnings than high school dropouts, and those with a bachelor’s degree have higher earnings than both groups. Furthermore, as the job content of the nation’s economy has shifted in a way that generally favors those with more schooling, these earnings gaps between those with mo...

A Trade War We Are Winning: Opportunism and its Consequences in International Enrollments

America’s university population peaked in 2010 at about 21 million students. We would be mired in a nationwide enrollment crisis if not for two major decade-long trends that cushioned a fall: students enrolling exclusively online and those relocating here from abroad to study. These, combined, now comprise almost a quarter of the nation’s students. Because these two mitigating factors do not b...