Posts Categorized: Economy

Breaking Ground in Higher Ed: A Look at New Models

The debate about the need for change in America’s K-12 education system has been raging for decades. Teachers, parents, administrators and government leaders alike have been grappling with how to transform a system that has been failing too many students for too long, according to a recent Center for Education Policy study. Until recently, the higher education system, on the other hand, has been...

Quants at the Gate: The Unique Education of Actuaries

Universities typically emerge as gatekeepers of the professions, by wresting control over the training and certification that is required. The process generally begins outside academe—with apprenticeships and voluntary associations—and evolves toward a new norm of academic credit and degrees. Faculty then become the experts who determine the body of knowledge budding professionals need...

In Rhode Island, Building a bRIdge to the Knowledge Economy

"Your students come here for four years and leave."For some time, this had been a common perception among many Rhode Islanders regarding to the state's independent colleges and universities. But that's changing.The state’s housing bubble had burst in 2006, leading to interest in developing less volatile economic sectors that would provide the stable high-end services jobs. By 2008, Rhode Isl...

Humanitarian Efforts

If you won the lottery tomorrow, how would you spend your time? Being a good social scientist, Jack Cheng, a former UMass Boston art historian, said he would go to Walmart, the new Peoria, and ask that question. “Most of them, after they buy a house, after they buy a car ... would go to the movies, they would read books, they would listen to music,” Cheng said. “They’d sit around cafes ...

Morrill at 150: Creating American Manufacturing Universities

Editor's Note: NEJHE devotes special attention in 2012 to the changing roles of land-grant institutions on this 150th anniversary of the Morrill Land-Grant College Act. Here, Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, proposes a new kind of research university ... In the 2000s, American manufacturing suffered its worst decade since at least World War II...

Morrill at 150: What Would Justin Do?

Editor's Note: NEJHE devotes special attention in 2012 to the changing roles of land-grant institutions on this 150th anniversary of the Morrill Land-Grant College Act. Here is University of New Hampshire President Mark W. Huddleston on the current state of land-grant support ... As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the land-grant college system, I wonder what U.S. Sen. Justin Smith Mo...

NE Won’t Return to Pre-Recession Employment Until 2015, but Region’s Education Advantage Could Offer Economic Advantage

The New England states continue to experience slow growth and slow recovery of the jobs lost in the 2008 to 2009 recession. The main reason for this is the continued weakness in global and U.S. economic conditions. The U.S. and New England economies continue to be affected by the weak European economy and sovereign debt crisis and by weakness in domestic and regional housing markets.The forecast f...

Boys and Girls: Join the Club

Club members receiving homework help in Burlington, Vt. Boys & Girls Clubs of America count 4,000 community-based clubs serving more than 4 million young people through membership and community outreach. They provide a safe place to spend time during non-school hours and the summer as an alternative to the streets or being home alone—a place to play, have fun and learn. Boys & ...

Shifting Landscapes, Changing Assumptions Reshape Higher Ed

In 1852, Massachusetts became the first state to provide all its citizens access to a free public education. Over the next 66 years, every other state made the same guarantee. Based on a factory-model classroom and inspired in part by the approach Horace Mann saw in Prussia in 1843, it seemed to adequately prepare American youth for the 20th century industrialized economy.Massachusetts may again b...

Higher Education Needs a Dialogue with the 99%

Higher education is at a crossroads, not only in the U.S. but also globally. This challenge is prompting an immigrant union, on the centennial anniversary of the “Bread and Roses” strike at Lawrence Mills, to once again take up the labor movement’s historic role of speaking for the common good and the broad interests of working people. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 61...