Posts Categorized: Schools

College Valuations

Using data from NEBHE "Guide" to discern value of New England colleges ... The data published by Boston magazine and the New England Board of Higher Education the 2016 Guide to New England Colleges & Universities provided me with the opportunity to examine the higher education institutions (HEIs) prices, defined as tuition and plus fees, as a function of several independent factors including...

Pushing Back on Idea of Learner-Centered Institutions

It is time to push back at least a little on this very fashionable rubric. While the NEBHE Conference on the subject was generally excellent, especially in the morning, its uncritical acceptance of the whole idea was worrisome. See Center of Attention: Learners. A fundamental problem is its metaphor. There can be only one “center” of anything, so the question is: In institutions of what use...

Center of Attention: Learners

Last week, NEBHE convened 300 or so educators and policy leaders for a gathering in Boston on “Learner-Centered Institutions: The Future of Higher Education.” One key question … what is a “learner-centered institution” anyway? The latest in a torrent of meaningless eduspeak? Or as the conference subtitle suggested, a true paradigm shift in the way we teach and learn? The definition...

Encourage the Entrepreneur (but Don’t Discourage the Young Poet)

Observations of a retired college president ... I am sure you've heard colleagues when they return from sabbatical surprised by how much their institutions changed while they were on leave. The apparent change is even more profound for someone who left the arena seven years ago, as I did. Here are five issues that, in the past few years, have caught my attention either by reading about the...

The Future is Now: First-Generation Students, Community Engagement and Innovative Institutions

Compare the typical college campus today with one 30 years ago, and some stark differences become apparent. More students than ever are enrolling in college; however, graduation rates have remained fairly consistent over the past 30 years, according to the College Board. College campuses are much more diverse than before, increasing from roughly a 20% minority student population in 1990, to 42% in...

Autumn Almanac

NEBHE’s annual fall meetings explored the federal Higher Education Act and aligning state policy with higher ed … The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) held its annual fall board meeting last month in Mystic, Conn. In a session on reauthorization of the federal Higher Education Act (HEA), Sarah H. Flanagan, vice president for government relations and policy development...

Evidence-Based Research: The Impact of the College Crusade GEAR UP Program in RI

The federal GEAR UP program in Rhode Island led to large advantages for students who participated in the program in terms of persistence through the middle and high school years, high school graduation and college enrollment. The Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program, more commonly known as GEAR UP, is a product of federal legislation designed to increase high school c...

Rebranding STEM for Millennials

What if schools in the U.S. treated their innovation and emerging technologies with as much glamour as they give to athletics? At the New England Board of Higher Education’s recent Advanced Manufacturing Problem Based Learning (AM PBL) Showcase, industry representatives addressed this question and discussed ways to improve the branding and appeal for STEM (science, technology, engineering and ma...

To Knock Down Barriers for Returning Adult Learners, RI Tries Something New

In a historic unanimous vote on May 20, 2015, the Rhode Island Council on Postsecondary Education welcomed College Unbound as a degree-granting postsecondary option in the state, designed to serve the more than 110,000 Rhode Island adults who began but did not complete bachelor’s degrees. The college is the adult-learning initiative of Big Picture Learning, a nonprofit organization dedicated ...

Counterbalancing Student Debt with “Asset Empowerment” and Economic Mobility

Education provides one of the best opportunities for American children to build the capacity to climb up the economic ladder. It has even been called the “great equalizer” in American society. In today’s tightened labor market, providing equal access to postsecondary education is more critical than ever. The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce projects that 70% of jobs by 2020 w...