Posts Categorized: Student Aid

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...

Career Coaching and Connecting: Improving the Talent Pipeline from New England Colleges to New England Employment

New England colleges and universities are often presented as a source of economic advantage in the New England states for providing a strong talent pool for regional employers. Yet, many state officials and others are questioning the efficacy of colleges and universities in serving regional labor market needs, as employers across New England are currently experiencing pronounced shortages of skill...

How to Beat the First-Year Blues: Advice from Somebody Who Has Been There

The students who walk into the office of Jaydeen Santos at the University of Vermont are burdened by a familiar litany of troubles. They feel isolated. Homesick. Overwhelmed by classes. Unsure where to turn. Santos, the student services advisor at UVM’s Mosaic Center for Students of Color, knows just how they feel. Because 17 years ago, she was right there with them, among the first stud...

Celebrating International Education While Closing Minds and Borders?

In 2018, like in the past 17 years, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education have designated one week in the fall “to celebrate the benefits of international education and exchanges worldwide.” With this year’s International Education Week upon us November 12-18, we must ask which international education benefits we are celebrating. The very policies of this administ...

International Affairs: Survival Kit for Small and Medium-Sized Universities and Colleges

The future looks very bleak for many small and medium-sized colleges and universities in the U.S. According to a report published in Inside Higher Education, the high school graduation rate is expected to drop over the next seven years, and the numbers are aggravated by up to 4.5 million fewer babies being born since the financial crisis of 2008. U.S. colleges and universities can no longer mee...

What Would Higher Education Look Like If Run By IKEA?

Benchmarking higher education with the values, culture and service design of the world's most successful furniture company ... As a professor of entrepreneurship and management, who received his master’s and doctoral degrees in Northern Europe, I often come to think of IKEA as one of the most mission- and value-driven examples of disrupting an industry and the way people live globally today. ...

Help Employers Navigate Higher Ed Transcripts

These are very tumultuous times in higher education. Unprecedented numbers of institutions are facing closure, and quite a few are unsure how to proceed. Added to institutional pressures are issues around the ever-rising price of the college degree, and the overwhelming question as to the value of the degree, especially given the amount of debt that many students go into to finance their education...

Cultivating Self-Advocacy for All Students on College Campuses

Over the past year, an increasing number of students have come forward to speak out against school violence. And there has been increased attention placed on helping students seeking support if an incident occurs and exercising their right to speak out against those who may perpetuate such behaviors. With high-profile cases of sexual assault, such as Brock Turner from Stanford University in 2015 a...

Limited Characters Spell Austerity

Tweets, despite their limited characters, can offer some pretty telling narratives. In May 2017, we ran a piece titled Real Tweets, Fake News … and More from the NEJHE Beat, and then followed up in November with Chance of Tweetstorms. We noted that every NEJHE item automatically posts to Twitter, but that we also use Twitter to disseminate interesting news or opinion pieces from elsewhere. These...

A Harvard Attorney Whose Job Is Advising Undocumented Students in the Age of Trump

As an immigration attorney for the past 14 years in both private practice and legal services, I feel confident in saying there is not a single kind of immigrant or one kind of immigration story. There are multifarious individuals and families of diverse global origin bearing a cornucopia of ideas, perspectives, hopes and dreams. This past year, I was given another vantage point to observe the mani...