I realized how poor my family was when I was a high school senior. While filling out a financial aid form to go to college, I looked at my mom’s tax return to see how much she made. I asked her if it was a mistake. It wasn’t. She made $11,000 a year to support a family of four. Today I make four times as much as my mom did mainly because of one reason. Not dogged ingenuity or self-determinatio...
This paper, like many being written these days, deals with the “problem” of student retention in higher education. But unlike most, this paper focuses not on the problem of retention per se but rather on how institutional leaders think about student retention, completion, and success–how the way they frame their concerns about retention can give rise to a different sort of problem. Something...
Many faculty and staff working in higher education lament the increasing—some would say unending—involvement of the parents of our college-aged students. We denigrate such individuals as “helicopter” parents, and when the contact occurs in person as opposed to through the phone or email, we call them “lawn mower” parents. There’s even a Wikipedia ref...
I have spent much of my working life studying and promoting student loans. As a good liberal Democrat, I spent years arguing for the expansion of the old Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) which had its roots in Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. My professional life included stints working for one of the nonprofit FFELP agencies and being a co-founder of an entirely private nonprofit, ...
Late last month, NEBHE senior fellow and Massachusetts Board of Higher Education Chair Charles Desmond and I launched a series of interviews with key leaders in New England philanthropy. Our goal was to paint a picture of what philanthropies see as the key issues and challenges facing higher education and how potential funders can have the most meaningful impacts on education in New England.
Our ...
Is demography really destiny?
The makeup of the population and the perceived value of education are changing. So this year following the decennial census, we're presenting our demography figures a few ways. (We also presented a set in January.)
The universities of the Connecticut State University System (CSUS) attracted more than 7,000 students of color this year—a 35% increase since 200...
The Education Department released College Affordability and Transparency Lists on Thursday. The 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act requires the Education Department to produce six lists, with three examining tuition and fees and three examining each institution's average price of attendance minus grants and scholarships. The lists are also divided by type of institution (public/private, two-yea...
Architecture and Academe: College Buildings in New England Before 1860; Bryant F. Tolles Jr.; University Press of New England, 2011
It’s not the topic that New England’s higher education institutions generally boast about, but for many it is their most obvious attribute—the brick, stone, mullioned, porticoed and columned facades that helped set the standard for what much of coll...
On Wednesday, the House Education and Workforce Committee approved the second of five total planned bills on federal education reform for the 112th Congress. By a vote of 34 to 5, the committee advanced legislation (H.R. 2218) which would allow governors, state education agencies, and charter school boards to parcel out funding to expand or duplicate successful charter schools. States without caps...
We invited each of the six New England governors to write articles on future challenges facing higher education in their respective states. ...
The Future of Higher Education in Connecticut
by Dannel P. Malloy, Governor of Connecticut
Outwardly, the results appear impressive—growth in enrollments and degrees granted, expanded campuses and program offerings, and a well-known reputation ...
I realized how poor my family was when I was a high school senior. While filling out a financial aid form to go to college, I looked at my mom’s tax return to see how much she made. I asked her if it was a mistake. It wasn’t. She made $11,000 a year to support a family of four. Today I make four times as much as my mom did mainly because of one reason. Not dogged ingenuity or self-determinatio... 
This paper, like many being written these days, deals with the “problem” of student retention in higher education. But unlike most, this paper focuses not on the problem of retention per se but rather on how institutional leaders think about student retention, completion, and success–how the way they frame their concerns about retention can give rise to a different sort of problem. Something... 
Many faculty and staff working in higher education lament the increasing—some would say unending—involvement of the parents of our college-aged students. We denigrate such individuals as “helicopter” parents, and when the contact occurs in person as opposed to through the phone or email, we call them “lawn mower” parents. There’s even a Wikipedia ref... 
I have spent much of my working life studying and promoting student loans. As a good liberal Democrat, I spent years arguing for the expansion of the old Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) which had its roots in Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. My professional life included stints working for one of the nonprofit FFELP agencies and being a co-founder of an entirely private nonprofit, ... 
Is demography really destiny?
The makeup of the population and the perceived value of education are changing. So this year following the decennial census, we're presenting our demography figures a few ways. (We also presented a set in January.)
The universities of the Connecticut State University System (CSUS) attracted more than 7,000 students of color this year—a 35% increase since 200... 
The Education Department released College Affordability and Transparency Lists on Thursday. The 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act requires the Education Department to produce six lists, with three examining tuition and fees and three examining each institution's average price of attendance minus grants and scholarships. The lists are also divided by type of institution (public/private, two-yea... 
Architecture and Academe: College Buildings in New England Before 1860; Bryant F. Tolles Jr.; University Press of New England, 2011
It’s not the topic that New England’s higher education institutions generally boast about, but for many it is their most obvious attribute—the brick, stone, mullioned, porticoed and columned facades that helped set the standard for what much of coll... 
We invited each of the six New England governors to write articles on future challenges facing higher education in their respective states. ...
The Future of Higher Education in Connecticut
by Dannel P. Malloy, Governor of Connecticut
Outwardly, the results appear impressive—growth in enrollments and degrees granted, expanded campuses and program offerings, and a well-known reputation ...