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 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...
Polls Show: Castleton Making a DifferenceDuring the past 11 years as president at Castleton, I have suggested to all our incoming classes and current students what they need to remember: Their mission is to make a difference in their college and our wider community before they go out to make a difference in the world.We have another new initiative at Castleton, a dream in the making over the past ...
Photo: Presidents who signed the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) seen gathered in 2007. (Courtesy of Second Nature.)
Preparedness. Opportunity. Innovation. These words capture the essence of higher education’s critical role in creating a healthy, just and sustainable society.
Leaders in higher education are standing up to the greatest challenge o...
Only a generation ago, universities like Northeastern and Boston University had campuses strategically sprinkled throughout eastern Massachusetts. Lesley University offered graduate education programs across the U.S. BU had a contract with the U.S. Army to deliver master’s programs on military bases throughout Europe. Mega-high-tech companies, like Digital Equipment Corp., volunteered their ...
Updated May 2012 ...The six-state New England region's population grew by a sluggish 3.8% between 2000 and 2010—while the nation's as a whole grew by 9.7%, according to U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 population figures released in December.Among other highlights:• United Van Lines, the nation’s largest household goods mover, classified four of the six New England states as &ldquo...
Knowledge is humanity’s first and final frontier. From the Edenic exodus to flights beyond earth, our mythic narratives reveal that going where no one has gone before to learn what no one has known before drives us like no other quest.That quest, for many millennium largely driven by spiritual needs, has become core to economic and social progress. Historian Steven Johnson credits the exchan...
No sooner has the Net Price Calculator wave crashed ashore, the next wave of college-choice transparency in the form of third-party data aggregators is threatening to engulf us. A Net Value Calculator can help us recapture the high ground.
Since last October, Net Price Calculators (NPCs) have become a fact of life for American colleges and universities.
Some are doing the bare minimum to co...
On April 3, NEBHE convened hundreds of New England opinion leaders at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston to discuss "Locally and Regionally Engaged: New England Colleges and Universities as Drivers of Innovation, Workforce and Economic Development." NEBHE Program Coordinator (and videographer) Erica Pritchard and NEJHE Executive Editor John O. Harney caught up with keynote speaker Babson Coll...
Updated April 2012 ...
New England public schools were expected to award more than 147,000 high school diplomas in 2008-09.
Fully 78% of New England 9th-graders graduate from high school in the "normal" four years time, compared with 70% nationally.
Nearly a dozen foreign countries outperform the U.S. in the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds with a high school credential.
Nationally, Latino yo...
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 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... 
Polls Show: Castleton Making a DifferenceDuring the past 11 years as president at Castleton, I have suggested to all our incoming classes and current students what they need to remember: Their mission is to make a difference in their college and our wider community before they go out to make a difference in the world.We have another new initiative at Castleton, a dream in the making over the past ... 
Photo: Presidents who signed the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) seen gathered in 2007. (Courtesy of Second Nature.)
Preparedness. Opportunity. Innovation. These words capture the essence of higher education’s critical role in creating a healthy, just and sustainable society.
Leaders in higher education are standing up to the greatest challenge o... 
Only a generation ago, universities like Northeastern and Boston University had campuses strategically sprinkled throughout eastern Massachusetts. Lesley University offered graduate education programs across the U.S. BU had a contract with the U.S. Army to deliver master’s programs on military bases throughout Europe. Mega-high-tech companies, like Digital Equipment Corp., volunteered their ... 
Knowledge is humanity’s first and final frontier. From the Edenic exodus to flights beyond earth, our mythic narratives reveal that going where no one has gone before to learn what no one has known before drives us like no other quest.That quest, for many millennium largely driven by spiritual needs, has become core to economic and social progress. Historian Steven Johnson credits the exchan... 
No sooner has the Net Price Calculator wave crashed ashore, the next wave of college-choice transparency in the form of third-party data aggregators is threatening to engulf us. A Net Value Calculator can help us recapture the high ground.
Since last October, Net Price Calculators (NPCs) have become a fact of life for American colleges and universities.
Some are doing the bare minimum to co...