Editor’s Note: The Summer 2000 issue of Connection, NEJHE’s predecessor, included a series of pieces headlined “Charter Colleges: Evolution of a Plan,” exploring whether public colleges could operate more efficiently and produce higher quality educational results if they were freed from the controls imposed by state bureaucracies.
Community colleges are under inc...
The Gates Unbarred: A History of University Extension at Harvard, 1910-2009; Michael Shinagel; Harvard University Extension Monograph, Puritan Press, Hollis, N.H., 2009; $14.95
Reviewed by Alan R. Earls, a Boston-area writer who earned a graduate certificate through Harvard Extension.
The old saying, attributed variously to John F. Kennedy and Count Ciano, that success has many fathers might...
You’d think that being the nation’s only private, urban, two-year technical college might be a source of some notoriety, especially if that institution also traces its history back to a bequest in Benjamin Franklin’s will. But even among New England’s higher education community, Boston’s Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology (BFIT) is a hidden jewel.
The reasons to pay attention t...
Accessibility, affordability and accountability characterize the work of President Barack Obama who, since taking office, has worked with Congress to influence policy that affects both K-12 and higher education. Stimulus funds in the 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act provided nearly $50 billion to states to help offset state budget cuts and to spur initial reform efforts. Subsequen...
Today’s fast-paced and Internet-driven society provides a lot of opportunities for innovation in the college financial aid world. As tuition costs continue to rise faster than average incomes, more students are turning to private lenders and other third-party organizations to finance their educations; the Harvard Educational Review estimates that there was a 76% increase in the amount of debt th...
NEBHE’s compendium of higher education trend data has been a widely consulted collection of state, regional and national statistics for more than half a century. The 60-plus tables and charts richly juxtapose figures on college readiness, higher education enrollment, financing and much more, while offering a shorthand of New England’s cultural and economic vitality.The data are drawn f...
In the fall of 2005, the Academic Council of Tufts University proposed a new slogan to characterize its mission in educating students: “New Leaders for a Changing World.” Many colleges, of course, have slogans of various kinds. The challenge is how each translates its words into action in an authentic manner.
This theory of leadership (proposed by Robert Sternberg, co-author of this article)...
Why improving college transfer pathways makes good sense for New England
CHARI A. LEADER
FROM THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION, WINTER 2010
It’s rare for policymakers to think of higher education pathways beyond their own experiences as traditional students. Many went to college directly after high school, stayed in dorms and graduated ready for careers. But the world tod...
Incorporating cost management and productivity improvements into financing decisions ...
Higher education is being challenged to increase access and degree attainment for all student groups—a tall order under any circumstances, but particularly daunting in the current economy. To do this, institutional and policy leaders will need to find ways to reduce costs and permanently reduce spending dem...
A few years ago, Mathew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker generated big laughs and big box office sales in Failure to Launch, an absurd comedy about a 26-year old man still living in his parents’ basement, spending his days watching television and playing video games while the world passed him by. The film was closer to the truth than many of us have been willing to admit.
Young American men...
In the fall of 2005, the Academic Council of Tufts University proposed a new slogan to characterize its mission in educating students: “New Leaders for a Changing World.” Many colleges, of course, have slogans of various kinds. The challenge is how each translates its words into action in an authentic manner.
This theory of leadership (proposed by Robert Sternberg, co-author of this article)... 
A few years ago, Mathew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker generated big laughs and big box office sales in Failure to Launch, an absurd comedy about a 26-year old man still living in his parents’ basement, spending his days watching television and playing video games while the world passed him by. The film was closer to the truth than many of us have been willing to admit.
Young American men...