The Journal

December 17, 2017

College campuses are not immune to mounting safety and security concerns that stem from international and domestic terror threats, active shooter situations and more. Parents of students want to know that their children are safe when they leave home for the first time. The antennas raise even higher for parents when they hear their students plan to spend the next term studying abroad. What some m...

December 11, 2017

The 2018 Guide to New England Colleges & Universities data published by Boston magazine in association with the New England Board of Higher Education provided me the opportunity to examine the schools’ prices, defined as tuition plus fees, as a function of several independent factors including those listed below. (I conducted a similar study last year.) Percentage of freshman applicant...

December 1, 2017

Everyone knows money is important. For those privileged to have enough of it, money is not an obstacle for living a decent life or for college access. My husband and I frequently say, “Money isn’t everything,” but only the freedom of having money allows us to say such a thing. We didn’t want our own children restricted in their college choices. Of course, we hoped that they would consid...

November 28, 2017

If there is one area of common ground between the Republican leadership in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, it is that the time has finally come for those entities that are not currently paying their fair share of taxes to step forward and be held accountable. Both the Senate and House tax reform bills propose that these entities—which have traditionally been afforded favorable tax ...

November 15, 2017

In the spring, we ran a piece titled Real Tweets, Fake News … and More from the NEJHE Beat. 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 are often juxtaposed with something NEBHE has worked on in the past and sometimes presented with an added comment, but not always. Among some ...

October 31, 2017

The childhood bullying that once tormented kids at school is now following them home via social media and the internet. For many people growing up, being teased was almost a rite of passage—something we all experienced at some point in our lives. It never felt good and, in some cases, this teasing turned more serious and became bullying. Fortunately, more and more schools are taking a no-toleran...

October 30, 2017

Last year, I attended my 50th reunion at Amherst College. One evening at dinner under a tent, a former roommate, “Nick,” dominated the conversation with assertions that claims about human-induced climate change were a hoax and those about global warming a fraud. At first, I thought he was trying to be entertaining—or provocative. After a while, I realized my error. His was no parlor game; n...

October 23, 2017

Kaitlyn Iglesias is entering her senior year at Rutgers University-Newark ready to launch her career. She had internships at Ernst & Young in New York this summer and last. She is finishing up a degree in accounting and management information systems and is a member of Women BUILD (Business Undergraduates in Leadership Development). She’s beginning the semester with an offer from Ernst &...

October 12, 2017

We asked thousands of college students what they wish their college knew. Here’s what they said … Every year, Denver teacher Kyle Schwartz invites her third-graders to share on a Post-It note an answer to the prompt: “I wish my teacher knew …” The responses offer poignant glimpses into their young lives, revealing struggles with poverty, absent parents and social isolation. After Schw...

October 6, 2017

A college president spoke up to his students and campus community the other day. His concern was a timely topic: race and race relations, bigotry and racial slurs. And who was the president? Well, while we don’t often think of these leaders in this way, the superintendents of our three major military academies are the presidents of their universities. And this superintendent of the Air Force Aca...

September 28, 2017

Look around your campus this semester for some students who look unusually young, eager and attentive. It may not be, as faculty sometimes say, that “the students are looking younger every year” or that you yourself are aging rapidly. They may be students in an “Early College” program. Less evident at first gaze may be the multiple types of students within the ranks of Early College goers,...

September 25, 2017

When U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced Sept. 7 that her department would revisit how Title IX rules are enforced with respect to campus sexual assault, she said the first step would be a “transparent notice and comment process” to replace the 2011 “guidance” (and follow up 2014 guidance) that has been criticized for its one-size-fits-all presumption and lack of flexibility ...

September 19, 2017

It is difficult to travel on any road today without seeing solar panels on the rooftops of houses, larger solar farms across vast fields or wind turbines in the distance. With larger initiatives to create more environmentally sustainable energy and reduce carbon footprint, many universities are reviewing their options for alternative energy sources. Three of the most common types of alternative e...

September 5, 2017

Post-Labor Days. For many, that means time to put away the white pants and relish that last summer getaway. Few will reflect on the true meaning of Labor Day (and May Day) or the too-often-denigrated labor movement in general. Fewer will think of the 19th century mill girls in Lowell, Mass., and their successors who risked their jobs—and sometimes their lives—to create the day of recognition ...

August 28, 2017

Imagine that you have a big trip coming up to someplace you have never been before. You’ve been thinking about this trip for a long time, and many people have helped you plan it and figure out how to pay for it. Along the way, you’ve managed to book the ticket and reserve a place to stay. You are apprehensive about going, but all of your friends are getting ready for similar trips, and there i...

August 21, 2017

With high school populations declining throughout New England and in several other regions of the country, it’s only natural to be concerned about the fiscal challenges confronting our nation’s private colleges and universities. Forecasts by prominent higher education experts increasingly suggest that many, if not most, of our small private institutions will face closure in the decade ahead. H...

August 14, 2017

Recently, I read yet another higher education professional’s case for standardized testing, specifically that making such tests free and universal would help level the playing field for low-income and minority students seeking access to top colleges. But while the SAT’s hefty $57 fee contributes to the barriers low-income students face, eliminating it won’t solve the problem. Access to highe...

July 31, 2017

Higher education has provided New England with an economic advantage, as the region without strong natural resource advantages has relied on its higher education institutions (HEIs) and brainpower. A higher education-based economic advantage has enabled the region to develop strong well-paying technology and knowledge-based industries tied to New England’s academic research and development (R&am...

July 25, 2017

In the coming decades, the U.S. will see large-scale offshore wind energy (OWE) development in which hundreds of billions of dollars are invested in building and operating OWE capabilities that are price-competitive with fossil fuel-based electricity. European market commitment, investment in infrastructure and R&D focused on cost reduction has enabled this competitiveness. New England is pois...

July 12, 2017

On June 28, the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) convened members of the Commission on Higher Education and Employability (CHEE) in Providence to discuss concrete ways New England employers, education leaders and policymakers can work together to ensure a successful, equitable workforce future. The Commission comprises high-powered educators, employers, economists, policymakers and...

July 7, 2017

Regardless of where you come from, the ability to access and receive a high-quality education is the key to success. The dream of an accessible education will now become a reality for many New Hampshire youngsters, thanks to a new University of New Hampshire (UNH) initiative called the Granite Guarantee Program. The UNH Granite Guarantee will begin with the incoming freshman class in fall 2017....

June 26, 2017

A Massachusetts resident, Faustina began working on her college applications last August. In the beginning, the process was going well. However, as she began receiving acceptance letters and financial aid award letters, things became difficult. As an undocumented student, Faustina did not have a permanent residency card, which most colleges need in order to provide financial aid. Unwavering in her...

June 20, 2017

Strada Education Network is collaborating with Gallup, the world leader in consumer insights, to launch the Education Consumer Pulse. Through 350 daily interviews of U.S. adults ages 18 to 65, this three-year survey will create the largest set of education consumer insights in the nation to date. We believe understanding the consumer’s perspective is critical to addressing the many issues facing...

June 13, 2017

A NEJHE interview on the future of consolidating colleges and merging universities ... NEBHE has been deeply interested in how New England higher education institutions can collaborate with one another and with other leaders to confront threats to their economic sustainability. These threats stem partly from shifts in academic content and delivery, student demography and institutional finances�...

May 23, 2017

Karen Gross is senior counsel with Finn Partners, former president of Southern Vermont College and author of Breakaway Learners: Strategies for Post-Secondary Success with At-Risk Students, from which this piece is excerpted. (Endnotes have been deleted from this excerpt.) How we foster wise decision-making generally and among young people in particular has been the subject of numerous studies....

May 16, 2017

The classic image of a college classroom often includes a professor standing at the front of a room or hall, often standing near a chalkboard or projector screen, lecturing to a room full of 30 to 100 students diligently taking notes. This model of instruction, often referred to as direct instruction, however, is grounded in somewhat-outdated theories of learning behaviorism and cognitivism. Altho...

May 10, 2017

Tweeting is getting a bad name under President Trump. But let me implore you to pay attention to NEBHE’s Twitter feed @nebhe. You won't see any posts at 2:30 a.m. But it’s about the closest thing we have to a news service on New England higher education and the many areas it affects. In that way, it reminds me of why NEJHE was once called Connection. It was a bit too generic a name, but it nic...

May 2, 2017

Scanning internet news headlines on any given day will quickly confirm we live in litigious times ... especially when it comes to money and investing. Currently, higher education is being roiled by class-action lawsuits filed against high-profile institutions, including MIT, Yale and New York University, over management of their retirement plans. As the lawyers are deployed and the billable hours...

April 25, 2017

The Trump administration has sent mixed signals about the future of the DACA program, creating uncertainty among recipients and their families. In February, a leaked draft of an internal memo hinted that the Trump administration intends to cut the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. As of March 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was continuing to review DACA applica...

April 18, 2017

The Commission on Higher Education & Employability (Commission) held its opening event at the Rhode Island State House on Wednesday, April 12. The Commission is a collaboration of the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) and Gov. Gina M. Raimondo of Rhode Island, who is serving as chair. The Commission membership includes business leaders, college presidents, chancellors, state ...

April 12, 2017

Rhode Island Gov. Gina M. Raimondo joined the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) to announce the creation of a new regional Commission on Higher Education & Employability, designed to work with the private sector to improve the career readiness of New England college and university graduates. Raimondo will serve as the Commission’s chair. “When the private and public s...

April 11, 2017

Students in New England take increasingly varied pathways to a degree. They are highly mobile and move among two-year colleges and four-year public and private higher education institutions (HEIs), among four-year and two-year colleges and back, and transfer in-state and out-of state. Four in 10 students who begin college at a New England institution transfer from one institution to another at lea...

April 4, 2017

Learning the intricacies of STEM subjects can be a challenge. But teaching these complex subjects presents its own unique set of obstacles. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 48% of undergraduate students who entered STEM degree programs between 2003 and 2009 left them by spring 2009. Considering the rising demand for educated STEM professionals, students’ dissatisfact...

March 28, 2017

Colleges and Universities have experienced a noticeable increase of students diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) who are pursuing a postsecondary degree. This may be a victory for the population with ASD in terms of their general acceptance into institutions of higher education, but it also poses some real challenges for the faculty working with them in the classroom. Although this popu...

March 21, 2017

Most employers hiring college graduates take it for granted that these candidates are more qualified than other potential employees who don't have a degree. Many job postings emphasize a college degree as a requirement for a position. And there is longstanding evidence that people with college degrees make more money over their lifetime than those without a degree. Employers make a lot of assu...

March 13, 2017

There are two initiatives that can dramatically change the way college pricing and student debt are being handled under the current system. Both are commonsense solutions that would, if accepted, dramatically help students, graduates and families burdened by the cost of tuition and the loans they take to earn their degrees. First, income-based loan repayment (IBR) should be the default mechanis...

March 3, 2017

The recent controversy surrounding a proposed ban on immigration from seven Middle East countries recalls similar times in our history. More than 130 years ago, Chinese immigration was restricted. In 1924, Japanese immigrants were effectively barred from entering the U.S., and Mexicans living here during the Depression were the subject of repatriation, even those who were U.S. citizens. Other rest...

February 27, 2017

Tuition prices at colleges and universities are high. On that, pretty much everyone—from parents to students to college administrators—can agree. It’s also true that salaries and benefits are the single biggest chunk of every higher education institution’s (HEI) budget. And one of the largest and most difficult costs to contain is group employee health insurance. In fact, health insurance ...

February 21, 2017

Not long ago, “brand” was an unmentionable word in the higher education landscape—one that came with suspicious connotations of consumer packaged goods and retail. Today, however, there’s increasingly broad acceptance that a higher education institution’s (HEI’s) brand is critical to attracting and retaining the best students and faculty, as well as engaging alumni in meaningful ways. ...

February 6, 2017

It took me 15 years to figure out, but I finally did: When students are offered choices within assignments it increases buy-in and therefore motivation toward the task—and ultimately for the class itself. Back when I was parenting, we called it “choices within limits” (“you can have peas or carrots as your vegetable”), and it worked then too. Simply having the opportunity to make the cho...

January 30, 2017

University's purchase of GE site means opportunity for the region and Connecticut ... Sacred Heart University (SHU) has purchased General Electric’s (GE’s) former global headquarters site in Fairfield, Conn. This 66-acre parcel will become an extension of SHU’s nearby main campus, as well as its Stamford Graduate Center. The acquisition is a strategic and practical move for the university...

January 18, 2017

The New England Economic Partnership (NEEP) explored "What’s Ahead After This Historic Election?" at the group's outlook conference held Jan. 17 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Their general conclusion: New England's economy will stay robust through 2017 and 2018 ... but then watch out! (And that's just economists—groups of scientists, multiculturalists, educators, philosophers and oth...

January 10, 2017

It’s a Wednesday night in November and a doctor, a software engineer, a CFO and I are rearranging the furniture in a cramped, overheated room on the third floor of a late Victorian landmark in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood. A young professor arrives flushed from the cold and quickly jumps in to help. We swap stories about rush-hour traffic, complain about parking, exchange home renovation tips ...

January 3, 2017

Protecting public mission requires the courage to change ... Despite the serious headwinds buffeting small, rural, tuition-dependent public colleges, they can survive—and even thrive—where leadership is proactive, courageous and doubled-down on our mission to serve. Unfavorable demographics, inadequate state funding, disruptive technologies and increases in costs can either choke us or m...

December 19, 2016

Different images come to mind when thinking about college fraternities and sororities, depending on who you are. Some people love them, some hate them, and some have only experienced them through movies, like Animal House. Whether your images are positive or negative, one thing is constant: You envision a group of same-sex young people. But 2017 is knocking on our door and one of the major social...

November 29, 2016

Colleges and universities experienced something of a wakeup call in 2010, when hackers breached an Ohio State University system containing the social security numbers, dates of birth and physical addresses of 760,000 people. Though it was unlikely that data was released, the investigation and remediation effort was massive and incredibly costly, including offering 12 months of free credit-monitori...

November 21, 2016

Sanctuary? How will higher education fare under a President Donald Trump? The campaign’s misogyny shouldn’t sit well with a student body that is now majority-female. Its disavowal of climate changes won’t impress research universities. And the xenophobia won’t help economies and cultures bolstered by foreign enrollment. The number of foreign students in the U.S topped 1 million in 2015-16....

November 10, 2016

In September 2016, I wrote an op-ed for Harvard Business Review called “We Need a Better Way to Visualize People’s Skills." In it, I describe a Github of competencies for the workforce, but here’s how the same idea would translate into higher education. George McCully wrote recently in “Pushing Back on Higher Education as Trainer for High-Tech Jobs” (The New England Journal of Higher Ed...

November 7, 2016

The relationship between employer and employee has changed significantly over the past 40 years. One of the greatest changes in this relationship is in the nature of employee retirement. While pension reform at public and private colleges has helped ensure institutional financial viability, retirement security for employees has declined. With the redirection of retirement plans from defined ben...

October 21, 2016

Colleges and universities have a significant role to play in shaping the future of race and class relations in America. As exhibited in this year’s presidential election, race and class continue to divide us. Black Lives Matter movements, campus protests and police shootings are just a few examples of the proliferation of intolerance. It seems like we understand each other less each day. Higher ...

October 16, 2016

The recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in the Columbia University case granting students who serve as teaching or research assistants at private universities the right to unionize dealt a major blow to private higher education as we know it. The NLRB’s cavalier disregard for the complexities of a university education is breathtaking. In a long-anticipated decision, t...

October 11, 2016

Looking at the housing and living challenges facing U.S. communities, one thing is clear: Smaller things are coming our way. Even in regions where open space is plentiful, living quarters are shrinking as more people simplify and economize. New houses are being built that are strikingly small, with some totaling less than 500 square feet, about a fifth of the average 2,600 square feet for American...

October 3, 2016

A real (and perhaps not uncommon) anecdote: Two sets of researchers, using a respected national longitudinal data set, have been working on related but distinct topics, employing mainly descriptive approaches in their research. In the interests of informing their own work, one group asked the other to share its paper. Reading it, they see that some findings look unrealistic at best, if not inaccur...

September 27, 2016

Every September, I get a new fix of inspiration at the Business Innovation Factory (BIF) summit of innovators. Last week, I was at BIF’s 12th summit, my sixth. My main inspiration this year came from Dave Gray. The founder of the strategic design consultancy XPLANE, co-founder of Boardthing and author of Liminal Thinking gave a simple message: Shut off autopilot. As he said, the only place we...

September 19, 2016

Regularly reported statistics about high and growing student-loan debt levels, combined with increased rates of delinquency and default, have prompted calls to address the student-debt “crisis.” For New England, with its highly educated population and large higher education industry, student-loan debt is an important economic policy issue. Over the past decade, all six of the New England state...

September 13, 2016

In early 2015, I wrote an article for The New England Journal of Higher Education, titled “Living with Abundant Information: What’s a College to Do?” In that article, I described the sources and impact on colleges and universities of newly developed abundant information, elaborating on five areas that an institution interested in harvesting the potential of abundant information through innov...

September 6, 2016

Schools and teachers are looking for innovative ways to teach the “big ideas” emerging in the core curricula, especially in STEAM fields (science technology, engineering, arts and math). As a result, learning environments that support digital learning and educational technology on various platforms and devices are taking on ever-increasing importance in today’s schools. Change is already ...

August 31, 2016

Fruits of our labor. With terms like task creeping back into the language (as both a verb and a noun), the true origins of Labor Day may be as remote to today's students as Lupercalia. The day, of course, is meant not simply to mark the end of summer by gorging on hotdogs, but to honor workers ... including faculty and staff in and out of higher education and, by extension, the millions of undergr...

August 30, 2016

Mathematical modeling is an open-ended research subject where no definite answers exist for any problem. Math modeling enables thinking outside the box to connect different fields of studies together including statistics, algebra, calculus, matrices, programming and scientific writing. As an integral part of our society, it is the foundation for many economical, medical and eng...

August 22, 2016

Lifelong learning and advanced credentials are increasingly critical for our economy ... The “war for talent” is accelerating in the U.S. job market, as private-sector payrolls recently posted their 77th consecutive month of growth. Notably, today’s economy is demanding professionals with higher levels of education, as evidenced by the very low 2.5% unemployment rate for adults with a bac...

August 15, 2016

New England’s economy has improved, but economic opportunity and skills gaps contribute to slower growth in employment, income and social mobility than experienced in previous recoveries from recessions. With an aging population and relatively slow natural growth rates in the labor force, these gaps put the future of the New England economy at greater risk than that of other regions. There ...

August 9, 2016

A net present value analysis of business schools in Massachusetts ... Higher education institutions are increasingly being assessed on their ability to generate a positive return on investment (ROI) for their graduates. A variety of stakeholders use the ROI and similar metrics in the college decision-making process. Students, parents, policymakers, education institutions, and rating agencies al...

August 3, 2016

A few weeks ago, NEJHE highlighted a brief bibliography of what's been said about the major presidential candidates' positions on higher education policy. Since then, both candidates introduced their running mates. Here are a few recent articles from various sources on the vice presidential candidates' positions on higher ed ... Tim Kaine Tim Kaine's Political Summary on Issue: Higher Educat...

July 26, 2016

This past winter, one of my colleagues attended a higher education conference on diversity. She was pleased to learn that the conference facilitators had asked her to lead a discussion on religious diversity at the conference. She took her seat at the table at the appointed time and was preparing her materials when a conference participant approached her incredulously. “This conversation is abou...

July 20, 2016

Over the next two weeks, the two major U.S. parties will be pitching their platforms on issues facing Americans. It's a good time to learn more about their views on higher education and its connections to economic development. Much of the rhetoric has focused on ideas such as free college and combating student loan debt, as well as the candidates' involvement with for-profit higher ed outfits. Her...

July 13, 2016

Pecking orders. Harvard and Cornell recently tied for the U.S. higher ed institutions that educate the most CEOs who run U.S. companies listed by Forbes in the top 100. We would often pore over such lists of where top CEOs went to college and meticulously note how many graduated from New England colleges. The predictable story was how many went to Harvard, Yale and MIT and how few went to New Engl...

July 5, 2016

Remember the faculty lounge? When I began at my current institution back in 1999, there was one in every building—sometimes two! This public space—complete with industrial furniture, coffee pots smoldering on burners, and a mini-fridge with sticky notes all over it reminding people to clean out their stinky sandwiches—was higher education’s version of the office water coole...

June 28, 2016

Colleges finding Open Educational Resources offer solution to cost problem ... It was the first day of class at Northern Essex Community College (NECC) and a student in professor Mike Cross’s “Introduction to Organic & Biochemistry” class asked, “So, what about the textbook?” Another student responded, “Didn’t you read the syllabus? There isn’t a textbook. It’s free. It’...

June 21, 2016

NEBHE’s upcoming annual Leadership Summit scheduled for this coming October poses the question, “How Employable Are New England's College Graduates, and What Can Higher Education Do About It?” The Summit will address numerous well-chosen, commonly current questions in and around this topic, predicated on the assertion that “New England employers consistently claim that they can't find s...

June 15, 2016

New England’s unemployment rate stood at 4.4% in April, compared with 5% nationwide, according to the spring 2016 outlook delivered last week by the New England Economic Partnership (NEEP) to 50 or so economists and others gathered at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. New Hampshire posted the second lowest unemployment rate in the U.S. at 2.6%. But all New England states are projected to ha...

June 6, 2016

The New England Educational Opportunity Association (NEOA) drew more than 250 TRIO and college access professionals to its 40th annual conference in Massachusetts earlier this spring. NEOA's mission is to advocate for access to and success in postsecondary education for low-income individuals, “first-generation” college students, and students with disabilities—and to develop the...

May 31, 2016

Amy Lapierre sat on the bleachers at Thomas College in Waterville, Maine, adjusting the tassel on her cap. She was surrounded by graduates who are years older than her getting ready to line up, and she nervously peered through the crowd looking for her classmate, Reid Lanpher. On May 14, Lapierre and Lanpher, both 18 years old, marched for their associate degrees from Thomas. On June 12, they wil...

May 16, 2016

Demographic changes, shrinking federal and state support, a lethargic economic recovery, anemic endowment returns and increasing wariness of student loan debt comprise a perfect storm converging on America’s mid-sized colleges and universities, threatening to swamp their finances in seas of red ink. Faced with an urgent need to address cost structures, these institutions are scrambling to a...

May 3, 2016

With roots going back to the 13th century, the modern system of academic degrees functions as one of the most important ways to signal mastery of knowledge. The degree serves as a currency for accessing opportunities. Yet as new areas of knowledge and demand for particular competencies expand, traditional ways of measuring mastery may fall short of fully capturing the learning that happens in t...

April 27, 2016

More Underrepresented Groups. Even before Americans began retreating from educational equity amid the recent backlash against "political correctness," our empathy was directed at a fairly traditional set of underrepresented populations: African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Native Americans and students with disabilities (many of whom are being reminded only now that their student loans can...

April 19, 2016

Free speech is fast becoming a hot-button issue at colleges across the country, with campus protests often mirroring those of the public-at-large on issues such as racism or tackling institution-specific matters such as college governance. On the surface, the issue of campus free speech may seem like a purely legal concern, yet in reality, colleges should also treat it as a public relations proble...

April 11, 2016

My talk is about Experiential Education and Liberal Learning. This topic has been on my mind ever since I graduated from a liberal arts college many years ago and began my first real job, whereupon I discovered—to my surprise and at some cost to my ego—how much I did not know about putting my ideas to effective use in the world beyond academia. But in addition to my personal interests, the rel...

April 6, 2016

Poaching. Florida Gov. Rick Scott invited Yale University to bring its $25 billion endowment to his state after Connecticut legislators proposed taxing Yale to address the state's budget shortfall. Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy (who incidentally was just named winner of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for his decision to publicly welcome a Syrian refugee family to Connecticut) rej...

March 29, 2016

In June 2015, we argued in a NEJHE article “Reducing Math Obstacles to Higher Education,” that intensified efforts to improve math education may make sense for many students, but for other students–those who lack ability or interest in math–the prescription of more math limits their ability to attain a college credential. As a result, heightened math requirements can limit some students’...

March 22, 2016

Sir Ken Robinson called it “academic inflation.” Boston analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies called it “upcredentialing.” One person who calls himself Biffo the Bear in an Internet chat room called it “degreeification.” Whichever term you pick to discuss the increasing demand for higher education degrees in our workforce, the fact remains that we need our citizenry to be college p...

February 23, 2016

Spring Has Sprung? You'd never know by the snow on the ground in many parts of New England, but the announcements of spring commencement speakers at the region's higher education institutions have begun. Capt. Richard Phillips will deliver the commencement address at Vermont's Castleton University in May. The former captain of the Maersk Alabama was enrolled at Castleton as an art major when he wa...

February 11, 2016

In 2010, I wrote an essay, "The New Indentured Educated Class," for The New England Journal of Higher Education. This piece was pivotal in raising public awareness about a new group of Americans, an enormous group of us—educated and deeply in debt. At that point, few were talking about the student loan debt crisis, aside from me and a couple of others. However, things have changed—politicians ...

February 8, 2016

The lively experiment that is the college and university in America is characterized by sustained struggles and tempered triumphs that have both undergirded and challenged the fundamental foundation of the academy. The economist and philosopher Kenneth Minogue conveyed in his book, The Concept of the University that the university can and should allow ideologies to be debated within its gates. How...

January 27, 2016

It was disgruntled students that coined this phrase on my last campus. The "Bounce” was costing them precious time spent chasing signatures and removing often-unnecessary registration “holds” when they wanted only to finally get to class! Individually, the students praised our office staff, but begged us to please “talk to each other.” Crazy thought, right? All this ...

January 20, 2016

The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) will hold its 14th annual New England Higher Education Excellence Awards celebration and dinner in Boston on Friday, March 4, 2016. Here is a bit about the 2016 recipients ... The David and Rosamond Putnam Family of New Hampshire will receive NEBHE's 2016 Governor Walter R. Peterson Award for Leadership, named for the late New Hampshire...

January 12, 2016

Advice on how to connect and lead ... Whether you are a first-time college or university president, or one with years of experience leading an institution, an essential part of the job is communicating. While it might sound obvious, the importance of reaching out, connecting and building and maintaining relationships cannot be stressed enough. Done well, it can lead you toward great success, and ...

January 12, 2016

Doing Good … Says Who? Stories from Volunteers, Nonprofit, Donors and Those They Want to Help; Connie Newton and Fran Early; Two Harbors Press; Minneapolis; 2015 Community service is on the rise in higher education. Traditional concepts of charity are being challenged in service learning programs, in international development and social work classes as well as divinity schools. Increasing num...

December 29, 2015

Regis North to offer bachelor's degree completion programs in nursing, public health and other health sciences ... With liberal arts colleges and universities reporting losses in student enrollment and retention, and our nation’s workforce growing older and more diverse, colleges and universities are being forced to rethink their approach to educating and engaging students. Regis is no e...

December 14, 2015

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...

December 7, 2015

Efforts to unionize students at private universities are gaining momentum. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has agreed to reconsider whether graduate students at private nonprofit colleges and universities should be treated as employees under the National Labor Relations Act. The case, New School, Case No. 02- RC-143009, involves a United Auto Workers petition to organize graduate student...

November 6, 2015

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...

November 4, 2015

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...

October 27, 2015

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...

October 20, 2015

NEEP delivers latest forecast ... this time with a special focus on infrastructure … Is it because the economy is not in crash mode (we don’t think) that the crowd at the New England Economic Partnership (NEEP) fall 2015 outlook conference was decidedly smaller than in NEEP’s heydey? Or is it because it’s hard to get people to pay attention to regional issues? Especially infrastructure...

October 13, 2015

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...

October 7, 2015

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...

September 29, 2015

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...

September 23, 2015

Last week, I was at Providence’s Trinity Rep covering BIF2015, the Business Innovation Factory's summit of innovators. It was BIF’s 11th summit, my fifth as a guest. I was attending under a quasi-media category called RCUS, standing for the BIF mantra of “Random Collisions of Unusual Suspects.” BIF founder and "chief catalyst" Saul Kaplan opened the talks by noting that earlier in th...

September 8, 2015

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...

September 1, 2015

I was able to hear Stanley Fish speak at the annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities in January 2004. Fish, a literary critic, had become dean of arts and sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)—a position he has now vacated. Fish has published widely, usually upholding the ideals of our nation’s colleges and universities in his writing. ...