By Robert A. Scott, President, Adelphi University
What is the purpose of college? I believe undergraduate education is and must be as much about character and citizenship as about careers and commerce.
American Higher Education: An Obligation to the Future
By Vartan Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation of New York
Is higher education meant to help develop an inquiring mind and a deep appreciation for the value of how knowledge enriches one’s lifelong personal and professional achievements—or, should it be simply focused on gaining the skills to pursue a well paying career?
Posted in Article, Research, What Is the Value? Tagged with: debt, information, jobs, liberal arts, Morrill Act, science, skills, technology, Truman Commission, value, Vannevar Bush
Recognizing the Real and the Potential: Fields Medal for Mathematical Efforts
The Fields Medal is awarded every four years on the occasion of the International Congress of Mathematicians to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement.
Paying for Higher Education and Research
By Don M. Randel, President Emeritus, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the University of Chicago
The market has made higher education in the United States what it is, complete with features that many wish to complain about, including certain kinds of facilities and staff that contribute to rising costs.
Higher Education in a Global, Digital Information Economy
By Arthur Levine, President, Woodrow Wilson Foundation and former President and Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University
In the years ahead, consumers and stakeholders will demand that all higher education institutions be updated to meet contemporary needs. This can occur either by repairing the existing institutions or by creating new institutions to replace them.
Posted in Article, The Future Tagged with: Carnegie, Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, digital, information, master plan, MOOCs, revolution, Truman Commission
Research Universities Power U.S. Innovation and Prosperity
By Phyllis Wise, Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
If you use a GPS device, a mouse, or a microwave oven, take antibiotics, have an eye implant, or are reading this on a tablet, you can thank America’s research universities.
Posted in Article, Funding Tagged with: funding, innovation, investment, Morrill Act, research, technology
A 21st Century Education: What Do Students Need Know?
By Richard Ekman, President of the Council of Independent Colleges
What should an educated person of the 21st century know and what does that means for the ways in which U.S. research universities ought to strengthen their teaching effectiveness?
Posted in Article, The Future Tagged with: curriculum, individualize, MOOCs, research, teaching, undergraduate
Can We Meet the Challenge?
By Mary Sue Coleman, President of the University of Michigan
How will it feel to become a second class nation? Inferior in technological innovation, second class in artistic creativity, a follower rather than a leader? This is possible—not certain—but a very real danger if the United States continues on its present course.
Posted in Article, Research Tagged with: "brain drain", interdisciplinary, research, risk-taking, science, undergraduate
The Liberal Arts and Presidential Leadership
By Nannerl O. Keohane, Senior Scholar, Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs, Princeton University, and former President of Wellesley College (1981-1993) and Duke University (1993-2004)
Liberal arts (and sciences) are the best possible preparation for success in the learned professions—law, medicine, teaching—as well as in the less traditionally learned but increasingly arcane professions of business, finance, and high-tech innovation.
Posted in Article, Careers Tagged with: crisis, leaders, liberal arts, Martha Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, preparation, rewards, undergraduate
The Real Crisis in Higher Education
By John L. Hennessy, President, Stanford University
Much has been written about the rising costs of higher education and increasing student debt levels, but hidden amid the conversation is another crisis with even more profound implications—the completion rate for today’s college students.
Better, More Affordable Colleges Start Online
By L. Rafael Reif, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
While students worry that they cannot afford a college education, U.S. colleges and universities know they cannot really afford to educate them either. At technology-intensive research universities, it costs three times as much to educate an undergraduate as they receive in net tuition.
For What It’s Worth: The Value of a University Education
By Amy Gutmann, President, University of Pennsylvania
Do universities provide private and public benefits commensurate with their private and public costs? This is a complex, but not impossible, question to answer.
Never Eat Your Seed Corn
By Dr. Clifton R. Wharton, Jr., President Emeritus, Michigan State University; Chancellor Emeritus, State University of New York System; Former Chairman and CEO, TIAA-CREF; Former Chairman, Rockefeller Foundation; U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
There have been dramatic changes and declines in the levels and sources of financial support for higher education in the past few decades. Why is this happening?
A New Strategy to Maintain America’s Position of Global Preeminence
By Robert Birgeneau, Chancellor Emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley
American research and teaching universities have been the envy of the world for six decades. Unfortunately, their record of excellence and achievement may not continue to hold up—and if it does not, we may find ourselves losing our position as worldwide leaders.
Posted in Article, Funding Tagged with: "Science the Endless Frontier", grants, Morrill Act, research, Truman Commission, Vannevar Bush
Research Universities: American Exceptionalism?
By Henry Rosovsky, Professor of Economics, Emeritus, Harvard University
Domestically, American higher education is the subject of almost unprecedented criticism. “Too expensive and inefficient and not a good investment” is a common conclusion. But in international discussions and evaluations of higher education, American universities are frequently called “the envy of the world.” What explains this paradox?
Posted in Article, The Future Tagged with: academic freedom, culture, governance, human contact, Jonathan Cole, merit, nonprofit, research
Fault Lines in the Compact: Higher Education and the Public Interest of the United States
By Ronald J. Daniels, President, Johns Hopkins University;
Phillip M. Spector, Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, Johns Hopkins University;
Rebecca Goetz, Research Assistant
The relationship between government and the university in the United States is, in the minds of many commentators, fraught.
Posted in Article, Funding Tagged with: "Science the Endless Frontier", aid, American dream, Carnegie, cost, innovation, Josipa Roksa, knowledge-based, Morrill Act, research, Richard Arum, Truman Commission, Vannevar Bush
Are Our Colleges and Universities Failing Us?
By John Etchemendy, Provost, Stanford University
Finding a more efficient way to deliver a truly high-quality college education is extremely difficult, but is the only way to solve the cost crisis in higher education.
Posted in Article, Careers Tagged with: Academically Adrift, cost, debt, employers, Josipa Roksa, knowledge economy, MOOCs, Richard Arum, wage premium
The Soul of the University
By Nicholas Lemann, Professor of Journalism and Dean Emeritus, Columbia Journalism School
For many people who have spent their lives working in higher education, mass higher education and research universities make for a perfect fit: together they express both the public service and the intellectual ambitions of educators. But they aren’t the same idea.
Posted in Article, The Future Tagged with: Carnegie, competitiveness, crisis, Higher Education Summit, John Henry Newman, leaders, master plan, Morrill Act, research, the idea of a university
