In the past several decades, the world has experienced an explosion of student mobility that transcends domestic borders. The United States has benefited greatly from this trend—there were a record 765,000 international students studying at U.S. colleges and universities during the 2011-12 academic year—but this is changing, and quickly. China is spending a quarter trillion dollars a year on its ... Read More »
To look at the data and read stories in the media, post-secondary education is in trouble. According to the Council of Graduate Schools, enrollments dipped at U.S. graduate schools for both the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 academic years (the last two years for which there is data). Business and law degrees—those stalwarts of higher ed—have had decreases in applications in recent ... Read More »
The romantic notion that adults come back to higher education for personal enrichment and self-directed intellectual pursuits does not hold water. After nearly 25 years working with adult students, I have met only a very small number who are pursuing a degree for the pure satisfaction of it. Instead, the vast majority are in it for a better life, which ... Read More »
You hear the word “employability” everywhere you go these days, which is no surprise when domestic and international unemployment rates are what they are. Inevitably, the discussion about workers’ readiness for real and beneficial work inevitably turns to the relationship between education and economic development. And although this relationship gets periodically debated, most of the developed and developing world has ... Read More »