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Even though the 2012 NAICU Annual Meeting is history, you can continue to benefit and learn from the many presentations and speeches that were offered, and are now available on line.
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Outcomes/Careers/Benefits of Higher Ed
College-Educated Workers Gaining Jobs, High School Grads Losing Them
New York Times - Economix Blog
January 9, 2012Still don't believe us when we say that college is worth it? Just look at the latest jobs numbers. In December, workers with bachelor's degrees or other postsecondary educations gained jobs. On the other hand, the number of workers with high school diplomas or less who were employed fell. Interestingly, though, the least-skilled workers have also added jobs over the last year. The number of high school dropouts who had jobs rose by 126,000 from December 2010 to December 2011.
Santorum: All Students Shouldn’t Be Pushed to Go to College
Wall Street Journal - Washington Wire
January 7, 2012Former Sen. Rick Santorum expanded his populist message into education Saturday, accusing President Barack Obama and others of "snobbery" for pushing all kids to go to college. It's the latest wrinkle in Mr. Santorum emphasizing his credentials as a blue-collar Republican now that the GOP race has moved to New Hampshire. But the argument that students should avoid higher education is increasingly rare, as much of American manufacturing, which Mr. Santorum hopes to revive, requires advanced studies.
Elephant in the Room
Inside Higher Ed
January 5, 2012When the Association of American Law Schools gathers in Washington today for a three-day conference, few sessions will address a crisis making headlines: the increasingly prominent questions about transparency, job placement rates and "value" in American legal education, and the attendant concern that law schools could be next (after the "vocational" and for-profit programs subject to the U.S. government's new "gainful employment" rules) in line for federal scrutiny and regulation.
How Art History Majors Power the U.S. Economy
Bloomberg Views - Column
January 5, 2012In a recent column for Real Clear Markets, Bill Frezza of the Competitive Enterprise Institute lauded the Chinese government's policy of cutting financing for any educational program for which 60 percent of graduates can't find work within two years. His assumption is that, because of government education subsidies, the U.S. is full of liberal-arts programs that couldn't meet that test. There are many problems with this simplistic prescription, but the most basic is that it ignores what American college students actually study.
For-Profit College Students Face Higher Debt, More Unemployment, Report Finds
Huffington Post
January 4, 2012Students attending for-profit colleges wind up with much higher student-loan debts, are less likely to be employed after graduation and generally earn less than similar students at public or private nonprofit schools, according to a recent paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study by a team of Harvard professors sheds new light on the differing fates of students who attend for-profit colleges and those who attend traditional institutions by directly comparing students of similar socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds.
New study shows architecture, arts degrees yield highest unemployment
Washington Post
January 4, 2012According to a study being released Wednesday by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, among recent college graduates, those with the highest rates of unemployment had undergraduate degrees in architecture, the arts and the humanities. The recent college graduates with the lowest rates of unemployment had degrees in health, education, and agriculture and natural resources. Those with business and engineering degrees also fared relatively well.
What’s a College Major Worth?
Chronicle of Higher Education - Commentary
January 4, 2012Ever since I read about the Chinese Ministry of Education's decision to phase out college majors that don't give graduates marketable skills, I've been pondering the parallels between China's higher ed headaches and those of the United States. There has for some time been a marked separation in this country between two visions of college education. The first expects that undergraduates will acquire an important knowledge base and analytical habits of mind. The second sees particular value in the pursuit of labor market credentials in, say, crop science or accounting. These two approaches need not be irrevocably opposed.
No benefit in mischaracterizing ills of higher education
Houston Chronicle - Opinion Piece
January 4, 2012Those who promote extreme pessimism about the future of U.S. higher education should more closely study the history of this remarkable industry. U.S. higher education actually has been quite adaptive to new market demands and societal pressures. Higher education also plays an indispensable national role. The long-term contributions of colleges and universities to state economic development, scientific and medical discovery, and work force development clearly outweigh their near-term costs.
The Value of Elite Colleges
Human Resource Executive Online
January 3, 2012Whether it makes sense to focus on hiring students from the most competitive, elite colleges is a perennial question for employers, and many of them vacillate back and forth about whether it is worth doing. In all the studies, the effect on one's subsequent careers of attending an elite college drops dramatically once we hold aside the fact that those students were more able -- even before they went to college. The exception is for minorities and for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
Instead of Work, Younger Women Head to School
New York Times
December 29, 2011Many young women seem to be postponing their working lives to get more education. There are now - for the first time in three decades - more young women in school than in the work force. Though young women in their late teens and early 20's view today's economic lull as an opportunity to upgrade their skills, their male counterparts are more likely to take whatever job they can find. The longer-term consequences, economists say, are that the next generation of women may have a significant advantage over their male counterparts, whose career options are already becoming constrained.
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