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Post-Annual Meeting Resources

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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Another Highlight


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Outcomes/Careers/Benefits of Higher Ed


Stopping The 'Brain Drain' Of The U.S. Economy

NPR - All Things Considered
February 5, 2012

Economist Paul Kedrosky with the Kauffman Foundation says elite schools sending a bigger share of their graduates into finance and consulting is not new; they've been doing it for at least two decades. Kedrosky tells NPR's Guy Raz that what's different now is that those students have essentially used their talents to grow the financial sector in ways that are unhealthy for the overall economy. "It's grown as a proportion of the economy in a way that we haven't seen since the years leading up to the Great Depression," Kedrosky says.

The liberal arts: Back to basics

Pittsburgh, Pa., Tribune-Review - Editorial
February 4, 2012

A new survey should prompt renewed focus on a fundamental higher-education truth: The skills that liberal-arts studies instill - critical thinking, logical reasoning, clear writing - are crucial for success. Those who have such "general skills" can better adapt to various jobs and life challenges - an edge over those who don't. That's a result of both those skills and the self-discipline needed to master them.

Could a College Scorecard Backfire? It Did for Law Students

The Atlantic
February 3, 2012

A group of lawyers has filed suits against a dozen different law schools accusing them of using rosy, and grossly distorted, jobs data to dupe students into applying. They followed three similar suits filed last year. Yes, these cases sound like a bad joke - If a law school loses a suit to its recently graduated students, does that make it a terrible law school or a great one? - but they offer a lesson that the administration should keep in mind if it's serious about pushing schools to collect job numbers. Bad data can be much, much worse than no data at all. And without serious oversight, there's a good chance you'll end up with some terribly misleading numbers.

U.S. college ratings game set for shakeup

Reuters
February 3, 2012

An elite California college's admission this week that it tried to boost its reputation by inflating the test scores of incoming freshmen has stoked a heated debate over the outsized influence and controversial methodology of commercial "best college" lists. But behind the furor over the fraud at Claremont McKenna College is a crescendo of calls from academics, politicians and parents for new rating systems that would measure what really matters: how effectively an institution educates.

Why Go to College at All?

New York Times - The Choice Blog
February 2, 2012

Is college worth it? Recently some strenuous arguments have been leveled against the value of a college degree. For more insight into those arguments, we turned to Dale J. Stephens, 20, the founder of UnCollege, which urges students to "hack their education" by finding their own pathways to success. Mr. Stephens, 20, is a Thiel fellow who spent his middle and high school years "unschooling," and then left college after a brief time there. We asked Mr. Stephens for his responses to the five main arguments most often given for going to college. Here's what he had to say.

Nevada grads worry about their futures

Marketplace Radio
February 2, 2012

A strong case could be made that the Silver State suffered the greatest damage from the Great Recession. Nevada is at the top of all the wrong lists - unemployment, foreclosures, state budget shortfalls. Today, we bring you the voices of college seniors in Nevada. They've survived university funding cuts and tuition increases and now they're getting ready to graduate into a job market that is unpromising, to say the least.

Law schools sued by alumni who can't find work

Marketplace Radio
February 2, 2012

The setup to this next story sounds a bit like a bad joke. What do a bunch of lawyers do when they can't get jobs? They sue, naturally. Yesterday, a group of recent law graduates sued a dozen law schools. They say the schools misled them about job and salary prospects. It's not even the first time this week that a school has been accused of false advertising.

Liberal arts education lends an edge in down economy

USA Today
January 25, 2012

Recent college graduates who as seniors scored highest on a standardized test to measure how well they think, reason and write - skills most associated with a liberal arts education - were far more likely to be better off financially than those who scored lowest, says the Social Science Research Council, an independent organization. It found that students who had mastered the ability to think critically, reason analytically and write effectively by their senior year were three times less likely to be unemployed than those who hadn't; half as likely to be living with their parents; and far less likely to have amassed credit card debt (37% vs. 51%).

A Mess on the Ladder of Success

New York Times "Education Life" - Commentary
January 22, 2012

Rather than dividing the country into the 1 percenters versus everyone else, the split in our economy is really between two other classes: the mobile and immobile. The surprise in the census data, however, is that the immobile work force is not limited to unskilled workers. In fact, many have a college degree. Until now, a B.A. in any subject was a near-guarantee of at least middle-class wages. But today, a quarter of college graduates make less than the typical worker without a bachelor's degree.

A Sharper Mind, Middle Age and Beyond

New York Times "Education Life"
January 22, 2012

One essential element of mental fitness has already been identified. "Education seems to be an elixir that can bring us a healthy body and mind throughout adulthood and even a longer life," says Margie E. Lachman, a psychologist at Brandeis University who specializes in aging. For those in midlife and beyond, a college degree appears to slow the brain's aging process by up to a decade, adding a new twist to the cost-benefit analysis of higher education - for young students as well as those thinking about returning to school.

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