Rising Above the Gathering Storm


Book Description

In a world where advanced knowledge is widespread and low-cost labor is readily available, U.S. advantages in the marketplace and in science and technology have begun to erode. A comprehensive and coordinated federal effort is urgently needed to bolster U.S. competitiveness and pre-eminence in these areas. This congressionally requested report by a pre-eminent committee makes four recommendations along with 20 implementation actions that federal policy-makers should take to create high-quality jobs and focus new science and technology efforts on meeting the nation's needs, especially in the area of clean, affordable energy: 1) Increase America's talent pool by vastly improving K-12 mathematics and science education; 2) Sustain and strengthen the nation's commitment to long-term basic research; 3) Develop, recruit, and retain top students, scientists, and engineers from both the U.S. and abroad; and 4) Ensure that the United States is the premier place in the world for innovation. Some actions will involve changing existing laws, while others will require financial support that would come from reallocating existing budgets or increasing them. Rising Above the Gathering Storm will be of great interest to federal and state government agencies, educators and schools, public decision makers, research sponsors, regulatory analysts, and scholars.







Financing American Higher Education in the Era of Globalization


Book Description

This ambitious book grows out of the realization that a convergence of economic, demographic, and political forces in the early twenty-first century requires a fundamental reexamination of the financing of American higher education. The authors identify and address basic issues and trends that cut across the sectors of higher education, focusing on such questions as how much higher education the country needs for individual opportunity and for economic viability in the future; how responsibility for paying for it is currently allocated; and how financing higher education should be addressed in the future.







Financing Higher Education Worldwide


Book Description

Examines the universal phenomenon of cost-sharing in higher education -- where financial responsibility shifts from governments and taxpayers to students and families. Growing costs for education far outpace public revenue streams that once supported it. Even with financial aid and scholarships defraying some of these costs, students are responsible for a greater share of the cost of higher education. Shows how economically diverse countries all face similar cost-sharing challenges. While cost-sharing is both politically and ideologically debated, it is imperative to implement it for the financial health of colleges and universities From publisher description.




Bankers in the Ivory Tower


Book Description

Universities and the social circuitry of finance -- Our new financial oligarchy -- Bankers to the rescue : the political turn to student debt -- The top : how universities became hedge funds -- The bottom : a Wall Street takeover of for-profit colleges -- The middle : a hidden squeeze on public universities -- Reimagining (higher education) finance from below -- Methodological appendix : a comparative, qualitative, and quantitative study of elites.




Enhancing the Community College Pathway to Engineering Careers


Book Description

Community colleges play an important role in starting students on the road to engineering careers, but students often face obstacles in transferring to four-year educational institutions to continue their education. Enhancing the Community College Pathway to Engineering Careers, a new book from the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council, discusses ways to improve the transfer experience for students at community colleges and offers strategies to enhance partnerships between those colleges and four-year engineering schools to help students transfer more smoothly. In particular, the book focuses on challenges and opportunities for improving transfer between community colleges and four-year educational institutions, recruitment and retention of students interested in engineering, the curricular content and quality of engineering programs, opportunities for community colleges to increase diversity in the engineering workforce, and a review of sources of information on community college and transfer students. It includes a number of current policies, practices, and programs involving community collegeâ€"four-year institution partnerships.