Author: Laurie Arnston

Increasing Admission of Low-Income Students in Engineering

A policy brief from University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education discusses results from a randomized experiment conducted to determine whether more contextualized information on low-income students’ background and high school would affect the percentage of low-income engineering students admitted.

New Gates Foundation Podcast: Innovation, Equity, and Excellence

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Postsecondary Success team recently released the first episode in its new podcast, To a Degree. Moderated by Casey Green from The Campus Computing Project, the podcast will feature higher education professionals, institutions and organizations discussing various issues related to postsecondary innovation, policy, practice and success.

Back on Choppy Waters: The 2016 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments

A recent blog by Lindsay Wayt, assistant director for research and policy analysis at the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), covers the results of the 2016 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments. According to the study’s findings, the FY 2016 endowment investment performance at colleges and universities was “the lowest since recession-level returns in 2009”—a trend that could potentially continue.

Class Assignment: Jump In and Help Your City Meet Its Challenges

Wall Street pioneer Anthony J. Drexel wanted his institution of higher learning to be deeply connected to the rapidly industrializing U.S. economy, and to educate young people to become its leaders. That heritage still drives Drexel today, writes President John Fry, who also serves as chair of the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia.

Gail O. Mellow, President of LaGuardia Community College, Receives 2017 Hesburgh Award

During President Mellow’s 16-year tenure at LaGuardia Community College, she has tripled the school’s enrollment and doubled full-time faculty. Today LaGuardia serves more than 50,000 degree-seeking and continuing education New Yorkers each year, and has one of the nation’s highest graduation rates among urban community colleges that serve low-income students.

IHEP Report Finds College Remains Unaffordable for Many Americans

College affordability is at the forefront of higher education conversations. However, there is not a clear understanding of what is affordable. A recent report by the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), with support from the Lumina Foundation, seeks to answer just that.

MIT Media Lab Director Joi Ito: How to Survive Our Faster Future

Joichi “Joi” Ito, an internationally prominent activist, entrepreneur and venture capitalist, was the keynote speaker at the ACE2017 Monday luncheon plenary session on innovation. Ito, the director of the MIT Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is currently exploring how radical new approaches to science and technology can transform and improve society.