higher ed

University-based economic development practitioners seeking to improve their relationships with urban areas have a new resource guide available to them, thanks to research from the Thriving Cities Lab at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.

Decreasing state funding for higher education is having a negative effect on higher education in the New England states, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Educating the next generation of workers, ensuring they will have the skills necessary for the jobs of the future and paying attention to the actions that will affect the climate are all on the agendas of the latest round of governors giving their state of the state and budget addresses. A focus on skills can be seen in addresses from governors in California, Maine, Michigan, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. States are also continuing with initiatives to forward attention on climate change, as reflected in Maine’s climate agenda and Michigan joining other states in the Climate Alliance.

Late last year, the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation announced a $23.7 million investment to strengthen technology-based economic development efforts at the University of Arkansas.

Applicants with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions of higher education who are seeking H-1B visas will be the beneficiaries of a new rule announced by the Department of Homeland Security last week. The rule change reverses the order by which U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) selects H-1B petitions under the H-1B regular cap and the advanced degree exemption.  

A rulemaking committee, convened by the U.S. Department of Education, has begun work to rethink higher education and is considering ways to refine and streamline the accreditor recognition process and role, while also reviewing regulatory areas affecting innovation in higher education.

From FY 2018 to FY 2019, state fiscal support for higher education grew by 1.6 percent nationwide and increased in 45 states, according to new data from the Grapevine Survey, a project of Illinois State University’s Center for the Study of Education Policy in cooperation with the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO).

A new report from The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) released last week describes the misleading perceptions resulting from employment rates used by the three entities tasked with oversight of the U.S. higher education system and proposes two specific measurements that could better inform student choices.

Higher education R&D expenditures (HERD) grew by 38.9 percent from 2008 to 2017, an increase of more than $21 billion, according to an SSTI analysis of recently released data from the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. From 2016 to 2017, HERD grew by $3.8 billion, the largest year-over-year increase since 2010-2011.

While diversity plays a critical role in both improving the quality and increasing the rate of innovation, women and several minority groups remain underrepresented in STEM fields. Several studies find that improving the retention rate of women and other underrepresented groups in STEM at the college level can have significant impacts on improving the diversity and representativeness of the STEM workforce.