Broad Education vs. Industry-Specific Skills A large majority of the American public and nearly three-quarters of business leaders say it is more important for job candidates to be well-rounded with a range of abilities than to have industry-specific skills, two new national surveys released Tuesday show. A July survey of 263 hiring managers and an August poll of 1,000 American adults conducted […]
How to Make School Better for Boys This gap in education engagement has dire economic consequences for boys. A 2011 Brookings Institution report quantifies the economic decline of the median male: For men ages 25 to 64 with no high school diploma, median annual earnings have declined 66 percent since 1969; for men with only a high school diploma, wages declined by 47 percent. […]
U.S. News & World Report U.S. News & World Report: Take 3 Steps to Build In-Demand Job Skills at College Meanwhile, interest in co-op education has jumped since the job market slumped; co-op powerhouse Northeastern University, for example, received 47,359 applications for 2,800 freshmen seats this fall, 74 percent more than in 2006. “Northeastern’s emphasis on experiential learning and the co-op was the big draw,” says Taylor Hogan, who left in July for his first six-month […]
Okla. killing fits ‘shared misunderstanding’: Column The senseless killing of Christopher Lane, a 22-year-old senior attending college in Oklahoma on a baseball scholarship, has sent shock waves around the world, especially in the victim’s homeland of Australia. While out for a run on the afternoon of August 16, Lane was shot in the back during an unprovoked attack. It isn’t just the randomness […]
Young People Employed At Lowest Levels Since WWII Teen unemployment is triple the national average, but Andrew Sum, Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, says the number is actually much worse. Unemployment figures only count people who are “actively looking for work,” but many teens and young adults, explains Sum, drop out of the […]
U.S. Prison Populations Decline, Reflecting New Approach to Crime <nyt_text> The prison population in the United States dropped in 2012 for the third consecutive year, according to federal statistics released on Thursday, in what criminal justice experts said was the biggest decline in the nation’s recent history, signaling a shift away from an almost four-decade policy of mass imprisonment. The number of inmates in […]
A Big IDEA The global economic crisis of the last five years has concentrated our collective attention, both here in the U.S. and around the world, on the need for jobs — as well as the need for strategies to support meaningful economic growth. Clearly, higher education has an important role to play here. For example, a December […]
Scientific American Special Report: Learning In The Digital Age Higher-education administrators are warming up to adaptivity, too. In a recent Inside Higher Ed/Gallup poll, 66 percent of college presidents said they found adaptive-learning and testing technologies promising. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has launched the Adaptive Learning Market Acceleration Program, which will issue 10$100,000 grants to U.S. colleges and universities to develop adaptive […]
Forbes The 6 Steps For Retaining Good Employees 1) Communicate, communicate, communicate: The funny thing about communication is that it’s as much about the words you say, as it is about the tone of your voice combined with eye contact, hand gestures, body positioning, and even touch (that proverbial “pat on the back”.) In a paper by Dr. Edward Wertheim of Northeastern University, College […]
The Boston Herald Pols offer grads deal on loans U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Rep. John Tierney (D-Salem) yesterday touted their bill to prevent the federal student loan interest rate from doubling next month and let students, for one year, pay the lower rate major banks do — though experts say the proposal would have no effect on the economy or the soaring […]
CBS News Gun control advocates take on “patchwork” of state laws In 1998, when new laws were passed, 65 murders were committed with firearms. In 2010, the latest figure available, it was almost twice as many: 122, an increase of 88 percent. The reason, says criminology Professor James Fox from Northeastern University, is inconsistent gun laws. “Each state, to some extent, is at the mercy of […]
Ending Smoking? Northeastern University law professor Richard Daynard says that the country is due for another serious anti-smoking crusade to reduce levels of smoking below 10 percent. Snuffing out the habit is possible, he says, with a few easy steps. Smoking advocates, however, see it as a campaign that’s gone too far.