We are constantly besieged with messaging that a liberal arts degree is useless. Maybe even worse than useless: a path to being a pauper or something close. Stuck in low-paying work that leaves you unable to pay off the loans…
More than a decade ago we identified four common characteristics of high-prosperity non-energy-driven states: Over concentrated in knowledge-based services which are the sectors of the economy both growing and high wageHigh proportion of adults with a four-year degree or moreEven…
We first wrote about welders in 2013. Its a topic we keep coming back to, most recently in a 2018 post entitled What skilled trades job actually pay. The reason why we keep writing about welders is they have become…
Paul Tough's excellent new book The Years That Matter Most explores how college entrance exams––SAT and ACT––impact who gets admitted to college. He does it by comparing the impact of college entrance exams on both admissions and college success to…
In preparing presentations about our placemaking recommendations what has struck me is that the key message can be summed up in three words: talent attracts capital. Where talent means primarily those with a four-year degree or more. What the most…
In a recent post we made the case for why gentrification is a good. Something that all Michigan cities should want more of. In this post I want to explore what happens to neighborhoods without gentrification. I finished the previous…
We constantly hear that the value of a four-year degree is declining. Somehow conventional wisdom has it that since the end of the Great Recession college graduates are not enjoying the wage premium over those with less education than previous…
Important New York Times op ed by Allstate CEO Tom Wilson entitled Save capitalism by paying people more. What makes this so important is the explicit call from a big company CEO that corporate America needs to pay higher wages.…
For years I have said that the city of Detroit needs more gentrification and congestion. As most of you would expect, the push-back is immediate and intense. Most folks think of the negative consequences of both and instinctively recoil at…
As readers of this bog know we believe Michigan needs to move away from standardized testing. Anytime we make that case, the first question we get is “what is the alternative?” In a column for Bloomberg entitled Testing Craze Is…