Lou Glazer’s interview on Stateside: Is college always the best choice for high school grads?
President Lou Glazer sat down with Cynthia Canty of Michigan Radio’s Stateside, and Glenda Price, former President of Marygrove College in Detroit, to discuss the question: Is college truly the right choice for all high school grads? Are we overlooking the opportunities offered by skilled trades and other careers that do not require a degree?. Listen to the […]
Unlimited charter schools: still not smart
Every time I write about charter schools I feel a need to start with the reality that Michigan Future has been from the beginning a big supporter of charter schools. Currently our Michigan Future Schools initiative has funded and is working with nine new college prep high schools in Detroit. One is a DPS school, […]
College educated Millennials winning
The Pew Research Center has just released a terrific new report entitled “The Rising Cost of Not Going to College”. If you care about understanding the reality of today’s economy for young adults this is a must read report. Using data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) it makes clear that in terms […]
Talent trumps low taxes again
Richard Florida in a recent Atlantic Cities article writes about a new study on what matters most in attracting entrepreneurs. The study done by Endeavor Insight can be found here. As Florida writes what attracts entrepreneurs is “…talented workers, and the quality of life that the educated and ambitious have come to expect – not […]
Not time for a celebration III
The Census Bureau released in September a report on poverty in American from 2000-2012. Not good news for the country. The poverty rate since 2000 has risen from 12.2 percent to 15.9 percent. The number of people living in poverty has increased from 33.3 to 48.8 million. The trends are worse in Michigan. The poverty […]
Not just STEM
I do a monthly post for the Grand Rapids Business Journal. Last month I wrote about the occupations and industries their latest 40 Under Forty worked in. Turns out these future leaders in West Michigan overwhelmingly don’t work for manufacturers or are in STEM based occupations. In fact, the nearly 150 nominees, at the undergraduate […]
College access
There is a growing––but certainly not universal––understanding that the economic well being of the country and state are now highly dependent on the proportion of adults in the workforce with a college––particularly four year––degree. That human capital is the asset that matters most and is in the shortest supply for economic growth and prosperity. And […]
Manufacturing in decline
Two terrific articles on the declining role of manufacturing in the American economy. One from Bloomberg Businssweek entitled Factory Jobs Are Gone. Get Over It. The other a Steve Rattner column for the New York Times entitled The Myth of Industrial Rebound. Both clearly present the overwhelming data that manufacturing employment has been and will continue to […]