Two quotes on student loans
An article entitled “More evidence the sky is not falling due to student loan debt” reviews recent research on the question of whether student loans are depressing home ownership. They don’t! The article includes two quotes that summarize well the reality that a college degree––even with student loans––are a terrific investment. In the article, for […]
Education pays 2015
The Bureau of Labor Statistics each year publishes a chart that details the unemployment rate and median weekly earnings by education attainment for those 25 and older. The data for 2105 are below. Slightly different data from a year and two ago. But same story. Each time I look at the new data the […]
A college degree trumps student loans
Fascinating survey results from Navient and Ipsos entitled Money Under 35. Worth checking out. The findings destroys the conventional wisdom about college graduates being crushed by student debt. Obviously recent college graduates would be better of without needing to pay off loans. But the survey demonstrates that having a college degree–particularly a bachelors degree or […]
A placemaking policy agenda
More than a decade of research on the changing American economy has led us to conclude that, quite simply, in a flattening world where work can increasingly be done anyplace by anybody, the places with the greatest concentrations of talent win. The new path to prosperity is concentrated talent. Human capital is what attracts business […]
Development-oriented light rail
Years ago I heard a presentation by folks who were involved in the development of the Portland Oregon streetcar system. They described it as development-oriented transit, not transit-oriented development. They wanted to emphasize that the main purpose was central city economic development, not moving people. (You can check out the staggering magnitude of new development […]
People as the most important natural resource
One of our favorite quotes for years comes from Forbes publisher Rick Karlgaard: “Best place to make a future Forbes 400 fortune? Start with this proposition: The most valuable natural resource in the 21st century is brains. Smart people tend to be mobile. Watch where they go! Because where they go, robust economic activity will […]
Restructuring Detroit K-12 education
As the legislature debates restructuring K-12 schooling in Detroit, a reporter asked me why Excellent Schools Detroit (ESD) hasn’t worked. I am a founding and continuing Board member of ESD. If worked means a substantial increase in the number of quality schools in the City of Detroit––or for that matter outside of Detroit but serving […]
Not coding school
Insightful Atlantic article entitled Will the push for coding lead to technical ghettos? With a subtitle of “The emphasis on knowing Java and JavaScript could put students of color on the bottom rung of the tech workforce.” Exactly! In these posts we have decried the push from elites to have other people’s kids forgo a […]
NYC still surging
More than four years ago I wrote about the prosperity of Manhattan (and more broadly all of New York City) this way: Here the dominant narrative about the economy is that everything that makes Manhattan a powerful engine of economic growth is what has or will ruin the Michigan economy. How we can continue to […]
Urban amenities and talent attraction
Terrific CityLab article entitled The Real Source of American Urban Revival. It documents the trend we have been writing about for nearly a decade that young professionals far more than previous generations are concentrating in central cities not the suburbs. CityLab reports: From 2000 to 2010, more college-educated professionals aged 25 to 34 moved downtown […]