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SSTI Digest
People
Gov. Don Siegelman has named Anne Payne to director of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs. Payne has been serving as ADECA's assistant director since last August.
People
Stan Sokul has been named executive director of the PCAST, the President's Council of Advisors on Science & Technology. Sokul formerly served as a lobbyist on Internet policy issues.
People
Tracy Taylor has been named to serve as CEO for the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp (KTEC). Taylor fills the position vacated by Rich Bendis.
October 2-3. Dearborn, Michigan. Be There.
With one of the country's largest concentration of industrial and academic scientists and engineers, it is only fitting that Michigan hosts SSTI's Sixth Annual Conference, October 2-3, 2002.
Led by the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC), Michigan has consistently been among the leading states for implementing innovative programs and policies to create tech-based economies: the life sciences corridor and billion biotech investment, automation alley, fuel cell commercialization, broadband deployment, university tech transfer, and the list goes on. MEDC, the host sponsor for SSTI's 2002 conference, is itself a product of innovative thinking in 1999 that privatized most of the state's economic development and worker training programs. More information about MEDC's tech initiatives can be learned by visiting its website: http://www.michigan.org
Publisher's Note to this Issue
At almost every turn, the important roles played by universities and colleges in a knowledge-based economy seem to be validated. Industry and political leaders across the country are talking of the need for strong institutions of higher education, particularly public research universities, to improve national, state, and local competitiveness.
Whether it is the generation of new ideas or innovations or the development of a skilled workforce, higher education is a critical component of almost every high tech hot spot (see for example, Annalee Saxenian's analysis of Silicon Valley and Route 128, Regional Advantage, or the Milken Institute's report, America's High Tech Economy: Growth, Development, and Risks for Metropolitan Areas) or the most successful state and local tech-based economic development strategies.
ACE Finds Public Sees Higher Ed Role in New Economy
The importance of attaining a higher education resonates with more than three-fourths of Americans today, according to the biennial survey Attitudes toward Public Higher Education, conducted by the American Council of Education. However, the survey points out most people are concerned that future state budget cuts could threaten the educational quality of institutions and limit the economic benefits they provide.
Key findings include:
AUTM Uncovers $1 Billion in Higher Education Royalties
More than $1.26 billion in royalties were collected by U.S. colleges and universities in FY 2000, according to the tenth annual licensing survey released by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). In addition, the FY 2000 Annual AUTM Licensing Survey reported 347 new products were introduced to market and at least 454 spin-off companies were created by the institutions, where inventors filed for more than 8,500 U.S. patents.
Attesting to the localized economic development impact of strong university research, more than 80 percent of the start-up companies were located in the academic institution's home state or province.
Other survey highlights include:
State Support Critical for Keeping Public Tuition Affordable, Study Finds
A decline in state appropriations at four-year public institutions of higher education was the single most important factor associated with increases in tuition, according to a report released in February by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the U.S. Department of Education
The Study of College Costs and Prices, 1988-89 to 1997-98 shows that changes in tuition and fees — what colleges charge and the costs they incur to educate students — are related in only limited ways and that many factors have been causing the continued tuition increases at public and private institutions over and above inflation.
Mandated by Congress, the study used data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to examine two main issues: the relationship between college prices (tuition the family and student pay) and costs (what the institution spends), and the relationship of federal and institutional aid to price increases.
College Board Reports Sharp Tuition Increases for 2001-2002
Trends in College Pricing 2001, the College Board's annual survey of more than 3,000 schools reported that college tuition and fees in 2001-2002 had increased an average of between 5.5 and 7.7 percent at four-year institutions, and between 5.5 and 5.8 percent at two-year institutions. Undergraduates at American colleges are paying, on average, from $96 to $890 more than last year for tuition and fees this year, depending on the type of institution. Students also faced charges of between 3.9 and 6.6 percent more for room and board.
NACUBO: Endowment Losses Fuel Further Pressure on College Tuitions
At -3.6 percent, college endowments posted their biggest losses since 1984 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2001, according to the annual endowment survey conducted by the National Association of College & University Business Officers (NACUBO). Fortunately, the decline in investment revenues follows a 13 percent return for FY2000.
Earnings from endowments investment pools are essential to higher education institutions because they provide funds for such expenses as financial aid, faculty salaries, and other operating costs. As a general rule, higher education institutions spend approximately 4.5 percent of the market value of their endowments each year. As the recession deepened last year, alumni & corporate contributions also declined for many schools.
The full Endowment Survey will be available for purchase later this month from NACUBO. The preliminary press release is available at: http://www.nacubo.org/
Higher Ed Facing Further Budget Cuts in Many States
With the latest National Conference of State Legislatures survey revealing 45 states are dealing with falling revenue projections and 37 already report budget gaps in next year's revenue forecasts (see http://www.ssti.org/Digest/2002/021502.htm), the number of states proposing or considering cuts to higher education for FY 2003 continues to grow.
Nearly half of the states — Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin — already have cut current year appropriations to universities and colleges or recommended cuts for next year.
Study Uncovers Trend Toward More Part-time Faculty
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:99), the third in a series, presents the results of a 1998 survey conducted of institutions' policies and practices affecting faculty. Among the findings -- a large proportion, about two-fifths, of all faculty worked part time. During the five year period preceding the study, 40 percent of all institutions (all public and private not-for-profit Title IV participating, degree-granting institutions in the 50 states and the District of Columbia) took actions to reduce the size of the full-time faculty. Twenty-two percent of them did so by simply replacing full-time faculty with part-time faculty. Other measures included "increasing the faculty course load, increasing class size, reducing program offerings, and substituting on-campus courses taught by full-time faculty with remote site (e.g. video, audio, internet) courses."