Total student loan debt in the United States increased 558% from the first quarter of 2003 to the second quarter of 2024, increasing from $240 billion to $1.58 trillion, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York data.

In the last 20 years, college tuition has doubled, making tuition and required fees the major component of the rising costs of attending college. Figure 1 shows that the average tuition and fees at public four-year schools increased by 84% between the 1999-2000 and 2019-2020 academic years, far faster than the 15.7% increase in median household income during that period (note this period was chosen to avoid pandemic era swings in data).

In this Digest issue, SSTI continues its examination on the state of higher education. Today, we start with rising student loan debt, which research shows has dire consequences on borrowers, including delayed home ownership, hindered retirement savings, and financial stress.

State support for higher education in the United States over the last four decades can best be characterized as having fluctuations and shifts in priorities. Using fiscal year (FY) 1980 as a starting point, while overall state support for higher education has grown, it has done so with volatility driven in part by decreased revenue as a result of recessions, and it has frequently taken years for state support to recover to pre-recession levels. In four states, state support on a constant 1983-dollar basis is still less than was spent in 1980.

A recent National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper, Immigrant Entrepreneurship: New Estimates and a Research Agenda provides fresh insights into the growth and characteristics of immigrant-founded firms across the United States. The study also outlines directions for future research in this field.

Key findings from the authors’ statistical analysis include:

Why are people registering for SSTI's 2024 conference at a record pace?

It might be the timing of SSTI's conference—one month after a tumultuous election season. It could be our focus of the four plenary sessions being what regional innovation and tech-based economic development needs to look like in the future when you consider other great unknowns like what impact artificial intelligence will have on local economies. 

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) recently announced $3,889,964 in funding for the Appalachian Investors Alliance (AIA),  a seed fund network that includes several SSTI members.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced the 2024 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition (GAFC) Stage Two winners. Each received between $50,000 and $150,000 in prize awards to advance their work supporting small businesses and startups in STEM and research and development (R&D) across priority areas like national and economic security, domestic manufacturing and production, and sustainability and biotechnology.

SSTI recently hosted an informational session with EDA representatives about the 2024 Build to Scale program. The $50 million program is accepting applications until October 28. The recording and slides are now available here for those who missed it or want to review.

Regional cooperation economic development is believed to stimulate growth in various ways, including increased trade, enhanced movement of technologies from lab to market, and improved resource allocation. Federal support for innovation-driven growth has increasingly forced applicants to take integrated regional approaches. However, empirical evidence on the specific impacts of such cooperation is scant.

The U.S. National Science Foundation announced awards totaling approximately $40 million to support research and STEM workforce development in Delaware, Guam, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Vermont, according to a January 22 NSF press release.

In this week’s continuing coverage of gubernatorial addresses as they discuss the innovation economy, the following highlights have been selected from five of the eight State of the States or budget addresses given between Jan. 17 and Jan. 28, 2025, by the governors from Maine, Missouri, New Mexico, Utah, and Wisconsin.

Artificial intelligence, market saturation, and shifting demands from both employers and students are driving changes in coding bootcamps and other programs in the tech training sector, according to a recent Inside Higher Education story. These factors have contributed to several closures in the past year:

SSTI’s new analysis of NIH data reveals the agency’s external R&D spending per award has been essentially treading water for the past 25 years in terms of real dollars—rising just 4% since FY 2000 when adjusted for inflation. This slow growth comes despite the crucial role NIH funding plays in technology-based economic development (TBED) policies across many states, particularly in the biomedical and life sciences.

America's Seed Fund returns to the J.W. Marriott in Austin, Texas, for the SBIR/STTR Spring Innovation Conference from June 9 -11.  SSTI Weekly Digest readers may use these discount codes to reduce their cost for attending:

SSTI has recently expanded its staff to include Aaron Hagar as their vice president for innovation finance. Hagar brings over twenty years of experience spanning biomedical research, heath care, public policy, and technology-based economic development to share with SSTI's members. He has significant experience building partnerships, creating innovative solutions, shaping public policy, and developing data-driven strategies.

The SSTI Board of Trustees has appointed Kristy Campbell, president & chief operations officer at Rev1 Ventures, and John Fernandez, chief executive officer at The Mill, as members of the board.  “I look forward to working with Kristy and John as new board members,” Dan Berglund, SSTI’s president, said with their appointments. “Both are proven, inspiring leaders, have been long time friends of SSTI, and demonstrated strong commitments to advancing the TBED community.”

The United States faces intense competition in global markets for advanced technology industries.

The White House Fiscal Year 2026 discretionary budget proposal outlines a significant shift in federal spending priorities, proposing substantial reductions in innovation and non-defense discretionary funding, which, if enacted by Congress, would impact scientific research and regional economic development support across numerous federal agencies. 

For the United States to achieve greater security in chip manufacturing, the critical sector requires a much larger, better trained workforce.

If you’re leading a knowledge work[1] organization and considering introducing generative artificial intelligence into your workflow, it likely would be helpful to know how its use may impact the day-to-day aspects of your team’s work, and the potential risks involved. 

Note: TBED101 is a new, occasional series for Digest readers visiting and revisiting fundamental topics for nurturing strong regional innovation economies. SSTI is introducing this series, with EDA support, as the field has entered one of its most significant periods of disruption and change in its 45-year history.