#2: Improve access to graduate-level college education
The existing system discourages people from earning degrees while they're still working. That's terribly inefficient, since it keeps a lot of potential candidates from earning advanced degrees. It also keeps those advanced-degree programs from getting the two-way knowledge transfer back in. Advanced education isn't just a one-way street from professor to student, it's a dialogue.
Higher education is perpetually accused of having an "ivory tower" isolation from the rest of the world. Institutional inertia won't allow the universities to change from within, but we're the ones paying the bills.
Iowa could break the mold and reclaim its status as the "education state" by putting more of its own people through advanced degrees than any other state. The difficulty is in breaking down artificial barriers within higher education.
Right now, our biggest shortages are in important scientific and technical fields like engineering
Higher education is perpetually accused of having an "ivory tower" isolation from the rest of the world. Institutional inertia won't allow the universities to change from within, but we're the ones paying the bills.
Iowa could break the mold and reclaim its status as the "education state" by putting more of its own people through advanced degrees than any other state. The difficulty is in breaking down artificial barriers within higher education.
Right now, our biggest shortages are in important scientific and technical fields like engineering
- Percent of high school, college graduates in 1900 vs. 2000
- The next logical step
- Literacy
- College entrance exam scores
- Engineering
- Business
- Teaching
- Health care
- Science
- What government should do:
- What individuals should do:
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