Is the United States lagging behind other nations in the kind of innovations that drive economic prosperity? If so, is higher education part of the problem? A major new report offers some surprising answers. Competitiveness ratings, the top 10 The twin issues of declining competitiveness and innovation are everywhere in the business press these days, and that debate is echoed by higher education leaders, who claim that big new “investments” in higher education are the answer to both problems. The Atlantic century, however, seems to point to other causes. If the ITIF and the European-American Business Council are right, the United States may be about to find a “solution” to the challenge of competitiveness that will not do much to solve the problem.
How does higher education specifically fit in? Let's analyze the material. Our nation is losing ground on several fronts that are fundamental to our future prosperity and national security. The United States has fallen from first place among nations to tenth in the percentage of our population with higher education degrees. Without a vision for the transformation of education, we will continue to fall.
The Carnegie signatories called for a massive increase in spending on higher education “to help revitalize our nation's economy and educate and empower the next generations of Americans to face the challenges of global competition.”. I answered this folder in Asking a lot. Where does innovation come from? It is not entirely clear that the United States,. It can encourage greater technological, economic or other innovation by sending a much larger percentage of children to university.
University education, of course, influences to some extent a nation's ability to innovate. Nowadays, a good deal of innovation depends on obtaining a sophisticated understanding of scientific theory, computer technology, laboratory work, and advanced machinery. The university is a place to learn that, although it is not the only one. A century ago, the Wright brothers succeeded in creating the first controlled flight aircraft heavier than air.
We now send people to receive years and years of advanced training to become aeronautical engineers. An important innovation is even more likely to come from an Edison, a Ford or a Gates than from a doctorate. From a high-level graduate school, that is, the nonconformist genius who has little use in formal education is still crucial. Of course, even the nonconformist genius achieves nothing if there are no efficient capital markets, businessmen willing to take risks and social freedom to experiment.
The United States' innovation advantage, from Ben Franklin and Eli Whitney onward, has had much more to do with combining raw talent, who is in a position where it could thrive, than with advanced scientific training. Is that a mystery? Doesn't seem like much of one. Profound scientific and technological innovation does not seem to arise very often from people who find the rigor of scientific disciplines pleasant. Rebellious minds seem to envision possibilities that the most disciplined thinkers overlook.
Of course, there are seeds of rebellion in everyone, and important innovations come from rigorously trained people. We just need to remember that we can't achieve such innovation simply by granting more university degrees. The major innovations of the American economy owe a significant debt to basic university research. But that doesn't mean that the innovation is due to increased enrollment.
To the extent that universities play a role in the innovation cycle of the national economy, the debt is due to a mere fraction of professors and students in a mere fraction of the fields. A little more of that critical scrutiny would be welcome. How can states encourage innovation? Read statements by NAS President Peter Wood on upcoming Supreme Court cases, which he presented at a meeting of Oasis, an informal group of academics and intellectuals based in. The ideology of transgenderism strives to shut down any door that opposes its attempts to gain power and control.
This statement explains our opposition to such ideology in. We believe that Senator Sasse would be an excellent president of the University of Florida, and we urge the Board of Trustees to follow the recommendation of the search committee. What does it mean to be Latino? Are only Latin Americans Latinos, or does the term apply to anyone whose language is derived from Latin?. A new study released today by the National Association of Academics, Ideological Intensification, provides an in-depth quantitative analysis of the extent to which DEI has advanced in the fields of STEM.
American growth and prosperity have long been driven by a vibrant private sector backed by sound public investments in research, transportation, and in ensuring honest and open markets. American federalism frustrates members of Nation X, who see states not as laboratories of innovation but as rebellious children who must be firmly aligned. These reports represent a triumph of the bureaucratic mentality and a disdain for the historic strengths of the United States. But, just for a moment, let's consider the radical proposition that a better path is to take advantage of uniquely American strengths, such as federalism, business dynamism, and size and heterogeneity.
Those who are obsessed with international envy find it difficult to accept that the disadvantages of the United States are the inevitable other side of its unique strengths. The report, published in February by the Washington-based Foundation for Innovation in Information Technology & (ITIF) and the European-American Business Council (EABC), presents a rigorous international study showing which countries are currently at the forefront and which are making rapid progress. . .
