Attracting young knowledge workers seems to be a breeze for Michigan universities with R&D programs. But the goal, transforming the state to one driven by a high wage economy, requires the retention of those highly educated graduates.
According to excerpts from the story:
“Four years of tuition at a Michigan public university costs about the same as a new mid-priced automobile."
That's what two university presidents wrote in an October 2008 commentary in the Grand Rapids Press. The sentence, with its well-chosen car comparison, captures in a nutshell the state's economic predicament and its value.
Another comparison was at play in a spring 2008 presentation by John C. Burkhardt, of the National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good. Playing on the Great Lakes regional slogan that "water is the new oil," he closed his talk by asserting, "Smart is the new water."
With those two quotes in mind, we turned in November to the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan, an organization designed to "advocate higher education as a public good and to promote its collective value in serving the public interest and the State of Michigan." Those 15 schools, shown on the map, collectively draw more than $1.5 billion in R&D funding each year into the state, and each plays a singular role in making its state more competitive.
Read the complete story here.
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