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The Dartmouth
July 12, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Daily Debriefing

The Council for Aid to Education released a study showing charitable contributions to colleges and universities that indicated the beginning of a slow economic recovery for institutions of higher education, according to Inside Higher Ed. Charitable contributions to higher education institutions increased by 0.5 percent in 2010, Inside Higher Ed reported. A growth in giving from corporations and foundations, comprising 47 percent of total giving, were major factors in the increase. Both alumni giving and the average size of their gifts decreased by 0.4 percent, however, and the rate of alumni participation saw a drop of 0.2 percent from 2009. Liberal arts colleges experienced an increase of 2.9 percent in donations from the previous year, but the total donations that liberal arts colleges received were a small fraction of what large research institutions earned. Research universities comprised the top 20 institutions that raised the most money in 2010 a total of $7.15 billion but only made up 2 percent of the 996 institutions included in the study, Inside Higher Ed reported.

Americans should emphasize job training as much as they emphasize college degrees, according to a report titled "Pathways to Prosperity" published by Harvard's Graduate School of Education on Feb. 2. "[A] focus on college readiness alone does not equip young people with all of the skills and abilities they will need in the workplace, or to successfully complete the transition from adolescence to adulthood," the report said. While 30 percent of young adults graduate from four-year colleges, only one-third of the 47 million jobs that experts predict will be created by 2018 will mandate that prospective employees hold a bachelor's degree. High schools should therefore offer greater career-focused instruction, apprenticeships and work-based education to their students a focus that would help improve economic equality, according to the report.

While college enrollment figures and the percentage of students who are awarded financial aid have increased in recent years, graduation rates remain stagnant, according to a "First Look" report published by the U.S. Department of Education based on statistics from 2009. The report gathered data from 6,700 institutions receiving Title IV federal student aid. The percentage of students graduating from four-year colleges within six years of their initial enrollment was reported at 57 percent, the same as it was in 2008. There was an increase from 19.6 million to 21 million students enrolled in the colleges studied in the report.