The Gates Foundation has announced the search for partners to transform campuses - particularly focusing on increasing the success of "low-income and first-generation students, students of color, and working adults." Such a move could help address the disparity between privileged and less-privileged students on campuses and thereby help to fulfill the promise that U.S. higher education has sought for so many years - empowerment through education that drives personal and economic advancement.
Why is this important in the context of a blog on internationalization? Because leveling the playing field through advanced education has been proven to build a middle class and because a highly educated population will result in nations gaining, or maintaining, prominence in the knowledge-based economy of the future. Specific to U.S. higher education, the socio-economic and experiental breadth of students more fully reflects that diversity of its citizens and this kind of reach and its impact should be a model for other countries.
Thank you, Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and others for pushing forward on an issue that institutions might not be willing to tackle on their own.
Why is this important in the context of a blog on internationalization? Because leveling the playing field through advanced education has been proven to build a middle class and because a highly educated population will result in nations gaining, or maintaining, prominence in the knowledge-based economy of the future. Specific to U.S. higher education, the socio-economic and experiental breadth of students more fully reflects that diversity of its citizens and this kind of reach and its impact should be a model for other countries.
Thank you, Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and others for pushing forward on an issue that institutions might not be willing to tackle on their own.
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