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A few observations
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By John O. Hamey
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Time for some more observations on the state of New England and its prized commodity: higher education. ...

First of all, the national Council of State Governments analyzed this year's state-of-the-state addresses of 45
governors and noted their chief priorities in its monthly State Government News. Guess how many New England
governors placed an emphasis on higher education? Not a one.

So things must be pretty rosy in America's academic breadbasket, right?

Well, there is some good news. "Going to college in New England" retains some magic apparently. One freshman in
four at New England colleges hails from outside the region, And the six states attract 9 percent of the foreign
students who travel to the United States for college.

On the other hand, due mostly to New England's slow population growth, the total number of full- and part-time
students attending the region's 260 colleges and universities has dipped from more than 827,0O0 in 1992 to about
795,000 in 1996.

It's as if New England lost the entire enrollments of Brown University, Tufts University, Amherst College, Babson
College, Emmanual College, Mount Holyoke College, the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and Mount
Wachusett Community College -- all in a span of four years.

As New England's share of total U.S. college enrollment decreased from more than 6 percent in the mid- 1980s to 5.5
percent in 1996, the region's share ofuniversity research and development expenditures slid from 10.1 percent to 8.3
percent, depriving New England's knowledge economy of billions of dollars over the period.

Meanwhile, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire rank 34th, Mth,47th,
48th, 49th and 50th, respectively, in state appropriations for higher education per $1,000 of personal income.

The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), which coordinates educational programs for 16 Southern states,
reports that nearly half the growth in U.S. college enrollment during the past decade has occurred in the South. Same
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place where a lot of New England's famed research power went. First textiles, now brainpower. E

The SREB, incidentally, recently released a study showing how much the South had improved by virtually every
educational measure since Franklin Roosevelt declared Dixie to be "the nation's No. I economic problem."
How is it that the South is rising again? "There is an uncommon sense of being Southern and working together to
solve problems," according to the SREB.

Speaking of which, author and columnist Neal R. Peirce, an expert on regionalism, says a distinguishing
characteristic of the successful multistate regions of the next century will be a strong Internet presence. So how does
New England, known as a high-tech region, present itself on this high-tech medium of our time? Pitifully, according
to Peirce.

Peirce, whose 1970s bookThe New England States remains an authoritative resource on the people and politics of
the region, recently surfed the World Wide Web in search of information on New England, expecting to find virtual
venues to share "best practices" and scads of topnotch economic research.

"After all," Peirce figured, "any region that could give us such economists as Michael Porter and Lester Thurow
ought to have basic economic material available quickly and easily." What he found mostly were the homepages of
New England car dealers and real estate hawkers. ...

Patricia McGovern, who recently lost the Massachusetts Democratic primary for governor, is among the precious
few politicians who has actually spoken out about the potential of interstate cooperation in New England. As a state
senator, she touted such interstate strategies as joint tourism marketing and a regional siting process for unpopular
facilities, noting, "one state, for instance, might object to the construction of a new international airport, but be
willing to accept additional prisons instead. In this way, the burden on any one state would be reduced." Maybe the
next administration in Massachusetts should create a Director of New England Affairs and try to enlist McGovern.

In the meantime, the New England Board of Higher Education has launched the I9g8 Future o7 Xew:'Onglan.d Survey
to find out what the region's "opinion leaders" think about issues ranging from how access to child care affects
economic growth to the effectiveness ofcharter schools. The survey has been sent to college presidents, think tank
directors, foundation heads, school superintendents, legislators, mayors, newspaper editors, community leaders and
business executives.

It will be interesting to hear what they have to say about higher education, economic development and regional
cooperation.

Stay tuned.

lohn O. Harney is the executive editor of Connection: New England's Journal of Higher Education and Economic
Development. Connection is the quarterly journal of the New Englani Boord c{ Iligher Education.

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