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Beyond Connecticut, Problems & Solutions
College students should learn to expect the unexpected
Beyond Connecticut, Problems & Solutions

Of the questions that preoccupy incoming college students — financial, scheduling, housing, belonging — advisors report that the choice of major and career path is the most anxiety-inducing. After all, isn’t choosing the right major the ticket to a successful career and life? Unfortunately, most students feel undue pressure to discover the perfect major.

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Beyond Connecticut, Problems & Solutions
Leaders, Students Strategize: How to Make Hartford A Hopping College Town

Hartford has 11 colleges and universities downtown or nearby — including the newly opened UConn Hartford — but that alone doesn’t make the city a college town.

“A lot of towns would be jealous to have this many colleges,” said Richard Sugarman, who is president of Hartford Promise, but he said the schools don’t yet have the kind of presence that seeps into the community and transforms it.

 “It’s a mutual thing where the community feels connected and informed and engaged by the college,” Sugarman said, “and the college feels connected, informed and engaged by the community.”

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Current Issues, Inside Connecticut, Problems & Solutions
We should all be concerned about college student retention
Current Issues, Inside Connecticut, Problems & Solutions

The degree to which college students are capable of successfully moving from matriculation to graduation, described as “retention” or “persistence,” should be a concern for all of us.  Employers regularly complain that the skills needed for the workplace are lacking.  Policy wonks lament the declining ratio of productive workers to retirees, now about three to one, down drastically from decades ago – an ominous threat to the solvency of the Social Security system, as well as the viability of the economy and the health care system.

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Current Issues, Inside Connecticut, Problems & Solutions