A Greater Whole: A Guide to Developing National Community Based Coalitions has recently gone online.Developed by Millennia for the the National Community Tax Coalition with support from Annie E. Casey Foundation, the guide summarizes best practices and resources for coalition builders. It also features a case study and operating guidelines developed by the Community Tax Coalition, a project of the Center for Economic Progress in Chicago. For more information contact Wendy Siegel at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . To download the guide go to: http://www.tax-coalition.org/advocacy/aGreaterWhole.cfm.

Macro-trends are putting increased pressure on higher education.Higher education, once comfortably insulated from the world, is increasingly battered by national and global trends--demographic, economic, technological, and environmental--that have administrators scrambling to compete. Important emerging trends include, for example...

Demographics

• As the younger part of the 'echo baby boom' passes out of high school, the number of full-time, college-age enrollments is leveling off nationally and not expected to rise again until 2014.
• By 2015 more than 20% of students who graduate from high schools will be Hispanic Americans. This increase plus a high rate of college-going by Hispanic women will result in a dramatic 42% increase in Hispanic students who are enrolled in college, compared with their 2005 enrollment numbers.
• African American, Asian American, and Native American enrollments will grow five times as fast as those of white students during the same period.
• By 2016 the majority of degrees at all levels, including Ph.D. and professional degrees, will be awarded to women.

Economics

• Colleges and universities are under pressure to allocate more of their budgets to student aid in order to meet enrollment goals, while the fastest-growing enrollment categories need the most aid.
• Many public colleges and universities are undertaking massive private fundraising drives, as legislatures now allocate on average barely over 5% of state budgets to higher education.
• Before 2020, the E-7 countries--China, Brazil, India, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico, and Turkey--likely will match the G-7 in GDP, with new educational infrastructure a priority.
• Large-scale off-shoring of sophisticated knowledge work is leveling the global playing field--putting US college graduates into direct competition with their counterparts around the world.
• The international flow of students could reverse itself, shifting the US from a net importer to a net exporter of students who are in search of lower costs.

Technology

• Digital content delivery is replacing printed textbooks, as students expect anytime, anywhere access to electronic instructional media.
• Immersive theaters at some colleges and universities use high-resolution projectors and software models to get students "inside" molecules, galaxies, rock strata, and other complex systems in planetarium-like theaters.
• The use of gaming technologies in college instruction is increasing, led by extensive use of gaming in military training.

Environment and Security

• Smart growth and campus sustainability initiatives are becoming increasingly important recruitment selling points.
• With heightened security concerns, campus surveillance is being vastly increased through the use of remote cameras and sensing devices.

Unquestioned support for higher education is no longer a consensus feature of public opinion in the US. At the same time, college and university leaders are facing many of the same challenges faced by business and industry thirty years ago--a globalized economy that drives outsourcing and demands uniform 'product standards,' rapid technological change, and increased expectations for accountability and transparency, among others. With these challenges ascendant, higher education is no longer a world apart.

For a copy of the full report, contact Millennia consultant Kenneth O'Hare at 312-922-9920x3 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .