The Interfolio Blog

Yesterday the New England Board of Higher Education released its annual report on trends and indicators in higher ed in the region. The report is an interesting look at regional and national trends, especially as a benchmark as we look to how the current economic climate will effect financial aid, enrollment, retention and graduation rates across New England and the country as a whole.

We've pulled out three stats we found interesting, and a full copy of the report is available here.

One figure of interest calls out funding sources for both undergraduate and graduate studies in the last year. Of particular note, graduate students rely far more heavily on federal grant money and 10% more on state funding as well compared to undergrads, while seeing exponentially less funding come from the institution itself.

Many argue that graduate programs will see increased enrollment as people lose jobs and return to school to seek retraining, but as these numbers note, much of that depends on the ability to secure aid, and with federal budgeting for higher education in flux, we are likely to see a strain on the federal loan system in the coming year. Schools will need to determine how this effects enrollment and how to distribute internal funding moving forward.

In addition to wondering about the skewed source of funding at undergraduate vs. graduate levels of funding, we found this example of how much the region's citizens devote toward higher ed funding interesting. As the slide demonstrates, New England has some of the highest tuition rates in the country, and devotes the least in terms of state tax money toward the support of higher ed and financial aid.

The last slide we pulled out is a long-term view of how fields of study have changed over the last 30 years. Of  note: numbers of students in the field of education have plummeted, while arts and music and the humanities have actually been on the rise in recent years.