Attainment has always been an interesting topic for me, every since I first got stunned into disbelief when I looked at the data over time. Even looking at shorter periods can lead to some revelations that many don’t make sense at first.
Here is the latest data from NCES, published in the Digest of Education Statistics. Please note that this is for informational purposes only, and I’ve not even attempted to visualize the standard errors in this data, which vary from state-to-state.
There are four views year, all looking at educational attainment by state in 2012 and 2022.
The first shows data on a map: Choose the year, and choose the level of attainment. Note that the top three categories can be confusing: BA means a Bachelor’s degree only; Grad degree means at least a Master’s (or higher, of course); and BA or more presumably combines those two. Again, standard errors might mean the numbers don’t always add up perfectly.
The second shows the data on a bar chart, in three views: 2012 data, 2022 data, and the change, in percentage points. You can choose the attainment level, and then use the control to decide which column to sort the data by.
The third view is a slope chart, where you can see the two years for any state. Choose the attainment level, and then highlight the state you’re interested in. Hover over the points for details.
And finally, the scatter shows the same data, with the same controls; the bubbles are sized by percentage-point change. Additionally, you can use the filter to see which states have changed the most or the least.
If anything surprises you here, drop a comment below, or send me an email.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found that the law to ban TikTok in the United States did not violate Americans’ First Amendment rights. Never before has Congress taken the extraordinary step of effectively banning a platform for communication, let alone one used by half the country.
The First Amendment requires an explanation of why such a dramatic restriction of the right to speak and receive information is necessary, and compelling evidence to support it. The government failed to provide either.
What little Congress did place on the public record includes statements from lawmakers raising diffuse concerns about national security and, more disturbingly, their desire to control the American public’s information diet in a way that strikes at the heart of the First Amendment.
Today, FIRE and a coalition of organizations filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to reverse the decision.
FIRE is proud to be joined by the following organizations and individuals for today’s brief:
The Institute for Justice
Reason Foundation
The Future of Free Speech
The Woodhull Freedom Foundation
The First Amendment Lawyers Association
Stop Child Predators
The Pelican Institute for Public Policy
CJ Pearson
Will Creeley, legal director at FIRE: “The government doesn’t have the power to pull the plug on TikTok without demonstrating exactly why such a dramatic step is absolutely necessary. It has failed to publicly lay out the case for cutting off an avenue of expression that 170 million of us use. The First Amendment requires a lot more than just the government’s say-so. Fifty years after the publication of the Pentagon Papers, Americans understand that invoking ‘national security’ doesn’t grant the government free rein to censor. By failing to properly hold the government to its constitutionally required burden of proof, the court’s decision erodes First Amendment rights now and in the future.”
Jacob Mchangama, executive director of The Future of Free Speech and senior fellow at FIRE: “For decades, the United States has been the global gold standard for free speech protections. The unprecedented bipartisan push to effectively shut down TikTok — an online platform where millions exercise their right to free expression and access information — represents a troubling shift from this proud legacy. If enacted, this ban would make the U.S. the first free and open democracy to impose such sweeping restrictions, drawing uncomfortable parallels with authoritarian regimes like Somalia, Iran, and Afghanistan, which use similar measures to suppress dissent and control their populations. This is not just about a single app; it is a litmus test for the resilience of First Amendment principles in the digital age. The Supreme Court must ensure that Congress is held to the highest standard before permitting actions of such profound consequence. A TikTok ban risks setting a dangerous precedent that undermines the very freedoms distinguishing democracies from autocracies.”
The D.C. Circuit’s decision justifies the Act’s sweeping censorship by invoking “free speech fundamentals.” In so doing, it confuses the First Amendment values at stake, and sacrifices our constitutional tradition of debate and dialogue for enforced silence. The D.C. Circuit’s misguided reasoning is sharply at odds with longstanding First Amendment precedent, violating the constitutional protections it claims to preserve. Instead of following the instructive example set by Taiwan, which has eschewed a blanket TikTok ban in favor of robust counterspeech, the D.C. Circuit’s logic echoes the authoritarianism of North Korea and Iran.
Social philosopher Herbert Spencer
was wrong in many respects when he coined the term survival of the fittest to discuss human behavior and Victorian social policies. But
social scientists would not be wrong today in comparing humans to other organisms, or to understanding (but not necessarily agreeing with) Spencer’s application of survival of the fittest, especially as the guardrails of government and religion are weakened.
Humans may appear sophisticated in some ways, but we are animals, nevertheless. Many of the laws of human behavior are consistent with the laws of nature, despite commonly held beliefs about human civilization that seemingly make us different. Yet like other animals, humans are prone to disease and vulnerable to the environment. We can adapt to change, and survive using a variety of means which may comport to our values or cause cognitive dissonance. Humans imitate, innovate, manipulate, connive, and steal. Non-human organisms, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, and more complex beings, like insects and rodents, can also adapt, and have so for millions of years, much longer than we have. We live in an ecosystem, and in communities. When other organisms thrive or die, it affects us.
This new social reality (or a return to older social realities) should become more apparent in the coming years as humans across the globe deal with a number of existential issues, including war, famine, and disease–and the human-induced climate change that will pour fuel on these issues. Not only must we reexamine Herbert Spencer, we must also reexamine Thomas Malthus and determine what aspects of his theories on population may be coming back to life, and what aspects may not be as relevant.
As a school striving to broaden its reach, you likely already understand the importance of personalized communication to attract and retain students. That may sound like a lot of work because, without the right tools, it certainly can be. Fortunately, our team, with over fifteen years of experience working closely with educational institutions, has developed specialized solutions that address key challenges faced by schools looking to streamline their processes and boost enrollment.
HEM’s custom-built solutions—Mautic by HEM, a powerful Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and marketing automation system, and HEM’s Student Portal, an all-in-one Student Information System (SIS)—offer the tools you need to manage your admissions and student engagement efforts seamlessly. Let’s explore how you can give yourself the gift of efficiency this holiday season with these systems!
Simplify student management and boost recruitment efficiency!
Transform your student portal experience. Get a FREE HEM-SP demo today.
Understanding CRMs and How They Benefit Your Institution
What is a CRM and how can it benefit educational institutions? A CRM, or Customer Relationship Management system, is a platform that helps organizations manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle.
For educational institutions, a CRM is essential in managing prospective student relationships, tracking their progress through the admissions funnel, and keeping detailed records of interactions. At its core, a CRM enables schools to create personalized experiences for prospective students, allowing them to engage in meaningful ways at every stage of their journey.
Mautic by HEM, our tailored CRM for educational institutions leverages the open-source marketing automation platform Mautic to deliver a seamless experience designed specifically for the education sector. With features like lead segmentation, automated workflows, custom reporting, and multichannel marketing, Mautic by HEM empowers schools to enhance their lead management and marketing efficiency.
By segmenting contacts based on their stage in the admissions process, program of interest, or geographical location, your institution can ensure that each prospect receives targeted messages that are more likely to result in conversions.
Reach out to us for a demo to see how Mautic can boost efficiency for your school’s marketing campaign!
Mautic by HEM: Supercharge Your Lead Management and Marketing
Mautic by HEM goes beyond a standard CRM, combining powerful customer relationship management with advanced marketing automation to help you maximize your student recruitment efforts.
Mautic makes it easy to manage a large number of prospective students by allowing you to segment, organize, and follow up with prospects efficiently. By automating workflows and assigning follow-up tasks, your team can manage their workload better, ensuring that each prospect receives timely attention.
Source: Mautic | HEM
Example: Do you see how centralizing prospect information helps you track the effectiveness of your campaigns and determine the next step in the enrollment funnel? Here, prospects are categorized by their current stage in the enrollment process, their program of interest, the channel through which they first interacted with your institution, and what sort of contact they are. That’s all the information you need to craft an appropriate and compelling follow-up message tailored to each unique responsibility. Mautic helps you with that part too!
In addition, Mautic by HEM’s marketing automation tools enable you to scale up your email marketing, create dynamic landing pages, design forms, and automate workflows. This allows your institution to maintain a high level of personalized engagement with prospects across multiple channels, thereby improving your reach and effectiveness in digital recruitment.
The solution’s custom reporting features also give you detailed insights into your admissions pipeline. With Mautic by HEM, you can monitor productivity, track lead progress, and evaluate channel performance, which will help you refine your approach and allocate resources to high-impact activities.
Ensuring timely follow-up is essential for converting leads to students, and Mautic by HEM enables automated SMS and email follow-ups, allowing you to communicate with leads through their preferred channels. Whether it’s sending reminders, booking meetings, or making calls, Mautic by HEM has the tools your team needs to maintain a consistent communication flow.
Source: Mautic | HEM
Example: Viewing the contact history for each prospect lets you know how they prefer to communicate. In addition to other vital data such as name and contact information, you can craft a highly personalized message such as the SMS pictured above.
Finally, Mautic by HEM also helps your team manage their daily tasks and workload. With integrated calendars, workflow assignments, and productivity tracking, your staff can stay organized and focused on what matters most—building relationships and driving enrollments.
Why You Need an SIS for Your School
Now, what is a Student Information System (SIS)?Student Information System software is designed to manage student data from application through graduation. An SIS handles everything from enrollment and class scheduling to academic records and financial management. This centralized database makes it easy for staff to track student progress and streamline administrative tasks.
HEM’s Student Portal integrates CRM and SIS functionalities to provide an all-in-one admissions and student management platform. Tailored to meet the demands of educational institutions, the portal includes tools for application management, payment processing, and student record tracking. This integrated solution enables institutions to centralize and simplify operations, allowing your staff to focus on building meaningful relationships with prospective and current students.
HEM’s Student Portal takes SIS integration to a new level, offering an all-encompassing admissions and student management system designed specifically for educational institutions. The Student Portal simplifies the application process, offering a virtual admissions assistant that guides students from start to finish. Students can inquire, apply, pay, and even enroll through an easy-to-use interface.
Source: Student Portal | HEM
Example: A customized Student Portal will guide students through your application process from initial form submission to payment in a user-friendly format as pictured above.
Customizable forms and a centralized management system make it easy for your staff to track applications, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. Additionally, the portal seamlessly integrates with Mautic by HEM, allowing you to manage marketing and admissions in one place. By streamlining communication and automating workflows, this system supports your institution’s goals for efficiency and high-quality engagement with prospective students.
The Student Portal allows for comprehensive data management, tracking all aspects of student data from initial inquiry to graduation. With detailed records and customizable reports, your team can monitor application status, manage payment processing, and keep detailed academic records, providing staff with a complete view of each student’s journey.
Source: Student Portal | HEM
Example: Here, you can see our centralized application management system. See all incoming applications and determine which applications were started and not completed. In addition, the Student Portal platform allows you to track prospects based on name, program, whether they’ve been sent an invoice, and whether that invoice has been paid. This information is valuable as it clarifies the next step for each contact.
Furthermore, the portal’s quote builder tool allows prospective students to calculate program costs, offering them a transparent view of financial requirements. This provides clarity and builds trust, making it easier for students and their families to plan for the financial aspects of their education.
Designed to improve efficiency across all departments, the Student Portal facilitates better collaboration by centralizing data and providing tools for managing projects and tracking progress. This comprehensive approach allows staff to work towards strategic institutional goals, fostering a collaborative environment that drives both student success and institutional growth.
Experience the HEM Advantage: Efficiency
Mautic by HEM and the HEM Student Portal offer transformative CRM and SIS solutions that empower educational institutions to work smarter, not harder. By combining lead management, marketing automation, admissions tracking, and student data management, HEM’s tools create a cohesive system designed to meet the unique needs of schools. That’s what we accomplished for Micheal Vincent Academy.
Founded by Tally B. Hajek, a multi-talented recording artist and makeup artist, and her husband Michael Vincent, a renowned celebrity photographer, MVA teaches around 350 students annually. Each student gains expert instruction and builds a professional portfolio, launching them toward successful careers in beauty and media.
MVA sought an organized, streamlined solution to manage its student recruitment efforts, and they found the answer in Mautic by HEM. This customized CRM software, specifically tailored for educational institutions, allows MVA to efficiently automate its marketing efforts and seamlessly follow up with prospective students.
Transformative Results for a Thriving Institution
With Mautic, MVA’s team can now easily track and manage leads. The CRM’s powerful reporting tools give the academy a clear view of each lead’s journey through the admissions process. Staff can track the progress of every prospective student, monitor recruitment team activities, and measure productivity—all crucial for a private institution focused on cost-effective outreach. Furthermore, the lead-scoring feature in Mautic enables the recruitment team to identify and prioritize high-value leads, allowing MVA to concentrate on students who are genuinely interested and likely to succeed within the academy’s creative programs.
As Tally Hajek highlights, the organizational capabilities of Mautic are essential to building meaningful connections with prospective students. “We value connections with prospective students, but connections cannot happen without organization,” she explains. The system enables her team to foster relationships with students who are both committed and well-suited to the academy’s professional and artistic environment.
Moreover, HEM’s attentive and supportive customer service has made the partnership especially rewarding. “We love working with the HEM team,” says Hajek. “We feel like they really understand us and want us to succeed.” With HEM’s customized solutions, MVA has significantly increased staff efficiency in student recruitment, giving their team the tools to excel in a competitive educational market and helping the academy continue to thrive as a leader in beauty and media education.
Imagine a system that handles every step of the student journey—engaging prospective students, nurturing leads, simplifying applications, and supporting students through their academic journey—all from a single platform. HEM is dedicated to providing solutions that help you enhance recruitment, boost enrollment, and offer the seamless digital experience that students expect.
To see how Mautic and the HEM Student Portal can transform your institution, request a demo today and discover the possibilities of giving yourself the gift of efficiency.
Give Yourself the Gift of Efficiency
This holiday season, give your institution the ultimate gift: the power to work smarter, not harder. HEM’s custom-built solutions, including Mautic CRM and the HEM Student Portal, are designed to streamline your operations and boost your team’s effectiveness.
From managing prospective student leads to enhancing engagement and improving communication, these tools empower your staff to focus on what truly matters—building connections and driving success.
Simplify student management and boost recruitment efficiency!
Transform your student portal experience. Get a FREE HEM-SP demo today.
FAQ
Question: What is a CRM and how can it benefit educational institutions?
Answer: A CRM, or Customer Relationship Management system, is a platform that helps organizations manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle.
Question: What is a Student Information System (SIS)?
Answer: Student Information System software is designed to manage student data from application through graduation.
This article was originally published in December 2024 in the opinion page of The Los Angeles Times and is republished here with permission.
The Constitution shouldn’t be rewritten for every new communications technology. The Supreme Court reaffirmed this long-standing principle during its most recent term in applying the 1st Amendment to social media. The late Justice Antonin Scalia articulated it persuasively in 2011, noting that “whatever the challenges of applying the Constitution to ever-advancing technology, the basic principles of freedom of speech and the press … do not vary.”
These principles should be front of mind for congressional Republicans and David Sacks, Trump’s recently chosen artificial intelligence czar, as they make policy on that emerging technology. The 1st Amendment standards that apply to older communications technologies must also apply to artificial intelligence, particularly as it stands to play an increasingly significant role in human expression and learning.
But revolutionary technological change breeds uncertainty and fear. And where there is uncertainty and fear, unconstitutional regulation inevitably follows. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, lawmakers in at least 45 states have introduced bills to regulate AI this year, and 31 states adopted laws or resolutions on the technology. Congress is also considering AI legislation.
Many of these proposals respond to concerns that AI will supercharge the spread of misinformation. While the worry is understandable, misinformation is not subject to any categorical exemption from 1st Amendment protections. And with good reason: As Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson observed in 1945, the Constitution’s framers “did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us,” and therefore “every person must be his own watchman for truth.”
California nevertheless enacted a law in September targeting “deceptive,” digitally modified content about political candidates. The law was motivated partly by an AI-altered video parodying Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy that went viral earlier in the summer.
Two weeks after the law went into effect, a judge blocked it, writing that the “principles safeguarding the people’s right to criticize government … apply even in the new technological age” and that penalties for such criticism “have no place in our system of governance.”
Ultimately, we don’t need new laws regulating most uses of AI; existing laws will do just fine. Defamation, fraud, false light and forgery laws already address the potential of deceptive expression to cause real harm. And they apply regardless of whether the deception is enabled by a radio broadcast or artificial intelligence technology. The Constitution should protect novel communications technology not just so we can share AI-enhanced political memes. We should also be able to freely harness AI in pursuit of another core 1st Amendment concern: knowledge production.
When we think of free expression guarantees, we often think of the right to speak. But the 1st Amendment goes beyond that. As the Supreme Court held in 1969, “The Constitution protects the right to receive information and ideas.”
Information is the foundation of progress. The more we have, the more we can propose and test hypotheses and produce knowledge.
The internet, like the printing press, was a knowledge-accelerating innovation. But Congress almost hobbled development of the internet in the 1990s because of concerns that it would enable minors to access “indecent” content. Fortunately, the Supreme Court stood in its way by striking down much of the Communications Decency Act.
Indeed, the Supreme Court’s application of the 1st Amendment to that new technology was so complete that it left Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Mike Godwin wondering “whether I ought to retire from civil liberties work, my job being mostly done.” Godwin would go on to serve as general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit behind Wikipedia — which, he wrote, “couldn’t exist without the work that cyberlibertarians had done in the 1990s to guarantee freedom of expression and broader access to the internet.”
Today humanity is developing a technology with even more knowledge-generating potential than the internet. No longer is knowledge production limited by the number of humans available to propose and test hypotheses. We can now enlist machines to augment our efforts.
We are already starting to see the results: A researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently reported that AI enabled a lab studying new materials to discover 44% more compounds. Dario Amodei, the chief executive of the AI company Anthropic, predicts that “AI-enabled biology and medicine will allow us to compress the progress that human biologists would have achieved over the next 50-100 years into 5-10 years.”
This promise can be realized only if America continues to view the tools of knowledge production as legally inseparable from the knowledge itself. Yes, the printing press led to a surge of “misinformation.” But it also enabled the Enlightenment.
The 1st Amendment is America’s great facilitator: Because of it, the government can no more regulate the printing press than it can the words printed on a page. We must extend that standard to artificial intelligence, the arena where the next great fight for free speech will be fought.
As social observers at the Higher Education Inquirer, we have noticed a US youth society showing increasing signs of anxiety and cynicism. Both of these emotions are understandable, but they have to be treated with care.
This angst among so many young adults shows up not just in suicides and drug epidemics but in many other destructive but subtler ways that don’t make the news as much.
Weed dispensaries are growing. It’s good that marijuana possession is no longer a crime. But smoking marijuana is not safe. To say it’s less dangerous than
alcohol may be true, but it’s only a rationalization.
Gambling addictions may also be related to this trend in destructively
impulsive thoughts and behaviors. If your life has little meaning, you
can find some meaning in talking about sports and betting with your
bros. Betting alone can be worse.
Doom spending shows that many younger folk are overspending because they have less hope. It’s not the same as shopping therapy because the outcome is not feeling better, but of feeling even worse. Overall, may help increase the need for warehouses and warehouse jobs, but also damages those around you in ways you may not even see.
Who Benefits?
The only people who benefit in the long run are those who profit from pain. The people on Wall Street. And the rich people who invest in that pain. In the end, even those people, or their loved ones, may be subject to a cynicism they may be forced to notice.
Other Possibilities
If you are spending money that could be spent on
something else,for the future, you are doing a disservice to yourself
and those around you.These trends among US youth are the opposite of
youth global trends in frugal living, living that can lead to greater
happiness and meaning.
By Golo Henseke (LinkedIn) Associate Professor in Education, Practice and Society at the Institute of Education (IoE), UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, and Francis Green, Professor of Work and Education Economics, also at the IOE.
A recent report by the Organisation of Economically Developed Countries (OECD) claims that nearly four in ten employees in England are overqualified for their jobs, the highest rate among OECD countries. If accurate, this statistic seems to reflect a substantial waste of human capital and raises questions about the state of the UK labour market and education system. However, closer scrutiny suggests that the figure may be misleading, stemming from methodological quirks specific to the English data rather than an alarming surge in overqualification.
Dubious Comparisons
The OECD findings are based on a once-in-a-decade survey of adult skills, an ambitious international undertaking aiming for comparability across countries and economies. Yet, qualifications are inherently tricky to standardise internationally. For example, how does an English GCSE compare to a US high school diploma? The nuances of national education systems can render such comparisons tenuous.
England’s reported 37% overqualification rate, up from under 30% a decade earlier, is at odds with other data. Our surveys of the British workforce, which employ similar methodologies, show a modest drop in overqualification rates between 2006 and 2017, from 30% to 26%. If the reported OECD figures are to be believed, the rise would imply an extraordinary shift since 2017: approximately 2.5 million additional workers would have been relegated to roles beneath their qualifications within just a few years. This appears implausible. It is also at odds with a decline in graduate overqualification from 34% in 2012 to 30% in 2023, as our independent analysis of OECD’s data shows.
A more likely explanation lies in changes to the OECD’s survey design for England. In 2012, UK respondents were presented with a comprehensive list of nearly 60 qualifications when reporting job requirements and personal attainment. In 2023, this was reduced to just 19 options, with significant alterations to how response options were presented. The switch to a simplified classification may have skewed the responses, particularly below degree level, contributing to the measured overqualification rates.
This issue is not confined to England. A similar methodological shift occurred in France, where the reported overqualification rate fell from 30% to 19%. Conversely, in the US, where questionnaires remained broadly consistent, the reported increase was a more credible five percentage points.
A Structural Issue, Not a Graduate Problem
Apart from this problem of potentially inconsistent measurement over time, the rush to attribute England’s supposed peculiar problem of overqualification to an oversupply of graduates is misplaced. Our re-examination of OECD’s survey data shows that, in England, graduates face lower risks of overqualification than non-graduates: the overqualification rate among non-graduates is 17 percentage points higher than among those with a degree. This gap between graduates and non-graduates broadly aligns with our own data from the British Skills and Employment Surveys.
The Director for Education and Skills at the OECD, Andreas Schleicher, has been quoted saying that the UK’s higher education sector is “overextending” itself, with universities offering credentials that lack substantive value. However, with this oversimplified reaction, he is surely aiming at the wrong part of our education system.
A Misguided Narrative
In addition, he is almost certainly targeting the wrong side of the labour market. Overqualification in the UK is likely driven, not so much by an oversupply of graduates as by a failure to create enough middle-skill jobs and robust vocational pathways outside universities.
Overqualification is indeed a pressing issue. Even at a rate nearer 3 in 10, overqualification in England is higher than in most other advanced economies in the OECD. Overqualification depresses wages, diminishes job satisfaction, and undermines long-term productivity as underutilised skills atrophy. But this knee-jerk pinning of blame just on education, particularly on higher education, misses the mark, and forgets about the external benefits that education brings for society and the economy. Instead, England’s policymakers must address the structural deficiencies in the labour market, particularly the lack of opportunities for those with intermediate qualifications.
Simplistic diagnoses risk distracting from the real challenges. England’s education system is not producing “too many” graduates. Instead, its economy and further education system fail to provide sufficient opportunities to harness the potential of those not bound for higher education. To strengthen qualification pathways outside universities, a targeted strategy to foster middle-skill employment (while addressing skill shortages) is urgently needed. Without some recognition of these complexities, public discourse about overqualification will continue to generate more heat than light as university fees are set to surpass £10,000.
