Looking toward tonight’s “Focus on the Future” event at Western New Mexico University, I threw together this chart to highlight the growing problem of declining enrollment at the school. In blue are the credit hours for lower division courses, while the numbers in green and red indicate upper and graduate division courses, respectively. To understand [...]

I’ve blogged on this subject before, but Beverlee McClure brings it up again today in the latest update from the Secretary of Higher Education (looks like the April update isn’t online yet): Lots of attention is being focused on the increases in tuition we are seeing across the state. While New Mexico’s average tuition continues [...]

A few years ago, the Associated Students of New Mexico successfully lobbied to prevent changes to the NM Lottery Success Scholarship program. The organization’s members were all elected representatives from student governments in New Mexico universities and colleges, and, therefore, spoke for just about every higher education student in the state. They argued that the [...]

This is exactly what I was talking about last week: the U.S. losing its edge in scientific research. Bingaman and Alexander asked last May for a panel of experts at the National Academy of Science to investigate the matter. In their report, called “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” and presented to Congress in October, the [...]

Well, it doesn’t look like there’s much going on in New Mexico right now, because everybody is waiting for the start of the legislative session tomorrow. And, to be honest, it makes sense: today is a holiday, so most folk in the Land of Enchantment are happily relaxing on their day off (I know I’m [...]

If you’re not from around here, you may not know of all the fuss going on between a certain segment of the community and the administration at Western New Mexico University. For those who do, please bear with my while I provide a little background. A group of people, led by Earl Montoya of the [...]