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GOOD MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT HIGHER ED — We've got around 114 institutions of higher education in Massachusetts, and they're an economic driver for more than 100 municipal economies. The industry employs around 125,000 people.
But as higher ed braces for what will likely be a major contraction over the next decade nationally, officials are trying to chart the next moves here in the Bay State.
As UMass President Marty Meehan put it at his State of the University address earlier this week, it's a case of supply and demand. Fewer kids were born around 2008, so fewer students are projected to enroll in colleges over the next decade. That means closures and mergers are on the horizon, especially at small, private schools with big price tags.
We're already seeing first-hand what small college closures look like here in New England. Southern Vermont College just announced it will close down this spring, the Pioneer Valley's Hampshire College is looking for a partner to keep it afloat, and students are still reeling from Mount Ida's abrupt closure last year.
So what's the next step? Charlie Baker filed a bill yesterday afternoon that would require colleges in financial trouble to alert the Board of Higher Education and submit a contingency plan for notifying current and admitted students and staff. The board could also sanction institutions that don't comply with requirements under the bill, and information submitted would be exempt from public records law, according to Baker's office.
Meanwhile, UMass Chairman Robert Manning said it's likely UMass will acquire several institutions over the next decade, according to the Boston Business Journal. Case in point: emails show Hampshire College had looked at UMass as a potential partner last fall.
And while UMass could stand to benefit from more students choosing an in-state public school as a result of this larger landscape shift, Meehan also wants to ramp up UMass' online offerings. He announced a new online college earlier this week, and plans for the university to grow in a market that's dominated by Southern New Hampshire University. SNHU boasts more than 90,000 online learners — that's more than the 75,000 students enrolled across the UMass system, and more than the entire population of Somerville.
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TODAY — Gov. Charlie Baker highlights his road safety bill at the AAA Boston office. Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito attends a Worcester County Bar Association breakfast and attends a community compact discussion in Maynard with state Rep. Kate Hogan.
Rep. Katherine Clark introduces a bill that would require the U.S. State Department to include reproductive rights in its annual human rights report. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh speaks at a Boston Municipal Research Bureau luncheon. State Rep. Paul Tucker and Middlesex Sheriff Peter J. Koutoujian celebrate the anniversary of the People Achieving Change Together program. The Senate meets in formal session.
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 | DATELINE BEACON HILL |
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- "Baker, T board members at odds on revenue strategy," by Bruce Mohl, CommonWealth Magazine: "GOV. CHARLIE BAKER and several of his appointees to the MBTA oversight board appear to be at odds over whether a T fare increase should be accompanied by hikes in fees and charges on other forms of transportation. The issue first surfaced on Monday at a meeting of the Fiscal and Management Control Board, where director Brian Lang said he didn't think a fare increase should take place in isolation. He said fares may need to go up, but that action should be accompanied by other revenue-raising measures, including higher fees on ride-hailing apps such as Uber and Lyft, an increase in the gas tax, or congestion toll pricing."
- "Governor Baker touts promise of wind power, new technology," by David Abel, Boston Globe: "New York recently set a long-term goal of generating 9,000 megawatts of energy from offshore wind power, while New Jersey plans to build 3,500 megawatts. But Massachusetts is seeking to produce just 1,600 megawatts, a target critics say is too modest. Some environmentalists had hoped that Governor Charlie Baker would announce a loftier goal Wednesday at a forum in Boston about the future of offshore wind power. Instead, Baker spoke more broadly about his administration's efforts to bring the nation's first large-scale offshore wind farm to the waters off Martha's Vineyard, a project that could begin by year's end."
- "Baker wants increased state oversight of private colleges," by Laura Krantz, Boston Globe: "Governor Charlie Baker filed legislation on Wednesday to strengthen the state's ability to monitor the financial health of private colleges, a move that comes as an increasing number of small New England schools are struggling financially, and several have closed. The bill would authorize a state board to request information from colleges to determine their financial health. It would also requires schools that believe they may be on the brink of closing to notify the state."
- "LOTTERY COULD HANDLE SPORTS BETTING, GOLDBERG SAYS," by Katie Lannan, State House News Service: "New Hampshire, one of 11 states that offer lottery games online, took in more than $1.3 million in revenue from online sales in its first 12 weeks. In Massachusetts, where the Lottery is not online but consumers can bet on horse racing online and over the phone, one racing licensee reported more than $90 million in such wagers in 2016. Treasurer Deb Goldberg presented those statistics to legislators on Tuesday, again appealing to them to allow the state Lottery to move online to attract new customers and continue generating revenue for local aid in the face of competition from daily fantasy sports, casinos and the potential for legalized sports betting."
- "Cities Don't Always Tell You When There's Sewage In The River. A New Bill Would Change That," by Miriam Wasser, WBUR:"Statewide, about 200 active outfall pipes located in 18 cities discharge billions of gallons of sewage annually. And climate change is going to make the problem worse. Scientists predict that in the future, the Northeast will receive more precipitation in shorter, more intense bursts. It's a recipe for sewage overflows. No one builds CSOs anymore and no one wants the ones we have. But getting rid of them will cost billions and take years, so water advocates are pushing for a more modest, short-term goal: just letting the public know when there's sewage in the water. Queenan's group is behind a bill to do that."
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| WHAT CITY HALL IS READING |
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- "Walsh to propose 20 mph limit in neighborhoods and Uber, Lyft pickup sites," by Milton J. Valencia and Adam Vaccaro, Boston Globe: "Mayor Martin J. Walsh plans to roll out a set of transportation initiatives Thursday, including proposals to lower speed limits in neighborhoods to 20 miles per hour and create designated pickup and drop-off sites in certain areas for ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft. At his annual speech for the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Walsh also is slated to announce that he has appointed a transit team to collaborate with the MBTA on issues such as quickening the bus system. And, he'll say the city will offer free MBTA passes to all middle and high school students, regardless of the distance to their schools — an increase from roughly 20,000 to more than 30,000 passes, at a cost of several million dollars."
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| FROM THE HUB |
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- "Drivers bemoan Boston traffic signal system that prevents free flow of vehicles," by Sean Philip Cotter, Boston Herald: "Boston drivers are seeing red over out-of-sync traffic lights they say force frequent braking and create gridlock, problems City Hall says it hopes to reduce with new technology, though transportation officials say they'd rather get people out of cars and into public transit or on bikes. "You have three lights in 50 yards, and the middle one will be green and the other two won't. Then the opposite. No one's going anywhere," Uber driver Felipe Rios told the Herald last week, voicing a common gripe about constant stops and starts that he and other drivers see as unnecessary. In numerous Herald interviews with cabbies and ride-share drivers, the same thoroughfares kept coming up: Surface Road along the Greenway, intersections around Causeway Street, the Longwood medical area, downtown, and the entire length of Massachusetts Avenue."
- "UMass Amherst Program Offered At Former Mount Ida Campus Angers Some UMass Boston Faculty," by Fred Thys, WBUR:"Starting in May, the UMass Amherst business school is offering a degree-granting program on the former campus of Mount Ida College, in Newton. Some professors at UMass Boston are angry about the move. They see it as UMass Amherst competing directly with UMass Boston's business school. UMass Amherst's Isenberg School of Management will offer a master's of science in business and analytics on the old Mount Ida campus."
- "Why is BPS transferring property to the city?" by Yawu Miller, Bay State Banner: "BPS officials say they're spending $1 billion as part of a ten-year process aimed at building new schools and renovating existing ones to fit changing needs of the city's students. But parent activists, school committee members and city councilors are still looking for clear answers on what will get built, when and for whom, and some expressed frustration during meetings last week at City Hall and the Boston School Committee as BPS officials answered questions on the BuildBPS planning process."
- "UMass president says local colleges are facing an 'existential threat,'" by Nik DeCosta-Klipa, Boston.com: "As yet another small New England college bites the dust, UMass President Marty Meehan is sounding alarms that an "existential threat" could soon cripple higher education across the region. According to Meehan, local colleges are facing a demographic crisis. After the United States saw its college student population explode during the second half of the 20th century, overall enrollment has begun to decline in recent years — across the country and in school-saturated New England. In 2016, more than two thirds of private colleges and a majority of public colleges failed to meet their enrollment goals. Declining enrollment means declining tuition revenue — which in turn is increasing the financial pressure on colleges, particularly small schools."
- "Tiptoeing into the exam school admission debate," by Michael Jonas, CommonWealth Magazine: "THE GLOBE REPORTS TODAY that the Boston Public Schools are "exploring the idea of replacing the controversial exam" that determines acceptance to the city's three selective-admission schools. Interim superintendent Laura Perille shared that news at a City Council hearing yesterday that was called to look at exam-school admission policies. But if the test used to determine admission to Boston Latin School and the city's two other exam schools is controversial, so is any talk of changing the system that families have learned to master to funnel their offspring into one of the schools."
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| THE OPINION PAGES |
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- "THE FALL OF THE GE BOSTON DEAL, PART II," by Jason Pramas, DigBoston: "Last week in the first installment of this two-part column, I ran through the many problems with the January 2016 deal between General Electric, the city of Boston, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that has now collapsed for all intents and purposes. At one point the city and state were ready to give over $270 million in public funds to a company with a terrible track record in the Bay State and beyond. But the multinational's bad business fortunes led to the originally secret agreement's termination a mere three years after it was signed. And only dumb luck has saved the city and state from handing most of the promised lucre to a thoroughly undeserving corporate scofflaw like GE. Which doesn't make the failed deal any better or less worthy of public scrutiny."
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| DAY IN COURT |
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- "MBTA Transit Officers Charged In Connection With Beating Of Homeless Man," Associated Press: "Prosecutors say a former transit police officer who allegedly beat a homeless man and two sergeants who allegedly tried to cover up the excessive use of force are facing charges. Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins and MBTA Police Chief Kenneth Green announced the indictments Wednesday. Officer Dorston Bartlett, of Lynn, is charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and violating a person's civil rights for allegedly using his baton to strike a 32-year-old homeless man multiple times at Ashmont station in the early morning hours of last July 27."
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| WARREN REPORT |
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- "Will Warren's ban on big donations backfire?" by Jess Bidgood and Liz Goodwin, Boston Globe: "Standing in front of 200 voters in a packed Iowa storefront, Senator Elizabeth Warren was laying on a little guilt. Having sworn off private fund-raisers with millionaires, she explained, she was putting her campaign in the hands of regular voters like them. "It's a big bet on Iowa democracy, that we can do this together, that we can do it through $5 and $25 donations and whatever people can afford," Warren said, before urging her audience to go to her website and "sign up." It was an unsubtle hint: Give!"
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| DATELINE D.C. |
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- "Mass. Politicians Propose Lowering National Voting Age To 16," by Callum Borchers and Walter Wuthmann, WBUR: " If you're 16 in this country, you can drive, get a job and pay taxes — even marry or buy a gun, in some states. But you can't vote in national elections. Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley is trying to change that. The freshman lawmaker introduced her first amendment in Congress Tuesday. It's a proposal to lower the national voting age from 18 to 16. Pressley's amendment is being added to a sweeping, election-reform bill in the House of Representatives. That bill is in the hands of the House Rules Committee, chaired by Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern."
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| EYE ON 2020 |
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- "A Moderate Republican Wants to Give Donald Trump a Primary Challenge in 2020," by Dorothy Wickenden, The New Yorker:"President Donald Trump boasts an approval rating of close to ninety per cent among Republican voters. But the former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld recently announced that he had started an exploratory committee to challenge Trump in the primary. It looks like a political-suicide mission, but Weld sees a pathway to victory that runs through his neighboring state of New Hampshire, and then on to other blue-leaning states where Republican voters might be open to a different candidate."
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| ABOVE THE FOLD |
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— Herald: "RED LIGHT DISTRICTS," — Globe: "Warren places big bet on small donors," "In shift, Facebook puts focus on privacy." |
| THE LOCAL ANGLE |
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- "Fall River mayor withdraws $306,000 offer to repay defrauded app investors," by Laurel J. Sweet, Boston Herald: "Fall River Mayor Jasiel F. Correia II has pulled back his offer to make financial amends to investors he's been federally charged with defrauding as a recall election threatening to jeopardize his political career looms next week. Federal prosecutors, suspect of Correia's timing and motive for making the offer in the first place, told U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Donald L. Cabell in response to Tuesday's withdrawal that "the government is unaware of the source of" the $306,000 Correia last month proposed paying back through his attorney Kevin J. Reddington."
- "Merrimack Valley shop owners frustrated with natural gas disaster response," by Philip Marcelo, Associated Press: "More than six months after natural gas explosions rocked Massachusetts' Merrimack Valley, small business owners in the region say they're still reeling. Convenience store, grocery and salon owners complained at a forum in Lawrence on Wednesday that the compensation they've received from Columbia Gas, the utility company to blame for the Sept. 13 disaster, doesn't come close to covering their losses. Some said they haven't been paid at all, despite filing their claims months ago."
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| MEDIA MATTERS |
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- "What's Next for Kirk Minihane?" by Thomas Stackpole, Boston Magazine: "More than anything else, Minihane loves to fight. Where some people may find meaning in philanthropy, gardening, or even making money, Minihane's happy place is discovering how someone else is wrong and then giddily grinding their face in it. And for the better part of the past six years, he's taken that instinct and transformed it into radio gold between the hours of 6 and 10 a.m. as a cohost alongside John Dennis and Gerry Callahan of WEEI's top-rated morning act, which later became The Kirk & Callahan Show."
- "FORMER DEMOCRATIC GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE BOB MASSIE LAUNCHES NEW VIDEO PODCAST, 'CREATING THE WORLD WE WANT,'" from Bob Massie: Bob Massie, the former Democratic candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 2018, announced today that he is launching a new video podcast called "Creating the World We Want." Working in partnership with Tom Dodge, founder of video production firm NewView. Media, Massie said that the new podcast will feature in-depth interviews with guests who have bold visions for the future and deep experience in creating change." Link.
TRANSITIONS - James C. McGrath was appointed chair of the litigation department at Seyfarth Shaw.
DID THE HOME TEAM WIN? Yes! The Celtics beat Kings 111 to 109.
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