ORHigherEd ORHigherEd

Today’s guest, Mario Parker-Milligan is the Legislative Director for the Oregon Student Association.

Right now, the Oregon legislature is grappling with questions related to higher education outcomes and funding. As a registered lobbyist in the state of Oregon, Mario acts as a voice for students in Oregon's institutions of public, higher education. His work this term focuses on student access and tuition affordability, including state investment in higher education and expenditures impacting the state's ability to invest in higher education, like mandatory minimum sentencing.

It's an honor to have had the chance to speak with Mario and to learn more about his work and the contribution of the Oregon Student Association.

ORHigherEd.com's mission is to enhance student outcomes through effective education policy in the state of Oregon. The website features a monthly podcast with policymakers and analysts, aggregates the best of what's written about higher ed policy in Oregon and around the country, and publishes original white papers.

Coming up on the next edition of ORHigherEd, I sit down with the Oregon Student Association Legislative Director, Mario Parker-Milligan. He’ll talk about what he sees as the biggest challenge currently facing higher education.

ORHigherEd.com's mission is to enhance student outcomes through effective education policy in the state of Oregon. The website features a monthly podcast with policymakers and analysts, aggregates the best of what's written about higher ed policy in Oregon and around the country, and publishes original white papers.

Today’s guest, Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist for Time Magazine and The Atlantic. Her reporting on education has explored the interaction between public policy and human behavior. In 2013 she published The Smartest Kids in the World--and How They Got That Way, a New York Times bestseller.

Before I ever met Amanda, I was familiar with her work. Her October 2012 piece in Time Magazine on how massive open on-line courses were impacting higher education helped focus and shape the education policy conversation, as did her September 2013 piece in The Atlantic which focused on the outsized influence of sports in American high schools.

This will be ORHigherEd’s first-ever, two-part series. Part 1 focused on Amanda’s reporting her cover story in The Atlantic titled, "The Upwardly Mobile Barista," and covered the Starbucks College Achievement Plan. Part 2 focuses on reporting she's done about education reforms around the world that have changed outcomes for students.

Today’s guest, Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist for Time Magazine and The Atlantic. Her reporting on education has explored the interaction between public policy and human behavior. In 2013 she published The Smartest Kids in the World--and How They Got That Way, a New York Times bestseller.

One of the biggest stories in higher ed in the past year has been the Starbucks College Achievement Plan, which offers tuition reimbursement for Starbucks employees at Arizona State University Online. Amanda has reported extensively on this story since Fall 2014 and the culminating cover story, The Upwardly Mobile Barista, was published this week on TheAtlantic.com.

This will be ORHigherEd’s first ever two-part series. This episode is Part 1 and will focus on Amanda’s reporting for The Atlantic on the Starbucks College Achievement Plan and will include her thoughts on how Starbucks & ASU Online are approaching the challenges of delivering higher education in innovative ways.

ORHigherEd sits down for an exclusive conversation with Dave Jarrat, InsideTrack's Vice President of Marketing. Since coming to InsideTrack in 2010, Dave has been directly involved with ITk's original research and its relationship with higher education institutions. Dave is a thought-leader in higher education and ORHigherEd is excited to have the chance to sit down with him to talk about effective education policy.

ORHigherEd.com's mission is to enhance student outcomes through effective education policy in the state of Oregon. The website features a monthly podcast with policymakers and analysts, aggregates the best of what's written about higher ed policy in Oregon and around the country, and publishes original white papers.

OrHE is the independent conversation on higher education in the state of Oregon. We're focused on effective policy that promotes student access and success, not partisan politics.