In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, universities have increasingly begun to embrace a new model: rather than requiring scholars and students to travel to the home city of the university, they have instead begun to establish new campuses, centers, and programs of their own in other. This profound change in the nature of universities requires…

Americans are concerned about the cost of a college education and the impact of student loan debt, particularly in difficult economic times. They want a high-quality education, and they want it to be affordable. This two-page brief on student debt is intended to provide context for the conversation about this important issue, particularly with…

With the Presidential election two months away, this paper presents a set of actions the Association of American Universities (AAU) believes the President and his Administration can take to advance the partnership between the federal government and research universities--as well as actions that universities themselves need to take to ensure that…

This guide includes the following: higher education and related associations; advocacy organizations and coalitions of interest to research universities; explanations of acronyms and terms commonly used in the university community; web links to government resources and agencies; Executive and Legislative Branch offices; and key federal…

A recent ranking undertaken by Jiao Tong University in Shanghai shows 36 U.S universities among the top 50 universities in the world, with eight of the top 10 in the United States. Author Fareed Zakaria has declared: "[H]igher education is the United States' best industry. In no other field is the United States' advantage so overwhelming. Although…

In this document, the Association of American Universities offers a series of research and technology policy recommendations that would help our nation to continue its global pre-eminence in science and high technology, improve the quality of life and national security of our citizens, and speed our nation's economic recovery. After policy…

This joint report by the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Council on Governmental Relations (COGR) is based on a survey of 20 U.S. research universities that conduct significant amounts of federal research. It follows up on a 2003/2004 survey of the same institutions. The new report shows that, despite the concerns and…

The next President will make decisions that determine our nation's place in the 21st century. We remain the world's military and economic superpower, yet at home and abroad we face economic and national security challenges to our leadership with serious consequences for future generations of Americans. During the 2008 presidential campaign,…

The Association of American Universities (AAU) calls on the Administration, Congress, and academia, with the help of the business sector, to implement a 21st Century National Defense Education and Innovation Initiative aimed at meeting the economic and security challenges we will face over the next half-century. Government and America's…

Interdisciplinary research and education have long been part of the university programmatic structure. More recently, however, university interdisciplinary projects, programs, centers, and institutes have grown in number, diversity, and complexity. This growth generally reflects the need for new combinations of disciplinary knowledge and research…

Copyright law supports a fundamental mission of colleges and universities to create and disseminate new knowledge and understanding through teaching, research, and scholarship in two basic ways: (1) by providing incentives for the creation of new works through the provision of proprietary rights to copyright owners, and (2) by providing…

From Socrates' time on, liberal arts education has been understood to produce a general learned competence that allows a student to be both a better human being and a better citizen. The breadth of this liberal arts curriculum stands in contrast to the much narrower vocational curriculum. More recently, the humanities have been caught in a…