Editor's memo

New England Journal of Higher Education, The, 2001 by Stratton, Charlotte

With 280 U.S. colleges and universities and 800,000 students, the New England region hosts the highest concentration of higher education resources in the nation. In this 32nd edition ofFACTS: THE DIRECTORY OF NEw ENGLAND COLLEGES, UNIVERSITIES AND INSTITUTES, we provide our readers with a thumbnail sketch of New England's colleges and universities and a look at the regional and national impact of the region's unique higher education enterprise.

FACTS is the annual directory issue of NEBHE's quarterly journal CONNECTION:

NEw ENGLAND'S JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. FACTS is packed with valuable information for students and parents. The directory also provides New England's civic and business leaders, educators, government officials and researchers with hard-hitting data illustrating many aspects of New England higher education. While FACTS provides a data-intensive summary of higher education's relationship to New England's prosperity, a more thoughtful perspective appears each quarter in companion issues of CONNECTION. See the "Index of CONNECTION Articles" beginning on page 184.

The state-by-state and New England law and medical school institutional listings in FACTs 2001 provide information on: tuition and room and board charges; enrollment; endowment; physical plant values; and the number of faculty and staff at each of the nearly 280 institutions listed. This self-reported information begins with a brief narrative on each institution and concludes with a summary of admissions information including application deadlines, application fees, required admissions examinations, special admissions programs and phone numbers for admissions offices. Additionally, roughly 4,000 updated names and titles of college administrators are included within these listings.

The New England Higher Education Data section in FACTs 2001 includes 163 tables and charts detailing: New England higher education enrollment; degrees conferred; student migration; faculty data; federal and state financing of higher education; research and development activities; and minority participation in higher education. This material is examined and revised annually with the goal of providing a clear picture of New England's place in the national higher education landscape.

FAcTs helps fulfil the New England Board of Higher Education's mandate for regional collaboration in the interest of higher education. The product of a uniquely comprehensive regional effort, FACTs would be impossible to produce without a 100 percent response to NEBHE's institutional survey and the cooperation of each of the institutions listed.

Another important example of NEBHE's mission of regional collaboration is the New England Regional Student Program (RSP). The RSP, detailed on pages 9-10, is the nation's foremost regional student exchange program, providing thousands of dollars in tuition breaks to New Englanders every year.

Finally, we'd like to express our thanks to the record number of advertisers who have found FACTs and CONNECTION to be an excellent venue for conveying their messages to the region's opinion leaders, students and others. The support of our advertisers and CONNECTION subscribers makes it possible for the nonprofit New England Board of Higher Education to continue the valuable regional and national dialogue on higher education and economic issues it has fostered since the launch of CONNECTION in 1986.

Charlotte Stratton is NEBHE's director of publications and information systems and editor of FACTS.