American postsecondary education is a diverse collection of public and private institutions, ranging from community and technical colleges to comprehensive and research universities. These institutions are an invaluable resource to states and to the nation—they educate many of the talented people who work in our industries, businesses, and civic sectors, and they are the places where much of the research and development that benefits this country is conducted.

And while postsecondary education in the United States has already achieved key successes in the innovation economy, the public postsecondary education system overall risks falling behind its counterparts in many other nations around the world—places where there have been massive efforts to link postsecondary education to the specific innovation needs of industries and regions.

This paper focuses on how states can better align postsecondary education with their economic needs, which will position them to compete in the global economy by producing a highly-skilled workforce and by unleashing postsecondary education institutions' power to innovate. Read more...