Wally Boston, Author at Wally Boston

Healthcare Choices – They’re Always Personal

Posted on February 21, 2020 (October 17, 2023)

I have been interested in the cost of healthcare for many years. When I obtained my first job after college, it was the late 1970s and my company provided medical insurance to all full-time employees at a relatively low cost. In the early 1980s, I was out of town at a client and needed to see a physician. The client recommended that I visit the clinic operated by the local HMO (health maintenance organization). The service was excellent, the cost was minimal, and I wondered why more communities didn’t operate them. […]

The Significance of My Insignificance

Posted on February 18, 2020 (July 3, 2026)

Dr. Mark Riccardi is dean of APUS’s School of Security & Global Studies. In addition to his service at APUS, Dr. Riccardi served for 21 years as a U.S. Army officer. When I learned that he and his family were traveling to Antarctica, I asked if he would write a reflective piece for my blog upon his return. I am grateful that he did and am still reflecting. […]

Artificial Intelligence Is Everywhere – Will You Be Prepared?

Posted on February 18, 2020 (May 2, 2024)

As an avid follower of information technology trends, I have read hundreds of articles and several dozen books about artificial intelligence (A.I.) over the past six years. A few of the books have been reviewed on this blog beginning in 2014 (see Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era, The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts, RISE OF THE ROBOTS: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, and Review of The Second Machine Age: Work, Process, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee). Recently, two items triggered my Spidey sense (a term coined by Marvel Comics for the ability of superhero Spiderman to sense when something was about to happen). […]

A Simple Way to Equalize the Ivies?

Posted on February 14, 2020 (October 17, 2023)

In this week’s New York Times, Dana Goldstein and Anemona Hartocollis write about the difference in enrollments at the Ivy Plus (eight Ivy League universities plus Duke, Stanford, M.I.T., and the University of Chicago) institutions when students’ family incomes are considered. The source of the data for these reporters is a paper co-authored by economists Raj Chetty, John Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner, and Danny Yagan, Income Segregation and Intergenerational Mobility Across Colleges in the United States. The paper follows their 2017 research paper, Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility. […]

A Celebration of Life: Remembering Dr. Jeffrey W. Focht

Posted on February 11, 2020 (July 3, 2026)

Dear Jeff: When the pastor of Life Church Nazareth told us on Saturday that your memorial service had been planned by you more than a year ago, I was not surprised. Your academic and personal interest has been leadership, and great leaders find opportunities where others do not. An auditorium of hundreds of mourners, your friends and relatives, provided a captive audience. […]

The Overlooked Value of Certificates and Associate Degrees

Posted on February 7, 2020 (November 4, 2024)

When I read that Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce had issued another report about the value of certificates and associate degrees, I assumed that the research related to the database utilized to generate its analysis about the ROI of a college degree, which I critiqued in an initial, and follow-up, post. I was surprised when the paper revealed a different research basis. […]

The College Stress Test

Posted on February 4, 2020 (September 13, 2025)

My first review of one of Bob Zemsky’s books was in 2008 with Remaking of the American University: Market Smart and Mission Centered, that he co-authored with Greg Wegman and Bill Massy. While Zemsky has written more books post-2008, he’s continued to write about change in higher education and the higher education market. […]

Read More… from The College Stress Test

Penn GSE: An Unforgettable Experience

Posted on January 31, 2020 (October 17, 2023)

I recently attended the 10th reunion of doctoral graduates at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE). The Executive Doctorate in Higher Education Management program is an Ed.D. program initiated two decades ago at Penn GSE by Professors Robert Zemsky and Marvin Lazerson. Unlike traditional doctoral programs, the Penn GSE program was modeled similar to Wharton’s Executive MBA program, with a cohort of students from around the country and overseas. […]

Graduate Degrees – Worth the Time and Expense?

Posted on January 28, 2020 (October 17, 2023)

Not a day goes by where we don’t hear about the shortage of workers with the required education and training for more than six million unfilled positions in the U.S. Early in his presidency, Barack Obama called for increasing the number of Americans earning a college degree to maintain global competitiveness in an era with increasing technology innovations, some used to replace jobs in the workforce. Despite all the attention on higher education attainment, overall enrollments have decreased since 2010, with explanations ranging from a declining birth rate and low unemployment rates to an increasing perception that degrees may not provide the same return on investment for today’s students as for Baby Boomers and their parents. […]

Fixing Law Schools

Posted on January 24, 2020 (October 17, 2023)

In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education Review, University of Tennessee law professor Benjamin Barton authored an article, The Law School Crash, subtitled “What’s worse than a decade of financial turmoil? Not learning from it.” Barton’s news isn’t new. In fact, he mentions Brian Tamanaha’s 2012 book, Failing Law Schools, as an early critique of the disparity between the cost of law school and career and salary outcomes. […]

Author: Wally Boston

Posts by Wally Boston

Healthcare Choices – They’re Always Personal

The Significance of My Insignificance

Artificial Intelligence Is Everywhere – Will You Be Prepared?

A Simple Way to Equalize the Ivies?

A Celebration of Life: Remembering Dr. Jeffrey W. Focht

The Overlooked Value of Certificates and Associate Degrees

The College Stress Test

Penn GSE: An Unforgettable Experience

Graduate Degrees – Worth the Time and Expense?

Fixing Law Schools

Subjects of Interest

Artificial Intelligence/AI

EdTech

Higher Education

Independent Schools

K-12

Science

Student Persistence

The Future of Work

Workforce