
Bobbie
On January 31st, one of my favorite think-tanks, CEOs for Cities, kicked-off the $1 Million Talent Dividend Competition. The Talent Dividend is a nation-wide initiative driven by CEOs for Cities with the very basic premise that if you increase college attainment by 1% in your community the financial return or dividend is HUGE!
The four key strategies for attaining the Talent Dividend are:
- Re-engage adults with some college, no 4-year degree
- Increase transfer rate of students in 2-year institutions to 4-year institutions
- Retain current students for timely completion
- Encourage college-going behavior in high school students
“Research shows that 58 percent of any city’s success, as measured by per capita income, can be explained by the percentage of college graduates in its population,” explained Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities. “There are huge financial gains to a city that can be achieved through small improvements in educational attainment alone.”
How will the competition work?
The winning city will be announced in September of 2014. The criteria to win is pretty simple—the winning city will have exhibited the greatest increase in the number of post secondary degrees granted per one thousand population over a four-year period and achieved its Talent Dividend.
What’s next?
To be eligible for the prize your metro area must have a population of at least 500,000, based off of the 2009 American Community Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau. As you’d guess our metropolitan community identified as “Baltimore/Towson” is among the eligible cities! Registration is now open for eligible cities; the deadline for registration is May 1st.
As of today, Baltimore has not registered but, when we do I know TU will be an active partner! The Baltimore Business journal published an article on the Baltimore Talent Dividend that was held in November of 2009.
As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, I serve as the Executive Director of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) which is partnering with CEOs for Cities to spread the word about this fantastic competition. With over 80 member universities residing in eligible urban/metropolitan communities, we hope our members will be partnering with their city government, industry leaders, and education institutions to get involved in the competition!

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