Faust Stresses the Importance of Knowledge Economy

University President Drew G. Faust declared global universities the new engine for the world economy—particularly during a time when other institutions "falter in dispiriting succession," she said, hinting at the great number of failed financial firms.

In a speech to the Royal Irish Academy at Trinity College in Dublin on Wednesday, Faust cited U.S. statistics that showed a 24 percent increase in the number of people who believed education to be "absolutely necessary" from 2000 to 2009—a fact, she said, corroborated by 2002 U.S. Census Bureau statistics showing that college-educated Americans earn about twice over their lifetime than citizens with just a secondary education.

"Prevailing discourse, familiar since at least the 1990s, emphasizes the university's place as a paramount player in a global system increasingly driven by knowledge, information and ideas," Faust said. "We live in a time when knowledge is ever more vital to our societies and economies."

But Faust also highlighted several potential deterrents that might threaten this knowledge-fueled economy: the global economic recession, the unilateral focus on the sciences, and the current security and competitive notions that deter immigrants to study in the United States.

Noting that the financial crisis left many universities struggling to support all of their educational operations, Faust identified this "paradox" as a direct threat to the "knowledge economy."

"While the knowledge economy drives and indeed requires the unprecedented growth of higher education, in many places university budgets decline, and courses, faculty and opportunities are cut back, even as enrollments and expectations rise," Faust said.

But Faust went further, saying that she was afraid that in some universities, these cuts were beginning to target disciplines that did not fall under science, technology, engineering, and math—a trend, if globally realized, that could "distort our understanding of all that universities should and must be."

"When we define higher education's role principally as driving economic development and solving society's most urgent problems, we risk losing sight of broader questions, of the kinds of inquiry that enable the critical stance, that build the humane perspective," Faust said.

In this effort to expand universities' inclusion of disciplines and voices, Faust also cautioned against stricter immigration laws, saying that "talent comes with many passports." She discussed how these strict immigration policies, born out of local "fears of economic competition," led to the detainment of Eric Balderas '13, an undocumented youth who gained national attention last month when he faced possible deportation to Mexico.

Though she recognizes that these stricter measures built upon strong security initiatives to keep immigrants out of the country after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Faust said that these additional bans affect faculty and student alike.

"The numbers of international students at Harvard and across the United States have now returned to earlier levels, but security concerns continue to inhibit ease of movement for many who wish to cross borders to study or to undertake research collaborations," she said.

Faust spoke at the Royal Irish Academy as a part of Academy President Nicholas P. Canny’s discussion about the place of the university in a changing and developing world."

—Staff writer Gautam S. Kumar can be reached at gkumar@college.harvard.edu.