The Critical Role of Higher Education

Higher education plays a critical - but often overlooked - role in making this vision of a more sustainable future a reality. Higher education has the critical mass, diversity of skills, and unique academic freedom to develop new ideas and technologies; to conduct critical research; to raise the level of discourse regarding society and its challenges; and to engage in experimentation in sustainable living. Higher education also prepares most of the professionals who develop, lead, manage, teach, work in and influence society's institutions. It also engages in institutional operational practices that, as a whole, have enormous (but largely invisible) economic, social and environmental footprints. 1

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1 The annual operating budgets of the ~1900 colleges and universities and ~1900 community colleges is $300 billion. This represents 2.8%of GDP and is greater than the GDP of all but 25 countries.