Friday, March 10, 2017

Women-Owned Business Help from the Small Business Administration

SBA Resources for Women

  • SBA’s Office of Women’s Business Ownership

    The Office of Women’s Business Ownership is here to answer your questions on the Women’s Business Center program or other services for women. Learn More
  • SBA Loans

    SBA offers a variety of loan programs for specific purposes—see which programs you qualify for. Learn More
  • SBA’s Women’s Business Centers

    SBA’s national network of over 100 educational centers assist women in starting and growing small businesses. Find One Near You
  • SBA’s Women-Owned Federal Contracting Program

    The WOSB Federal Contract Program levels the playing field for women competing for federal contracting opportunities. Learn More
On-line training curriculum: DreamBuilder
Through a strategic alliance with Thunderbird School of Global Management, SBA is pleased to provide access to the DreamBuilder online training curriculum in both English and Spanish.

Cutting Spending on Statistics Won’t Save the Budget

From PacificStandard:

Last week, the Trump administration announced it would seek dramatic spending cuts across a number of agencies in order to pay for a $54 billion increase in defense spending. That will be tough to accomplish: The bulk of the federal government’s budget goes to Social Security, Medicare, and defense spending, all of which the president has vowed to leave untouched. The administration has specifically said it would target the Environmental Protection Agency and “foreign aid,” both of which constitute a very small proportion of the federal budget. But elsewhere in Washington, D.C., researchers are worried that another category of government spending is also vulnerable: spending on statistics and data.

Donald Trump’s hostility toward official economic data is especially well-known. His casual comments about the official unemployment rate being “phony” have pained economists for months, and researchers have worried that the administration might seek to either stop collecting necessary data altogether, or might direct agencies to skew data in a manner that supports certain policies or claims. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that the administration was already floating the idea of changing the way the government calculates trade deficits, with a revised methodology that would make trade gaps look bigger—a change that would presumably bolster support for Trump’s assertion that the country’s trade policies and agreements need to be renegotiated or changed.

Thursday, March 9, 2017

The Geography of Foreign Students in U.S. Higher Education: Origins and Destinations

From Brookings

This report uses a new database on foreign student visa approvals from 2001 to 2012 to analyze their distribution in the United States, finding that:

The number of foreign students on F-1 visas in U.S. colleges and universities grew dramatically from 110,000 in 2001 to 524,000 in 2012. The sharpest increases occurred among students from emerging economies such as China and Saudi Arabia. Foreigners studying for bachelor’s and master’s degrees and English language training accounted for most of the overall growth.

Foreign students are concentrated in U.S. metropolitan areas. From 2008 to 2012, 85 percent of foreign students pursuing a bachelor’s degree or above attended colleges and universities in 118 metro areas that collectively accounted for 73 percent of U.S. higher education students. They contributed approximately $21.8 billion in tuition and $12.8 billion in other spending—representing a major services export—to those metropolitan economies over the five-year period.

Most foreign students come from large fast-growing cities in emerging markets. Ninety-four (94) foreign cities together accounted for more than half of all students on an F-1 visa between 2008 and 2012. Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hyderabad and Riyadh are the five foreign cities that sent the most higher education students to the United States during that time.

Foreign students disproportionately study STEM and business fields. Two-thirds of foreign students pursuing a bachelor’s or higher degree are in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) or business, management and marketing fields, versus 48 percent of students in the United States. Both large (San Jose, Calif.) and small (Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas) metro areas figure among those with the highest shares of their foreign students in STEM disciplines.

Forty-five (45) percent of foreign student graduates extend their visas to work in the same metropolitan area as their college or university. Metro areas that retain high shares of their foreign graduates under the temporary Optional Practical Training (OPT) program tend to be either large diversified economies (e.g., New York, Los Angeles), or specialized labor markets that align closely with foreign graduates’ training (e.g., Honolulu, Seattle, Las Vegas).

These findings suggest that foreign students can provide important economic benefits to their U.S. metropolitan destinations—serving as bridges back to their growing home cities and offering valuable skills to local employers. More metropolitan leaders should emulate leading practices that capitalize on the knowledge and relationships of foreign students to strengthen local economies while also maximizing students’ educational and professional experiences in the United States.

CHECK OUT the interactive data.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

My Poetic Side: Women's History Month

Here is My Poetic Side's latest article celebrating Women's History Month. They made a vertical timeline with poets starting in the 18th century reaching all the way to the 21st, highlighting their most interesting facts and accomplishments to encourage and inspire other female poets to follow their lead.

The article is called "9 Poets to Remember during Women's History Month" (http://mypoeticside.com/featured/9-poets-to-remember), and it's also important to say that it features authors that don't usually have the spotlight on their career, so there's probably at least one writer you'll meet for the very first time.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

2017 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures

From the Alzheimer's Association:

Here are several critical statistics you'll find in Alzheimer's Association Facts and Figures:

Between 2000 and 2014, there was an 89 percent increase in deaths due to Alzheimer's. Deaths from Alzheimer's, the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States, nearly doubled during this period, while those from heart disease have declined.

More than 15 million Americans provide unpaid care for people with Alzheimer's or other dementias. In 2016, these caregivers provided an estimated 18.2 billion hours of care valued at over $230 billion.

2017 marks the first time total payments for caring for individuals with Alzheimer's or other dementias will surpass a quarter of a trillion dollars.

The information in this report is heartbreaking, but it's also a call to action for all who share our vision of a world without Alzheimer's disease.