It is easy to be depressed about the state of the world. The European economy is threatening to implode, dragging the rest of the world into a deep recession. The Iranians say they have no plans for developing a nuclear weapon, but no one believes them. The American people are convinced that the country's best days are behind her.  And, if the global warming experts are to be believed, we are about to enter a frightening period of hurricanes, tsunamis and drought. Depressing indeed.

But there is another side to the story. Earth's greatest natural resource is not oil or gas or gold or platinum. Earth's greatest natural resource is the brainpower of the nearly seven billion people who inhabit the planet. The solution to every problem we face rests inside the mind of a brilliant, inventive soul somewhere in this world.

What's exciting, revolutionary in fact, is that vastly more people than ever before now have the chance to put their brainpower to work.

In India, Pakistan, Brazil, Qatar, Russia, China and a hundred other countries, young people have real hope for a better future. Hundreds of millions of people who would never have had a chance for an education even a generation ago, now believe they can put their intellect to work to improve not only their own lives but the future of their countries as well.  The consequence of this explosion of opportunity can only be imagined.  Medicines will be invented that will prevent or cure some of our most threatening diseases.  Solutions to complex environmental problems will be uncovered.  Economies will grow and, as they do, violence will recede. No, the world won't be perfect. Difficult problems will persist. But, because more people will be participating in the pursuit of knowledge, the world will be far better than most people expect.

 

With college graduation season in full swing, it seems appropriate that a bevy of articles on the workforce and education are being published.  In this case, Thomas Friedman consults with Google, a notoriously difficult place to get hired, for advice for new grads. In a nut shell? “General cognitive ability — the ability to learn things and solve problems.”

Never mind the 1 percenters, to get there first requires a good education…enter the 5 percenters, or the percentage of individuals admitted by Stanford University, an all-time low.  Unfortunately, for those with Ivy-league or Ivy-equivalent aspirations, other top schools are creeping to this low admit rate too.

With unionization challenges from both student-athletes and graduate instructors, along with greater expectations for return on investment and an atmosphere of hypercompetitive research and recruiting, colleges are no longer the bastion of only ivy tower intellectualism and pontification. Rather, changing times have forced them to consider the business implications of their actions and of their value to students who are more commonly being seen as clients rather than wards of an institution.