The three-day conference begins Wednesday and runs through Friday on the campus in Winston-Salem. National academic and economic experts will focus on the relevance of a liberal arts education in our current national economy and climate of global competition.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, is one of the panelists addressing market trends. Zandi says while most Americans believe education is important, he says as a nation we've not invested in it well

"We're supplying loans to students, increasing demand for higher education, but we've not increased the supply. So we've made college less affordable by this policy," explains Zandi.

To help lower the cost of earning an advanced degree, Zandi recommends, "take those funds that go to student loans and instead increase the supply of educational services, hire more professors and pay them better, build better labs, provide funding to send kids overseas to learn about what's happening in the global economy - and this will increase the supply of education and lower the cost of educating more kids."