Not all observers agree that higher education and economic growth are obvious or necessary complements to each other. The controversy may be exacerbated because of the difficulty of measuring the exact contribution of colleges and universities to economic growth. Recognizing that a model based on local conditions and higher education's response seems somewhat amorphous, the author concludes that higher education's contributions to local economies work best when colleges and universities understand what they have to offer and what is happening to the local industrial structures of their economies. (Contains 6 endnotes.) [This newsletter was published in advance to the October 30, 2006 Chicago Fed conference on higher education's role in economic growth.]