Observations in the cusp from the Dynamics Explorer 2 (DE 2) satellite show an increase in upper F region electron temperature with altitude. Examination of precipitating cusp electron spectra suggests that this heat is introduced at higher altitudes as the result of wave-particle interactions. Ionospheric heating is restricted to higher altitudes than DE (300--1000 km) because the ratio of magnetosheath field-aligned flowing electrons to thermal ionospheric electrons is sufficient there. The growth rates for instabilities of interest are proportional to this ratio; hence the spatial and temporal growth rates are too small in the ionosphere itself. Thus the upper F region cusp is heated primarily by electron heat transport from above rather than locally by either the impact of soft electrons precipitating in the cusp region or by plasma instabilities. The emerging picture is that (1) local plasma turbulence gives rise to anomalous heat conduction that may play an important role in maintaining the temperature gradient at higher levels than expected from classical transport properties of the ionosphere alone and (2) plasma instabilities at higher altitudes than DE 2 provide the coupling of the suprathermal electron beam free energy to the thermal cusp electron plasma and hence give rise to the nonlocal nature of the heat source itself.