Posts Categorized: College Readiness

Taking a Twitter Dip in New England’s New Enrollment Pools

Our Twitter content allows us to bring readers a broader base of resources—a larger canvas, in a sense—than NEJHE articles alone. We urge you to see us as parts of a whole. Every NEJHE item automatically posts to Twitter, but we also use Twitter to disseminate interesting news or opinion pieces from elsewhere. These tweets are often juxtaposed with something NEBHE has worked on in the past an...

Do the Gains from GEAR UP Participation in School Fade Out in College? A Follow-Up

The federally financed GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program) was organized two decades ago with the purpose of increasing high school completion and college enrollment among low-income students. The College Crusade of Rhode Island’s GEAR UP program was designed as a long-term effort to buttress student success by providing various kinds of educational and soci...

Prospective College Students: Hiding in Plain Sight

As an unprecedented number of colleges and universities close their doors forever while others struggle to survive, a deep pool of prospective students—and the key to accessing them—is hiding in plain sight. Students from rural America attend college at lower rates (59%) than their urban (62%) and suburban (67%) counterparts and comprise only 29% of all students ages 18-24 enrolled in highe...

Could Addressing College Food Insecurity Be a SNAP?

Food insecurity—defined by the nationally respected Wisconsin HOPE Lab as the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or the ability to acquire such foods in a socially acceptable manner—is a troubling trend on college campuses across the country, including in New England. For example: A 2016 survey by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education...

Certificates of Failure Given By Colleges: Yes, Really

The news is filled with stories about the admissions scandals at elite colleges and universities. And recently, some of the wrongdoers have pled guilty and await punishment. Apparently, prosecutors are seeking jail time. Apart from jail time, I have already suggested approaches to punishment that involve fines that go into a cy pres fund to be redistributed to small non-elite colleges and their st...

College Completion and the Future of Work: Implications in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

College completion matters, especially from the perspective of equity. Who finishes, how long it takes them, how much they benefit economically and how their citizenship benefits local communities all matter. This is especially true of knowledge-driven, innovation economies in New England. For Massachusetts—a state that ranks third highest in the nation for cost of living—a local educated w...

New England Leaders Call for the Accelerated Reinvention of the Region’s Higher Education Sector

The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) calls for the accelerated reinvention of the region's higher education sector to address the pressing challenges and opportunities facing the six-state region. NEBHE has identified four priority areas for collaborative action over the coming years: enhancing opportunities for adult learners, expanding cost-savings opportunities for students and ...

From the Corner Office: New England Governors’ Budget Proposals

Connecticut Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont delivered a two-year budget plan of $43.1 billion to lawmakers, emphasizing that the state’s crushing fixed costs relative to its pension funds must be addressed. To accomplish this, he proposed restructuring, refinancing the systems’ payments and slowing the rate of increase in the teachers’ pension fund and the state employee pension fund, both of ...

Turning Points: Reflections on What the Historic 2018 Midterm Elections Could Mean for New England

The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University estimated 31% turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds voting in the fall midterm elections—the highest youth vote in the past quarter century. NEBHE, meanwhile, has been fortunate to work with three 2018 NEBHE policy interns, all of whom are graduate students at Harvard Graduate School of Education­—and...

Guides to Ascending the On-Ramp in Higher Education: Connecting Dots

A review of The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux, by Cathy N. Davidson (New York, Basic Books, 2017); a summary of the recent announcements of a major restructuring of MIT, and a synthesis of other relevant developments. It is increasingly obvious that we are living in one of the greatest ages of paradigm-shifts in Western history, compa...