Posts Categorized: College Readiness

New Directions for Higher Education: Q&A with Education Scholar Adrianna Kezar on the Changing Faculty

In April 2013, NEJHE launched its New Directions for Higher Education series to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices. Past installments of the series featured Philip DiSalvio, dean of the College of Advancing & Professional Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, interviewing: Carnegie Foundation Pr...

Remember to Just Think

"I was just thinking" was columnist Mike Barnicle's lazy motif in the Boston Globe. Still, it's hard not to copy a lazy motif. So … I was just thinking ... Business leaders confirmed for the record this spring what they’ve been grousing about for years: Too few recent graduates have the skills to be good workers. That was the key finding in Northeastern University’s third annual survey on t...

MIA: Accuplacer Prep

Reports of the redesign of the SAT resonate with many parents and their school-age children who have had personal experience with the controversial college gatekeeper. But another test in the College Board portfolio, though not in the news, is arguably even more important to the future—or lack of a future—of high-school age students. It’s the Accuplacer. Accuplacer is, like the SAT, a ...

A Better SAT Starts With a Better College Board

It’s so easy to criticize the SAT that most observers overlook the weaknesses of its architect, the College Board. Until we replace the latter, however, we will never fix the former. The College Board has every incentive to create a complex, stressful, expensive college admissions system. And because it is accountable to no one, it has done just that. The College Board and ACT add over $500...

A University Looks at the College Board’s Redesigned SAT

As an institution that receives close to 50,000 applications for the 2,800 spaces for the first-year entering class, Northeastern University took special interest in the College Board’s March 5 announcement on the SAT redesign. In fact, our undergraduate admissions team took a break from finalizing our decisions to follow David Coleman’s announcement. After months of carefully reading and cons...

New Directions for Higher Education: Q&A with Muriel Howard on Public Higher Ed

Nearly a year ago, NEJHE launched its New Directions for Higher Education series to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices. Past installments of the series featured Philip DiSalvio, dean of the College of Advancing & Professional Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, interviewing: Carnegie Foundation Pr...

New Directions for Higher Education: Q&A with Judith Eaton on Self-Regulation

Nearly a year ago, NEJHE launched its New Directions for Higher Education series to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices. Past installments of the series featured Philip DiSalvio, dean of the College of Advancing & Professional Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, interviewing: Carnegie Foundation Pr...

DACA-lamented? Spared Deportation, Immigrant Students Still Face Higher Ed Barriers

Well, you see, we don’t want to get their hopes up. I am on the phone with a woman from a small liberal arts college in New England, trying to convince them to accept an application for their diversity weekend from one of my clients. I am an immigration lawyer who also runs a cooperative center, Atlas: DIY (www.atlasdiy.org), for undocumented youth and their allies in Brooklyn, New York. Atla...

Small Colleges Need “Gold Medal Selfies”

Higher education has been a favorite news topic for months. Stories have addressed every issue from rising costs to access for vulnerable students and completion of a college degree, to the importance of “fit” in the college selection process. President Obama and the first lady have entered the national conversation, particularly around issues of cost and graduation rates for low-incom...

A Look at the Condition of Education in Massachusetts

Leaders engaged in Massachusetts’ public higher education system—including at community colleges, state universities, and UMass—have demonstrated their strong commitment to improvement in recent years. The state Department of Higher Education’s Vision Project is focused on reforms necessary to “produce the best educated citizenry and workers in the nation,” and demonstrates a clear wil...