What do students learn in school? In the 21st century, this question has become a political dilemma for countries around the globe. It is a deceptively simple question, but there has never been an easy answer.
The problem of measuring student learning appears to express an educational problem: What and how much do students learn? And yet, when you investigate the educational accountability move...
All signs indicate that high school graduation rates will continue to drop due to low birth rates, leading to a potential higher education metldown that is likely to affect all academic institutions, big and small, in the years after 2024.
What steps do colleges and universities need to take to survive? The answer lies in subscribing to the law of survival of the fittest and in increasing marke...
In-state tuition for veterans. On Tuesday, House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chair Jeff Miller (R-FL) and Ranking Member Michael Michaud (D-ME) introduced the GI Bill Tuition Fairness Act (H.R. 357) in the House of Representatives. The bill would require public universities to charge in-state tuition to veterans in order to qualify to receive veterans' education benefits. The law would go int...
Anyone who fixates on graduation rates has little understanding not only of the rich mission and value of our community colleges, but also how deeply flawed and inadequate those rates are as a principal assessment tool for the performance of community colleges.Graduation rate calculations apply to a small fraction of our entire student population (about 15%). That is because this national measure ...
The New England Board of Higher Education released a policy brief that encourages states to tie a portion of higher education appropriations to institutional outcomes. Currently, New England states tend to apportion institutional funding based on enrollment levels—a practice that rewards quantity, but not necessarily student success and degree attainment.
From President Obama to private fou...
In a recent article in Inside Higher Education, transfer expert Marc Cutright of the University of North Texas writes about the growing importance that four-year colleges and universities should place on students transferring from community college. Public colleges, led by community colleges, grant more than a half million associate degrees annually and the number grew by 27% over a decade. But wh...
The overwhelming majority of U.S. school districts and states fail to provide resources black males need in order to close the graduation gap.According to the Schott Foundation, during the 2007-08 academic year, only 47% of black males graduated from high school "on time" with their entering cohort.The foundation reports that more than half of the 50 states have graduation rates below the national...