Suchergebnisse

The United States, long considered to have the best higher education in the world, now ranks eleventh in the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds with a college degree. As other countries have made dramatic gains in degree attainment, the U.S. has improved more slowly. In response, President Obama recently laid out a national "completion agenda" with the goal of making the U.S. the best-educated nation in the world by the year 2020. Getting to Graduation explores the reforms that we must pursue to recover a position of international leadership in higher education as well as the obstacles to those reforms. This new completion agenda puts increased pressure on institutions to promote student success and improve institutional productivity in a time of declining public revenue. In this volume, scholars of higher education and public policymakers describe promising directions for reform. They argue that it is essential to redefine postsecondary education and to consider a broader range of learning opportunities--beyond the research university and traditional bachelor degree programs--to include community colleges, occupational certificate programs, and apprenticeships. The authors also emphasize the need to rethink policies governing financial aid, remediation, and institutional funding to promote degree completion.

Higher education is under increasing pressure to change. The combination of soaring costs, stagnant completion rates, and an uncertain labor market for recent college graduates has given rise to a sustained push for innovation, both at existing colleges and via new postsecondary providers. In this context, this article is the sixth in a series examining competency-based higher education from a number of perspectives. ; American Enterprise Institute

A mid growing concerns about the quality and cost of American higher education, policymakers are searching for reforms that can both increase the supply of affordable and effective postsecondary options and maintain consumer protection. Much of the focus has tended toward the federal student aid programs and policies that govern access to those programs. Though states play an important role in authorizing postsecondary institutions to operate in their state, observers have paid comparatively less attention to how they carry out that responsibility. This article aims to present lessons for regulatory reform by examining how states organize their authorization process. ; American Enterprise Institute

A new research brief from the Urban Institute outlines perspectives by nationally respected scholars and experts regarding some of the most critical issues in higher education, along with recommendations on evidence-based policy solutions. The goal of the report is to offer a framework for what it calls a principled approach to the federal role in higher education. ; Urban Institute