Professor John Aubrey Douglass has written a good analysis of trends in Us higher education in the magazine , California, June 2008. As the first nation to implement mass higher education US led in most in access and college completion. But we have held steady while other nations increased and surpassed USA. USA slipped from 1 to 14 in post secondary participation rates and from 1 to 16 in completion rates.
A major cause is better policies by our competitors over many years, but the major causes says Douglass is the breakdown in the k-12 pipeline to higher education, costs increases in postsecondary, immigration growth, and the high use of community colleges in US. The completion problem is focused in broad access US higher education which is the focus of this blog.

Labels: academic preparation College Completion, college access

In 2006 the Education Trust published an analysis of the 50 flagship public univerisites and using a variety of indicators concluded they looked more like "gated communities". Low income students declined, financial aid was focused on merit aid, colege completion rates were lagging for minority and low income students, and most univerisites were getting worse on equity indicators. The most common grade on 7 indicators of equity was F. A few schools like Berkeley and Wyoming got a C.
I wonder what has happened in the period 2006-2008. Merit aid seems to have been steady, but there is more policy talk about the equity issue. Hopefully, this report at www.edtrust.org will be updated.

Labels: college access, College Completion

Guest Blogger
Christopher Mazzeo
Associate Director for Policy and Outreach
Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR)
University of Chicago

Because many of Mike's entries are on how high schools shape college access, I thought readers would appreciate this new study my organization--the Consortium on Chicago School Research--recently released. The report, “From High School to the Future: Potholes on the Road to College,” (authors: Melissa Roderick, Jenny Nagaoka, Vanessa Coca and Eliza Moeller) shows that a majority of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) graduates-even those with top grades and test scores-do not successfully navigate the college search and application process. While 95 percent of 2005 Chicago graduates hoped to complete some form of postsecondary education, and 90 percent stated that their parents wanted them to attend college after graduation, only 59 percent actually applied to a four-year college and only 41 percent successfully navigated this process and ultimately enrolled the fall after graduation. This drop off is even worse for Latino students, with only 46 percent applying and 30 percent enrolling in a four-year college in the fall after graduation.

Reason? Not parents but schools. Researchers at CCSR found that the single most consistent predictor of whether students took steps toward college enrollment was whether their teachers reported that their high school had a strong college going culture where they and their colleagues pushed students to go to college, worked to ensure that students would be prepared, and were involved in supporting students in completing their college applications. In addition, the college plans and behaviors of Latino students in Chicago are particularly shaped by the expectations of their teachers and counselors and by connections with teachers. This suggests that Latino students may be much more reliant than other students on teachers and their school for guidance and information, and that their college plans are more dependent on their connections to school.

The full report can be downloaded at: ccsr.uchicago.edu/potholes.

Labels: college access