Posts published on February 15, 2011

Complete College America Gives Advice To College Trustees

As states consider new legislation and policies to increase college completion, we believe these essential tests must be applied:

• Will this approach reduce the time it takes to graduate? 

• Will it direct students in making  an informed, transparent choice, clearly consistent with their aspirations? 

• Will it provide more predictability and structure in order to ease their daily struggles to balance work and school?

If the answers are yes, please proceed urgently argues Complete College America’s president, Stan Jones, in this new article in the latest issue of Trusteeship magazine. 

Counter to intuition and contrary to best intentions — by letting the clock run, providing nearly endless choices, and allowing flexibility to rule, we may be simply providing many students the freedom to fail.

Achieving The Dream? Did It Work?

‘Achieving the Dream’ produces little change at community colleges
By Jennifer Gonzalez, the Chronicle of Higher Education
Seven years into an ambitious project by Lumina Foundation to help more community-college students stay enrolled and graduate, a study has found that while colleges have changed their practices significantly, student outcomes have remained relatively unchanged.

This judgement based on student attainment may not be fair to Achieving the Dream which was designed to increase data use in community colleges as a first step toward higher student completion. Data may be a necessary , but not sufficient condition, and cannot overcome very poor secondary school preparation.