Posts published on May 7, 2012

Colleges Report Much Better Results In Access Compared To Success

GAINS IN ACCESS, LESS IN SUCCESS
In 2007 — long before President Obama pushed to make college attainment a national priority and three years before the phrase “completion agenda” first appeared in these pages — a group of public university systems put themselves on the spot. Working with (and to some extent prodded by) Education Trust, which promotes the educational success of low-income and minority students, the 22 systems of two-year and four-year colleges and universities committed to increasing their attainment levels, in large part by closing the gaps in performance between underrepresented students and their peers within a decade. And they committed, too, to documenting their progress by collecting and publicly reporting detailed (and in some cases, previously unreported) data on student access and success. A report, released this week, provides a look mid-point.  The article is in Inside Higher Ed and circulated by Carnegie Foundation

USA Drops Again In International Rankings Of College Completion

A new report from the Center for Postsecondary and Economic Success finds that as other countries have increased their postsecondary attainment, the United States has fallen to 15th place among 34 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries in the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds with an Associate’s level college degree or higher. Today, over half of young adults in leading OECD countries — Canada, South Korea, and Japan — have college degrees, compared to 41 percent in the United States. At current rates of attainment, the United States will fall short of its goals by tens of millions of postsecondary credentials over the next couple of decades. Despite this, federal policymakers continue to trim grants awarded to students. The proportion of state budgets devoted to postsecondary education has fallen by more than 13 percent since 1990. A 60-percent credential attainment would produce significant economic returns to individuals, states, and the nation by 2025. Average annual per-capita income would increase by approximately $1,400 by 2025. Federal revenue of $67 billion in 2025 would be about six times higher than the estimated postsecondary costs of $9.8 billion, and state revenue of $64 billion would be triple the estimated state postsecondary costs of $21 billion.
Read more: http://www.clasp.org/postsecondary/pages?type=postsecondary_and_economic_success&id=0025

Source:PEN Newsblat