Focus Of This Blog

Currently, high schools—particularly schools that educate a large proportion of underrepresented students—are not connected to their local postsecondary institutions, and policies such as disconnected standards perpetuate the divide between the systems. Without clear signals from postsecondary education and policies that support, and create incentives for, improved connections between the levels, many high schools will be unable to provide the appropriate academic opportunities for their students.

 

Improving students’ college readiness must become a national, state, and local imperative, not just an altruistic gesture. The focus of our efforts must be on students who attend broad access institutions—institutions that enroll almost every applicant and that educate approximately 80 percent of the nation’s postsecondary students. Almost half of the nation’s postsecondary education students attend community colleges. Most media and public attention, however, focus upon the approximately 15 percent of students who attend the most selective four-year institutions; those institutions have the best-prepared students, and the most complicated methods of sorting and selecting applicants.