Nationwide, many students who enroll in community college programs fail to persist in postsecondary education or complete a credential. The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) Two-Year Occupational Grant Pilot Program (the Occupational Grant) was a financial aid program designed to increase persistence and completion rates through…

Community college campus internationalization is only represented in a small portion of the institutions in the U.S. Global Studies Certificates (GSC) are in an even smaller proportion of community colleges, but offers a credentialed program for curricular and co-curricular activities to be used to work with campus internationalization. This pilot…

Research often focuses on how students fail to meet college expectations, but it rarely asks how colleges fail to meet students' expectations. This study examines students' expectations of college and their institutional confidence--their level of certainty that college will meet their expectations. Drawing on 65 pilot interviews and a survey of…

Emerging alongside the open educational resources movement of the past decade, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been widely heralded as advancing cause of providing increased access to higher education. The article explores the implications of the recommendation by the American Council on Education (ACE) to offer college credit for a…

Education and training beyond high school are important for securing opportunities for high-wage jobs in the United States. Academic degrees awarded by institutions of higher education represent a key component of the post-high-school credentials available to the American labor force. Other credentials, such as industry-recognized certifications,…

This article presents a new model of education that works with employers to help their employees gain the skills and credentials needed for promotions and career mobility. Southern New Hampshire University's College for America, a competency-based education model for working adults, increases their access to, and the convenience of higher…

Today's college graduates face an uncertain and demanding job market in which they are likely to encounter evolving skill needs, reduced hiring, and heightened competition from experienced laid off workers and globally available labor. These realities underscore the importance expressed by educators and practitioners of identifying attributes new…

For most high school non-completers, the GED[R] credential is the bridge to postsecondary education, but little is known about how successfully they could make that transition and whether their participation shifts across time. The American Council on Education (ACE) has begun a three-year longitudinal study to understand the effect of the GED…

The seventh recommendation in ACTE's postsecondary reform position statement is to pilot innovative approaches to funding. Public postsecondary providers are expected to fulfill a number of educational missions linked to separate funding streams, such as academic coursework, workforce education and training, distance education and research. These…