Community colleges educate a diverse group of students. Effective first-year programs should focus on a variety of interventions that improve learning and retention. Students have academic, intellectual, and social challenges during their community college experience. First-year orientation programs should help students adapt. This article…

The number of certificates conferred by U.S. postsecondary institutions increased 64 percent in the last decade, from 572,000 in 2000-2001 to 936,000 in 2009-2010, surpassing the 850,000 associate's degrees conferred in 2009-2010. Certificates are overwhelmingly conferred in vocational fields and are intended to prepare students for the growing…

All institutions review and update their programs over time, offering specializations based on departmental philosophy and expertise. With the increased number of degree-granting postsecondary institutions in British Columbia (BC), universities and colleges are under pressure to devise unique approaches to majors. This can mean that pre-major…

Colleges and universities across the country are seeing their bond ratings drop and their budgets shrink. Employers complain that college graduates are not prepared for the workplace, and many students find themselves saddled with considerable debt and no job to show for it. These are trying times for parents, for students, and for institutions.…

The State of Florida has been challenged to keep up with the demand for baccalaureate degree production for more than half a century. Fueled first by veterans of World War II and the Korean Conflict, and later by significant and sustained population growth over many decades, Florida's postsecondary infrastructure has struggled to keep pace with…

After nearly three years of planning, Ohio's higher-education officials are finalizing an ambitious program to grant college credit for some technical courses offered at the state's adult-education centers. The program, called the Career-Technical Credit Transfer, is the latest in a string of state efforts to more closely link work-force training…

The objective of this work is to provide transfer students with a pathway that will prepare them in the same manner as direct entry students for a specific major at any public baccalaureate institution in the state, and for any of the independent institutions that wish to join the agreement. Wherever possible, the work groups were encouraged to…