The American dream--the belief that anyone is capable of upward mobility and a better life than the one in which they were born--is in jeopardy. According to Harvard economist Raj Chetty, American families are experiencing reduced upward mobility across generations. Education is the key to reversing the trajectory of upward mobility, imparting…

Annmarie Guzy teaches honors composition at the University of South Alabama. This essay discusses her observation that students who took her class were more likely to complete the honors program, which led to her wondering what elements of her course might give students an edge in honors program completion. As an English professor with training in…

In the lead essay of this Forum, one of the questions Jerry Herron asks in discussing honors admissions is "What are we offering?" This question relates directly to the question often posed by well-meaning parents, well-intentioned students, and inquisitive administrators who want to know if honors is just more and/or harder work and…

Ensuring college access amid rising tuition costs has hovered near the top of the nation's education agenda for years. Facing heightened concern about the student debt burden and disappointing college graduation rates, policymakers are hungry for fresh ideas. Federal Pell Grants, the primary means for subsidizing college tuition for…

This paper posits the position that if higher education and secondary schools wish to increase students' college readiness, specifically in mathematics and critical thinking skills, continuous enrollment in secondary mathematics is one avenue worth exploring as opposed to increasing mathematics graduation requirements only in terms of Carnegie…

Among the earliest principles and premises of enrollment management as it evolved in concept and practice was that student retention is as critical as new student recruitment in achieving an institution's preferred enrollment profile. Over recent decades, student retention has been one of the most studied aspects of college enrollment dynamics,…

Graduate students across the world in higher education have self-selected themselves into their chosen degree programs, and each student tends to be assigned an advisor, or multiple advisors, to assist them through these programs. Graduate students tend to be self-directed and read most, if not all, of the literature supplied by an institution to…

The intercollegiate sports system fosters an environment in which eligibility for sports participation takes priority over educational objectives. One outcome of the athletic-academic conflict is the low graduation rate of intercollegiate football players. Analysis of graduation rates of various universities reveals a regional pattern of academic…

Describes a model for the delivery of programs and services for recruiting, retaining, and graduating African-American students. Notes that piecemeal programs neither increase the enrollment of African-American students nor slow their rate of attrition. (DM)

This author reports that, among high-school students who graduated in the bottom 40 percent of their classes, and whose first institutions were four-year colleges, two-thirds had not earned diplomas eight and a half years later. While four-year colleges admit and take money from hundreds of thousands of such students each year, the students who…

This document looks at the academic reasons why states should take seriously the use of Web-based courses provided by state virtual schools to improve student access to quality teachers and quality courses. State virtual schools are not about technology, but rather about using today's technology to meet the tremendous academic needs of middle…

These essays by former Governor James B. Hunt Jr. and business leader Thomas J. Tierney lay out in succinct fashion the requirements of both our nation and our states for new and higher levels of performance from America's colleges and universities. The authors of these essays are not theorists writing from an ivory tower. Quite the contrary,…

The purpose of this brief report is to highlight information about disabled youth in relation to the second of six National Education goals proposed by the President and the Governors in 1990. The second goal states that "By the year 2000, the high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent." A grade of…

The reasons for the phenomenon of guaranteed graduation are considered, as are criticisms of this approach. Guaranteed graduation programs have resulted in part as a result of an attempt to address issues and concerns about the cost of a college education, articulation of coursework, time to degree, and competency. While guarantees are designed to…

This paper discusses degree attainment statistics and their analyses, particularly when applying time censors to the equation. The author describes at the High School and Beyond Sophomore Cohort Longitudinal Study, which followed a high school graduating class of 1982, from the time of its graduation until 1993, when most of the cohort was 29 or…