In late 2020, Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act, restoring access to federal Pell Grants for confined and incarcerated students for the first time since 1994. Following the reversal of this nearly 30-year ban, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) established a new application process for institutions of higher education seeking to…

Background: Despite the growing diversity among students in higher education, nonprogression to postsecondary education persists for many students with intellectual disabilities with low completion rates for those who do progress. Research suggests that occupational therapy (OT) support can be extremely beneficial in assisting students. Less is…

University leaders, governments, industries and donors use university rankings to assess the success or failure of higher education institutions; however, these rankings tell us nothing about how universities are challenging or amplifying oppression in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This article first examines the implications of the…

The Commonwealth Education Continuum (CEC) was formed out of the moral imperative to strengthen the education pipeline in Kentucky. To further understand the diverse needs of the state and seek actions to improve the education system, the CEC created three workgroups with distinct focus areas at its April meeting. The workgroups include: (1) Early…

Cross-sector education collaborations, sometimes termed "collective impact" or "cradle-to-career" initiatives, have emerged in recent years across the U.S. as local interventions attempting to align services among educational institutions, local government, businesses, other community-based organizations, and philanthropies to…

In 2018, the Lumina Foundation appointed and convened a Quality Credentials Task Force comprising 22 leaders in education, policy, and workforce development. The task force had two charges. First, it was to explore new ways to assure the quality of a college education and other forms of learning beyond high school. Second, it was asked to develop…

Using an inquiry-based approach to address the challenge of improving schools provides opportunities for informed decision making and carries great promise for return on investment. Taking a collaborative approach toward improvement can be complex, yet also rewarding because of the opportunity to leverage the knowledge and capacity of multiple…

This article provides a picture on the contribution of David Raffe to European cooperation in the field of vocational education and training (VET). It is based on the experiences of the author and his colleagues on European events and projects in which David participated from the early 1990s until 2009. The Section 2 gives impressions of David's…

R14CC and the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) are collaboratively implementing projects to address high leverage problems such as school systems' fiscal transparency, literacy strategic planning, and post-secondary planning for student success. This profile provides a summary of these selected projects and an overview of state education…

Career pathways (CP) has gained prominence as a strategy to ensure that high school students and displaced workers acquire the college and career readiness skills needed in a fast-changing, globalized economy. In an effort to ensure future success for CP, Stephen F. Hamilton examines the School-to-Work (STW) movement of the 1980s and 1990s and…

In rural settings, leaving for college can mean a young person's first step in leaving home forever (Sherman & Sage, 2011). That presents a serious challenge for college recruiters as they ask parents from Indian reservations or close-knit Hispanic or rural farming communities to allow their children to consider postsecondary opportunities. In…

The College Access Challenge Grant (CACG) statutory language requires states receiving the funds to attempt to coordinate grant activities with other stakeholders in the state working to increase postsecondary access and success for low-income students. The extent to which the U.S. Department of Education has monitored and enforced (or even could…

This paper analyses the extent to which the process of Europeanisation can be observed within a specific policy area: that of school leaving and graduation. The paper investigates what is known about school leavers and graduates at the national and the European levels on the one hand, and how the data collections portray Europe and European policy…

The United States faces an increasing gap between the skills possessed by its workforce and those that are necessary to succeed in the 21st century economy. This gap poses a threat to the financial wellbeing of low-skilled American workers and their families and to the nation's long-term economic growth. Recognizing the threat posed by these…

Based on a review of previous research, the paper describes the distinctive characteristics of rural areas and communities and the factors typically associated with shaping students' learning experience in rural contexts. Data from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 and the Teaching and Learning International…