"Children's Budget 2022" finds that the share of federal spending on children climbed to a historic 11.98% of the U.S. budget in FY 2022, producing remarkable declines in child poverty, hunger and the rate of children without health insurance. The report finds that the share of U.S. domestic and international spending on children rose…

This is the technical document for the report, "Centering Quality, Centering Equity: Lessons Learned in Increasing Early Childhood Educator Credentials." The report explores Early Childhood Education (ECE) credential requirements in California (CA) and Washington, D.C. (D.C.) for two key reasons: 1) both recently raised these…

Medicine has long been recognised as one of the most difficult and competitive professions to access, particularly for those from the lowest socio-economic backgrounds. As the Government looks to train more doctors through the "NHS Long Term Workforce Plan," the report "Unequal Treatment?" looks at access to medical school…

For the past several decades, private schools have steadily served about one in ten students in the United States. However, the student population enrolled in private schools has changed. Thousands of Catholic schools, which often serve less affluent urban communities, have closed; meanwhile, tuition increases in independent schools have outpaced…

From acting in an award-winning film to producing a number one album, getting to the top of the creative industries is a dream for many young people. But access to such careers, both behind the scenes and in front of an audience, is currently far from equal. For young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds in particular, there are major…

High school student participation in dual enrollment--a key strategy for increasing equitable access to postsecondary education and improving readiness for college--has been on the rise in California in recent years. Despite the overall increase in participation, however, large gaps between racial/ethnic subgroups persist. Also of concern, English…

This publication presents information on how different equity groups fare in their VET journey. The featured equity groups are: (1) People with disability; (2) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander; (3) Non-English speaking background; (4) Low socioeconomic status; (5) Remote; and (6) Not employed. These groups have historically been disadvantaged…

The theme of the Equity Indicators for 2024 is confronting the realities and exploring feasible solutions related to the paradoxical and unequal higher education system. As the figure shows, higher education in the United States is increasingly the major agent of overcoming poverty and of attaining upward mobility toward the so-called…

This is the technical appendices for the report, "Higher Education and Economic Opportunity in California." Lower rates of college access and completion among Latinos, African Americans, and low-income Californians exacerbate the state's economic divide and puts California further behind in meeting its workforce needs. And even though a…

Absent a nationwide plan for universal public prekindergarten, states and districts have taken various approaches to increasing access to school-based educational opportunities for their youngest learners. Though some of these programs have focused on making public prekindergarten available to all families, others have targeted families most in…

The usefulness of college admissions test scores and high school GPA for predicting college success, particularly in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), has been widely debated. As colleges across the country face challenges in STEM student retention and achievement, understanding the factors that contribute to college…

We describe the levels, trends, and patterns of school closure and restructuring in the United States from 1991 to 2019 across all sectors using a near census of K-12 schools. Focusing on the years with the best available data, 2014-2018, we find that the annual closure rate of charter, private, and traditional public schools (TPS) were 5.1, 2.9,…

In 2004 and 2005, the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education (Pell Institute), sponsored by the Council for Opportunity in Education (COE), published two editions of "Indicators of Opportunity in Higher Education." In 2015, the commitment to documenting trends in higher education equity was renewed by publishing…

As Mississippi prepares to support the statewide postsecondary attainment goal, understanding the returns to higher education is crucial to determining where to invest resources. Ithaka S+R has partnered with the Woodward Hines Education Foundation to provide Mississippi policymakers, advocates, and legislators with information they need to make…

This report, the seventh in this series, brings together again in partnership the Pell Institute with the Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy of the University of Pennsylvania (PennAHEAD). These reports draw from multiple sources of existing data to provide, in one place, indicators that describe trends in equity in postsecondary…