Heightened attention to the importance of equitable educational practices in today's schools reveals a growing number of emergent bilingual students who have not received consistent formal education and may be struggling with overall literacy. Labeled as Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE), these learners require novel educational…

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) recognizes that there is a need to provide better and more targeted supports from students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE) students across the Commonwealth. To inform these supports, districts are looking for a numeracy and literacy screener that can both…

Observers of education often assume measuring non-continuation -- or, more colloquially, "drop-out" rates -- among students must be straightforward. In fact, there are numerous different ways to measure the phenomenon of non-continuation that make it challenging to discuss. This paper addresses the following questions regarding…

In a 2023 report by the National Student Clearinghouse, the "some college, no credential" population stood at 40.4 million in 2021, up 3.6 percent from a year earlier. Of this population, more than half (21 million, 52%) were 25 or older at the time of their last enrollment. One solution to this reality is to reengage this population and…

Retaining people no longer credited toward college completion--a group known in academic parlance as "stop outs"--is a core concern among administrators seeking to remove barriers to education. Preventing stop outs from becoming stay outs means re-enrolling students beset by debt, or targeting vulnerable demos close to graduation.…

The traditional college-age population is shrinking: fewer high school graduates pursue higher education each year, resulting in declining student enrollment at colleges across the country. At the same time, there are now more than 40 million Americans who have stopped out of college with some credit and no credential or degree. By opting out or…

For 23 years, the author worked with high school students from a wide range of language backgrounds and widely differing circumstances. What they all had in common was that they were all developing competence and confidence in academic English. One of the challenges in teaching them was that some students had traveled back and forth between the…

This is the executive summary for the study "How They Pay: The Voices of Adult Learners on College Affordability, and How Institutions are Responding." The study is based on data from a national survey of 996 adult learners, in-depth interviews with 47 adults from 14 institutions, and interviews with financial aid personnel from six of…

Students who leave higher education before earning a credential ("stop outs") often do so for failing to maintain satisfactory academic progress, or SAP. This article details why enrollment managers must work with their financial aid counterparts to smooth students' re-entry to higher education, focusing on SAP alleviation strategies.

Fear of the coronavirus has shut down all but essential businesses. Economists have projected that unemployment could rise as high as 20%, compared with 3.5% this past February 2020. A survey conducted in mid-April by Strada Education Network found 62% of Americans worried about losing their jobs and 34% believed they would need more education to…

To allay the increasing rates of serious mental and emotional problems among college students, the author proposes taking a gap year before starting college, which could have potential benefits.

Community college enrollment has significantly declined since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Between the spring 2020 term and the spring 2022 term, community college enrollment declined by nearly 17 percent nationwide. This alarming trend has posed a threat to the well-being of community colleges and the students they serve, which includes…

During the activity of the Interim Treasury Committee for Polish Questions from 7 July 1945 to 31 March 1947, several thousand Polish citizens were given the opportunity to study abroad. Despite their difficult financial situation, they strove to continue studying, where this had been disrupted before the war, or started studying anew. Such an…

An Income-Share Agreement (ISA) is an education financing tool through which a student promises a certain percentage of future income (the "income share") for upfront funding for education. Recently, ISAs have been subject to significant national attention and scrutiny from policymakers, investors, consumer advocates, and postsecondary…

The "Yearly Success and Progress Rates" report goes beyond traditional student outcome measures by showing year-by-year rates of retention, persistence, transfer, completion and stop-out. It is designed to help institutions and states better identify and inform effective intervention points to increase student success. This report…