It has become increasingly difficult to succeed in the U.S. workforce with only a high school diploma. While 75% of the middle-class workforce had only a high school education in the 1970s, that percentage dropped to below 40% by 2007. An estimated two-thirds of all jobs in 2020 will require some postsecondary training, up from just a quarter of…

Recent increases in tuition levels, accelerated by declining state funding to institutions, have combined with stagnant or falling household incomes to make it more difficult for many college students to finance postsecondary education. In this environment, state grant programs are more important than ever. These funds have the potential to make…

The Workforce Training and Economic Development (WTED) Fund was established in 2003 as part of the Grow Iowa Values Fund and is currently funded through the Iowa Skilled Worker and Job Creation Fund. This fund has become an important source of financing for community college new program innovation, development, and capacity building, particularly…

The second annual implementation report for the Accelerating Opportunity (AO) initiative in four states finds that: (1) colleges aligned pathways and supports with local needs; (2) students were satisfied with AO; (3) AO instructors grew more adept at team teaching; (4) colleges struggled to recruit adult education students; (5) states and…

To utilize automated technology for student aid processing, it is necessary to work with multi-institutional offices (student aid, admissions, registration, and business) and to develop automated interfaces with external processing systems at state and federal agencies and perhaps at need-analysis organizations and lenders. (MLW)

How well new state, institutional, and private loan programs help compensate for federal student aid cutbacks depends on how well they respond to a number of practical requirements, including availability, affordability, adequacy of loan servicing and collection procedures, avoidance of excessive repayment burden, and clarity for borrowers and…

The Coordinating Board for Higher Education and the Missouri Department of Higher Education present this fiscal year 2006 Annual Report to inform individuals of the state's status and progress in higher education. Section 173.040, RSMo (see Appendix A) specifically details what information the CBHE should include in its annual report. The various…

Guidelines are presented which deal with three areas considered by the Allocations Task Force in establishing a Handicapped Student Services Program. The first set of guidelines focuses on developing an allocations process and formula to meet "Full Need" for the Handicapped Student Services Program. Issues considered in developing this…

This book provides a group of articles concerning the equity and efficiency of prepaid college tuition plans. Chapters: (1) introduce the subject; (2) examine the competing financial theories at play in this field; (3) present a study of the Michigan Education Trust's decision to expand its subscriber base by offering a monthly payment option; (4)…

A proposal to create a state-funded work-study program for California postsecondary education is presented, including guidelines for program eligibility and responsibilities. The California Postsecondary Education Commission's proposal recommends: the use of both nonprofit and profit-making organizations as potential employers; employment that is…

This document presents data and recommendations on graduate education in Washington State, and outlines institutional plans for achieving a graduate enrollment goal that allows the state to reach the 70th percentile nationwide by 2010. The report is divided into seven sections that address the following questions: (1) What is graduate education?…

Highlights of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the North Carolina Association for Institutional Research (NCAIR) and of the Drive-In Conference held prior to the annual meeting are presented. The major emphasis of the annual meeting was to look toward the 1980's and project the role that institutional research might play in higher education. The…

Packaging student financial aid, bringing the various forms of assistance together into a combination of resources sufficient for an individual student to meet college costs, reflects national and institutional philosophy about who should have access to higher education and who should pay, and how the pool of applicants is to be treated equitably.…

Recent interactions between the state government (and to a lesser extent the federal government) and public higher education in Wisconsin are examined, and some of the major issues and actions from 1965 to the present are reviewed in order to identify imbalances that could jeopardize a"health tension" between the two sectors. Some of the…

The College Scholarship Service guide to implementing financial aid data processing systems is presented, based on conferences that promoted information exchange between data processing and financial aid administrators. The following topics are addressed: long-range planning, the rationale and organizational basis for financial aid, specific…