In a society that reaches for silver-bullet solutions, higher education is not immune from widespread attempts to raise graduation rates through scaling one-size-fits-all models at lower costs. Yet people at Big Picture Learning believe any true, long-term solution that will produce more graduates with high-quality degrees must be…

Recognizing the interrelated nature of the standards movement, school finance litigation, and student outcomes, this study investigates the relationship of school funding and the specific outcome measure of cohort graduation rates in 16 Southern states that comprise the Southern Region Education Board (SREB). Research indicates that Southern…

This study examined the impact of Catholic education on elementary and secondary students in Los Angeles. The study focused on the continuation and graduation rates of ethnic minority students who received special funding from the Catholic Education Foundation (CEF). Using qualitative and quantitative measures, the study revealed that students…

Although "access" to higher education has increased substantially over the past forty years, student "success" in college--as measured by persistence and degree attainment--has not improved at all. Thomas Brock reviews systematic research findings on the effectiveness of various interventions designed to help at-risk students remain in college.…

President Obama wants it. Billionaire business mogul turned philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, say it's key to the nation's economic future. But are America's colleges really poised to regain the world lead in college graduates by 2020? Doing so would require adding an additional 5 million graduates during the next decade--a lofty…

This study examined the differences in perceptions of barriers in education among Latinos in the United States based on the level of linguistic acculturation, generational status, academic achievement, and socioeconomic status of the participants. This study used data from the Pew Hispanic Research Center. Results indicated that later-generation…

This proceedings document provides a synthesis of the presentations on the historical and research background of graduation requirements for students with disabilities and of a panel discussion based on implementation of the various requirements. Based on the presentations and discussions, the forum participants described and refined 14 issues…

In recent years, as study abroad professionals have come to focus more squarely on the question of what students are in fact learning abroad, there has been increasing speculation about the extent to which study abroad increases prospects for employability following graduation. Common wisdom has it that undergraduates who study abroad have an…

Survival analysis is a statistical tool used to describe the duration between events. Many processes in medical research, engineering, and economics can be described using survival analysis techniques. This research involves studying engineering college student graduation using Cox proportional hazards models. Among male students with American…

Typically, efforts made by colleges and universities to provide more accountability are linked to having institutions provide more information and make their processes more transparent to their various stakeholders. One way in which public institutions can reasonably be held accountable is to rely to a large extent on the relationship they have…

For 21 years the Annual Condition of Education Report has helped the Iowa Department of Education meet its goal, providing valuable information on everything from enrollment to student performance, from the teachers to finances to the demographics. The data for this annual report are presented according to: (1) Background Demographics; (2)…

This report describes the total number of Virginia Community College System (VCCS) transfer students each institution of higher education enrolled, and graduated from 2001-02 to 2005-06. The number of VCCS transfer students admitted to each higher education institution is not included because the State Council of Higher Education does not require…

This Policy Information Perspective provides a status report on efforts to measure the high school graduation rate more accurately and use it more constructively. The first section of the report discusses obtaining reliable national survey data on the graduation status of young adults and of the population as a whole. The second section makes the…

This report provides information on degree and certificate programs offered and student program completions for fiscal year 2008-09 in North Dakota's public and private postsecondary educational institutions. Institutional programs are coded in accordance with the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP Code) system provided by the National…

For more than thirty years, Communities in Schools (CIS) has been dedicated to giving every child a chance to graduate by targeting those factors that are most likely to cause a student to drop out, and providing what it sees as the "five basics" for student achievement: (1) a caring relationship with an adult; (2) a safe place to learn…