This annual publication provides a summary of training activity in apprenticeships and traineeships in Australia for the period 2001 to 2011. It includes information on training rates, individual completion rates, and duration of training. Highlights include: (1) 3.9% of Australian workers were employed as an apprentice or trainee as at December…

The Graduate First initiative was implemented to address the dropout crisis among students with disabilities in the state of Georgia, who continue to demonstrate a rate of attrition twice that of their non-disabled peers (Georgia Department of Education [GA DOE], 2010). This mixed method case study explored the perceptions and experiences of a…

Anyone who fixates on graduation rates has little understanding not only of the rich mission and value of community colleges, but also how deeply flawed and inadequate those rates are as a principal assessment tool for the performance of community colleges. In this article, the author discusses what is wrong with the use of graduation rates as the…

A fundamental premise for creating the Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) designation assumes that a critical mass of students motivates an institution to change how it operates to better serve these students to degree attainment. Increasing Hispanic degree attainment is in the national interest, and programs created by public policy to support…

Learning communities are widely recognized as a powerful pedagogy that promotes deep learning and student engagement, while also addressing a range of challenges that plague higher education. The Completion Agenda represents a complex set of intersecting priorities advocated by federal and state government, nonprofit organizations, colleges, and…

School systems are under increasing pressure to improve student performance. Several states have recently explored adopting student count methods for school funding purposes that incentivize school attendance and continuous enrollment by adjusting funding for changes in enrollment or attendance over the course of the school year. However, no…

At this moment, roughly 12 million Americans are unable to find work, with more than 40 percent of that number unemployed for six months or more. At the same time, current estimates put the number of job vacancies in this country at 3 million per month. The most popular explanation for this apparent paradox, the one put forth by former President…

Over the last two decades the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), has undergone transformation and ignited systemic change across the institution. Its Meyerhoff Scholars Program has made major achievements in recruiting and graduating African American students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at one of the…

Low student retention and persistence continues to be a major problem within American higher education (Elkins, Braxton, & James, 2000; Kalsbeek & Hossler, 2010; Kezar, 2004; Tinto, 2006-2007). Less is known about the institutional organizational behavior influence on student persistence (Berger, 2001-2002); and while enrollment management…

This qualitative study examined first-year Interest Groups (FIGs) that resulted in higher graduation rates at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Participants in this study included eight former FIG participants from the academic years 2008-2011. This researcher created a questionnaire guided by Astin's theory of involvement, that analyzed…

Roughly half of all doctoral students who begin a program do not continue through graduation, and many of them face significant financial losses and emotional burdens as a result. Although this completion rate has stayed fairly constant for the past few decades, it has recently gained attention on a national level. In 2011, the National Research…

The 2012 cohort report includes: (1) Historic Utah Federal Four-Year Graduation by Demographics; (2) Federal Three-Year Graduation, Other Completer, Continuing Student and Dropout Counts and Rates by LEA and High School, 2012 Cohort; (3) Federal Four-Year Graduation, Other Completer, Continuing Student and Dropout Counts and Rates by LEA and High…

There has been a vast increase in the number of nontraditional undergraduate students enrolling in postsecondary institutions across the United States, yet the graduation rate among this student population has remained very low. Institutions of higher education will need to find affordable means to increase the graduation rate among this student…

Student college loan default rates have nearly doubled in recent years. The three-year default rate exceeds 13 percent nationally. Tracking and reporting default rates is a crucial means of monitoring how well higher education dollars are spent. Yet, the way default data is gathered, measured, and reported by the federal government clouds…

This article reports the effects of attending an elementary full-service community school (FSCS) on a variety of student academic outcomes in high school. The focal FSCS, Key Elementary, serves students in grades K-5 in a diverse southeastern New York State (NYS) school district. The academic performance of students, born between 1991 and 1996,…