In the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District has achieved a startling success over the last two years: it has recovered and graduated over 600 dropouts and put them on a clear pathway to college. Just a few years ago, low graduation rates, struggling high schools, and poor staff and student morale…

As with the collapse of the subprime lending industry, the showdown between for-profit colleges and the government shows how the aspirations of the underserved, when combined with lax regulation, make the rich, richer and the poor, poorer. For-profit colleges provide high-cost degree programs that have little chance of leading to high-paying…

In today's knowledge driven economy a college degree is critical to the success of a competitive workforce. Yet in 2008, only 19 percent of Latinos, 29 percent of blacks, and 39 percent of whites 25 and over had earned an associate degree or higher. At a time when all students will have to accelerate success to meet national degree completion…

The United States Department of Education (2008) noted that the percentage of ethnic minority students in public education increased from 22 percent in 1972 to 43 percent in 2006. This increase largely reflected the growth of the Hispanic population, especially in the state of Texas. Richard (2003) reported that Hispanic students drop out of…

Recent research on education and Latina/o immigrants has indicated an escalating crisis, but few studies have focused on why so few immigrant students participate in higher education, or why many leave college before receiving degrees. Past research has been largely quantitative or theoretical, and offered little qualitative insight into the…

Since 2002, the Center on Education Policy (CEP), an independent nonprofit organization, has been studying state high school exit examinations--tests students must pass to receive a high school diploma. This is CEP's ninth annual report on exit exams. The information in this report comes from several sources: CEP's survey of states that have…

Between 2002 and 2007, the Chicago High School Redesign Initiative (CHSRI) opened 23 small high schools. Implemented in partnership with Chicago Public Schools (CPS), this initiative aimed to provide populations of low-performing students in under-served areas of the city with high-quality, small high schools. These schools were formed (1) by…

In 2005-06 almost half of the pupils in California's public schools were Latinos, but Latinos only received about 15 percent of the BA degrees awarded by public and private colleges in the state. Texas has a comparable Latino population, but does significantly better than California in getting Latino students through college. The implication of…

This report provides the Nebraska Legislature with comparative statistics to monitor and evaluate progress toward achieving three key priorities for Nebraska's postsecondary education system: (1) Increase the number of students who enter postsecondary education in Nebraska; (2) Increase the percentage of students who enroll and successfully…

The District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Act of 2003, passed by Congress in January 2004, established the first federally funded, private school voucher program in the United States. Since that time, more than 8,400 students have applied for what is now called the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), and a rigorous evaluation of the…

This report presents the findings for community colleges that participated in ACT's 2010 What Works in Student Retention survey. The report contains information pertinent to only these institutions. A copy of the survey instrument to which all colleges and universities in this study responded can be found in Appendix B of this report. The survey…

President Barack Obama has called for the United States to reclaim its position as the nation with the highest concentration of adults with postsecondary degrees in the world. Given the changing demographics of the United States, this target cannot be achieved without increasing the rate at which Hispanic students obtain a college degree. In this…

Rates of tuition increases in both private and public higher education that continually exceed inflation, coupled with the fact that the United States no longer leads the world in terms of the fraction of young adults who have college degrees, have focused attention on why costs keep increasing in higher education and what categories of higher…

This review examines a research study that compares high school graduation rates of students who used vouchers to attend private high schools in Milwaukee and students who attended public high schools in that same city. The study reports that for the most recent year of data, a sample of voucher students had estimated graduation rates 12…

Although two-thirds of Texas college-bound high school graduates are prepared for college work, a large number of recent graduates and adults returning to pursue higher education are not college ready. Those underprepared for college face the hurdle of completing remedial courses--known as developmental education--in one or all core subject areas…