Here are some new resources and news for the field of higher education.

Scorecard for Accreditors: The federal government is set to release data reports designed to help measure the performance of accrediting agencies, with metrics such as the graduation rates, debt, earnings and loan repayment rates of students who attended the colleges the accreditors oversee. (Inside Higher Ed, June 21).

Feds Propose Shutting Down Big For-Profit College Accreditor: The U.S. Department of Education proposed on Wednesday to shut down the nation’s largest accreditor of for-profit colleges, a rare move that could put dozens of schools at risk of losing federal funding. (ABC News, June 15). 

Supreme Court Upholds Consideration of Race: The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld the University of Texas at Austin’s consideration of race and ethnicity in college admissions. The ruling came in a case, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, about admissions practices at UT, but will likely affect admissions and financial aid policies in most of American higher education. (Inside Higher Ed, June 23). 

Should Students Assessed as Needing Remedial Mathematics Take College-Level Quantitative Courses Instead? A Randomized Controlled Trial: Many college students never take, or do not pass, required remedial mathematics courses theorized to increase college-level performance. Some colleges and states are therefore instituting policies allowing students to take college-level courses without first taking remedial courses. However, no experiments have compared the effectiveness of these approaches, and other data are mixed. The study suggests that policies allowing students to take college-level instead of remedial quantitative courses can increase student success. (Source: Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis).

Classifying STEM Programs in Community Colleges to Develop a State-Level Middle-Skill STEM Workforce Strategy. In this paper, the authors develop a classification system for sub-baccalaureate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) credentials that is incorporated into an analysis of administrative data from the Virginia Community College System. In addition to confirming that students with career-oriented credentials drive short-term STEM earnings benefits, and that full-time students are more likely to complete credentials than their part-time peers, the authors also found similarities between STEM and non-STEM community college students, suggesting that ability may not be the primary factor inhibiting middle-skill STEM workforce preparation. (Source: Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment).