Here are some new resources and news for the field of higher education.
Think Tank Aims to Assess College Outcomes The group used federal data on completion, students’ earnings six years after enrollment, and loan repayment rates. The report features aggregate figures for four-year institutions, community colleges, and certificate-granting institutions, with breakouts by sector. (Inside Higher Ed)
The Application is Open for Participation in the 2017-2018 Chicago College and Career Advising Credential! Designed for school-based college and career advising staff such as school counselors, college and career coaches, senior seminar teachers, alumni coordinators, and administrators, CCCAC is a comprehensive series of eight full-day workshops that focus on the knowledge college and career advisors need to adequately help students prepare for their path after high school.
Little Interest in Earnings Data Among Prospective Students A new study from the Urban Institute found limited interest among prospective college students about graduates’ labor market outcomes, despite the data’s appeal to policy makers and researchers. (Inside Higher Ed)
When States Pay for the SAT or ACT, More Poor Students Go to College New research finds a simple strategy can modestly boost the share of poor students who go on to college: requiring, and paying for, all students to take the ACT or SAT. And while the impact isn’t huge, the policy is relatively cheap — just $34 per student increases four-year college attendance by about 1 percentage point for low-income students. (Chalkbeat)
3 Big Ways Today’s College Students Are Different from Just a Decade Ago Gen Z, the digital generation, non-traditional students, and potentially many more descriptions have been used to label the current postsecondary body of students, but what may not be so evident is exactly how much their preferences, lifestyles, and experiences have radically changed from even a decade ago. And it’s these large changes that are critical for colleges and universities not just to take notice of now, but also to anticipate what students and their needs may look like in 2027. (eCampus News)
New Initiative Will Help States Address Postsecondary Outcomes Among Students of Color, Boost People with Education After High School Lumina Foundation is launching a $3 million initiative to spur states to increase the numbers of residents with college degrees, workforce certificates, industry certifications, and other high-quality credentials. The Talent, Innovation, Equity (TIE) initiative will support states with technical assistance and multi-year grants of up to $500,000 each.
State Transparency on College and Career Readiness Achieve released a new set of reports evaluating states on their transparency in reporting on eight different indicators of college and career readiness.
SREB Benchmarking Reports: Alignment of Instructional Materials to State College- and Career-Readiness Standards This new report from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) details how states approached the challenge and recommends strategies to focus on as the work continues. This report provides an updated overview of how well local educators’ use of high-quality instructional resources is aligned with each state’s college and career-readiness standards.
Mapping Career Readiness in State ESSA Plans- Round 1 Advance CTE and Education Strategy Group joined efforts to write Mapping Career Readiness in State ESSA Plans—Round 1, a review of how states addressed or prioritized career readiness.” Career Technical Education (CTE) “can be a powerful platform for student success during and after high school, and in recent years states have made incredible investments in—and commitments to—expanding the quality of access to CTE and career pathways.” Additionally, “many provisions within ESSA open the door for, if not flat out encourage, states to integrate CTE into their career readiness metrics.” With these factors in mind, the authors were “cautiously optimistic that career (and college) readiness would play a prominent role in states’ ESSA plans.” While in some areas like school accountability, “states are signaling that career readiness is a priority,” when it comes to other areas, “there is no question that states missed the opportunity to further a statewide vision for career readiness.”
New Action Group to Focus on Renewing School Leader Preparation – Kevin J. Walsh announces the creation of a new AACTE Topical Action Group, the Principal Preparation Program Learning Community. The group will provide a forum for faculty and administrators to engage in discussion, identify promising practices, and determine priority areas for action related to principal preparation practice, research, and policy.
State Funding Cuts Matter A new study makes a serious effort to provide a balanced non-partisan analysis of how decisions about budget reductions for public higher education affect student costs. It avoids some of the problems of more simplistic analyses and lays groundwork for further study of this issue.
