The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)--which students must complete to qualify for most federal, state, and institutional financial aid--is a gateway to college through which many students must pass, particularly those from low- to moderate-income households (King, 2004; Kofoed, 2013). Yet given the complexity of the…

Data collected by the US Department of Education in 2008 indicate that US colleges and universities enrolled 707,000 students with disabilities, divided roughly equally between public and private institutions. The survey found that 31 percent of these students reported learning disabilities, 18 percent ADD or ADHD, 15 percent mental illness or…

The pace of technological innovation is affecting nearly every organization in the world. Unfortunately, much of the recent conversation about the uses of technology in higher education has become derailed by the intense promotion of, and equally intense reaction against, the development of massive open online courses (MOOCs). Some of the…

Today's college graduates are entering an interconnected world in which globalization will affect nearly every facet of their lives. In turn, college and university mission statements increasingly include the intent to educate "global citizens" among their fundamental commitments. Yet U.S. students' global knowledge and…

Higher education is a critical element of the American economy, because of both its benefits and its costs to individuals and taxpayers. Yet we know very little about the relationships between the things colleges and universities do and the resources they need to do them. Currently, shrinking public support and increasing tuition make it urgent…

In this article, the authors describe one institution--East Carolina University--that they think is representative of an important type and a large proportion of American universities, the comprehensive public university, and its responses to the lingering Great Recession. As a group, comprehensives handle almost 40 per cent of the total student…

In July 2012, the executive doctoral class of 2013 from the University of Pennsylvania's Higher Education Management Program in the Graduate School of Education conducted a study of higher education in Ireland. The international study, an important component of the executive doctoral program, mirrored and built on research completed by Joni Finney…

In his 2008 bestseller, "The Post-American World," Fareed Zakaria argued that the most significant development of the early 21st century is not, as others have predicted, the inevitable decline of the United States as the world's super-power but rather "the rise of the rest." In subsequent works, Zakaria and many others, including leading…

Since online learning burst on the scene in the late 1990s, predictions of traditional higher education's obsolescence and disruption have been steady fare in the trade and popular media. This time the change is shaping up to be more profound than most had envisioned. As alternatives to the degree system (and the accreditation/financial…

As the global work environment continues to evolve, the United States needs to increase its human capital in order remain economically competitive. Whether the nation can meet the demands of the global economy and maintain its standing as a global leader will be tied inextricably to its ability to increase the proportion of Americans with advanced…

In a 1974 report presented to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Martin Trow laid out a framework for understanding large-scale, worldwide changes in higher education. Trow's essay also pointed to the problems that "arise out of the transition from one phase to another in a broad pattern of development of higher…

Should remediation in higher education be ended? A recent report from Complete College America says exactly that. The authors call for all public institutions of higher education in the United States to stop offering it and instead ensure that students who need extra help take co-requisite requirements, such as extra tutoring. Their…

Over the past year, the authors have discussed college prices, college quality, and student financial aid with elected officials and staff from several state legislatures, financial aid administrators from a variety of campuses, and policy analysts from Washington DC advocacy organizations. They have also been able to informally gain insights at…

Currently, 42 percent of Americans in the 25-34 age range hold a degree from a two- or four-year institution of higher education. At one time, that proportion was high enough to make the United States the best-educated country in the world. But in one generation, America's educational attainment has held steady while in other countries it has…

The world of higher education is a world of sorting, selecting, and ranking--on both sides of the market. Colleges select students to recruit and then to admit; students choose where to apply and which offer to accept. The sorting process that gets the most attention is in the higher reaches of the market, where it is not too much to say that…