Access to higher education in the United States is increasingly on the public policy agenda as funding constraints affect the realization of college attendance for many middle and low-income students. We use the Pell Grant as a proxy for low-income participation, and the percent of undergraduate students receiving a Pell Grant (Pell Prevalence…

Using a national longitudinal dataset of college students, this study examines satisfaction with the ethnic diversity of the student body and faculty at traditionally White institutions. The strongest predictor of satisfaction with diversity for White and Latino/a students was the heterogeneity of the institution; the strongest predictors for…

This study explored persistence for four groups of traditional-age (18-24) first-year students in an urban community college: native students, native students with immigrant parents, U.S. high-schooled immigrant students, and foreign high-schooled immigrant students. Earning a high school diploma and pre-college preparation (either high school…

This article examines community-college students' goals within the dominant framing of higher education, in which education serves primarily as preparation for the new economy. Specifically, it explores students' motives for acquiring college credentials and how they apply the principles of utility and efficiency to their pursuit of those…

The term "success" in higher education has been used widely to describe multiple outcomes, practices, and variables. In doctoral education, in particular, the study of success is paramount as only 50% of those students who enter doctoral education actually complete the degree. The definition of success, however, remains elusive. This study…

A surprising amount of litigation and legislation has erupted over undocumented college students. Victims at the federal level are the DREAM Act and immigration reform. Financial aid raises technical issues for undocumented college applicants and for the citizen children of undocumented parents. Generally, the undocumented are ineligible for…

This article aims to provide both an account and an assessment of the most significant policies adopted by New Labour on primary schooling since its victory in the election of 1997. A secondary intention is to determine what these policies reveal about New Labour and its political project. A key policy objective in New Labour's two terms of office…

From 1997 the New Labour government was eager to affirm a commitment to social justice and racial equality, and initially there were moves to address some long-standing educational grievances. But a continuation of Conservative market policies of choice and diversity in schooling and a targeting of 'failing' schools exacerbated school segregation…

The goal of this paper is to explore the design and implementation of early years educational policy in England in the period 1997-2004. First to be described are the innovations in policy (i.e. the promise), followed by the 'evidence base' for new policy (i.e. the research), the delivery of new services (i.e. the achievement), and finally the…

Lifelong learning has been a key theme of New Labour's education policy agenda since 1997, but is a broad and often amorphous concept. This article analyzes New Labour's ideological perspective in this context, outlines the main developments and difficulties, and evaluates the record over the seven years in office. New Labour's policy on lifelong…

This paper traces the development of teacher education policy during the first two terms of the New Labour government. It argues that there is substantial evidence to support the claim that during their two terms of office, New Labour forged a policy on teacher education that was distinctively different from the Conservative administrations that…

New Labour has placed inclusion at the centre of its educational agenda. Its policies have been characterised by an attempt to include disabled children, together with others identified as having "special educational needs", within the ordinary school system and the shifting of responsibility for meeting their needs to teachers in the ordinary…

This article reviews current interpretations of Labour's education policy in relation to gender. Such interpretations see the marginalisation of gender equality in mainstream educational policy as a result of the discursive shift from egalitarianism to that of performativity. Performativity in the school context is shown to have contradictory…

School diversity in the UK is not a new phenomenon. However, recent reforms to "modernise" the secondary school system towards greater diversity of provision, primarily in England, needs to be explored in more detail. The article begins by proposing three phases in the development of state-funded school diversity and provision between 1944 and…

The essay does not seek to add to the scholarly literature on UK higher education, so much as to give a sympathetic account of the dilemmas confronting a progressive government of almost any political stripe and especially one that faces the constraints of New Labour. It begins paradoxically by pointing out that serious investment in higher…