This overview of postsecondary education in the United States reviews the dramatic changes over the past fifty years in the students who go to college, the institutions that produce higher education, and the ways it is financed. The article, by Sandy Baum, Charles Kurose, and Michael McPherson, creates the context for the articles that follow on…

Over the past decade postsecondary education has been moving increasingly from the classroom to online. During the fall 2010 term 31 percent of U.S. college students took at least one online course. The primary reasons for the growth of e-learning in the nation's colleges and universities include the desire of those institutions to generate…

The vast majority of high school students aspire to some kind of postsecondary education, yet far too many of them enter college without the basic content knowledge, skills, or habits of mind they need to succeed. Andrea Venezia and Laura Jaeger look at the state of college readiness among high school students, the effectiveness of programs in…

Achieving national goals for increased college completion in a time of scarce resources will require the postsecondary institutions that enroll the majority of undergraduates--community colleges and less-selective public universities--to graduate more students at a lower cost. Davis Jenkins and Olga Rodriguez examine research on how these…

The increasing role that immigrants and their children, especially those from Latin America, are playing in American society, Sandy Baum and Stella Flores argue, makes it essential that as many young newcomers as possible enroll and succeed in postsecondary education. Immigrant youths from some countries find the doors to the nation's colleges…

Noting that access to higher education has expanded dramatically in the past several decades, Sara Goldrick-Rab and Kia Sorensen focus on how unmarried parents fare once they enter college. Contrary to the expectation that access to college consistently promotes family stability and economic security, the authors argue that deficiencies in current…