Access and Affordability

It’s no surprise that the black male college experience is often underscored by bias and a sense of not belonging. Derrick R. Brooms says more must be done—not only by colleges, but by secondary schools and communities to reverse these preconceptions. His book, Being Black, Being Male on Campus: Understanding and Confronting Black Male Collegiate […]

Just as students were headed back to campuses in southeastern Texas in late August, Hurricane Harvey struck. Many higher ed institutions evacuated students, delayed classes and extended deadlines for class registration and tuition payments. As is common in the aftermath of a major storm, colleges that had minimal damage stepped up with disaster-relief supplies and […]

It has become increasingly difficult for some four-year institutions to meet enrollment goals for first-year students. The good news is that enrolling transfers has advantages. Transfer students generate higher average net tuition revenue than first-year students but don’t create large pressures on housing. They also enroll in upper-level courses that typically have capacity. These benefits […]

Dual enrollment is designed to increase access and degree attainment. In fact, a 2007 study found that 67 percent of dual-enrollment students enrolled in college after high school (compared to 50 percent of their peers), with 30 percent earning an associate’s degree along with their high school diploma. Yet students often experience barriers to enrollment. […]

A failure to gather data—not rigor or readiness—may be the biggest issue facing early college programs, believes Jason Taylor, an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Utah who has devoted his career to studying dual enrollment. “There is not a lot of empirical evidence on whether the benefits outweigh the costs,” he […]

In 2002, 1.2 million students were earning college credits while still in high school. A decade later, the number of those participating in dual enrollment courses had almost doubled, hitting 2 million, according to the most recent federal data. And as a 2015 ACT policy brief detailed, the programs continue growing. Colleges and universities in […]