The Other 85 Percent

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced the award of $69-million in grants to help low-income young people complete a college degree or certificate by age 26. These grants will particularly help community college students, and will make a difference and start the effort to double the number of young people who attain a [...]

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education describes a program by the American Council on Education (ACE) to grow programs designed for veterans and to identify programs that “actually work.” The focus on veterans, outcomes, effectiveness, and the use of data for improvement is great. This initiative has the potential to benefit [...]

In June there was a meeting to “conceive a new agenda for public higher education,”
held at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.  A report of the meeting has just been released, and includes the following recommendation:
Focus on adult learning and training in response to the demands of rapid economic, technological, [...]

Recently, the Center for American Progress issued a call for increased Federal government support for adult learners. The report asserts that there are both individual and societal benefits when adults earn postsecondary degrees.  The authors cite increased postsecondary education attainment as resulting in such societal benefits as a more competitive workforce, a more highly [...]

Earlier this year, The Korn Ferry Institute published a book titled Letters to the Next President: Strengthening America’s Foundation in Higher Education. The book was the idea of Stephen Joel Tractenberg, who served as president of The George Washington University from 1988-2007. Tractenberg edited the book with contributions from some 20 other [...]

I have written several times about an initiative called Transparency by Design, which is intended to provide prospective adult college students with information about which programs and colleges that would be best for them. One thing that the schools participating in the Transparency by Design effort plan to report on is how well students who [...]

In an earlier post, I referenced Peter Ewell’s book on accreditation, and his discussion of five core values that undergird American higher education accreditation.  One of those core values is the combination of academic freedom and shared governance.  Both of these concepts are cited by some who resist increased accountability and assessment, and both concepts [...]

As readers of this blog are aware, I have been keeping track of the presidential candidates’ positions on higher education and watching for recognition of the other 85% – adult, part-time, financially independent students.
This article in the Chronicle of Higher Education is a report on the first day of the Democratic National Convention and adoption [...]

Recently the Chronicle of Higher Education had two articles on the same day reporting on accountability issues being discussed at the annual meeting of the Association for Institutional Research.
http://chronicle.com/news/article/4552/colleges-must-prepare-for-new-wave-of-federal-oversight-speaker-warns?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/05/2972n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
In the first article, the speaker “expressed regret” that the relationships of colleges, accreditors, and federal regulators are being transformed and predicts a number of new data [...]

I have previously checked the Web sites of presidential candidates to see if they even acknowledge the other 85 percent of higher education students that are the reality today. As of July 25, 2008, neither candidate has indicated any awareness of part-time, adult, or working college students. Their focus is on PK-12 education, [...]