The 2015 Minnesota Legislature enacted a state postsecondary educational attainment goal: 70 percent of Minnesota adults (age 25 to 44) will have attained a postsecondary certificate or degree by 2025 ("Minnesota Laws 2015 Chapter 69, Article 3, Section 6"). To achieve this goal, Minnesota must address disparities across the educational…

In his first inaugural speech, President Obama declared that "our schools fail too many" and an essential component of laying "a new foundation for growth" will be "to transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age." Concerns about our nation's position in the global education race have led to a focus on…

When Valencia College became the first recipient of the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence last month, an unsung sector earned uncommon recognition. Now that the speeches are over and the prize money has been awarded, the Aspen Institute is sharing early lessons from its yearlong effort to determine the top community college in the…

The intentions were noble. It was hoped that remediation programs would be an academic bridge from poor high school preparation to college readiness. Sadly, remediation has become instead higher education's "Bridge to Nowhere." This broken remedial bridge is travelled by some 1.7 million beginning students each year, most of whom will…

Many barriers can prevent students from entering and succeeding in college, including financial difficulties, family obligations, and personal problems. However, the most significant impediment is inadequate academic preparation. As higher education widens its focus from college access to degree completion, a new relationship between K-12 and…

For young people entering the twenty-first-century job market, high school graduation is no longer the finish line, but the starting line. While one-third of students will fail to graduate from high school, too many students who do graduate and make it to the postsecondary starting line find that they are underprepared for postsecondary work. A…

It's an old adage: When the economy declines, community college enrollments rise. A fall 2009 report from the American Association of Community Colleges says enrollments were up nearly 17 percent compared with fall 2007. However, nearly a third of those students have already dropped out of college. Further, roughly half will not return for their…

Increasing high school graduation rates is a systemic issue, not just a school level issue. The district office therefore has a key role to play in narrowing the graduation gap and ensuring that more students earn their high school diplomas well-equipped for college or career. This article focuses first on what school districts have typically done…

In 2005-06 almost half of the pupils in California's public schools were Latinos, but Latinos only received about 15 percent of the BA degrees awarded by public and private colleges in the state. Texas has a comparable Latino population, but does significantly better than California in getting Latino students through college. The implication of…

Getting and keeping "all" young people engaged in learning and on track to graduate from high school ready for college and the 21st century workplace is going to require wider, deeper, and more systemic change. Recent policy focus on raising standards for high school graduation and aligning high school curriculum to college entrance requirements…

The National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education (CARE), consisting of a national commission, research advisory group, and research team at New York University, aims to provoke thoughtful and actionable discussions about the mobility and educational opportunities for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs)…

Despite decades of school improvement initiatives, many young people still do not cross the finish line of secondary education with the credential that signifies success--a high school diploma. Thousands of young people give up on school and on themselves, or schools give up on them. Without effective support from schools, communities, and…

With the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the authors' goal was to produce an analysis that would allow educators and policy makers to set priorities "across" categories of support (e.g., the relative importance of expectations as compared to information and awareness) and "within" categories (e.g., whether…