Developed by the total staff at Vocational Village (Portland, Oregon), this handbook presents the following: (1) information about Vocational Village, a unique alternative high school which offers a program dedicated to helping economically and educationally disadvantaged youth between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one become independent,…

Data gathered from nearly 95 percent of America's higher education institutions report on unusual characteristics, innovative programs, and other features of the colleges for the year of 1979 unless specified as fall 1980. All information is given in list form. The word "colleges" is used to mean all undergraduate degree-granting institutions.…

The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia has established a policy that a graduate of a Georgia high school should be given the opportunity to attempt a college education in the University System. The Special Studies Program was organized to facilitate this ideal. The fundamental objectives of the program are to: (1) provide greater…

The British Open University (OU) offers university degree programs to adults who are employed and study at home. It does so through a nationwide universal access (open admission) policy. A key feature of this program is that it imposes traditional university standards of excellence. Access is not limited by formal entry requirements, geography,…

Three essays are collected in this study of access to higher education in other countries: "Part-Time Undergraduate Studies in Ontario," by Robert M. Pike; "Access to Higher Education in England and Wales," by Naomi E. S. McIntosh; and "Strategies for a Broader Enrollment in Swedish Higher Education," by Urban…

This New York City school district educational project dealt with a projected 13,605 children who changed schools under the Free Choice Open Enrollment Program. The program allows parents to transfer their children from predominantly Negro-Puerto Rican schools to schools with better educational facilities and a more varied ethnic population. The…

An explanation of the change that has taken place in the aims and purposes of educational policy of industralized societies as the relationship between the education and the occupation systems has changed over the course of the transformation of elite education into a mass phenomenon is the objective of this paper. Analysis and discussion is based…

The expectations of parents of students with disabilities who transferred schools through an open enrollment option were examined in this qualitative study. In-depth interviews were conducted with parents of 18 children and adolescents who transferred their child through Minnesota's open enrollment law. Interviews addressed: the student's history…

This study examined the characteristics of part-time students at the University of Calgary (Alberta, Canada) and Athabasca University (Alberta, Canada), an open admissions undergraduate distance education university. Also called adult students or non-traditional students, part-time students have been viewed as a homogenous group despite marked…

Access courses have been designed to facilitate entry to higher education, either universities or polytechnical institutions, for nontraditional students. Basic characteristics of access courses include clear entry criteria that target nontraditional students; no insistence on formal educational requirements; recognition of prior, experiential…

The use of nontraditional college admission variables in the prediction of academic success was assessed with 444 freshmen entering the University of California, Davis, under the Special Action process (wavering of admission requirements). For fall 1978, 1979, 1980 special entrants, attention was directed to college applications, including high…

There are parents and students who are to be won or lost depending on which sector--public or private--answers their calls for programs to match their learning styles and desire for rigor, vitality, and variety. This report examines where choice has evolved from, what it offers parents and students, and how its disappearance could affect this…

Policy recommendations regarding free tuition for the City University of New York (CUNY) as proposed by the Committee for Public Higher Education, (CPHE), and a research report by Richard Rothbard, are presented. Based on Rothbard's investigation, "The Cost of Tuition: A Study of the City University of New York," CPHE recommends the…

Project-based learning for students at the Open University, Great Britain, was studied through interviewing and the administration of a questionnaire. Group discussion interviews were conducted with approximately 200 students and individual interviews with about 50 part-time tutors who were responsible for the direct face-to-face contact arranged…

The American educational system is based upon outmoded premises and should be revised in line with present trends and future needs. Our present system of education was created to serve an industrial society: to develop an elite cadre of well educated professionals, a mass of somewhat educated technical workers, and a solid base of laborers. It…