At 21, many foster youth “age out” of financial benefits and supports from the child welfare system—before they even finish college. Given the challenges they face, it’s not surprising that only 3 to 10 percent of them earn undergraduate degrees compared with 34 percent of young adults who weren’t in ...
As prospective college students and their parents pore over the Department of Education’s College Navigator and College Scorecard, Andrew Gillen suggests in this blog that they pay close attention to the financial implications of their choice. Ensuring that college is affordable should be high on the list of policy priorities, ...
Parents, teachers, schools, districts, states, and especially students all want schools that prepare graduates to thrive in the 21st century. In this blog post, Anne Mishkind asks what it means to be "college and career ready."
In this blog post, AIR scholar Audrey Peek explores income-share agreements (ISAs), a private form of financial aid that offers cash for college now in return for a percentage of students’ future earnings over a set time. Peek contends ISAs are an innovative way to pay for college that might ...
Recent data shows that while students from low-income families began 9th grade with high aspirations of going to college, by junior year their expectations decline considerably. In this blog post, Sakiko Ikoma and Markus Broer argue that closing the enrollment gap between low-income students and their more affluent counterparts means ...
Higher levels of educational attainment are associated with outcomes such as full-time employment and higher pay for young adults. However, college attainment, student persistence through college, and borrowing varies by generation status. This brief examines background and educational characteristics, plans for college, postsecondary enrollment, and postsecondary completion patterns of first-generation ...
The Obama administration took a step toward the President’s planned college ratings system on December 19, releasing a 24-page “Framework” for college ratings. In this blog post, Tom Weko asks, "Are the Department of Education's college ratings likely to become an enduring feature of the nation’s higher education landscape?" ...
The 2008-09 recession struck hard at college and university finances. In this blog post, AIR's Steven Hurlburt explains that, while colleges and universities continue to show signs of fiscal recovery in 2013, some worrying shifts remain, particularly for public higher education.
Given persistent failure rates and mounting student debt, how prepared students are to enter and succeed in college is suddenly everyone’s business. According to Mark Schneider, in this blog post, ACT data shows many students ready to leave for college are not ready academically in at least one area. ...
Contingent faculty—that is, full- and part-time instructors not on the tenure track—now comprise the majority of all faculty at U.S. colleges and universities. The first of a two-part series, the goal of this brief is to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the landscape surrounding changes to the academic workforce, ...