Everyone acknowledges the importance of leadership in good schools, but sometimes a leader's influence extends into unexpected areas. Getting admitted to and succeeding in college is certainly the result of hard work on the part of individual students and their families, but for many kids, particularly those from impoverished backgrounds or from…

Between January and October of 2013, nearly 3 million Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 graduated from high school. By October of that year, just two-thirds had enrolled in college. This report uses recently released nationally representative High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) data from Spring 2012 to examine American high…

Background/Context: Financial aid is a critical policy lever for increasing college access, choice, and attainment. Even with the substantial investment in financial aid programs, however, inadequate financial resources continue to limit postsecondary educational attainment. The persistence of financial barriers despite the substantial annual…

One of the original purposes of student financial aid was to ensure fairer access to post-secondary education to those least able to afford it and to those traditionally underrepresented. Various federal and state programs were put in place to achieve this goal, including the federal Pell Grant and state aid programs. Yet policymakers and…

Federal student aid comes from the federal government--specifically, the U.S. Department of Education. It is money that helps a student pay for higher education expenses (i.e., college, career school, or graduate school expenses). Federal student aid covers such expenses as tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, and transportation.…

Higher education or going back to school is a big decision that has the potential to change a person's life. A bachelor's degree will cost somewhere between $15,000 and $40,000 and take a working adult from 3 to 12 years to complete. One should do some research and ask questions. This is a tool to help individuals make good decisions as they…

As set forth in Alaska Statute 14.43.840, Alaska's Departments of Education & Early Development (EED) and Labor and Workforce Development (DOLWD), the University of Alaska (UA), and the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education (ACPE) present this first annual report on the Alaska Performance Scholarship to the public, the Governor, and the…

The "2018 National Freshman Motivation to Complete College Report" examines the noncognitive motivations of college freshmen at the beginning of their first year and as they progress throughout that year. This report provides key insights into how freshmen are gauging their potential to graduate, what barriers (financial, academic,…

A very large and important subgroup of student-athletes is ethnic minority in Title I high schools. Understanding the decision-making process of this subgroup is important to the high schools that prepare these students to enter college and to the colleges that recruit them. The college choice factors of 207 student-athletes at three Title I high…

Economic strains play an important factor in students not only dropping out of school but also for not being able to attend college. As the cost of college tuition increases, many youths may perceive that the possibility of attending college may be out of their reach for financial reasons. Using data drawn from the savings for education,…

The White House will soon unveil a final version of its "college scorecard"--an online tool giving college-bound students and their families a hype-free snapshot of reliable information about any U.S. campus: real costs, graduation rates, student debt statistics, and earning potential of graduates. The college scorecard is a good idea…

Early college high schools are a promising but expensive pathway to college readiness. Most such schools are supported with state funds and/or grants. This descriptive case study presents an early college program, now in its fourth year in a traditional high school, in which the families, high school and local community college shared the entire…

National and regional trends mask important variation among states in the supply of high school graduates. This profile provides brief indicators for Missouri related to: current levels of educational attainment, projections of high school graduates into the future, and two common barriers to student access and success--insufficient academic…

National and regional trends mask important variation among states in the supply of high school graduates. This profile provides brief indicators for District of Columbia related to: current levels of educational attainment, projections of high school graduates into the future, and two common barriers to student access and success--insufficient…

National and regional trends mask important variation among states in the supply of high school graduates. This profile provides brief indicators for Florida related to: current levels of educational attainment, projections of high school graduates into the future, and two common barriers to student access and success--insufficient academic…