For too many graduates, the American high school diploma signifies only a broken promise. While students and their parents may still believe that the diploma reflects adequate preparation for the intellectual demands of college or work, employers and postsecondary institutions know that it often serves as little more than a certificate of…

Educational systems worldwide still continue to rely heavily on public sources of funding. Nearly 80% of the expenditure on higher education comes from public sources in OECD countries; the share is even larger in developing countries. There is a concerted effort in many countries to reduce the reliance on state funding and move towards…

The primary purpose of "National CrossTalk" is to stimulate informed discussion and debate of higher education issues. This issue contains the following articles: (1) Keeping Them in College: East Carolina University's Efforts to Improve Retention and Graduation Rates (Don Campbell); (2) The "Seamless System": Florida's Flurry…

The?future of?this country's colleges and universities is threatened by global competitive pressures, powerful technological developments, restraints?on public finance and serious structural limitations that cry out for reform. This report from The Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education, has recommended strategic…

Retention and graduation rates have been topics of concern for undergraduate institutions. These indicators are not as applicable for two-year institutions where students' goals are more varied. This study examined the retention over four semesters of 678 first-time, full-time community college students with respect to their initial educational…

In 2007, the Texas Legislature (80th Texas Legislature, Regular Session, 2007) authorized the creation of the Texas Rural Technology (R-Tech) Pilot program, which provides $8 million in funding to support rural districts in implementing technology-based supplemental education programs. In order to be eligible for funding, districts must have…

Recent issues in this journal and other prominent distance-learning journals have established the need for administrators to be informed and prepared with strategic plans equal to foreseeable challenges. This article provides decision makers with 32 trends that affect distance learning and thus enable them to plan accordingly. The trends are…

From 1993-2002, federal support to Historically Black Colleges and Universities increased by $639 million, or 60 percent, while support for all institutions of higher education (IHEs) increased by 79 percent. The President's Advisory Board on HBCUs is concerned that federal support for HBCUs is not keeping pace with overall federal support for…

The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission (HEPC) has statutory responsibility for developing a six-year strategic plan for higher education in cooperation with the state's colleges and universities, policy makers, and other key constituencies. This master plan aims to coordinate the efforts of the various institutions of higher…

Despite many accomplishments and a widely-praised system, there remain significant challenges to address in higher education in Virginia: (1) Although the state performs well in six-year graduation rates for bachelor degree programs, graduation rates at specific four-year institutions range from the very high end of the spectrum to the very low;…

The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998 (Perkins III) requires, in Section 113(c)(3)(C), that the Secretary provide the appropriate committees of Congress copies of annual reports received by the Department from each eligible agency that receives funds under the Act. Section 113(c)(3)(a) further requires the Secretary to…

The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998 requires that the Secretary provide the appropriate committees of Congress copies of annual reports received by the department from each eligible agency that receives funds under the Act. Congress has made "accountability for results" a central focus of the Perkins III…

The paper attempts to synthesise the features of the model for quality management in education based on the approaches spelt out in four well-articulated methodologies for the practice of quality in higher education. Each methodology contributes to different views of education from the learners' and the institution's perspectives, providing…

This report presents the findings from the 2004 formative evaluation of the Youth Employment Strategy (YES). It is based on the fieldwork and analysis that was conducted by Consulting and Audit Canada between September 2004 and December 2004. The report is organized in five sections: Section 1 provides background on the YES and on the evaluation…

The "Formative Evaluation of the Canada Student Loans Program" was undertaken to assess issues of program relevance, design and delivery and for the purposes of examining the early impacts of changes made to the program since 1998. The evaluation also reviewed the Performance Measurement Strategy contained in the July 2002 Results-Based…