Micro-credentials are short, highly focused programs designed to provide in-demand skills that help students quickly advance their career, often in just a single semester. They have emerged as a way for students-many of whom are adult learners looking to change jobs-to acquire and demonstrate a core set of skills that can jumpstart their entry…

The Latino population in the United States is large and growing. As a whole, however, it has been challenged with inequitable educational attainment rates compared to other groups, meriting the attention of public agencies, postsecondary institutions, and advocates. Latino economic and career success -- and the success of our overall economy --…

On February 18-19, 2016, representatives of 10 states participating in the Credit When It's Due (CWID) initiative attended a convening held at the University of Utah. The meeting was led by the CWID Research Team and sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Kresge Foundation, on behalf of the CWID Funders Collaborative. The…

The Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC) and The Presidents' Forum have released a new study authored and researched by the Online Learning Consortium's Dr. Jill Buban, which sheds light on how adult learning institutions address students who possess alternative credentials and seek to apply these experiences to a degree. This…

Due to extensive research, we now know that in spite of extraordinary success in expanding access to American higher education over the last 60 years, far too little has been done to ensure that students complete college, even when they take 50 percent more time to complete the degree than full-time attendance should require. Obstacles to success…

Performance-based scholarships were developed to help tackle some of the financial obstacles facing students in the postsecondary education system. In general, these scholarships aim to help reduce the financial burdens of low-income college students, and are structured to help incentivize good academic progress. Performance-based scholarships…

Performance-based scholarships have two main goals: (1) to give students more money for college; and (2) to provide incentives for academic progress. MDRC launched the Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration in 2008 to evaluate the effectiveness of these scholarships in a diverse set of states, institutions, and low-income student…

The basic currency of higher education--the credit hour--represents the root of many problems plaguing America's higher education system: the practice of measuring time rather than learning. "Cracking the Credit Hour" traces the history of this time-based unit, from the days of Andrew Carnegie to recent federal efforts to define a credit…

Increasing numbers of high school students across the United States are enrolled in college courses while still attending high school, partly attributed to the explosion of dual credit or dual enrollment programs. It is the difference in location for the delivery of the course and the status of the faculty member that often elicits the question,…