ACTA's What Will They Learn?® (WWTL) project is designed to help students choose the best college or university for them. The printed report and its online companion WhatWillTheyLearn.com represent the only assessment of U.S. colleges and universities that focuses on what schools are actually teaching. This report assigns grades to over 1,130…

"International Perspectives in Higher Education" offers a balanced perspective on how different countries approach key policies and what the United States can learn from those programs. Jason D. Delisle and Alex Usher have gathered a diverse group of experts to examine systems across the globe with a focus on the trade-offs between…

In the United States, colleges and universities have traditionally undertaken the important task of preparing citizens to participate fully and effectively in the civic, political, and economic spheres of the republican system. They have done so by joining a general education curriculum--common to all students--to an area of specialized knowledge,…

The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) collects institution-level data from postsecondary institutions in the United States (50 states and the District of Columbia) and other U.S. jurisdictions (see appendix A for a list of other U.S. jurisdictions). This "First Look" presents findings from the preliminary data of the…

The State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report is produced annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) to broaden understanding of the context and consequences of multiple decisions made every year in every state in each of these areas. No single report can provide definitive answers to these broad and…

"What Will They Learn?"™ evaluates every four-year public university with a stated liberal arts mission as well as hundreds of private colleges and universities selected on the basis of size, mission, and regional representation. All schools in the "What Will Will They Learn"™ study are regionally-accredited, nonprofit…

The problem facing American colleges and universities is larger than even the term "bubble" implies. A bursting bubble would force change on the more than four thousand postsecondary institutions in the United States, but something even more destructive is going to hit higher education, probably at the same time. The major sign that a…

In the fiercely competitive, global job market, solid preparation in core skills matters a lot. Will college graduates write with the clarity, grace, and accuracy that employers (and everyone else) expect? Will they have the basic mathematical and scientific skills--regardless of their majors--that equip them to navigate an increasingly…

The expansion of U.S. universities after World War II gained from the arrival of immigrant scientists and graduate students, the broadening of access to universities, and the development of military research and high technology industry. Since the 1980s, however, growth of scientific research in Europe and East Asia has exceeded that of the U.S.,…

The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) collects institution-level data from postsecondary institutions in the United States (the 50 states and the District of Columbia) and other jurisdictions, such as Puerto Rico. For IPEDS, a postsecondary institution is defined as an organization that is open to the public and has as its…

Globally, fees and tuition are growing as an important source of income for most universities, with potentially significant influence on the market for students and the behavior of institutions. Thus far, however, there is no single source on the fee rates of comparative research universities, nor information on how these funds are being used by…

In the search for a viable twenty-first century cost-sharing contract between university, student and state, the issues of rising participation and student demand, functional differentiation, institutional competition and stratification and social inequality are systematically discussed. The argument develops through, firstly, a critical appraisal…

In 2007-08, approximately 21 million students were enrolled in undergraduate postsecondary education in the United States. These Web Tables provide a comprehensive source of information on financial aid that was awarded to undergraduate students during the 2007-08 academic year. Included are estimates of tuition, price of attendance, and financial…

The work described in this report is part of the national Making Opportunity Affordable (MOA) initiative, and focuses on the presentation of aggregate measures of sector-level trends in revenues and expenditures. This work will be repeated on an annual basis to promote regular use of aggregate measures of spending as part of postsecondary…

The expansion of higher education has become a significant trend in the East Asia region, and Taiwan has proven no exception. The driving forces of higher education expansion in Taiwan include enhancing national competitiveness and human capital, responding to social and industrial needs, and reducing educational inequalities among social groups.…