The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) documents dimensions of quality in undergraduate education and provides information and assistance to colleges, universities, and other organizations to improve student learning. Its primary activity is annually surveying college students to assess the extent to which they engage in educational…

Throughout classrooms in the United States there appears to have been a general watering down of academic standards. The percentages of "A" and "B" grades have risen, and at some schools, the percentage of grades of "C" or lower has plummeted. Numerous scholarly articles about grade inflation discuss the extent,…

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 2009, Excelencia in Education launched the Ensuring America's Future initiative to inform, organize, and engage leaders in a tactical plan to increase Latino college completion. This initiative included the release of a benchmarking guide for projections of degree attainment disaggregated by race/ethnicity that offered multiple metrics to track…

This study presents an analysis of the relative internationalization of 77 research universities in the United States. Institutions enrolling undergraduate students were selected from the 2003 national report, The Top American Research Universities. Data were collected from publicly available sources for 19 indicators of internationalization…

"The Condition of Education 2018" is a congressionally mandated annual report summarizing the latest data on education in the United States. This report is designed to help policymakers and the public monitor educational progress. This report contains indicators on the state of education in the United States, from prekindergarten through…

Where have all the soils students gone? Several articles have been published recently discussing the decline in undergraduate student enrollment in soil science. Those who work directly with these students have known that this trend has existed for many years. At first we thought this trend was temporary. Now we realize that this declining trend…

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…

In the face of rising global competition and the heightened call for accountability issued by the Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education, educators across the country are being called upon--once again--to demonstrate the validity of a liberal education. They are asked repeatedly if their approach to undergraduate education will…

Higher education organizations, institutions, and academic units globally are grappling with the challenges of redesigning curricula and developing and adopting institutional, professional, and program-level learning outcomes. Implementing learning-centered curricula, however, cannot be considered simply as a series of unproblematic and discrete…

This article, presented as a dialogue between the authors, explores what they perceive as critical areas of teaching and learning in the discipline of Medieval Studies. Within the discussion, notions of relevance and usefulness, widening access, and epistemological assumptions about the discipline are discussed and related to the practice of…

This article studies the modern trend of online education in the United States. Based on a wide range of statistics, the number of cyberspace courses offered by four-year institutions and universities nationwide has rapidly increased over the past one and a half decades. Under a case study, colleges of business from ranked universities and…

The theme for the 58th annual conference of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers (ALER) was Bridging Cultures Through Literacy. In the first section of the Yearbook, Parker Fawson's presidential address captures the unique nature of ALER and its role in his professional development, and then moved beyond to capture the changing…

The current study describes the nature of physical education teacher education (PETE) programs in the United States. Of the 200 institutions of higher education invited to participate, 116 PETE programs completed a comprehensive questionnaire regarding their undergraduate programs (58% response rate). Respondents reported employing an average of…

A central mission of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is the promotion of international conflict resolution education by assisting and supporting colleges and universities in their efforts at developing and offering programs, courses, and activities that focus on international peace, conflict, and security. Over the years, a number of…