This paper uses panel data for the 100 colleges and universities at which the largest number of National Merit Scholarship (NMS) winners enrolled in 2003 to test whether an expansion in the number of institutionally funded NMS winners at an institution is associated with a decline in the number of Pell Grant recipients at the institution. Our…

Colleges, once seen as beacons of egalitarian hope, are becoming bastions of wealth and privilege that perpetuate inequality. The chance of a low-income child obtaining a bachelor's degree has not budged in three decades: Just 6 percent of students from the lowest-income families earned a bachelor's degree by age 24 in 1970, and in 2002 still only…

The annual "America's Best Colleges" issue of "U.S. News & World Report" is to the news magazine what the annual "Swimsuit" issue is to "Sports Illustrated." Both are best sellers that make big money for their publishers. And both succeed because they are sexy, glamorous, superficial and largely without redeeming social value. But "America's Best…

The Public School Forum of North Carolina examined how to identify and prepare school leaders who can meet the challenges of the 21st century in the state's public schools, and it made recommendations for making the current system stronger and more productive. In searching for comprehensive approaches that could provide leadership preparation…

Jeremiads about intercollegiate sports have been around for about as long as intercollegiate sports. In recent decades, critics have focused on headlines about abuses involving the big-time, NCAA Division IA sports teams, citing elite Division III schools and Ivy League schools as the poster children for reform. Unlike Division IA programs, whose…

The college admissions process teaches students how to express themselves during interviews, how to describe their best qualities in application essays. It may also make them wary of college marketing campaigns, and skeptical of being treated as a statistics, due to the large role played by standardized-test scores and grade-point averages. Such…

Leaders in higher education in the US are seeking to make the nation's most selective colleges and universities more accessible to low-income students, but few realize that a good part of the solution lies within community colleges. Highly selective institutions overlook the fact that reaching more deeply into graduating two-year classes will…

Discusses a new study which found that even as the number of high school graduates fell over the past 20 years, competition for college applicants increased. (EV)

In this paper, we examine the methods by which candidates are selected for the Oxford Medical School in the light of the literature on assessment in general and candidate selection in particular. We review changes in the process that attempt to capture the best of evidence-supported practice while preserving or enhancing the features identified as…

This article discusses the appointment of Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust as the first woman named president of Harvard University, which marks a diversity high point in the storied history of the nation's oldest university. At age 9, Faust famously wrote to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower calling for an end to segregation. And in her current role as a…

Both supporters and critics of Texas' Top 10 Percent law have been surprised at its popularity, but some UT officials and legislators would like to see the program scaled back. As a Texas state legislator, Jim McReynolds, D-Lufkin, knows a thing or two about influencing the voting positions of his colleagues. This past spring, when Texas House…

Programs that serve underrepresented minority students have long faced many challenges. Prior to the late 1970s, higher education institutions reserved academic program slots for underrepresented minority students because these students had limited access to opportunities that afforded them credentials that their white counterparts could more…

This article describes the teacher testing requirements that have been mandated by the Texas legislature. Teacher tests which are already in effect or will be required are: a basic skills tests; an initial certification test; an incumbent educators test; a master teacher test; and an alternative certification test. (MT)

A U.S. educator of the gifted compares early college admission programs in the United States and China. Noted are the importance of examinations, an emphasis on athletics, science and technology, and the specific programs at the University of Science and Technology of China (Beijing) and Southeast University (Nanjing). (DB)

For a number of years, colleges and universities have been making efforts to amend past discrimination and noninclusion of underserved minority students through targeted admissions, financial aid, and other programs. Now, these programs--in their original incarnation and, some would say, their original intent--are on the line. The big push to…