With 16,000 graduate and undergraduate students, the International College for Experienced Learning (ICEL) is widely considered among the better for-profit universities in Mexico, where such institutions have flourished over the last 20 years by offering degrees that can be earned relatively quickly, and flexibility in terms of fee payments and…

This article presents a unified model for cognitive processing, WICS, which is an acronym for wisdom, intelligence, and creativity, synthesized. The model can be applied to identification/admissions, diagnosis, instruction, and assessment. I discuss why there is a need for such a model. Then I describe traditional models, after which I describe…

The recession has turned Americans into numbers addicts. Seemingly endless supplies of statistics--stock prices, retail sales, and the gross domestic product--offer various views about the health of the nation's economy. Higher education has its own economic indicators. Among the most important is "yield," the percentage of admitted students who…

The homepage of the Project on Fair Representation (POFR) features a smiling photo of Abigail Fisher, the young White woman at the center of "Fisher v. the University of Texas," which could end race as a criterion in university admissions. Edward Blum, founder of POFR, a conservative advocacy group, connected Fisher with Wiley Rein LLP,…

One of the hallmarks of the American system of higher education is its diversity: there are more than 4,000 institutions of varying sizes, types, and purposes. Unlike centrally planned systems, the American higher education landscape is a tapestry of institutions--public and private, selective and open-access--each with a distinct mission and…

Research on the concept of meritocracy and its role in college admissions is the major focus of this article. It explores the factors that contribute to the gatekeeping process and provides a historical context that led to the evolution of today's admission protocol. It focuses specifically on the strict meritocratic practices of many colleges as…

The United States Department of Education (ED) and the United States Department of Justice issued this guidance to explain how, consistent with existing law, postsecondary institutions can voluntarily consider race to further the compelling interest of achieving diversity. It replaces the August 28, 2008 letter issued by ED's Office for Civil…

Beginning in the 1970s, many school US school districts reallocated their already scarce resources from local schools to specially created magnet schools. Many of these magnet schools have some sort of entrance exam, portfolio, or audition requirement that students must pass in order to gain admission. These selective magnet schools are predicated…

We argue that once we take into account the students' rational enrollment decisions, mismatch in the sense that the intended beneficiary of affirmative action admission policies are made worse off could occur only if selective universities possess private information about students' post-enrollment treatment effects. This necessary condition for…

Faced with budget cuts, some cash-strapped state universities are stepping up their recruitment of higher paying out-of-state undergraduates, a move that critics say is unfair to the states' residents and could affect in-state minority applicants. The University of California system and the University of Washington in Seattle have openly declared…

This paper examines the politics of policy-borrowing in Korean education. I use the term "loanwords" as a metaphor for the practice in some Korean educational sectors of using borrowed English-origin educational rhetoric to create actual policy reform. I argue that discourses of choice and diversity, as loanwords, are initially…

One's position in an alphabetically sorted list may be important in determining access to over-subscribed public services. Motivated by anecdotal evidence, we investigate the importance of the position in the alphabet of Czech students for their admission chances into over-subscribed schools. Empirical evidence based on the population of students…

Higher-education institutions in Texas are increasingly exploring innovative approaches to structuring and delivering degree programs. Several institutions have developed competency-based degree programs, which aim to offer new pathways for students to obtain postsecondary credentials and to reduce higher-education costs for students by focusing…

Every student has the right to an education free from discrimination that provides high-quality, equitable opportunities to learn. Unfortunately, sometimes individuals or systems may act in ways that violate this right. Discrimination occurs when people are treated unequally or less favorably than others because of some real or perceived…

This article discusses how the Ron Brown Scholars program has helped many students of color persist and fit in at elite institutions. Established in 1996 to honor the memory of Ron Brown, the first Black Secretary of Commerce who died in a 1996 military plane crash in Croatia while on a trade mission to Europe, the program each year awards $40,000…