In 1999, trustees, led by Herman Badillo, were struggling mightily to shore up the City University of New York, a system beleaguered academically and financially after decades of open admissions. Badillo and his allies enjoyed key successes. "AQ" now has the opportunity to recap that struggle by interviewing NAS member and committed battler for…

Liberal arts teachers must serve culture as well as credentialism, so that open-admissions does not mean a lowering of standards. (JH)

This letter from Seymour Heyman, Deputy Chancellor of the City University of New York, answers on a point-by-point basis the criticism leveled against the open admissions policy of CUNY by Evans and Novak in an article in the Washington Post. The letter identifies "the utterly baffled freshman" as a newly arrived student from Greece with…

Argues that community colleges can maintain their commitment to students by raising academic standards, demanding more of students and educators on campus, and remaining open to the particular needs of all constituencies. Explains the experiences of Passaic County Community College, when in 1976 the college instituted higher academic standards.…

As community colleges open their doors to a wider range of students a variety of programs must be designed to develop basic skills in underachievers. (Editor/IR)

Focuses on the changes caused in community colleges by open access policies and the resultant influx of underprepared students. Recommends that community colleges accept a decline in student enrollment in exchange for improvement in student achievement. (DMM)

Higher education must make as clear as possible what it intends to do, can do, and will do, and its responsibility for the admission, retention, and graduation of students, planning equal emphasis and enthusiasm on helping students achieve well-defined standards of excellence. (Author/MSE)

We are universally testing children to see if elementary schools are doing their job. So, too, in high school. Only in college is a person deemed educated merely for having collected enough hours. Open admissions, the absence of a required core, and ubiquitous indoctrination have so devalued those credit hours that today's degree reliably…

In response to concern that open admissions was contributing to declining student preparation and institutional reputation, Practical Bible Training School, a small, private college, proposed new admission criteria: an American College Testing Service (ACT) score of 15, a Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) combined score of 700, or a 2.00 high school…

The project, currently underway, forms part of the national board's followup of the reform of higher education in Sweden, and studies the effects on student recruitment of the new, more liberal admissions rules. This report discusses the dimensions and directions of the study. (MSE)

Argues that open enrollment policies have debased the community college and led to an abandonment of merit, standards, and competency. Suggests their new mission be to serve only those adults who qualify and can benefit from college-level work, abandoning those vocational, remedial, and recreational responsibilities which community colleges have…