Postsecondary students increasingly enroll in online courses, which have the potential to further democratize higher education by expanding access for historically underserved populations. While a number of studies have investigated student outcomes in online courses, past data limitations have hindered robust examination of a potential mechanism…

Open access is central to the Community College mission. For this reason, any restriction in online enrollments should not be undertaken lightly. This study uses institutional data gathered from a large, urban community college to examine a policy aimed at increasing student retention in online courses by restricting those eligible to enroll based…

The array of admissions models and the underlying, and sometimes conflicting goals people have for college admissions, create the dynamics and the tensions that define the contemporary context for enrollment management. The senior enrollment officer must ask, for example, how does an institution try to assure transparency, equality of access,…

Conceived by the British Labor Government in the 1960's the Open University was viewed as a way to extend higher education to Britain's working class, but enrollment figures in classes that represent traditional academic disciplines show that the student population is predominantly middle class. Bringing education into the home presents numerous…

The purpose of this paper is to consider two criticisms which have been directed at the new admissions policy of the City University of New York. First, it is suggested that this policy has the effect of ending open admissions. If open admissions is defined as the provision of access to the university to all high school graduates in New York City,…