Throughput and retention are important issues in higher education in South Africa mainly due to the stronger emphasis on accountability from funding agencies like the Department of Education. This study, which is set in a distance education institution, was aimed at understanding why students cancel courses early on in the academic year. A…

The author describes the challenges of a four-year, open-admission institution where equality of access has not equaled equality of success for basic writers. While there is a good deal of scholarship on student departure by compositions and experts in student retention and persistence, some models of student departure and success offered by these…

Few cultural institutions so potently foster free thought and speech, appreciation for others unlike self, and community service as higher education. As such, universities catalyze democracy. One calls them the "Messiah" of that cause. Christian universities in particular, though not designed as political or religiously pluralist entities, assist…

This paper reports on a project to improve Beginning Algebra students' understanding of basic algebraic concepts through fully integrated use of the TI-83 graphing calculator. The methodology incorporated an intervention case study including approximately 700 Beginning Algebra students at an open-door community college of 8,500 students in the…

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,…

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the publication of Mina Shaughnessy's groundbreaking book, "Errors and Expectations," a roundtable discussion was held at the March 2007 Conference on College Composition and Communication in New York City. This article, based on the earlier discussion, examines the question of CUNY's multiple…

"Open access" to colleges and universities has not resulted in a decline of the average mental ability of the students. In fact, the proportion of high-ability students attending college has increased substantially from 1920 to 1960. (MJM)

Authors describe the open admissions program at CUNY and discuss its effect on students and the institution itself. (SP)

In this article, the authors present two stories that depict the best and worst of times experienced by today's community college students. Within these narratives are both vestiges of the past--pieces that some colleges have yet to fully discard--and exemplars of a potentially brighter, more engaging future. While they are fictitious, these…

Open online courses (OOC) with a massive number of students have represented an important development for online education in the past years. A course on artificial intelligence, CS221, at the University of Stanford was offered in the fall of 2011 free and online which attracted 160,000 registered students. It was one of three offered as an…

The prediction that among male college students, the relationship between test anxiety and college achievement would be greater for socially mobile than for socially stable students is not borne out in this study at Lehman College. (Author/JH)

Describes methods of retaining potential dropouts at private, selective-admissions colleges and public, open-admissions colleges. (HS)

College teacher gives techniques 'to restore the students' natural appreciation of sound, rhyme, rhythm, imagery, and imaginative ideas. (Author/SP)

Discusses some of the unique problems within higher education which are present as a result of an open-door policy for students. (JM)

Most of America's newest college students are the white sons and daughters of blue collar workers who, because of increased college access, are often poor students academically as well as poor students financially. Colleges must be prepared to offer these students a new kind of learning experience to make freedom of access to college more than a…