"Varying Degrees 2021: New America's Fifth Annual Survey on Higher Educati­­on" interviewed 2,620 Americans ages 18 and older to better understand their perceptions of education after high school, including oversamples of Black, Latinx, Asian Americans, current undergraduate students, and student loan borrowers. It provides important…

As additional states embark on the process of implementing four-year degrees at community colleges, they can learn from others' experience for help navigating the legislative, regulatory, and program approval processes. This brief uses examples from states currently offering bachelor's degrees at their community colleges to provide guidance for…

This paper provides a brief overview of the current state of federal accountability and the need for change, and a summary of the landscape of state accountability reforms through funding structures for public colleges and universities. It explores key questions or decision points that must be addressed in designing a federal accountability system…

In spring 2020, New America and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) partnered on a year-long research project to understand the effect of the confluence of the pandemic, economic crisis, and racial reckoning on America's colleges and universities. We interviewed over 100 college leaders from across higher education…

Americans' opinions about higher education are complex. Understanding this complexity is important for learning how to talk about the value of educational pathways after high school and crafting thoughtful policy solutions to meet the needs of today's students. This is the reason we engage Americans every year, asking questions other surveys do…

After years of contesting that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was broken and that it forced them to identify too many schools, or the wrong schools, for improvement, over forty states have been granted waivers from the U.S. Department of Education. These waivers give them the flexibility to design new accountability and improvement schemes rather…

Around 30 percent of families across New York State now speak a language other than English at home, resulting in 240,000 English language learners (ELLs) in the state's primary and secondary schools who speak nearly 200 different languages. This report looks at New York State's redesign of policies and practices to better support the education of…

Earlier this year, in "Subprime Learning: Early Education in America since the Great Recession," the current state of early education in the U.S. was surveyed by examining progress over the last five years . It was found that while the public, political, and research consensus is stronger than ever, the field remains in dire need of…