ACTA's What Will They Learn?® (WWTL) project is designed to help students choose the best college or university for them. The printed report and its online companion WhatWillTheyLearn.com represent the only assessment of U.S. colleges and universities that focuses on what schools are actually teaching. This report assigns grades to over 1,130…

"What Will They Learn?" has been documenting for the last 13 years the crisis of weak core curriculum requirements. In addition to helping students choose the right college for the right reasons, American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) works with college and university leaders on campuses around the country to strengthen curricula…

In this 12th edition of its flagship annual survey of college general education curricula, "What Will They Learn?," American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) shines a light on the wide disparity in academic standards at institutions of higher learning across the country. "What Will They Learn?" reviews the core curricula…

The Big 12 is famous for its athletics--and well it should be. But what about the rest of the conference--the academic part? The Big 12's website says, "Performance in the classroom is just as important as accolades on the field." So what's happening off the field? How do the Big 12 schools fare when it comes to cost and quality? The…

In response to recently raised concerns about the effective integration of general education into community college occupational programs, this report offers a review of the literature on general education and its place in the vocational curriculum. First, definitions of general education are presented and synthesized into the following…

Perspectives on characteristics of college curricula, their influence, and assessment are analyzed, based on a 1982 panel held for the National Commission on Excellence in Education. Discussion topics pertaining to programs and degrees included the proliferation of programs, the college credit hour, changing student constituencies, vocationalism…

This report provides both an overview and a detailed analysis of the general education core in the undergraduate curriculum in Virginia's colleges and universities. Sixty-eight campuses participated in the study, including all 15 public four-year institutions, all 24 public two-year institutions, 20 private not-for-profit institutions, and 9…

This book examines seven families of myths about postsecondary educational concerns in order to advance the thesis that the evolution of higher education should be accelerated to meet the conditions of a changing world. Chapter One reviews some of the changing conditions and criticisms that are part of the current higher education environment.…

The argument of this book is that the modern American university has given up its responsibility to provide a thoughtful, coherent, and well-articulated education to undergraduates. It is asserted that the university should be neither a trade school nor a repository of tradition, but rather an institution with the responsibility for the…

The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York has one of the highest student retention rates of any community college in the country, graduating more than 62% of those enrolled. Nationwide, community college retention rates average 35%, and at some colleges, attrition is as high as 70%. While community colleges provide access to education…