Early college high schools are powerful instruments for success for young men of color, and school leaders must take an intentional approach to remove systemic barriers to their engagement. This report outlines strategies to better recruit and retain young men of color in early college programs and provides examples of successful and emerging…

Higher education today faces a host of challenges, from quality to cost. But too little attention gets paid to a startling fact: four out of ten students -- that's more than ten percent of the entire population -- who start college drop out. The situation is particularly dire for black and Latino students, those from poor families, and those who…

This article uses philosophical analysis to clarify the arguments and claims about racial discrimination brought forward in the recent legal challenges to affirmative action in higher education admissions. Affirmative action opponents have argued that elite institutions of higher education are using negative action against Asian American…

The "New England Journal of Higher Education" ("NEJHE") Executive Editor John O. Harney had the chance to catch up with Lasell College President Michael Alexander about the small Newton, Massachusetts, college's plans to challenge the higher education business model. The interview is presented in this article.

Mentoring in academia that encourages collaboration and interpersonal relationships is important in helping newer faculty members attain success. Developing such programs is challenging within our prevailing academic context that rewards competition and individually delineated success. We propose that Relational Cultural Theory, a feminist…

This marks the ninth hearing that the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee has convened in advance of the Higher Education Act reauthorization. The purpose of this hearing is to discuss the unique challenges facing minority serving institutions (MSIs) and to learn about programs and support to help facilitate student success.…

In many high-wage industries, a high school degree no longer prepares students to enter the workforce. By 2020, labor market analysts predict that 65 percent of all jobs will require postsecondary education or training. Though high schools across the Commonwealth seek to prepare students for both higher education and the workforce, too many…

Each year, the Rennie Center collects state-level indicators in our Data Dashboard to provide context on the condition of education in the Commonwealth. This data is collected from the MA Department of Early Education and Care; MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education; MA Department of Higher Education; U.S Census Bureau; and U.S.…

This is the first in a series of Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) playbooks intended to assist companies, higher education institutions, private philanthropies, membership associations, professional societies, government agencies, and other stakeholders seeking to understand the potential value of investing in coordinated strategic,…

American public higher education is in trouble. Besieged by declining state and Federal support for more than 30 years, public colleges and universities are facing a "game-changing" set of challenges that threaten to alter the very nature of the institutions. As two recessions withered state budgets in the first decade of the 21st…

Most recently, many higher education institutions have continued to struggle to answer the question of whether they should promote diversity as a central value of the university or protect themselves from legal challenge by avoiding the inclusion of diversity initiatives. In this article, the authors first provide several examples documenting how…

Data from a survey on patterns in the hiring of new staff, both noninstructional and faculty, in Massachusetts public higher education institutions are presented and analyzed. The survey found that more women and minorities are being hired as full-time employees. More women than men were hired during 1987 and a higher percentage of women were…

Efforts to expand diversity in the health professions has received a boost from a prominent member of Congress. U.S. Senator Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, recently introduced a bill to amend the Public Health Service Act as part of a comprehensive initiative to improve the health of minority and other underserved populations. This bill, which is being…

In the 1992-93 academic year, the Higher Education Committee of the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth heard testimony and conducted focus groups with a cross section of students, faculty, and administrators from a number of colleges and universities in Massachusetts. This report is the result of these meetings. The…

Minority access to higher education in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts falls short of its obligation by nearly 8,000 students. One barrier to minority student access is the location of the state colleges and community colleges, most of which are removed from urban centers where minority populations are concentrated. However extra effort,…