Policy has traditionally emphasized the completion of academic requirements as the gateway to postsecondary education. There is, however, growing understanding that youth need to develop a wide range of knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal resources for career success, civic engagement, and lifelong learning. It also is necessary to address…

Postsecondary remediation is an important and highly contentious issue that has received comparatively little comprehensive attention with respect to evaluating its effectiveness. This study addresses two relatively unexplored aspects of remedial efficacy: the moderating effects of depth and breadth of underpreparation. I find that, regardless of…

A four-year college degree increases a student's employment prospects and earning potential. Given this importance, it is not surprising that 75 percent of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) high school students aspire to obtain at least a four-year college degree. Yet, prior research showed that few achieved this goal: a 2006 University of Chicago…

Large numbers of students graduate high school unprepared for post-secondary education and ill-equipped for the labor force of the 21st century. Research on college readiness reveals the prominent role that mathematics preparedness plays in the fulfillment of hopes and dreams for a college degree. As requirements for post-secondary education and…

Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) has made great strides in its effort to lower the number of high school dropouts and to encourage prior dropouts to return and graduate by providing a broad set of options for students with a diverse set of needs and academic histories. At the same time, City Schools has initiated an effort to foster a…

The stated goal of Upward Bound (UB) is to increase the rate at which traditionally disadvantaged students graduate from high school and enroll in and graduate from postsecondary educational institutions. Past experimental studies of Upward Bound have found it to be generally ineffective in improving these student educational outcomes. However, my…

Across the United States, students are entering college with a need for improvement in basic mathematics and communication skills. In 2008, the Florida Legislature passed Senate Bill 1908 which changed the expectations for the senior year of high school for many students. Students who score within certain levels on the mandatory high school…

Many students who are "eligible" for college are not "ready" for college. Readiness is much more complex and multidimensional than eligibility. Most high schools are organized to make students eligible for college admission, not make them ready to succeed in entry-level college courses. Over the past 15 years, the author has conducted research on…

This study examines the critical role that teachers and institutional agents play in increasing access to college for low-income students. The study is an analysis of 23 student interviews of seniors from an urban high school. The researcher interviewed students at the end of their senior years who did not plan on going to college, planned on…

Nearly 40 percent of the students entering 2- and 4-year postsecondary institutions indicated their intention to major in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in 2012. But the barriers to students realizing their ambitions are reflected in the fact that about half of those with the intention to earn a STEM bachelor's degree and…

A significant challenge in higher education is to narrow the educational attainment gap between academically prepared and unprepared students. To this end, developmental or remedial education is intended to improve the academic skills and knowledge of students who are unprepared for undergraduate coursework, particularly in the areas of…

How can teachers help prepare their high school students to make the critical transition to what comes after they graduate? Teachers cannot wait until students are seniors to inspire them to consider postsecondary education or training, and at the same time prepare them to succeed when they get there. It is increasingly important for students to…

To enhance state-level adult education and employment policy, in 2007 the Joyce Foundation began the Shifting Gears (SG) initiative to assist six states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin) to integrate adult education, workforce development and postsecondary education policies and improve job opportunities for low-skilled…

Every school day, nearly 7,000 students become dropouts. Annually, that adds up to about 1.2 million students who will not graduate from high school with their peers as scheduled. Lacking a high school diploma, these individuals will be far more likely than graduates to spend their lives periodically unemployed, on government assistance, or…

Currently, linguistic minority students--students who speak a language other than English at home--represent 21% of the entire K-12 student population and 11% of the college student population. Bringing together emerging scholarship on the growing number of college-bound linguistic minority students in the K-12 pipeline, this ground-breaking…