Why go to college? A higher education introduces students to new people and new experiences, and usually leads to a higher salary and lower chance of unemployment. This checklist will tell you how to get ready for college--and how the government will help you pay for it.

The Savannah Early College Program (SECP) opened its doors in August 2007 to make a difference in the lives of all students who enrolled. Its primary mission was to combine academic rigor and support to help students enter college early and graduate from high school with up to 2 years of college credit. Since SECP joined the Early College High…

This article profiles the 5-year-old Bronx Lab School, a shining achievement in Chancellor Joel Klein's aggressive program of creating new, small schools, almost 400 of which have opened over the past seven years. It's unprecedented anywhere in America. Bronx Lab--which shares the building with similarly sized schools focused on areas such as…

This quasi-experimental, action-research study explored a five-week pre-enrollment initiative called the Pathways Summer Bridge (PSB) Program in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU). Theoretically framed and developed using the six components of Tinto's (1993) longitudinal model of institutional…

As the rate of developmental reading students continues to climb, so does the surge in digital platforms as a means to deliver postsecondary instruction. Students enrolled in developmental reading courses should not be assumed to have digital literacy skills simply because they have been termed a "digitally literate generation." In this…

To make it in college, students need to be up for the academic rigor. But that's not all. They also must be able to manage their own time, get along with roommates, and deal with setbacks. Resiliency and grit, along with the ability to communicate and advocate, are all crucial life skills. Yet, experts say, many teenagers lack them, and that's…

Over the past decade, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has reorganized the New York City school system using principles and strategies extrapolated from his corporate sector experience. The mayor and his administration have restructured the public school system into a portfolio district centered on choice, autonomy, and accountability. These strategies…

What do we know about the impact and implementation of Career Academies? This paper provides answers to this question. Career Academies have been around for over 30 years. Their original design stressed facilitating the school-to-work transition. In the early 1990's the focus began to shift to preparing participating students for both college and…

Over the last decade, Canada has experienced a substantial increase in the number of individuals participating in post-secondary education (PSE). This trend emphasizes the importance of understanding the pathways leading to PSE enrolment and the competencies that are associated with them. This chapter describes a range of possible education and…

Stereotypes, role models played by teachers and social norms influence girls' academic self-concept and push girls to choose humanities rather than science. Do recruiters reinforce this strong selection by discriminating more against girls in more scientific subjects? Using the entrance exam of a French higher education institution (the Ecole…

Past research has revealed that students who complete coursework in a concentrated area, defined as completing three or more courses in a specific field of study, are much more likely to have successful outcomes than those who do not. Moreover, fewer than half of students included in this research, which followed students over seven years, entered…

Each fall the Statistical Research Center conducts its Survey of Enrollments and Degrees, which asks all degree-granting physics and astronomy departments in the U.S. to provide information concerning the numbers of students they have enrolled and counts of recent degree recipients. In connection with this survey, the authors ask for the names and…

Despite decades of research and program implementation in both the K-12 and higher educational systems, students of low socio-economic status (SES) still have access to and persist in higher education at significantly lower numbers than their more affluent peers (Gollnick & Chinn, 2012; Perna, 2005). This study employed a grounded-theory…

The purpose of this action research study was to determine the effectiveness of two online college success courses: CPD 150 (College Success, 3 credits) and CPD 115 (Success Strategies, 1 credit), at Rio Salado College, a Maricopa Community College in Arizona. The goal of these courses is to prepare students to be college-ready by examining…

In recent years educators and policymakers have set a goal that students graduate from high school ready for college and careers. However, as a nation we are far from achieving this goal, particularly for low-income and minority students. For example, in states where all eleventh-graders take the ACT[R], only 27 percent of low-income students in…