Examines the challenges that changing student characteristics and attendance patterns pose for policymakers. Describes how federal and state policies can influence attendance patterns (through funding programs, contracting with private entities to provide services, creating incentives for private action, and mandating action through law or…

Describes how students' financing choices, together with institutional policies and practices in student advising, can impede or facilitate persistence and degree attainment among nontraditional students. (EV)

Discusses participation in higher education in the United Kingdom within the general context of access to higher education. Asserts that the heterogeneous characteristics of higher education and the complex choice processes of applicants mean that a finer level of description and analysis is required which goes beyond aggregate measures of access…

Describes how strength in numbers lies behind the success of the Posse Foundation, a program that takes kids who do not fit the typical merit scholarship profile and sends them as teams or "posses" to competitive colleges around the nation. (EV)

Presents a conceptual model of student flow through the community college. Outlines the purposes of student tracking systems and discusses the tension between the theory and practice of designing and implementing tracking systems. (DMM)

Four definitions of "postsecondary education attendance" are proposed. High School and Beyond data for 1980 high school seniors and a 1982 follow-up were used to study influences on attendance under each definition. The influences varied depending on the definition, suggesting that policy impacts may not always be correctly determined.…

A University of Toronto (Canada) study of medical school applicants accepting (n=784) and declining (n=255) admission identified influential factors. Some (living cost, location) cannot be affected by the institution. The institution has limited control of others (faculty size, school environment) but can influence applicant perceptions. One…

Analyzes three SAT data sets to address whether private high schools have higher completion and college enrollment rates than public high schools. Indicates a consistent advantage for public high schools with respect to SAT math attainment. In general, school effects outweigh ethnicity, gender, and social class in SAT outcome measures. (CJS)

Examines the contribution of parents' extrafamilial resources in childhood to children's completed years of schooling in young adulthood, controlling for human and financial resources. Indicates that human and financial resources are significantly related to completed years of schooling, but that help from friends and residential mobility have…

Originally published in January 1989, reviews a longitudinal study that compared changes in critical thinking over a one-year period between matched groups of college and non-college students. Results indicate that students who attended college for one year scored higher in critical thinking than the matched group of students who did not attend.…

The president of Brown University says education leaders must reinvent education as a process, mitigate the elitist strategies that have hampered the potential of higher education to do good, and reinvigorate the search for knowledge in service to humanity. (EV)

Data from 1969-1972 and 1974-1977 (surrounding implementation of Pell Grants in 1973) and 1984-1986 and 1988-1990 (surrounding eligibility changes for independent students) show that increased federal financial aid for nontraditional students had a significant effect on their college enrollment decisions. (Contains 28 references.) (SK)

Study found that graduate rates and college attendance of students who participated in two I Have a Dream (IHAD) afterschool programs in Chicago increased significantly. Describes what was learned and identifies four lessons districts can use to replicate Chicago's success with their own afterschool programs. (PKP)

In this paper, we examine the antecedents and consequences of timing in the transition from high school to college. Using the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), we find that 16 percent of high school graduates postpone enrollment by seven months or more after completing high school. Delayers tend to have some common…

In this article, the author argues that using test scores as the sole indicator of students' and teachers' knowledge and skills is harming students and driving the best teachers from the profession. Research by the Abell Foundation indicates that clear links could be found between teachers' verbal and cognitive abilities and the achievement of…