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While watching the annual Gates Postsecondary Education Convening from afar via twitter, I am struck by the apparent absence of discussion about several core underlying issues keeping more students from succeeding in earning college degrees. We cannot increase the success of undergraduates from disadvantaged backgrounds without ensuring that they are safe, healthy, and ready to learn. Food insecurity is a growing problem in higher education, as revealed by institutional surveys, and hopefully soon tracked by national data (I'm working on it). Idea #1:  Institute a free/reduced price breakfast and lunch program at all public colleges and universities where at least 1 in 3 students receives a Pell Grant.  Far too many of today's faculty are ill-equipped to teach the students of tomorrow.  The focus on research has trumped the emphasis on high-quality teaching even at institutions with no research mission. Idea #2: Make teaching a priority in public higher education.  a...

Data is powerful, and today's colleges and universities are learning that lesson the hard way.  As increasing amounts of information regarding their student outcomes become available, media outlets are taking advantage, running stories like this one, 11 Public Universities with the Worst Graduation Rates .  The clear intent is shame and disinvestment in public education, and it's working. One of my very talented and knowledgeable colleagues shared that story on Facebook, writing "Is there any way to understand these completion rates other than dismal?" That's a good question. What I appreciate most about it is that it asks how we can understand it?  Not, "who is to blame?"  Too often that seems to be the goal of publishing numbers, as if the old adage about sunshine being a miracle cure would actually apply to problems involving human beings. As I flipped through the slide show of the "11 Worst," looking at the often pretty campuses of those f...

A thought-provoking new report just out from the Center on the Future of Higher Education documents and laments the assault on community colleges underway across the country. Bucking historic trends in rising college enrollments, there's been a startling stagnation or even a downturn in enrollment in community colleges, not because demand has declined but because there is insufficient capacity .  In some places and in some programs, thanks to substantial and sustained budget cuts, the community colleges are literally tapped out. That's right-- students are showing up at "open door" colleges and being effectively turned away.  Welcome to the "new normal." If you believe that the purpose of public postsecondary education is to provide opportunities to the most advantaged, this is insane. Clearly, the current model for public higher education is broken, and as the report argues, it's time for a "reboot." If you believe that college endows social ...

To the editor of Education Week: In the June 9 article by Caralee Adams titled "Popularity Offers Challenges for Community Colleges." I am quoted in a manner that implies significant disrespect for the work of community colleges. While Ms. Adams used my words verbatim, they were taken out of context and this --unintentionally--altered their meaning. I shared in the effort to craft and pass the American Graduation Initiative intended to support the efforts of community colleges to serve students from all walks of life. When the AGI failed to become law, it meant that community colleges had been drawn into the public eye but not given the financial resources they needed to improve their outcomes. Their current outcomes became highly visible, and left some with the false impression they were attributable to a lack of will on the part of the colleges, rather than a lack of resources. I explained this to Caralee, and in particular I said the colleges had both the "will an...

It was really hard to watch the American Graduation Initiative get cut from SAFRA. It was one of the most promising initiatives for higher education in decades, representing a real shift from a culture of focus on college access to one focused on student success. I was crushed to see it go unfunded. Of course, I'm feeling a little better since Jill Biden called for a White House summit on community colleges, to be held this fall. An Obama conference is a decent consolation prize. It's actually a coup, when you think about how seriously community colleges have been taken by policymakers in the past (read: not at all). Washington needs to make the most of this opportunity. Doing this requires pushing far beyond a pleasant conversation about " best practices and successful models. " Because let's be honest-there aren't very many "best practices" we can feel confident in scaling up right now. That's why building the body of resea...

As a child growing up inside the Washington Beltway, I learned early never to have much faith in politicians. Every few years new folks came to the city, promising "change" and leaving without having done much at all. The candidates and officials I did like never got the attention and promotions they deserved. And worst of all, those who claimed to be on my side were everlasting disappointments (read: Bill Clinton). Somehow that cynical base inside me melted a little with the election of Barack Obama, and became a tiny puddle when he announced the American Graduation Initiative . Finally, a president who "got" it! As educators we were all working to prepare children for a full life, and that had to include a real shot at higher education. That meant finally giving sufficient resources to the colleges where the majority of those looking longingly at the American Dream were going to end up: community colleges. My heart went pitter-patter when I heard Obama call c...

I love a good controversy about an important higher education topic. What better way to enjoy a Wisconsin snowstorm than to sit cozily inside, trading emails with knowledgeable folks who are trying to sort out why it appears college completion rates have declined in the U.S. over the last 30 or 40 years. I'm hard-pressed to think of one (well, maybe, after a long day of work having this 38-week fetus out of me would be nice). So, thanks to Sarah Turner , John Bound, and Michael Lovenheim for giving us such a nice meaty analysis to chew over this week. There's already been a good bit written about and commented on this report, particularly by Cliff Adelman , the man who gave the world America's longitudinal transcript data and a robust series of reports on what they tell us about colleges and students. The fact that so many people find so many different messages in the analysis actually bodes well for the paper--it's partly a story about trends in completion rates ...

Community colleges have been called many things-"junior," "second chance," "sub-baccalaureate," and one of my personal favorites: places of "continued dependency, unrealistic aspirations, and wasted general education." That last one dates back to 1968, in the heat of their growth period (the author is W.B. Devall, writing in Education Record ). Despite all the disparaging remarks, I have a strong sense that many community college leaders are willing to be called just about anything, as long as they're "not called late for dinner." And this year, at least, they're at the table, and standing to enjoy a nice deal in the form of the American Graduation Initiative (part of legislation pending in the Senate). But this period of sunshine provides only a modicum of comfort, given the longstanding backdrop of invisibility punctuated by insults. In 2005, Washington Post columnist Jay Matthews wrote a confessional column called " Why...

Today the U.S. House of Representatives voted 253 to 171 to pass the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. It knocks private lenders out of the student loan business, and uses the savings to make transformational investments in the nation's community colleges, as well as increase the Pell grant. Some, including La Guardia Community College president Gail Mellow, have called this the most important piece of higher education legislation since the G.I. Bill. Let's hope the Senate soon follows on the House's class act! (at least the House had at least 1 class act this week...)