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Evaluations of Early College, a type of intervention that enables simultaneous enrollment in secondary and post-secondary courses in the United States, consistently find positive effects on educational attainment across racial and socioeconomic groups. Unlike Early College initiatives in other states, Massachusetts launched Early College in Fall 2018, enabling a within-school as well as a whole-school intervention, in which each participating school may enroll some or all of its students in Early College, with guiding principles of equitable access, guided academic pathways, student support, and connection to career. This study uses propensity score matching to evaluate the impact of participating in Massachusetts Early College on students' educational attainment. Positive effects found on college enrollment, with statistically significant positive interactions between the treatment and being socioeconomically disadvantaged, and on college persistence, with statistically significant positive interactions between the treatment and being Latinx, suggest the intervention may help promote equitable access to higher education in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is a local-control state, where public school governance is legally delegated to district and school boards located in the communities they serve, as opposed to the state government, making it more difficult to have state-wide interventions. The flexibility of Massachusetts Early College renders it more easily replicated in local-control states, than the whole school models previously studied.

This paper examines the effects of Pell Grant eligibility on student outcomes. Using a regression discontinuity (RD) design and a partial identification approach, the study provides bounds on the treatment effects that account for selection bias arising from the loss of grant eligibility. While initial eligibility is determined by financial need alone, students must achieve Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) to retain the grant. Students eligible for the maximum grant aid are 26 percentage points less likely to persist in the year they lose grant eligibility than those with less aid. This negative effect on persistence extends to graduation; these students are 8 percentage points less likely to graduate within 4 years. Furthermore, these two groups of students differ in their underlying characteristics, which introduces attrition bias into the estimates. Finally, to address this selection bias, I provide bounds on the effects of Pell Grant on student outcomes. While naive RD estimates find no effect on completion rates, bounding estimates reveal that students eligible for the maximum grant aid are up to 4, 2, and 2 percentage points more likely to graduate from a 4-year institution within 4, 5, and 6 years compared to those with less aid, respectively. Furthermore, these eligible students graduate with a higher GPA than previously estimated. These positive effects are larger than those found in earlier studies.

Recent data from Chicago Public Schools (CPS) show that active English Learners were less likely to graduate from high school (77% did so in 2023) than their peers (85%) and less likely to enroll in college (56% of 2022 English Learners high school graduates enrolled in college compared to 66 percent of their non-English Learners high school graduate peers), drawing attention to what supports these students need and what barriers they face on the road to college. To understand the academic performance in high school, college enrollment, and college persistence of English Learners, this study highlights metrics for former English Learners and different groups of active English Learners (at the time of enrollment in ninth grade). The focus of this study is on understanding different indicators of academic performance in high school, college enrollment, and college persistence of English Learners--including variation in attainment among active and former English Learners--to support their path to high school graduation and access to college. Using three cohorts of students who were first-time ninth-graders in the fall of 2014, 2015, and 2016 where 33% of students were English Learners, the authors conclude that English Learners are not perpetually struggling, as publicly reported numbers suggest, but specific groups of English Learners need more support. There are some commonalities among English Learners, but also some key differences, suggesting that there are different strategies that would be effective in supporting different English Learners groups. [This report was co-produced by the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice.]

Leveraging rich data on the universe of Texas high school graduates, we estimate how the relationship between geographic access to public two- and four-year postsecondary institutions and postsecondary outcomes varies across race-ethnicity and socioeconomic status. We find that students are sensitive to the distance they must travel to access public colleges and universities, but there are heterogeneous effects across students -- particularly with regard to distance to public two-year colleges (i.e., community colleges). White, Asian, and higher-income students who live in a community college desert (i.e., at least 30 minutes driving time from the nearest public two-year college) substitute towards four-year colleges and are more likely to complete bachelor's degrees. Meanwhile, Black, Hispanic, and lower-income students respond to living in a community college desert by forgoing college enrollment altogether, reducing the likelihood that they earn associate's and reducing the likelihood that they ultimately transfer to four-year colleges and earn bachelor's degrees. These relationships persist up to eight years following high school graduation, resulting in substantial long-term gaps in overall degree attainment by race-ethnicity and income in areas with limited postsecondary access.

This paper examines the long-term impact of the 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA) and the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) on postsecondary education outcomes, with a focus on historically underserved students. MERA aimed to improve educational standards and close achievement gaps through the introduction of MCAS, a statewide assessment system, and the high school Competency Determination (CD) requirement for graduation. More than two decades later, questions remain about how these reforms have influenced students' readiness for and success in postsecondary education. This analysis addresses three key areas: (1) Changes in 10th-grade MCAS performance over time; (2) Student participation and success in key college readiness benchmarks such as advanced coursework, SAT, and high school graduation; and (3) Postsecondary enrollment and degree completion rates.

More than half of states have implemented tuition-free college policies aimed at reducing attendance costs and incentivizing enrollment. We review the academic literature on the design features and impacts of these tuition-free policies, and we analyze an initiative Virginia implemented in 2021 called Get a Skill, Get a Job, Get Ahead (G3), which provides tuition-free community college to students enrolled in eligible associate degree, certificate, and noncredit occupational training programs in five high-demand fields. Our descriptive analysis of G3 from 2016-17 through 2022-23 shows that both institutions and students responded to the tuition-free messaging and eligibility criteria. Specifically, G3-eligible institutional program offerings and student enrollment in such programs both increased by roughly 30% within the first two years of program implementation. While Virginia's tuition-free policy promotes enrollment in targeted occupational programs, overall enrollment effects are partially offset by a 3% enrollment reduction in aid-ineligible transfer-oriented programs. To promote skill development and improve labor market outcomes, policymakers should ensure that programs eligible for tuition-free college include pathways to longer term credentials.

The expansion and increasing popularity of Advanced Placement (AP) programs have led to a new and significant trend: students are taking AP courses earlier in their high school journey, with a notable increase in enrollment among freshmen and sophomores. This study examines the effects of early engagement in AP courses for students deemed "academically underprepared", as indicated by their previous standardized test scores in reading and mathematics. By examining "academically underprepared" students transitioning from public middle schools to public high schools in Texas, this research challenges the prevailing assumption that early AP involvement is less advantageous for students with lower prior test scores. The goal is to understand whether early participation in AP courses might contribute to greater educational equity and enhancement, providing perspectives on how AP involvement can improve academic success and readiness for college among students often considered underprepared. This research not only reassesses conventional measures of academic readiness but also seeks to highlight the AP program's potential as a tool for educational advancement and equity.

In this brief, the authors examine changes in enrollments at the Los Angeles Community College District between fall 2017 and summer 2023 to document the extent of pandemic-era enrollment declines overall and across student populations.

This paper examines the impact, characteristics, and entrepreneurial proclivities of foreign-born college graduates in the United States. A significant body of research has found that immigrants are more likely to start businesses than those born in the U.S., and the propensity of international students to concentrate in STEM fields indicates enormous potential for economic contributions and innovation. Yet the static nature of the immigration system, with visa pathways and restrictions that discourage business creation, hamper the nation's ability to take full advantage of the benefits immigrants can provide. In fact, this study finds that the U.S. immigration system likely delays foreign-born graduates from creating incorporated firms by as many as five years. The authors estimate that the creation of 150,000 incorporated firms and 580,000 jobs were delayed between 2013 and 2021. Without reform, the U.S. will continue to depress high-value firm creation by international students and cease to be the primary destination of global talent.

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution's direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Contents include: (1) Introduction; (2) Strategy; (3) Performance-Based Funding Metrics; (4) Key Performance Indicators; (5) Enrollment Planning; and (6) Definitions.

This STP Highlights newsletter focuses on the first transitions of B.C. grade 12 graduates into B.C. public post-secondary education, in addition to total postsecondary enrolment trends in the B.C. public postsecondary system. The Student Transitions Project (STP) has collected more than twenty years of data and is currently assembling a more detailed report of research findings spanning the last two decades. In the meantime, this short newsletter provides continuity with previous STP publications released in June of each year. Research questions addressed in this newsletter: (1) What proportion of B.C. grade 12 graduates enrol in BC. public post-secondary education? What are the trends? (2) What does the student transitions matrix reveal about student transitions of different graduation cohorts? (3) Do immediate-entry students enrol full-time or part-time? What are the trends? (4) What are the post-secondary enrolment trends in the B.C. public post-secondary system? (5) What proportion of all undergraduate students enrol full-time versus part-time in credit-based activity in the B.C. public post-secondary system? What are the trends? (6) What are the differences in student transition rates by student demographic characteristics? and (7) What are the trends in student transitions by region, school type and B.C. school district?

Most students who begin at a community college do not complete their desired credential. Many former students fail to graduate due to various barriers rather than their academic performance. To encourage previously successful non-completers to re-enroll and eventually graduate, a growing number of community colleges have implemented re-enrollment campaigns focused on former students who have already made substantial progress toward graduation. In this study, we randomly assigned over 27,000 former community college students to a control group, "information-only" treatment group, or "information and one-course waiver" treatment group to examine whether re-enrollment campaigns can improve their likelihood of long-term persistence and credential completion. Although we showed in earlier work that the "information and one-course waiver" treatment had a positive impact on former students' likelihood of re-enrollment, our findings reveal the re-enrollment intervention has no effect on students' likelihood of long-term persistence or credential completion for the pooled sample or any subgroup of interest, including low-income students, racially minoritized students, or adult students. Simply put, this particular re-enrollment intervention including one-time, one-course tuition waivers increased former students' likelihood of re-enrollment but was not an effective lever to increase "long-term" academic outcomes among previously successful community college students who departed early without earning a credential.

California is home to the fifth-largest population of Black people in the United States, approximately 2.8 million individuals. However, when Black Californians seek access to the state's colleges and universities, they face undue bureaucratic and financial barriers. This Equity Alert explores a legislative proposal to create a California Black-Serving Institutions (BSI) Program intended to improve how Black Californians experience and succeed in higher education. The proposal and the potential benefits are discussed, followed by critical considerations to strengthen the effectiveness of the designation and improve the ways colleges and universities in California support Black student success.

Direct Admissions policies, first pioneered by Idaho in 2015, aim to simplify the path to college for high school students by proactively admitting students to state colleges and universities. Idaho's decision to implement Direct Admissions was motivated by a desire to boost its relatively low college-going rates and ensure that more of its high school graduates pursue higher education, particularly at state institutions. Idaho's Direct Admissions system automatically qualified all 2016 public high school seniors for admission to participating colleges and universities based on their academic performance such as standardized test scores, GPA, and high school course credits, without requiring them to undergo the traditional application process. Using the student's SAT score and GPA, the Idaho Office of the State Board of Education (OSBE) proactively admits high school students to the "Letter of 6" or "Letter of 8." Students receiving the Letter of 8 are admitted to all of Idaho's public higher education institutions, while students receiving the Letter of 6 are admitted to all except Boise State University and the University of Idaho, the two more selective institutions in the state. Once a student is guaranteed a seat at any of the colleges listed in their Direct Admissions letter, students then apply to the institutions of choice to verify their enrollment intentions. Direct Admissions is designed to demystify the college application process, reduce barriers to entry, and encourage a higher rate of postsecondary enrollment. Since its implementation, the policy has garnered attention for its role in increasing postsecondary applications and enrollments. It has also emerged as a potential model for other states considering similar reforms. Previous research on Direct Admissions policies in Idaho has examined the policy's effectiveness on institutional applications and enrollment outcomes. This paper uses data on the receipt of a Letter of 6 and receipt of a Letter of 8 to understand how Direct Admissions policies influence student choice in institutional selectivity.

As states incorporate measures of college readiness into their accountability systems, school and district leaders need effective strategies to identify and support students at risk of not enrolling in college. Although there is an abundant literature on early warning indicators for high school dropout, fewer studies focus on indicators for college enrollment, especially those that are simple to calculate and easy for practitioners to use. This study explores three potential indicators of college readiness that educational leaders may consider using as part of an early warning system for college enrollment. Using district administrative data, our analysis shows that an indicator based on attendance, grades, and advanced course-taking is slightly more effective at predicting college enrollment than indicators based on course failures or standardized test scores. However, the performance of these indicators varies across different student demographic and socioeconomic subgroups, highlighting the limitations of these measures and pointing to areas where they may need to be supplemented with contextual information. Through event history analysis, we demonstrate that the ninth grade is a particularly challenging year for students, especially those who are male, Black, Hispanic, or economically disadvantaged. These results suggest that educational leaders ought to consider identifying and targeting students at risk of not attending college with additional resources and support during the freshman year of high school.

Across the U.S., the number of youths who experience homelessness is increasing. The increase of youth homelessness is growing most rapidly for Black and Hispanic students and is occurring in both small and large states. In Texas, one of the states with the largest population of students experiencing homelessness, its youth homeless population is more than six times the national average. This research has examined the longitudinal and disaggregated impacts of homelessness on youth by race and ethnicity, specifically during the critical transition from high school to college. The purpose of this study is to examine the transition of graduating seniors who experience homelessness and their enrollment in college. To achieve this purpose, this brief addresses the following research questions in this study: (1) How do high school graduation rates vary across students based on their homeless status, race/ethnicity, and their interaction in Texas?; (2) Among high school graduates, to what extent does homelessness by race impact students' college enrollment for Black and Hispanic students in Texas?; and (3) Among students experiencing homelessness, how does the likelihood of high school graduation and college enrollment for Black and Hispanic students compare to that of White students in Texas?

The term "summer melt" denotes a phenomenon when post-secondary students who received an offer of admission and may have paid a deposit when accepting the offer, "fail to enroll at all in the fall after high school graduation". Assessing the extent of summer melt and the success of measures to reduce it has become more relevant for jurisdictions/institutions with dwindling enrolments, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This short report reviews factors contributing to summer melt, including different types of barriers for admitted post-secondary applicants, strategies to reduce summer melt and their success. The prospects and options of estimating summer melt at the system level in British Columbia are also discussed.

The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) annual survey of tuition and fees collects the resident and nonresident tuition and fees at public two- and four-year institutions in the WICHE region for undergraduate and graduate students. WICHE administered the most recent survey to state higher education executive offices, system offices, and institutions in each of the WICHE states, territories, and freely associated states in Summer 2023. Complete data from the survey are available on WICHE's online dashboard and enable comparisons of rates over time, across states, territories, and freely associated states, and between Carnegie Classifications. Unless otherwise indicated, tuition and fees rates are in current U.S. dollars, and average rates at the state and regional levels are weighted by full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment. This WICHE Insights summarizes recent tuition and fees for undergraduates at public institutions in the West.

The Higher Education Emergency Relief (HEER) Fund had two main purposes: (1) to ensure that colleges could continue to provide education to students in the wake of the pandemic and (2) to provide emergency financial assistance through colleges directly to students. Four years after the onset of the pandemic, this ARCC Network brief uses college financial data--including data recently released for fiscal year 2022--to look at what happened to college finances and to assess the importance of HEER funding for the financial solvency of community colleges over the course of the pandemic. The authors find that during the peak years of the pandemic (2020-2022), community colleges lost huge numbers of students: On average, colleges lost 580 full-time-equivalent (FTE) students or 15% of pre-pandemic year-on-year enrollment, whereas college enrollments typically fluctuate by +/-2% each year. The authors also find that federal HEER funding saved community colleges from massive losses in tuition revenue during the pandemic. Instead of losing revenue, HEER funding increased total revenue per college from $81 million to $84 million, covering lost tuition and offsetting new costs associated with the pandemic. HEER funding also provided $4 million in student aid per college, on average, making up for lost resources students experienced during the pandemic. The authors--who also wrote an associated blog post that includes an interactive dashboard on this topic--contend that community colleges are confronting new fiscal challenges post-pandemic. As HEER funding has ended, many community colleges are faced with a difficult fiscal outlook, with increased costs due to inflation and decreased overall enrollments relative to pre-pandemic levels. Navigating these new fiscal realities will be extremely challenging for community colleges, raising new concerns about the viability of many colleges in the post-pandemic era. [This report was written with the Accelerating Recovery in Community Colleges (ARCC) Network.]

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted nearly every aspect of the social and economic lives of individuals, families, and communities. It also highlighted and deepened existing racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities. Education, too, was negatively impacted by the pandemic. Research has provided ample evidence about the challenges related to learning loss, access, and mental health among students in elementary and secondary schools. Students' achievement, attendance, and grade-level progression declined substantially more than expected during the pandemic (Fuller et al. 2023; Strunk et al. 2023). And students of color, low-income students, and those who attended high-poverty schools experienced substantially slower growth in their test scores during the pandemic as compared to their pre-COVID growth (Peters et al. 2023). This report builds on this emerging evidence, focusing on trends in Rhode Island and bringing granular, longitudinal, student-level administrative data to bear on the following questions: (1) How has postsecondary enrollment and persistence changed during the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) Did students change the kinds of institutions in which they enrolled? (3) How do trends in enrollment and persistence compare across student subgroups (for instance, by race and socioeconomic status) and by institution type? and (4) How do students' high school experiences shape their postsecondary pathways?

In March of 2020, the global pandemic changed nearly every aspect of daily life around the world. Colleges and universities were forced to close their physical facilities and deliver both instruction and support services online, and higher education enrollment across the country declined. In the California State University (CSU) system, following several years of rising enrollment, the number of undergraduates peaked in 2020 at 432,264 students. Enrollment then declined by about 10,000 students from fall 2020 to fall 2021, with a further decline of over 17,000 students in fall 2022, resulting in the CSU's lowest total since 2014 at 404,820. Overall, the CSU has suffered a 6.5% decline from the system's pre-pandemic total. This report summarizes data on recent changes in undergraduate enrollment in the CSU. The report finds significant, but varying, enrollment challenges across campuses and student groups. The authors explore the response to enrollment challenges at campuses that have fared better in undergraduate enrollment levels over the last few years, particularly for Latinx and Black student populations, finding that their efforts to maintain and grow their enrollment align with the CSU system's priorities under Graduation Initiative 2025 (GI 2025). The report concludes by offering several recommendations to improve state and system policies to support undergraduate enrollment and maintain the benefits to the state of higher educational attainment.

California's public higher education institutions have been crucial in positioning the state as the 5th largest economy in the world. The economic benefits of higher education include higher annual wages, lifetime earnings, and wealth accumulation for individuals, as well as higher tax revenues and lower social program costs for the state. College degree attainment is associated with better health, higher civic engagement, and stronger personal relationships, but despite evidence for these benefits, recent surveys demonstrate growing skepticism about the value of college because of affordability concerns and unclear connections to rewarding employment. These doubts, along with demographic changes leading to fewer high school graduates in some states, have likely contributed to reductions in college enrollment in recent years, a trend accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Campaign for College Opportunity is proud to release a new publication, "Illuminating Innovations: Advancing Enrollment at California State University (CSU)," which summarizes data on recent changes in undergraduate enrollment in the CSU system and identifies significant but varying enrollment challenges across campuses and student groups. We examine responses to enrollment challenges at campuses that fared better in undergraduate enrollment levels over the last few years, particularly for Latinx and Black student populations, and find their efforts to maintain and grow their enrollments align with the CSU system's priorities under Graduation Initiative 2025. We also offer several recommendations to improve state and system policies supporting undergraduate enrollment and to maintain the benefits to California of degree attainment.

Postsecondary education leaders are eager for reliable data to strategically plan for the next year through the next decade, and WICHE's projections of high school graduates are among the most relied upon sources. As WICHE has reported several times since the pandemic began, the disruption to student populations was illustrated with the shift of students previously enrolled in public education to other learning environments. Now, four years later, evidence is amassing that other previously stable factors, such as average annual learning patterns and where families enroll their students, have become less predictable for education, as well as workforce pipeline planning. With this brief, WICHE reviews how the evident K-12 learning impacts might affect projections of high school graduates. Even if enrollments appear to stabilize after pandemic lows, declines in elementary and secondary school learning and proficiency may present additional future challenges for postsecondary education.

This brief examines which students in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) are more likely to earn the STEM endorsement and whether STEM endorsement completion predicts college enrollment. Analyses show that gender, STEM magnet program enrollment, and cumulative high school grade point average (GPA) predict STEM endorsement completion. While STEM endorsement completion is associated with college choice, the relationship appears to be explained by academic performance measures, particularly SAT scores and GPA. In fact, if STEM and non-STEM students had the same test scores and grades, college enrollment gaps at 2-year-or-less; 4-year, less-selective; and 4-year, more-selective institutions would reduce. Overall, the findings suggest that the STEM endorsement functions, by design or coincidence, as a funneling mechanism for high-performing students into more-selective colleges and universities.

In 2020, EdTrust released a report titled, "Segregation Forever?," which explored the continued underrepresentation of Black and Latino first-time, full-time undergraduates at the nation's 101 most selective public four-year colleges and universities in 2000 and 2017. The analysis revealed significant underrepresentation of Black and Latino students at public colleges and universities in states matching their demographics; nearly half of these institutions received failing grades in the analysis for disproportionately low enrollment of Latino students. As a follow-up, the authors explored enrollment for these same student groups at the nation's 122 most selective private four-year colleges and universities. The authors looked at the years 2000 and 2020 to see how Latino enrollment at these institutions matched the demographics of Latino residents in the states from which first-time students came. While the share of Latino student enrollment grew at almost all these institutions between 2000 and 2020, enrollment did not represent the demographics of the states from which students came. Population parity is not the ultimate goal; however, it is the most reliable benchmark for comparison based on available data at the time of the analysis. This report specifically analyzes Latino student enrollment, and a similar analysis for Black students can be found in this report. Access scores, ranging from 0-100, measure how well each institution's Latino enrollment reflects the racial and ethnic demographics of the states from which first-time undergraduate students migrated. Letter grades were applied based on an institution's access score. Scores of 90 or higher received A's. Scores in the 80s, 70s and 60s received B's, C's, and D's, respectively. And scores below 60 received F's.

The Institute for Higher Education Policy's (IHEP) Equitable Value Explorer (EVE) data tool provides measures of economic value based on students' post-college earnings relative to the state in which their postsecondary institution is located. Such a broad geographic unit, however, may lead to inadequate comparisons for institutions like community colleges that primarily serve students who live and work within their immediate area. This study uses data from IHEP's EVE data tool and builds on the Postsecondary Value Framework (PVF) by redefining economic value thresholds based on the core-based statistical area (CBSA) in which an institution is located. CBSAs are federally defined geographic units that reflect a "core area containing a substantial population nucleus, together with adjacent communities having a high degree of economic and social integration" irrespective of state borders (U.S. Census Bureau, 2021). By examining postsecondary value across CBSAs, this study acknowledges that earnings outcomes vary dramatically by place, which are not necessarily bounded by state borders. For example, 61 of the 939 defined CBSAs include more than one state, with the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington CBSA and the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria CBSA each including portions of four states or jurisdictions. This study focuses on community colleges, which typically enroll individuals who live nearby (Jepsen & Montgomery, 2009) and produce graduates with less-than-4-year degrees who are less geographically mobile (Malamud & Wozniak, 2012). By focusing on this institutional sector, we can isolate the relationship more directly between postsecondary enrollment and earnings by reducing the likelihood that earnings are attributable to geographic mobility into and after college. In addition, this study extends the EVE data tool by moving beyond calculating measures of economic value to investigating the institution-level and community-level characteristics associated with positive (and negative) value.

Community colleges serve many critical purposes for residents within their local service areas by providing relatively low-cost (Ma & Pender, 2023), open-access postsecondary education and workforce-focused training (Jacobs & Worth, 2019). A recent national survey of previously enrolled community college students finds that "gaining skills to be successful in work" was the most frequently cited (74%) motivation for enrollment, yet only about half of career-motivated students reported meeting their work-related goals (e.g., financially support self and family, earn more money) after leaving their community college (Strada Education Foundation, 2023). In response to the public's questioning of the value of higher education, the Postsecondary Value Commission (2021) and its resulting Postsecondary Value Framework (PVF) have encouraged higher education researchers and data practitioners to quantify the value postsecondary institutions provide to students more explicitly. For example, the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) has used publicly available data to measure students' earnings against the PVF, using the resulting data to construct the Equitable Value Explorer (EVE), an interactive data tool. Given the hyperlocal enrollment of community college students and their primarily economic reasons for choosing to enroll in college, place-based measures of economic value are increasingly important to understand. AIR used publicly available federal data sources, including the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and the American Community Survey (ACS), along with data from IHEP's EVE data tool to create a novel analytic data set that included institution-level and CBSA-level variables. Following the methodology advanced by the Postsecondary Value Commission, we calculated measures of economic value (dependent variable) for each community college in our analytic sample based on two value thresholds: the minimum economic return threshold, or T0, and the earnings premium threshold, or T1. We examined economic value using descriptive statistics (e.g., percent distribution) and through correlation and regression analyses.

The California Community College (CCC) system serves a large student body, diverse in backgrounds, experiences, and educational goals. This report uses data from the CCC system's records to measure variation in achievement across the state's Strong Workforce Regions. We consider a range of achievement measures, including initial enrollments, progression through community college (CC); successful completion of community college with a certificate, degree, or transfer to a four-year public institution in the state; and time between initial enrollment and successful completion. We link this data with high school records from the California Department of Education (CDE) to explore the extent to which regional variations in CCC outcomes can be attributed to variations in students' characteristics and college readiness prior to CCC enrollment. We also explore a range of contextual factors, including population and student demographics, to further contextualize the variation in student outcomes across regions. [Additional support was provided by the Woven Foundation.]

In the wake of the Supreme Court's ban on race-conscious admissions, the pursuit of diversity and equity in higher education is increasingly under threat. While access to higher education has improved overall for historically underrepresented students, the quality of that opportunity remains uneven, particularly along the lines of race/ethnicity and class. Race-conscious affirmative action brought about a modicum of racial and ethnic diversity to selective colleges, and by extension to our social and economic institutions. Yet this still failed to sufficiently increase representation at selective institutions to reflect the growing percentage of underrepresented minority students who are of college age. This report is a retrospective analysis of the changing demographics of selective and open-access institutions from 2009 to 2019, the decade leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic. Race/ethnicity could still be explicitly considered in the admissions process during that decade. The authors chose to end the analysis with the onset of COVID-19 because the pandemic profoundly altered college enrollment. This report demonstrates that even with race-conscious affirmative action, diversity gains made at the nation's most selective colleges and universities were incremental at best. The US is still a long way from successfully closing equity gaps by race/ethnicity at selective universities, while historically underrepresented students continue to disproportionately enroll in open-access institutions.

In 2013, the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) proposed as the state goal that 70 percent of the state's 25- to 44-year-olds (i.e., early and mid-career residents) should have a credential beyond high school. WSAC's Strategic Action Plan (SAP) provides a framework to organize the policy and practice innovation needed to achieve this goal. The work is framed by four strategic clusters: (1) Affordability; (2) Enrollment; (3) Student Supports; and (4) Completion. The framework is based on the belief that if an affordable and supportive educational environment is built, more Washingtonians will enroll in programs and complete credentials. Ensuring equitable access and success for all students is central to the strategic framework. This SAP discusses the attainment goal, strategic clusters and values, a snapshot of current state policy by cluster, and the work plan for the year. [For "2022 Strategic Action Plan," see ED628851.]

The Remediation report is in response to Ohio Revised Code section 3345.061 (H), which requires the Chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) and the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (DEW) to issue a report recommending policies and strategies for reducing the need for academic remediation and developmental courses at state institutions of higher education. ODHE and DEW continue to collaborate on a range of initiatives to support student progress and success. Data in the following categories is presented: (1) Enrollment; (2) Remediation; (3) Economic Impact; and (4) Students. The report concludes with seven recommendations. [For the previous report "2022 Ohio Remediation Report: For Fall 2021 Enrolling College Students (Spring 2021 High School Graduates)," see ED627874.]

Using data from nearly 1.2 million Black SAT takers, we estimate the impacts of initially enrolling in an Historically Black College and University (HBCU) on educational, economic, and financial outcomes. We control for the college application portfolio and compare students with similar portfolios and levels of interest in HBCUs and non-HBCUs who ultimately make divergent enrollment decisions -- often enrolling in a four-year HBCU in lieu of a two-year college or no college. We find that students initially enrolling in HBCUs are 14.6 percentage points more likely to earn a BA degree and have 5 percent higher household income around age 30 than those who do not enroll in an HBCU. Initially enrolling in an HBCU also leads to $12,000 more in outstanding student loans around age 30. We find that some of these results are driven by an increased likelihood of completing a degree from relatively broad-access HBCUs and also relatively high-earning majors (e.g., STEM). We also explore new outcomes, such as credit scores, mortgages, bankruptcy, and neighborhood characteristics around age 30.

Social and emotional (SE) skills are known to be linked with many important life outcomes, including academic performance, performance on standardized college entrance exams, and college enrollment. In this technical brief, the authors evaluated whether the five SE skills measured with the Mosaic™ by ACT® predict postsecondary enrollment and retention above and beyond household income, high school grade point average, and Composite score on the ACT® test.