The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education & The University of Pennsylvania Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (PennAHEAD) A report on the 45-year trends in higher education attainment by family income. This report details the status of equity in United States higher education and identifies changes and trends over time in measures of equity. The report concludes with a section on the search for solutions, and two essays on strategies for widening the equity of participation in Higher Education in the United States.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics United States policymakers have targeted reducing STEM attrition in college, arguing that retaining more students in STEM fields in college is a low-cost, fast way to produce the STEM professionals that the nation needs (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology [PCAST] 2012). Within this context, this Statistical Analysis Report (SAR) presents an examination of students’ attrition from STEM fields over the course of 6 years in college using data from the 2004/09 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study and the associated 2009 Postsecondary Education Transcript Study.

National Center for Inquiry & Improvement This report is designed for higher education leaders and explores ten commonly asked questions about implementing guided pathways. It addresses concern about compromising our higher education values, practical considerations about control and enrollment, and apprehensions about the impact on students’ learning and development—all issues that will need to be addressed to successfully pursue a guided pathways effort.

Thomas Bailey, Shanna Smith Jaggars & Davis Jenkins This first part of a 3-part series practitioner packet is designed to help community college leaders and staff who are considering guided pathways reforms at their college. Part one, What We Know About Guided Pathways, describes the reform model and summarizes evidence supporting its design principles.

U.S. Department of Education The purpose of this report is to examine how often, and under what conditions, postsecondary institutions accept the transfer of credits earned by students at other institutions.. This report findings utilize transcript data from the Postsecondary Education Transcript Study of 2009, a component of the 2004-2009 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study, and followed a nationally representative sample of approximately 17,000 students who entered postsecondary education for the first time in the 2003–04 academic year for a period of 6 years.

Susan Scrivener, Michael J. Weiss, Alyssa Ratledge, Timothy Rudd, Colleen Sommo, & Hannah Fresques This report discusses a program that made a big difference for students and increased graduation rates: Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), operated by the City University of New York (CUNY), one of the nation’s largest public urban university systems. ASAP is a comprehensive and long-term program designed to help more students graduate and help them graduate more quickly. The report also offers an an external evaluation and implications of the ASAP program in a random assignment evaluation by MDRC.

Michael Lawrence Collins This brief draws on the experience of four states in Jobs for the Future’s Postsecondary State Policy Network—Connecticut, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia—that are among a number of states engaged in statewide developmental education reform. These states' experiences highlight what all states can consider to ensure that changes are well-designed and effectively implemented and squarely aimed at helping students earn credentials with value in the labor market. Both what these states did well and what they might have done differently can provide insight to states now considering or embarking on statewide developmental education reform.

Complete College America A 6-page summary of the Guided Pathways To Success (GPS) origin, essential components, and some initial findings in states implementing the GPS.

Thomas Bailey, Shanna Smith Jaggars, & Davis Jenkins Synthesizing findings from CCRC's intensive study of community colleges over the past eight years, the authors argue that improving developmental education, instruction, student supports, and the overall student experience is necessary but not sufficient; targeted reforms must be implemented as part of a broader institutional restructuring of mathematics pathways. The authors delineate a set of research-based design principles and strategies to help colleges achieve this challenging goal, and lay out a path for community colleges working to achieve greater success for their students, and for our nation as a whole.

This report attempts to examine the preparation for calculus on a microscopic level. Researchers tracked the actual enrollment of students in precalculus, calculus, and non-calculus based courses over 20 successive semesters, from fall 1992 to spring 2002. This report is also an examination of the probable success of the calculus preparation curricula. Citation: Dunbar, S. (2006). Enrollment Flow to and from Courses Below Calculus. In N. Hastings (Ed.), A Fresh Start for Collegiate Mathematics: Rethinking the Courses Below Calculus (pp. 28-42). Mathematical Association of America.