Equity seems to be the “it” term of the day when it comes to student success and college completion. You’d be hard pressed to find an institutional strategic plan or statewide task force report focused on increasing postsecondary attainment that doesn’t reference a commitment to equity, or its oft used counterparts, diversity and inclusion....

Insights & Outlooks: Your work centers on the topic of state higher education accountability policies and their impact on educational equity. In a few sentences, what are the key findings of your research? Dr. Amy Li: My work on accountability has focused on state performance funding policies. Key findings about performance funding are that the...

Higher education has long been touted as a gateway to the middle class. This is especially critical for black Americans, as blacks still face economic adversity in not only achieving middle-income status, but also maintaining this status for future generations. In 2017, about 40 percent of black households qualify as middle class, with household in...

Over the past few decades, many education advocates and reformers have advanced a philosophy that what low income, students of color need most is to attend a brand name institution, filled with wealthy students whose families have attended college for generations. For years, people have focused on undermatching – a philosophy that says that very&...

Insights & Outlooks: Can you share more about your personal story and why equity in higher education matters to you? Kenyatta Lovett: My higher education story begins with the college journeys of my father and mother. Both were the first in their family to go to college. My father sat out a year after high…

It was never a question of if Stephanie Shaw would attend college. She always knew she would. A first-generation college student, she had to rely heavily on her extended family members, friends, and teachers who had attended college to lead her in the right direction. “I have been very, very fortunate to have educators in…

Today, Higher Learning Advocates submitted proposals in response to a request from Senator Doug Jones (D-AL), Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) on empowering students of color and ensuring their success in postsecondary education. Today’s students, and in particular today’s ...

Julie Peller was on a panel at the Inside Higher Education Leadership Series event, where she discussed challenges Congress may encounter while working toward comprehensive HEA reauthorization.

The US Department of Education’s (ED) proposals for new regulations presented to the negotiating team in the current negotiated rulemaking (aka “neg reg”) are being thoroughly analyzed by a number of constituents. These thought leaders are dissecting the issue, the history of the issue, reasons for change from status quo and, at times, the ri...

“There’s never enough time!” As a parent and student, I say this to myself nearly every semester, but yet I keep signing up for a full course load. I guess I must be a glutton for punishment, as I barely have free time to begin with without the added pressures of taking four classes. You…

“Too many of our students see college as a foreign place that wasn’t designed for them. They hear about it, they went to many schools that they felt disenfranchised in. College just becomes a bigger foreign place to feel disenfranchised in. We need students to feel empowered to maneuver, to self-advocate and put themselves in…

A truth that many of us are taught from a young age is the ability to work well with others is a critical component to success. One consistent life lesson is to develop and nurture a skill set and internal compass that allow us to collectively assemble multiple parts and skills for the benefit of…