Not all institutions of higher education are equal—in their funding, resources, or student outcomes. Selective public institutions, typically defined as those with lower acceptance rates and high graduation rates compared to other public institutions, often offer the best odds for their students to succeed. Enrollment at selective institutions is correlated with student success, including higher…

There is a significant and persistent disparity in educational attainment between different groups of students. Equity gaps between students of different races and ethnicities often begin in K-12 education—87 percent of white students graduate high school on time, compared to 76 percent of Hispanic and 73 percent of African Americans students. These gaps—the results of…

Today’s students—who are more diverse in age, race, and income than any previous generation—are more likely to be older, working, parenting, and may be working part-time or online. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, distance education was becoming more common. Learn more about distance education and how it is used by today’s students here.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic made distance education the new normal, it was steadily becoming more common. Today’s students—many of whom work while in college, are financially independent, or have children of their own—need access to a college education off-campus to pursue higher education in a format that works for them. But there are still…

Higher learning is the ticket to economic opportunity for Americans, as well as to rebuilding our country’s economy. But we are failing too many of today’s students. Fewer than 67% of Americans enter a higher education program, and of those, only 60 percent finish with a credential. A large-scale overhaul of higher education policy is…

Low-income, Black, and Latinx students are underrepresented at selective colleges and universities. Only 34 percent of low-income students with high standardized test scores will enroll at the nation’s most selective colleges, compared to 78 percent of students in the highest economic quartile. And only 19 percent of Black and Latinx students with high test scores…

By Robert Kelchen, Associate Professor, Seton Hall University Commissioned by Higher Learning Advocates  The main reason why most students go to college is for a better future, including better labor market outcomes and higher wages. A national survey of full-time students entering four-year colleges shows that 85 percent of respondents considered getting a better job…

Today’s students—37 percent of whom are over the age of 25, a quarter of whom are parents, and 60 percent who work—have been increasingly juggling school with home and work responsibilities over the past decade. As such, students before the pandemic had been turning to online education at increasing rates for flexibility. Now, due to…