Research + News | Topic: Enrollment

Why Rural Michigan Teens Are Skipping Out On College. It’s Not Grades

The road to college can be scary for small town teens. Read the article here.

Oldest Students In Class Most Likely To Attend College

The study found that those who were almost a year older for their grade were more likely to enroll in college (58 percent) than those who were almost a year younger for their grade (52 percent). Read the article here.

Getting In To College Doesn’t Mean Students Are Ready to Go

A post on the Motherlode blog of the New York Times says: “Let’s not equate college admission with college readiness. The skills needed to graduate from high school and get into college have surprisingly little in common with those needed to manage, much less thrive, away from home in an undergraduate setting. There should be no shame in ‘taking time off.'”

Read the full article here.

College Enrollment Declines

According to U.S. Census Bureau, college enrollment in fall 2012 plunged by half a million (467,000) from one year earlier. This decline, which includes both graduate and undergraduate enrollment, follows a period of substantial growth — 3.2 million — between 2006 and 2011.

Read the full report here.

Pace Of College Attainment Still Not Enough To Meet Future Workforce Needs

According to a new report released by the Lumina Foundation “shows that the rate of college attainment is steadily improving across America. Unfortunately, the pace of progress is far too modest to meet future workforce needs. The report also finds massive and ongoing gaps in educational achievement—gaps tied to race, income and other socioeconomic factors—that must be addressed.”

Read the report here.

Download the full report (.pdf) here.

The Truth About College Aspirations

A MediaPost article attempts to clear up the “myth” that all teens go on to be college students, and then college graduates. According to the article: “While it is true that Millennials are the most educated generation in American history, many people are astonished to learn that people with college degrees are still a significant minority.”

Read the full report here.

Research to Improve Retention

One of the most serious problems facing colleges and universities today is that so many students leave before finishing their studies. Robert J. Sternberg, writing for Inside Higher Ed, provides a roundup of the latest research involving retention in higher education.

Read the article from Inside Higher Ed here.

College as Country Club?

A paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research investigates whether or not colleges cater to students’ preferences for consumption. The study finds that most students do appear to value college consumption amenities, including spending on student activities, sports, and dormitories.

Read the abstract of paper here.

Fall College Enrollment Dropped in 2012

The National Student Clearinghouse® Research Center™ has released its Current Term Enrollment Estimates report. The report finds that in fall 2012, overall enrollments declined by 1.8% from fall 2011, with the largest decreases taking place among four‐year for‐profit institutions (‐7.2%) and two‐year public institutions (‐3.1%).The sectors experiencing the largest enrollment decreases in fall 2012 were the same sectors that experienced the largest growth during the recession.

Download the full report (.pdf) here.

Improving the College Scorecard

The White House will soon unveil a final version of its “college scorecard”—an online tool giving college-bound students and their families a hype-free snapshot of reliable information about any U.S. campus: real costs, graduation rates, student debt statistics, and earning potential of graduates. According to the Center for American Progress (CAP), to help students make better decisions, the scorecard must be easy to understand and relevant to their decision-making processes.

Read the CAP recommendations here.

Download the full report (.pdf) here.