"Judging schools by raw admission rates alone can be misleading. Schools that enroll larger shares of students from high-income families and fewer students with disabilities, for example, tend to send more students to UC campuses regardless of school quality."
"This year's increase in undergraduate credential attainment isn't just about more completions-it's also about timing. More students are earning certificates and degrees earlier and that shift reflects how postsecondary pathways are changing and starting sooner than they once did."
One of my favorite movies is Good Will Hunting. Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon) is a 20-year-old janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although he works a blue-collar job, he is secretly a self-taught genius with an extraordinary gift for mathematics and an exceptional memory. One day, he anonymously solves a complex math problem left on a chalkboard by Professor Gerald Lambeau, astonishing the faculty.
I was like, 'What do you mean, I can actually work and take some classes?' I didn't even know there were apprenticeships out there, because I thought it was something of the past. That was my dream-to go into some field of engineering-so it was great to find something like AT&T, which has an apprenticeship program where you can jump into it, which later becomes software engineering.
For many students, vertical transfer (transfer from an associate's to a bachelor's program) is less a bridge than a maze. Typically, about 80 percent of community college students say they intend to earn a bachelor's degree, yet only about 30 percent ever transfer and roughly 16 percent complete a bachelor's within six years. Yet under these topline numbers, outcomes vary widely. And figuring out which combinations of student actions and background factors matter, and which pathways are most promising, can be a complicated mess.
Young people are "experiencing higher education differently, and that is shaping much of what parents are saying," said Lammers. "[Parents] are reacting to the questions their children are asking and trying to find the best way to help them navigate the next steps."
While overall more people are choosing college, there are important shifts happening in where students are going and where they're not. Enrollment at private four-year colleges is down. Fewer people are enrolled in master's degree programs. But enrollment is up at four-year public universities and at community colleges. There, it's driven by students choosing short-term credentials tied to the workforce.
