June 2010 | Developmental Ed: Key to student success

Our big goal: To increase the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by the year 2025.

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21st century students need a higher education system that meets their needs.

Lumina advocates three critical outcomes to build this system and increase the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees by 2025: Better pre-college preparation, greater support for student success, and improved productivity in higher education.

Developmental education is one bridge to this goal.

Developmental Ed | Vital to student success, workplace
Developmental education is an investment in the workforce and an important tool for college attainment. Getting Past Go, from the Education Commission of the States , suggests that more effective education policies and practices can serve as the “girders, columns and footings” necessary to earn a college credential. More.

Workforce | Jobs & education
The nation will have a shortage of 3 million workers with the required postsecondary degrees to fill the jobs of the future. Read the report Help Wanted: Projecting Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018 from the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University. More.

Goal 2025 | Lumina’s 2009 Annual Report
Lumina’s Goal 2025 calls for increasing the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by the year 2025. Our 2009 annual report tracks the early progress.

3 critical outcomes
lead to achievement
of the big goal.

Preparation

Students are prepared academically, financially and socially for success in education beyond high school.

Success

Higher education attainment rates are improved significantly.

Productivity

Higher education productivity is increased to expand capacity and serve more students.

Access | The GED among Hispanics
Hispanic high school dropouts are far less likely to earn General Educational Development credentials than White or Black high school dropouts, contends Hispanics, High School Dropouts and the GED, from the Pew Hispanic Center. Among Hispanic dropouts, some 21 percent of the native born have a GED, compared with 5 percent of the foreign born.

Affordability | The financial aid challenge
Community colleges serve the most financially disadvantaged students, yet too many qualified students do not receive enough financial help, concludes The Financial Aid Challenge: Successful Practices That Address the Underutilization of Financial Aid in Community Colleges. This College Board report includes success stories and recommendations to help community college leaders increase the number of students applying for and receiving financial aid.

Attainment | Condition of Education 2010
While the percentage of students earning bachelor’s degrees is increasing, so, too, are the gaps in bachelor’s degree attainment between White students and their Black and Hispanic counterparts. According to The Condition of Education 2010, from the National Center for Education Statistics, the Black-White gap in the proportion of 25- to-29-year-olds with bachelor’s degrees increased from 12 percent to 18 percent between 1971 and 2009. The Hispanic-White gap rose from 14 percent to 25 percent.

College readiness | National academic standards set
A year-long effort to define a common set of academic standards culminated on June 2 with the final version of the Common Core State Standards. The standards establish consistent learning goals across states to help students graduate from high school ready for college.

Degree completion | New options in higher ed
Applied baccalaureate degree programs represent a viable pathway for many non-traditional students to earn a bachelor’s degree and thereby help states address workforce needs. Holly Zanville, Lumina senior program director, discusses the role of applied baccalaureate degrees in increasing college-degree attainment in this interview with the Office of Community College Research and Leadership – Illinois.

Data | Bachelor’s degree holders rise
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that the number of U.S. residents with at least a bachelor’s degree climbed 34 percent between 1999 and 2009, from 43.8 million to 58.6 million. Read more degree-attainment trends in Educational Attainment in the United States: 2009.

Insight | The influence of Bologna Process
Educator/researcher Barbara M. Kehm writes about the Bologna Process and Tuning Project in Change magazine. Originally a reform of educational structures and degrees, the Bologna agenda has increasingly focused on curricular content and cooperation in quality assurance to make degrees and qualifications more compatible and comparable.

Public policy | Wanted: innovation as the norm
The Course of Innovation, from the Education Sector, chronicles the National Center for Academic Transformation efforts to help colleges and universities use information technology to redesign learning environments and improve student learning and productivity while reducing institutional costs. The report concludes that without greater support from federal and state policymakers and more openness to change from colleges and universities, this proven method of innovation will continue to be the exception, rather than the norm.

High-quality degrees | Well-defined, transparent
High-quality degrees provide pathways to further education and employment. Watch Dewayne Matthews, Lumina’s vice president for policy and strategy, at a National Press Club panel discussion, sponsored by Arizona State University. More.

Capacity building | The state of metro America
Americans are growing more educated, but progress appears to be slowing among younger adults. The State of Metropolitan America, from the Brookings Institution , shows that while the share of U.S. adults holding a four-year college degree rose from 24 percent to 28 percent from 2000 to 2008, a lower share of 25-to 34 year-olds than 35- to 44 year-olds held a four-year college degree in 2008.

Workforce development | California’s Master Plan
From Chaos to Order and Back, from the Center For Studies in Higher Education , revisits how California developed its pioneering higher education system, what the 1960 Master Plan accomplished, and what the state must do to grow and improve in performance indicators such as degree production rates.