A new report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education addresses the persistently high dropout rates from big-city secondary schools using multiple pathways to graduation. Early results, for example from New York City, suggest that creating multiple pathways to graduation might rescue many students who would otherwise have dropped out of school, and measurably increase a city's overall graduation rate. Multiple pathways initiatives are relatively new and far from proven. Even the most advanced examples face significant issues, i.e., the need to demonstrate that students who graduate via multiple pathways are as well prepared as graduates from regular high schools. To read more
Increasing proportions of low-income young adults are pursuing higher education, but some remain poor even with a postsecondary degree, according to a new report from the Institute for Higher Education Policy. In 2008, among Americans ages 18 to 26 whose total household income was near or below the federal poverty level, 47 percent were or had been enrolled in college, compared with 42 percent in 2000. Eleven percent of them had earned a degree, a proportion roughly equivalent to that eight years ago, according to the report, which is based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. . . . Poor students go to college academically unprepared, the report says, and, amid competing family and work obligations, they accumulate debt "that could have been avoided by pursuing a different type of degree or a credential." To read more
