Blogs about: Higher Education

Graduate Education: Funding, Outcomes, and Questions About the PhD

Graduate education produces the next generation of scholars and professionals, but the system has significant dysfunctions that affect student wellbei...

Faculty Diversity and the Student Experience: What the Research Shows

Students perform better, persist longer, and report stronger engagement when they encounter faculty who share their backgrounds. The research implicat...

Community College Transfer: Research on What Helps Students Move to Four-Year Degrees

Community colleges serve as a critical pathway to bachelor's degree completion for millions of students. Research on what helps and hinders trans...

The Student Debt Crisis: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Responses

Total student debt in the United States exceeds $1.7 trillion. Understanding how it accumulated requires understanding a set of interconnected policy ...

Campus Sexual Assault Prevention: What Research Shows About Effective Approaches

Sexual assault on college campuses is a serious and persistent problem. Research on the effectiveness of prevention programs and institutional respons...

Graduate Student Mental Health: What Research Shows About a Growing Crisis

Graduate students report mental health challenges at rates far exceeding the general population. Research on what drives this crisis and what institut...

Adjunctification: The Transformation of the Academic Workforce

Most college courses are now taught by contingent faculty, instructors without job security, benefits, or institutional support. The consequences for...

Faculty Diversity in Higher Education: Progress, Gaps, and What Works

Despite decades of effort, faculty diversity in US higher education remains far below student body diversity. Understanding what interventions work is...

The For-Profit College Sector: What Research Shows About Outcomes and Accountability

For-profit colleges have faced significant scrutiny. The evidence on student outcomes, debt, and institutional accountability shapes ongoing policy de...

First Generation College Students: What Institutions Owe Them

First generation students navigate college without inherited knowledge of how it works. Institutions that treat this as an individual student's p...