Getting to Graduation: The Completion Agenda in Higher Education

Acknowledgments

acknowledgments Over the past five years the nation has undergone a fundamental reordering of priorities in higher education policy. Previously concerned primarily with access (getting more students through the doors), political rhetoric and policy debates have now shifted to a focus on completion (ensuring that more students earn a degree). This rethinking has been pushed by a number of lofty expectations and goals, including President Barack Obama’s ambition to produce eight million more degrees by the year 2020. In the wake of this ambitious agenda change, a number of questions have been raised about whether our system of higher education institutions and policies, as currently conceived, is capable of delivering the dramatic increases in productivity necessary to meet these new goals. To describe and analyze this challenge, we commissioned new research from top researchers and policy analysts. The eleven chapters that resulted present an overview of the new challenges and policy issues facing the nascent “completion agenda” and discuss lessons from several states that have experimented with various reforms. We believe our contributors have provided thought-provoking research and arguments that will help to shape policy debates in the years to come. The chapters in this volume were initially presented at a research conference at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in February 2011. We thank the following discussants for their invaluable feedback from that conference: Dewayne Matthews, vice president for policy and strategy at the Lumina Foundation; Travis Reindl, head of postsecondary education work for the National Governors Association; Sara Goldrick-Rab, assistant professor of educational policy studies and sociology at the University of Wisconsin; Susan Dynarski, associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Michigan; Eduardo Ochoa, assistant secretary for postsecondary education at the U.S. Department of Education; and George Pernsteiner, chancellor of the Oregon University System. Their thoughtful comments and constructive criticism strengthened the volume considerably. vii viii Acknowledgments We are grateful for the unwavering support provided by the American Enterprise Institute and its president, Arthur Brooks. The project would not have been possible without the generous financial support of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and we are deeply indebted to our program officers for their support and guidance throughout. Thanks also to the staff at AEI, who coordinated the conference and helped complete and edit this volume. In particular, we would like to thank Olivia Meeks and Daniel Lautzenheiser for their diligent efforts, as well as Jenna Talbot and Whitney Downs for their vital assistance. Finally, we are deeply indebted to the terrific team at the Johns Hopkins University Press, most notably executive editor Jacqueline Wehmueller and editorial assistant Sara Cleary, who consistently supported and enriched our efforts to make this volume a reality. ...