America’s community colleges – and there are about 1,200 of them – educate more than 10 millions people every year. Community colleges serve a myriad of needs, ranging from training to swimming to language to college courses. Most community college students hope to obtain a four-year degree. Unfortunately, less than 40% are successful in earning…
Author: David Potash
There’s No System In Our Financial Aid System
Sara Goldrick-Rab is a respected professor of education with a rare trait: she is comfortable in the role of public intellectual. Her most recent book, Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream, has generated a good deal of well-deserved interest. It is a data-driven study that argues that the…
Lessons Learned: Manage From Your Outbox
William G. Bowen was a wise man of higher education. He passed away recently at the age of 83. As articles appeared in the press assessing his many accomplishments, I decided to read one of his nineteen books: Lessons Learned: Reflections of a University President. I wish I had earlier. It is full good observations and…
College Costs and the Price of Higher Education
It is rare to come across a book both so enlightening and as frustrating as “Why Does College Cost So Much?” The authors, Robert B. Archibald and David H. Feldman, are economists at the College of William and Mary. They are strong researchers and thoughtful analysts of higher education. They write well and their book…
Credentials and Credentialing
Higher education performs two critical functions: dissemination of knowledge and information (education), and certification of that knowledge and information (credentialing). We spend the majority of our work in higher education on the first half of that equation. We argue about relevance and value, about teaching and research, and wrestle endlessly about better ways to help…
Dominican American Studies and Empowerment
There is no one best model to understand immigration to the United States. It is shaped – uniquely – by country of origin, politics, history, and people. Two countries share the island of Hispaniola: Haiti and the Dominican Republic. From the early part of the 20th century and President Theodore Roosevelt’s interventionist foreign policy, the…
Civic Engagement and Civic Responsibility
Meira Levinson is an educator who walks the walk and talks the talk. A Harvard professor, she is trained in philosophy (Yale and Oxford) and has taught middle school in Atlanta in Boston. She is prolific – five books thus far – and influential, sitting on several boards and organizations. Her primary focus is civic education.…