Category: 2018

2018, Research/Policy

The Higher Education Machine

By Watson Scott Swail, President & Senior Research Scholar, Educational Policy Institute   I receive emails and have emails forwarded to me of the many companies that provide consulting services to higher education. As a disclaimer, EPI provides consulting as well, mostly through my personal keynotes and workshops at institutions. However, the sheer scale of the third-party vendor arena is mindnumbing. Literally thousands of companies are … Continue reading The Higher Education Machine

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2018, Research/Policy, Student Success

The Complex “Question” of Gender Identity

By Watson Scott Swail, President & Senior Research Scholar, Educational Policy Institute Which gender are you? Seems like a simple question, but not so much anymore. With the coming US Census as well as other annual surveys by the federal government in the US and in other countries around the world, there are more considerations about how we get to the issue of gender identity and … Continue reading The Complex “Question” of Gender Identity

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2018, Retention, Student Success

In Need of Institutional Grit

By Watson Scott Swail, President & Senior Research Scholar, Educational Policy Institute To listen to today’s Swail Letter on your device, click on the podcast icon below. Last week I wrote about the issues of college admissions, selectivity, and grit. I can’t seem to read anything lately without hearing more about grit. As mentioned, grit is a term coined, to a degree, by Angela Duckworth in … Continue reading In Need of Institutional Grit

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2018, Retention, Student Success

College Admissions, Selectivity, and Grit

By Watson Scott Swail, President & Senior Research Scholar, Educational Policy Institute In 2013, Angela Duckworth became a bit of a phenomenon for her book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.” She toured the talk shows and became the flag-bearer for showcasing that individual passion had much more to do with future ability than purely academics. Five years later, there are many critics of the … Continue reading College Admissions, Selectivity, and Grit

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2018, Research/Policy, ROI/College Outcomes

Beware the Rhetoric About the Over Importance of a BA

By Watson Scott Swail, President & Senior Research Scholar, Educational Policy Institute An article posted yesterday in MarketWatch trumpeted that 9 out of 10 new jobs are going to those with a college degree. The article uses data from Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce. It is important to note that these data—while accurate—are also cherry picked from a very specific time period that overemphasizes … Continue reading Beware the Rhetoric About the Over Importance of a BA

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