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
New World Reputation Rankings Unleashed
By Watson Scott Swail, President & Senior Research Scholar, Educational Policy Institute The UK-based Times Higher Education (THE) released their 2018 World Reputation Rankings today. This is a different ranking from THE’s World University Rankings, as the reputation piece focuses on an invitational-only survey of scholars from various universities around the world. Harvard University is the number one school, so it was given a score of … Continue reading New World Reputation Rankings Unleashed
The New Dropout Crisis? Not so New
By Watson Scott Swail, President & Senior Research Scholar, Educational Policy Institute The New York Times David Leonhardt, one of the few journalists that I read on a daily basis, published an article this morning on the “new dropout crisis.” The crisis, in this case, is that the national college dropout rate has eclipsed the national high school dropout rate. While I am glad to see … Continue reading The New Dropout Crisis? Not so New
Declining Enrollments? Not Such a Big Deal
By Watson Scott Swail, President & Senior Research Scholar, Educational Policy Institute A new report released yesterday by the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) reported that undergraduate enrollments were down 1.3 percent from the previous year, equivalent to 231,674 students from the previous spring. The biggest losses were in the two-year public sector, which accounted for over half of the losses (53 percent; 107,393), and the four-year, … Continue reading Declining Enrollments? Not Such a Big Deal
Cliff Notes
By Watson Scott Swail, President & Senior Research Scholar, Educational Policy Institute Cliff Adelman passed away last week. To the uninitiated, Cliff was arguably the best data analyst on student issues that this world has ever seen. This is not an overstatement nor hyperbole. I’ve met most of them around the world at some point and he was leaps above any of them. If you don’t … Continue reading Cliff Notes
The Swail Letter on Higher Education 