Search

Student records, and specifically academic transcripts, are the traditional record of a student's completed coursework and their earned credential at an educational institution. Transcripts can serve as proof and a signal to potential employers and other educational institutions that a student has engaged in certain learning activities and obtained knowledge in given areas. Early in 2021, staff members from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), the U.S. Department of Education and the regional compacts -- the Midwestern Higher Education Compact (MHEC), the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE), and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) -- met to discuss students' access to their records as a matter of student success. Three concerns were identified: student access to transcripts when there are financial or administrative holds placed on student accounts at institutions; access to student records when an institution closes; and the future of student records access. HLC and the regional compacts have continued to discuss and study the topic of transcript holds and closed school records. The issues surrounding transcript holds and closed school records have received ever greater attention in light of supporting student success since the pandemic. Because of the many ways the pandemic caused a re-thinking of business as usual, changes to transcript holds became a policy and process initiative at the federal, state, and institutional levels. The definition of student success for this paper includes enrolling in and completing a postsecondary education, transferring between institutions, earning licensure, securing employment, qualifying for military service, and other scenarios that vary by student. This paper provides an overview of student records issues, from an accreditor and regional compacts perspective. It includes recent legislative and policy actions at the federal and state levels as well as practitioner solutions and tools for institutions created by regional compacts, institutions, and other organizations. Resources are provided for those working at the institutional level as well as at the state or federal policy level to help students succeed.

Postsecondary education leaders are eager for reliable data to strategically plan for the next year through the next decade, and WICHE's projections of high school graduates are among the most relied upon sources. As WICHE has reported several times since the pandemic began, the disruption to student populations was illustrated with the shift of students previously enrolled in public education to other learning environments. Now, four years later, evidence is amassing that other previously stable factors, such as average annual learning patterns and where families enroll their students, have become less predictable for education, as well as workforce pipeline planning. With this brief, WICHE reviews how the evident K-12 learning impacts might affect projections of high school graduates. Even if enrollments appear to stabilize after pandemic lows, declines in elementary and secondary school learning and proficiency may present additional future challenges for postsecondary education.

In 2022, industry leaders voiced concerns to policymakers that Idaho was not producing enough engineering and computer science graduates from its public institutions to meet the needs of Idaho's economy. In response, the Idaho State Board of Education commissioned an analysis from Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) to explore the issue. Guided by an industry advisory group, the project team reviewed existing research, analyzed publicly available data as well as data from the state's longitudinal data system, modeled the projected supply of graduates, and conducted a range of employer engagement activities to answer two key questions: (1) Is the supply of engineering and computer science graduates from Idaho's public institutions adequate to meet current and projected industry demand?; and (2) If not, how can the state strategically address the gap between supply and demand?

Nationwide, public schools began to experience a youth population decline prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. After 14 years of successively smaller U.S. birth cohorts, elementary public schools now face gradually declining student counts. The complex convergence of shifting age demographics, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing educational inequities make it increasingly difficult to determine the primary driving force behind changes in public school populations. Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) advises education and policy leaders to access real-time state and local data, to determine the best course of action for strategies and investments that focus on recovery. In this brief, WICHE analyzed state-level public school enrollment data from fall 2020 and fall 2021 and compared it to the pre-pandemic projections in WICHE's 10th edition "Knocking at the College Door" published in 2020. This report includes recommendations for educational leaders and policymakers as they continue to grapple with the impacts of COVID-19 on the K-12 pipeline.

Idaho's dual credit programs, with a unique state funding model under Advanced Opportunities, have seen substantial growth in student usage in recent years. WICHE analyzed six key topics related to the state's dual credit model: (1) Fiscal impact of using Advanced Opportunities funds for dual credit students specifically; (2) Number of credits earned by dual credit students using Advanced Opportunities funds; (3) Rates of students earning dual credits who go on to attend postsecondary educational institutions measured from fall semester following high school graduation; (4) Retention rates of students earning dual credits in high school from their first fall to spring terms at their postsecondary institution; (5) First semester GPA of students earning dual credits in high school at a postsecondary institution (fall after high school graduation); and (6) Appropriateness of using Advanced Opportunities funds for dual credit students

Previous research from the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) found that prior learning assessment/credit for prior learning (PLA/CPL) 1 has a positive effect on adult student credential completion--an effect that was evident for every student subgroup analyzed in a study of PLA/CPL usage at 72 institutions--for different ages, genders, institutional environments, income levels, races, and ethnicities. There was, however, an "equity paradox" in the findings: PLA/CPL is shown to provide a strong completion boost to lower-income adults, Black adult students, and community college students, but they receive PLA/CPL at lower-than-average rates and, therefore, are less likely than other students to benefit from the completion boost. For this brief, the authors further analyzed the study sample, resulting in several deeper dive findings: (1) deeper dive finding on Pell Grant recipients; (2) deeper dive finding on service members; and (3) deeper dive finding on Black adult students. As an important tool for recognizing and valuing the learning that adult students bring to postsecondary education and potentially addressing attainment gaps, PLA/CPL should not be out of reach for the adult learners who can benefit most. Institutions interviewed for this deeper exploration offered some possible factors for the PLA/CPL disparities for Black and/or lower-income adult learners in the sample. There are many ways that institutions can take action to address some of the barriers this analysis revealed. [For the original report, "The PLA Boost: Results from a 72-Institution Targeted Study of Prior Learning Assessment and Adult Student Outcomes. Revised," see ED609770.]

In December 2020, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education released projections for future high school graduating classes in its 10th edition of "Knocking at the College Door" [ED610996]. At the time, it was unknown whether or not the projections based on pre-pandemic data would match the reality to come. This report attempts to address that question through an analysis of public high school enrollment and graduate data for the past two years.

For more than 50 years, colleges and universities have used a range of different methods to award college credit for learning that takes place outside of the classroom--particularly learning from work, life, and military experiences. These methods--often called prior learning assessment (PLA) or credit for prior learning (CPL)--value the learning that many adult students bring with them to college. An important question is whether earning credit through PLA makes a difference for the adult student in terms of their ability to complete a postsecondary credential. This study examined data provided by 72 postsecondary institutions about the enrollment, credit-earning, and degree-earning of more than 465,000 students of all ages, focusing in particular on more than 232,000 adult learners (defined as students age 25 and older) from 69 of the participating institutions that were able to provide the most detailed data on PLA credit-earning. While this report provides clear and compelling evidence that PLA can be an important tool to support adult student credential completion, there is still much work to do. Institutions need to provide multiple methods for adults to have various types of learning evaluated and recognized. PLA options should be promoted early and often, so that the recognition of learning becomes integrated into the institution's culture, and indeed, the learn-and-work ecosystem. And institutions need to invest in staff who can oversee PLA promotion, ensure its integrity, create greater access, and build acceptance across the institution. [This report has been revised from the original due to the discovery of an error in the dataset. For the original version of this report, see ED608563. For the updated executive summary, see ED609771. For the updated appendices, see ED609772.]

Adult students--whether just starting college or returning after stopping or dropping out--often have significant college-level learning they have acquired outside of academia. Postsecondary institutions have the option to evaluate that learning for the purpose of awarding credit or otherwise recognizing the learning so that it can count toward a postsecondary degree or other credential. The methods that colleges use to evaluate this learning are typically referred to with terms like prior learning assessment (PLA), credit for prior learning (CPL), or recognition of learning. An important question is whether earning credit through PLA makes a difference for the adult student in terms of their ability to complete a postsecondary credential. This study examined data provided by 72 postsecondary institutions about the enrollment, credit-earning, and degree-earning of more than 465,000 students of all ages, focusing in particular on more than 232,000 adult learners (defined as students age 25 and older) from 69 of the participating institutions that were able to provide the most detailed data on PLA credit-earning. Academic record data was provided for the period between the academic year 2011-2012 and the end of 2018, a seven-and-a-half-year period. While this report provides clear and compelling evidence that PLA can be an important tool to support adult student credential completion, there is still much work to do. Institutions must make concerted efforts to encourage low-income adult students and adult students of color--particularly Black adult students--to take advantage of PLA offerings and to understand why their benefit from PLA appears to be lower than that of other students. By assessing learning, recognizing learning, and valuing learning, postsecondary institutions and workforce agencies will help more learners and workers earn the credentials they need to reach their goals. [This report has been revised from the original due to the discovery of an error in the dataset. For the updated full report, see ED609770. For the updated appendices, see ED609772.]

This report describes the adult student's experience with prior learning assessment (PLA) using student record data from 72 degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the United States, primarily focusing on the data from 69 of those institutions based on the more detailed data provided by those institutions to the study. Researchers from the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) and the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE) collected student record data from the participating institutions (which included data from the National Student Clearinghouse's Student Tracker on students' enrollment and completion at institutions other than that participating institution), as well as information on the institutions' PLA policies and practices and adult learner policies and programs through an online questionnaire. The research team also drew on institutional-level data through Integrated Postsecondary Data Systems (IPEDS) and interviews with PLA administrators at six of the participating institutions and with six recent adult learner graduates who had used PLA at the participating institutions. The main report focuses on adult students who matriculated for the first time at the participating institutions during the academic year 2011-2012, their patterns of PLA credit-earning (whether they had any PLA credits, the number of PLA credits, and the method of earning the PLA credits), and comparisons of credential completion by adult students with PLA and adult students without PLA, with credentials including associate degrees, bachelor's degrees, and postsecondary certificates. This appendix describes the methods used to field and select institutions to participate in the study, the process for selecting institutions and students for interviews, the IRB process, how we defined the student cohort included in the analysis (including decisions on which students to exclude from the analysis), variables used (both collected and constructed), data cleaning decisions, specific details about the propensity score matching analysis, and advisors consulted. [Select tables in Appendix D have been revised from the original due to the discovery of an error in the dataset. For the original appendices, see ED608566. For the updated main report, see ED609770. For the updated executive summary, see ED609771.]

At the core of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education's (WICHE's) mission to ensure access and excellence in higher education for all citizens of the West, WICHE's 10th edition of "Knocking at the College Door" provides detailed data and projections of the number of high school graduates for the nation, four geographical regions, and the states, including public high school graduates by race/ethnicity. Although these projections do not account for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on K-12 enrollments and graduations -- because data for the high school graduating Class of 2020 have not yet been reported by states -- they still show important trends and are an essential benchmark for monitoring and understanding the impact that the pandemic has on different groups of students. The data also provide an important measure of how the improvement in graduation rates is offsetting some -- but not all -- of the expected declines in the number of graduates due to declining birth rates. Additionally, the projections show continuing trends of diversification among public high school graduates, with students of color expected to make up an even greater share of the graduating class in the future. Six key findings emerged from this edition of "Knocking at the College Door": (1) Nationally, the number of high school graduates is expected to peak in the mid-2020s before entering a period of modest decline through the end of the projections in 2037; (2) These projections show an increase in the number of graduates of about 10 percent over the previous projections; (3) COVID-19 introduces significant uncertainty into the projections; (4) Increased diversification of the graduating classes is a projected trend; (5) Private school enrollments have been more volatile than previously projected but have shown strong growth in recent years; and (6) Significant state and regional variation are important features of these projections. [For the 9th edition of this report, see ED573115.]

This report describes the adult student's experience with prior learning assessment (PLA) using student record data from 72 degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the United States, primarily focusing on the data from 69 of those institutions based on the more detailed data provided by those institutions to the study. Researchers from the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) and the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE) collected student record data from the participating institutions (which included data from the National Student Clearinghouse's Student Tracker on students' enrollment and completion at institutions other than that participating institution), as well as information on the institutions' PLA policies and practices and adult learner policies and programs through an online questionnaire. The research team also drew on institutional-level data through Integrated Postsecondary Data Systems (IPEDS) and interviews with PLA administrators at six of the participating institutions and with six recent adult learner graduates who had used PLA at the participating institutions. The main report focuses on adult students who matriculated for the first time at the participating institutions during the academic year 2011-2012, their patterns of PLA credit-earning (whether they had any PLA credits, the number of PLA credits, and the method of earning the PLA credits), and comparisons of credential completion by adult students with PLA and adult students without PLA, with credentials including associate degrees, bachelor's degrees, and postsecondary certificates. This appendix describes the methods used to field and select institutions to participate in the study, the process for selecting institutions and students for interviews, the Institutional Review Board (IRB) process, how the student cohort included in the analysis was defined (including decisions on which students to exclude from the analysis), variables used (both collected and constructed), data cleaning decisions, specific details about the propensity score matching analysis, and advisors consulted. [For the main report, see ED608563.]

For more than 50 years, colleges and universities have used a range of different methods to award college credit for learning that takes place outside of the classroom--particularly learning from work, life, and military experiences. These methods--often called prior learning assessment (PLA) or credit for prior learning (CPL)--value the learning that many adult students bring with them to college. The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning's (CAEL's) 2010 report, "Fueling the Race to Postsecondary Success" (see ED524753) showed that students with PLA were two and a half times more likely to complete baccalaureate degrees. The report also raised awareness of PLA and growing commitment to PLA on many fronts--colleges and universities, foundations, policymakers, and government agencies. In short, the decade paid much welcome attention to adult learners and PLA. So it made sense to ask again: What has happened to PLA 10 years after the baseline research? Lumina Foundation and Strada Education Network joined forces to support new research. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) and CAEL partnered to update the original study, especially to include more community colleges than were included 10 years ago; and to assess the landscape of PLA by commissioning a series of briefs on key aspects. This new study examined data provided by 72 postsecondary institutions about the enrollment, credit-earning, and degree-earning of more than 465,000 students of all ages. On the whole, the results strongly reinforce the main takeaway from 10 years ago: PLA does boost credential completion rates for adult students. This positive effect is still evident for all student subgroups, regardless of race, ethnicity, income level, institutional sector, and many other categories. The 2010 and 2020 studies reveal that even when PLA usage is low, the effect on adult student completion can still be substantial. [For the accompanying appendices, see ED608566.]

The first round of data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System's (IPEDS) newest survey component, Outcome Measures (OM), was released to the public in Fall 2017. Importantly, the IPEDS OM survey begins to address some of the limitations of the prevailing Graduation Rate (GR) component data. These rates have only included "traditional" college outcomes of first-time students, leaving out part-time students and many types of non-first-time students. Now that the wider diversity of students is represented, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) observes important and even surprising trends about student outcomes. In this brief, WICHE explains the differences between the long-standing GR data and these new OM data. It also illustrates the additional progression and completion information the OM data provide about public postsecondary institutions in the WICHE region (representing 16 states and territories in the Western United States) and their undergraduate populations. The final section of the brief details additional changes to be incorporated in the next wave of OM data, and the Technical Glossary provides cohort and element definitions.

In the December 2016 edition of "Knocking at the College Door," Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) projected that the U.S. is headed into a period of stagnation in the overall number of high school graduates it produces, and that high school graduates from private religious and nonsectarian schools would decline. New data have become available, and they confirm WICHE's overall projections, but modify the projections for private high school graduates (who constitute about 9 percent of the total number of high school graduates in the nation). Specifically, declines in the future number of private high school graduates no longer appear imminent through at least 2018. WICHE is not issuing new projections of private high school graduates at this time, but presents in this report the newly released data that have been posted to knocking.wiche.edu, so that users of the Knocking projections may analyze them alongside the published projections. [For "Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates, 9th Edition. Revised," see ED573115.]

According to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education's (WICHE's) 9th edition of its quadrennial "Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates," released in December 2016, the overall number of U.S. high school graduates will plateau, then begin to decline, within the next decade. Further, the high school graduate population will continue to diversify, fueled primarily by decreases in the White student population combined with large increases in the number of Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander public high school graduates (50 percent more and 30 percent more, respectively) through about 2025. This demographic shift suggests that non-White student populations will be the key source of growth in the number of high school graduates for the foreseeable future; that growth potential is suppressed, however, by their lower-than-average graduation rates. This brief, a supplement to WICHE's December 2016 report, aims to advance the conversation on these demographic changes and offer additional detail about trends that influence higher education decision-making. In this brief, the previously published national, regional, and state race/ethnicity projections are now also disaggregated by student sex. These more-detailed projections further expose the pervasiveness of gaps in graduation rates for minority males. As the nation and many states enter a period of declining numbers of youth, improving high school graduation rates among minority males is critical to increasing overall educational attainment. [This report is a supplement to "Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates, 9th Edition. Revised" (ED573115).]

The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education's (WICHE's) ninth edition of "Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates," published in December 2016 (revised February 2017), quantified how the demographic changes that are underway with America's youth population will be evidenced in the next 15 years of high school graduates. The purpose of this brief is to present universal trends and the variation within, with a focus on the WICHE West states. Across the nation, graduating classes are projected to gradually become smaller at the same time that they become even more diverse. While the national projections describe universal trends, there is variation among the four geographical regions and states. In some states, primarily in the South and West, robust increases are projected for the number of graduates overall and the overwhelming majority of these will be non-White and primarily Hispanic. Where increases are projected, they will peak around 2025. In states with projected growth, the number of high school graduates is expected to decrease by as much as 8 percent into the early 2030s. The West is projected to have modest growth in the number of high school graduates through 2024, and then the number will rapidly contract, driven by declines in Hispanic high school graduates. [To view "Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates," see ED573115.]

Too many parts of the world are suffering from conflict and its repercussions. Millions of children and young people are at risk of not reaching their full potential. Before more decades of development efforts are undone and future progress is blocked, it is a moral obligation of society to collectively find ways to foster social cohesion among communities, resilience in systems and individuals, and a sense of security in daily lives. The Learning for Peace programme attempted to do just that. This Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy in Conflict-Affected Contexts (PBEA) Programme Report summarizes processes, results and learning that occurred during the entire course of the PBEA programme--Learning for Peace--from 1 December 2011 through 30 June 2016. It draws extensively on reports produced by the 14 participating UNICEF country offices, five regional offices, a total of nine headquarters sections, units or divisions, and partners engaged in the programme. These documents were systematically coded and analysed for this report. This evidence was supplemented by a review of an extensive body of research produced within and outside the auspices of the programme. Members of the Learning for Peace Programme Management Team, along with other technical advisers and experts at UNICEF headquarters, provided additional insight and analysis. UNICEF hopes that the testimonies of approaches, achievements and challenges documented in this report inform its readers of how education (or social services more broadly) can be harnessed to build peace. [Funding for this programme was provided by the Government of the Netherlands.]

This issue of "Policy Insights" reviews the results of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education's (WICHE) annual survey of tuition and fees at public colleges and universities in the WICHE region and discusses related policy implications. Overall, tuition and fees in the WICHE region increased relatively little in 2015-16 (and even decreased in Oregon and Washington), slightly less than the national average rate of change. And state appropriations to higher education in the West have generally stabilized in the past several years. But in this climate of overall positive news about higher education financing, families and students continue to struggle with the high costs of a college education. "Free college" initiatives have gotten a lot of attention as a possible solution to college affordability, student borrowing continues to be an important part of the affordability discussion, and affordability has the potential to affect states' attainment of higher education and workforce goals.

Every day, girls and boys around the world face many forms of physical, sexual and psychological violence in and around schools. On too many occasions, such violence is tolerated by societies and institutions, including schools, and it is these forms of violence that contribute to the alarming numbers of girls and boys being excluded from schools with their learning chances under threat. In response, UNICEF and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), have joined forces to launch the "End Gender Violence in Schools" Initiative combining research, capacity building and knowledge exchange to contribute to one of the most critical education objectives today: increased equity, gender equality and inclusion for all in a full cycle of quality education, targeting the poorest and most marginalized. School-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) represents one of the worst forms of gender-based discrimination and requires coordinated, cross-sectoral approaches and responses with a variety of partners across sectors and institutions, at national, regional and global levels. UNICEF has partnered with UCL Institute of Education, the UN Girl's Education Initiative and governments and partners in Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Togo, and Zambia. A major product of this partnership, this Global Review of Literature examined the latest research evidence on approaches to addressing SRGBV. The review found that research efforts around SRGBV tend to focus on short-term, local level interventions with limited attention to policies and policy implementation processes. The most promising interventions are multi-layered and address the links between violence, identities, social and cultural norms and intersecting structural inequalities. However, how to sustain and institutionalize work on gender and violence in schools and communities is less known. Most importantly, the review finds that a focus on resources and efforts are needed to build a robust evidence base that supports policy, practice, monitoring and evaluation at all levels.

In July 2014, President Obama signed into law the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), a major restructuring and modernization of U.S. workforce development programs originally created through the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA), which had been awaiting reauthorization for more than a decade. This brief provides an overview of key components of WIOA that are most relevant for state postsecondary education planners and leaders as they address issues of educational attainment and workforce skill needs, particularly among lower-income or less-skilled segments of their state. Among the legislation's most notable features are the facets that pave the way for states to make greater use of cross-system partnerships, career pathway models, performance measurement and data-driven improvement, and other mechanisms for bringing their workforce training and higher education agendas into better alignment. Much of this activity will play out at the local level, but state higher education leaders can be instrumental in facilitating the engagement of their institutions with these partnerships at both the state and local levels. Additionally, community colleges in particular will want to pursue a broader dialogue with public workforce agencies because changes in WIOA make postsecondary training a more immediate possibility for workforce customers than was previously the case. This brief presents specific opportunities for forging stronger links between the public workforce and postsecondary education systems and examples of states that are making progress on that front.

This issue of "Policy Insights" reviews the results from the annual survey, conducted by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), of tuition and fees at public colleges and universities in the WICHE region, and discusses related policy implications. The WICHE region includes 15 states--Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawai'i, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming--and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the first of the U.S. Pacific territories and freely associated states to participate as a WICHE member. Complete data from the survey are available in "Tuition and Fees in Public Higher Education in the West, 2014-15: Detailed Tuition and Fees Tables" (www.wiche.edu/pub/tf), published by WICHE in November 2014. The survey was administered in the summer and fall of 2014 to state higher education executive offices or system offices in the Western states. Survey results indicate that the average resident undergraduate tuition and fees for the academic year 2014-15 at public two-year institutions in the WICHE region (excluding California) increased by 2 percent ($67) from the previous year, while published prices at public four-year institutions grew by 2.3 percent ($180). By comparison, nationally, the one-year increase was 3.1 percent for both two-year and fouryear institutions. In general, state appropriations to higher education have stabilized in the past several years, though some states are still facing a challenging funding environment, and states are tackling the issue of affordability from a variety of angles.