College: 4-year

This report describes the Keeping Options Open program, a collaborative partnership between Johnson County Community College and Johnson County high schools that help students develop career and life plans. This three-year tiered pilot program for parents and students intends to link academic readiness with career development. The program led to communication among school counselors and parents.

This report from the California Dropout Research Project discusses the improvement of high school outcomes by combining career-technical education (CTE) with college preparatory coursework in the curriculum. The author examines the effects of three approaches - like career academies or career-technical sequences - to this curriculum on high school students, and recommends that efforts to combining the curriculum should continue to develop despite implementation difficulties and uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness.

This report from Jobs for the Future highlights successful practices from North Carolina’s early college high schools. The report examines the effects these practices have had on students successfully completing the schools’ requirements. Successful practices include collaborative group work, literacy groups, and classroom conversations, among others.

This MDRC resource provides an overview of the College Match Program which has been designed to support students who may not plan to attend college or may plan to attend a less competitive (academically) college, and who are prepared for college. The program is designed to support students who may not have resources of parents/households with information about college and particularly how to make decisions about the best college that fits students needs (academically, financially and socially).

This report provides information on student levels of college and career readiness across the United States based on their performance on the ACT. In addition to showing performance on ACT-related college and career readiness metrics and trends in performance over time, the report provides recommendations to states, districts, and schools to help increase college and career readiness.

This report provides information on transition services for students with disabilities as they moved toward postsecondary pathways. Four federal agencies, the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor, and the Social Security Administration all provide transition services, but these efforts are not well-coordinated around a common goal.

This report from the Annenberg Institute for School Reform highlights successful college readiness strategies, identifies college readiness research and policy gaps, and discusses the role of the community in college readiness initiatives. The information, collected through a scan of the field, is organized using three college readiness dimensions (academic preparation, academic tenacity, and college knowledge) and provides brief descriptions of policies and programs reflecting each dimension.

This study examined the relationship between social networking and academic performance in high school and college enrollment trends among white and Hispanic youth. The analysis used longitudinal data from a representative sample of high school seniors in the state of Texas. Time spent on homework and social networking, especially interactions with high school counselors, predicted college enrollment of Hispanic female students. Grade point average and taking college preparation courses predicted college enrollment of white female students.

This article presents a four-year case study on the impact that an urban college preparatory charter high school had on the postsecondary outcomes of its graduates. Through analysis of staff and teacher interviews, the impact that logistical constraints and staff turnover had on the implementation of the school’s mission to prepare educationally and socially disadvantaged students for college was revealed.

This article presents on the degree to which college-going indicators in urban high schools are associated with low-income students applying to, enrolling in and attending four-year colleges. Findings indicate that students that are provided substantial guidance through the college application process, attend schools with patterns of and high expectations for college attendance and have high participation in financial aid applications are more likely to apply to, enroll in, and attend four-year colleges that match their qualifications.