This blog was co-authored by Sarah Ancel of Student-Ready Strategies, Sarah Pingel of NCHEMS, and Andy Carlson of CollegeAPP. Nearly two decades ago, states began setting educational attainment goals pegged to workforce needs. These targets were intended to focus elected officials, state agency leaders, and institutions on a common objective: preparing their states with a competitive, educated workforce. As these goals were developed, however, demographic changes sweeping the

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) and Student-Ready Strategies (SRS) are proud to announce the launch of a new initiative to improve student success through structural change on college campuses. Over the next three years, state higher education agencies from Nevada and Washington will participate in Constellation of Support: A Capacity-Building Approach to Institutional Change. This innovative initiative aims to tackle institutional capacity

One of the core pieces of information colleges and universities routinely convey to their students is a list of courses they must take to graduate. These curricular requirements can be found on the institution’s website, in course catalogs, and in degree pathway course maps. There is a small, but significant word that appears frequently in these course lists: the word “OR.” What “or” means to a first-time, first-year student at a four-year institution To fulfill degree requi

If we had only one sentence to describe our work, it is this: We fix broken systems in higher education.

College transfer is a hot topic in today’s higher education landscape - in both policy and practice. According to the Tackling Transfer initiative, up to 80% of community college students want to earn a bachelor’s degree. However, only 31% will actually transfer to a four-year institution, and only 14% will actually graduate with the degree they aspired to achieve. These numbers are dismal, and we see similarly low transfer outcomes in most states (that is, states where these