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Browsing by Author "Kahlenberg, Richard D."

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Achieving Better Diversity. Reforming Affirmative Action in Higher Education
    Kahlenberg, Richard D. (The Century Foundation, 2015-12-03)
    The debate over affirmative action policies in higher education—which has spanned nearly five decades— has shifted in recent years. Today, the discussion is not so much about whether having racially and ethnically diverse college campuses is desirable, but rather about how best to achieve that worthy objective.This report proceeds in four parts. Part I explains why racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic inclusion are essential goals for selective colleges and universities. Part II outlines why current practices—which heavily consider race and mostly ignore socioeconomic disadvantage—are legally vulnerable. Part III examines in detail the empirical evidence on the pivotal question in the Fisher II case: Do race-neutral strategies for producing diversity work? Part IV looks to what’s next for affirmative action—outlining innovative new paths to diversity and the exciting new political environment that could flow from updated forms of affirmative action.
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    The Future of Affirmative Action New Paths to Higher Education Diversity after Fisher v. University of Texas
    Kahlenberg, Richard D. (The Century Foundation, 2014-06-01)
    As the United States experiences dramatic demographic change—and as our society’s income inequality continues to rise—promoting racial, ethnic, and economic inclusion at selective colleges has become more important than ever. In this book, the authors tackle the critical questions: What is the future of affirmative action given the requirements of the Fisher court? What can be learned from the experiences of states that created race-neutral strategies in response to voter initiatives and other actions banning consideration of race at public universities? What does research by higher education scholars suggest are the most promising new strategies for promoting diversity in a manner that the courts will support? How do public policies need to change in order to tap into the talents of all students in a new legal and political environment?
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    How Higher Education Funding Shortchanges Community Colleges
    Kahlenberg, Richard D. (The Century Foundation, 2015-05-28)
    The outcomes today at community colleges are often dismal. While 81 percent of first-time community college students say they wish to earn a bachelor’s degree or more, after six years, only 12 percent do so; two-thirds fail to get even an associate’s degree or certificate after six years. With 86 percent of high school graduates going on to college, the central challenge in higher education has shifted from access to college to something different: access to high-quality programs that have the support to ensure graduation. Given these low completion rates, new accountability measures are coming to higher education. This report looks at three key issues surrounding the funding of higher education: (1) What are the overall variations in spending between community colleges and four-year institutions, and do the justifications advanced for those differences hold up? (2) Are the current (relatively low) levels of funding at community colleges efficient, or inefficient? (3) Does it make sense to move toward a K–12 style system of “adequacy” funding in higher education, where public funding would be weighted toward institutions such as community colleges, which educate large numbers of low-income students? How would such a system work?
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    A New Era of Civil Rights: Proposals to Address the Economic Inequalities in Robert Putnam’s “Our Kids”
    Kahlenberg, Richard D. (The Century Foundation, 2015-09-10)
    Earlier this year, Harvard University public policy professor Robert D. Putnam published the blockbuster social policy book of 2015: Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. As a supplement to those efforts, this report recaps Putnam’s findings of the changing nature of inequality over the last sixty years and seeks to offer workable policy ideas that logically flow from Putnam’s analysis in four areas: housing, K–12 schooling, higher education, and the workplace. A premium has been placed on policies that are grounded in solid research and are politically attractive to a wide range of people.