Browsing by Author "Shireman, Robert"

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    Green Lights and Red Tape - Improving Access to Financial Aid at California’s Community Colleges
    Cochrane, Deborah Frankle; Hernández-Gravelle, Hilda; Shireman, Robert; Asher, Lauren; Irons, Edie; Luna De La Rosa, Mari; Bogan, Erin (The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS), 2007-12-01)
    Financial aid can encourage students to enroll in college and increase their odds of academic success. While the California community colleges (CCCs) have very low fees, which are waived for most low-income students, the additional expenses of books, supplies, transportation, housing, food and childcare can create significant financial barriers to attending and staying in school. Federal and state grants, work-study funds, and loans can help community college students cover essential costs and focus on their studies. However, only 34 percent of CCC students apply for these valuable forms of aid, compared to 45 percent of community college students in the rest of the country. The report points out findings and recommendations based on visits to 21 colleges representing a broad cross-section of the CCC system, a review of the most recent available research, and interviews with experts on community colleges, financial aid and related fields. This report focuses on policies and practices that vary widely from college to college and can have a particularly significant effect on students’ access to financial aid.
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    The Policies That Work—and Don’t Work—to Stop Predatory For-Profit Colleges
    Shireman, Robert (The Century Foundation, 2019-05-20)
    For-profit colleges do not always recruit aggressively; nor do they always shortchange students. But the problem of colleges systematically overpromising and under delivering, when it does happen, has largely been a for-profit phenomenon. The abuses have been the most widespread and most damaging when they have been fueled by government grants and loans. A cycle has been created: federal money stokes scandals, regulations are adopted in response, the regulations are then relaxed, and the scandals repeat. This report discusses nine of the levers that Congress and the executive branch have used, and should fine-tune and/ or reinstate, in order to root out abuses and to steer colleges toward practices and outcomes that are in the best interests of students and taxpayers.
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    The Real Values of What Students do in College. College Completion Series: Part One
    Shireman, Robert (The Century Foundation, 2016-02-25)
    The country’s success in promoting a college education would be something to celebrate, if not for one big, embarrassing blemish: those who are already privileged are the most likely to get to and through college, while the underprivileged do not. This report takes a look at how government officials have pressed college accreditors to focus more on “student outcomes”—quantifiable indicators of knowledge acquired, skills learned, degrees attained, and so on. It then argues that it is not these enumerated outcomes that are the best way to hold colleges accountable, but rather the evidence of student engagement in the curriculum—their papers, written examinations, projects, and presentations—that holds the most promise for spurring improvement in higher education.