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An evaluation of the Princeton University Preparatory Program (PUPP), a college access program for low-income and high-achieving public high school students, yielded favorable findings regarding the perceptions of program alumni. PUPP Alumni Survey respondents (N = 126) reported that PUPP had positively impacted their development of academic and social-emotional skills and their knowledge of college admissions and financial aid application processes and that they attended and graduated from college, including selective colleges, after completing PUPP. Some PUPP alumni believe that the program made college attendance a reality for them, while others believe PUPP enabled them to attend a more selective college than they otherwise would have. Although alumni were not immune from continued challenges, both financial and academic, during college, they tended to attribute their college enrollment and graduation successes at least in part to the personalized supports and resources PUPP provided.

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Workforce development and career and technical education (CTE) have long provided reliable pathways to middle skill jobs and a gateway to the middle class. Given recent changes in middle skills jobs, the education landscape, and federal policy priorities, the role of CTE in the U.S. educational landscape is evolving more rapidly, encompassing a broader range of education, and practices are changing ahead of research. The first part of this report provides an overview of the current state of CTE in the United States, as well as the state of CTE research, and presents an argument for a broader definition of CTE that incorporates workforce development through postsecondary institutions. The second part provides operational definitions and typologies to facilitate future research. Our aim is to build a research framework for CTE that is grounded in a normative path through CTE: getting in (preparation and recruitment), getting through (retention and skill acquisition), getting out (completion and initial hire), and getting on (career progression). Key challenges and priorities for future research are discussed.

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The study of teaching and learning in accelerated nursing degree programs explores how nurse educators are adapting their teaching practices for accelerated, second-degree nursing program students. To provide findings on topics including instructional practices and the roles and attitudes of faculty, a web survey was administered to almost 100 staff members from schools of nursing that received grant and scholarship funds through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's New Careers in Nursing program for accelerated nursing students. The study revealed that nursing school faculty have positive perceptions of working with accelerated nursing students and that instructional approaches do not differ much between traditional and nursing students. At the same time, the factors described as most predictive of accelerated nursing student success were noncognitive attributes such as motivation and commitment to the nursing profession; prior degrees in the science or health fields were not necessarily seen as predictive of the success of second-degree students working toward an accelerated bachelor's or master's degree in nursing.

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This report is divided into the following chapters: (1) Social science and the future of affirmative action: the Supreme Court's Fisher II decision and new research / Gary Orfield; (2) Texas Top Ten Percent Plan: how it works, what are its limits, and recommendations to consider / Stella M. Flores and Catherine L. Horn; (3) Two decades after the affirmative action ban: evaluating the University of California's race-neutral efforts / William C. Kidder and Patricia Gandara; and (4) The promise and peril for universities using correlates of race in admissions in response to the Grutter and Fisher decisions / Mark C. Long.

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The literature and the employee and workforce surveys rank collaborative problem solving (CPS) among the top 5 most critical skills necessary for success in college and the workforce. This paper provides a review of the literature on CPS and related terms, including a discussion of their definitions, importance to higher education and workforce success, and considerations relevant to their assessment. The goal is to discuss progress on CPS to date and help generate future research on CPS in relation to educational and workforce success.

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In 2009, at the end of the 12-month Great Recession in the United States, the U.S. government established a college degree attainment goal for 60 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds to earn an associate's or bachelor's degree by the year 2020. In the same year, Lumina Foundation set a similar goal for 60 per cent of 25- to 64-year-olds to earn a high-quality certificate, associate's degree, or bachelor's degree by the year 2025. Both the U.S. government's and Lumina Foundation's goals intend to place the United States in a leadership position in the global massification of postsecondary education that has evolved over the past few decades and to address the growing labor market demands for postsecondary education and training. This report provides a view of current progress and forecasts of the nation's long-term progress toward achieving the goals. The analyses in this report represent college degree attainment performance of the U.S. population by race/ethnicity and gender and project through 2060. The projections reveal that neither goal is expected to be reached by target dates for the targeted adult populations, but the associate's and bachelor's degree attainment rates of the Asian American population are already beyond the 60 per cent target and the White population, overall, is approaching at a pace to arrive a few years beyond the target year 2020 established by the U.S. government and 2025 set by Lumina Foundation.

The projections for the African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Hispanic populations are not promising. Unless aggressive actions are taken to address the inequalities in each level and type of degree, and especially bachelor's and higher degrees, not only will the three underserved population groups (African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Hispanic) fail to reach the goals in the foreseeable future, but also the progress that they make could be overrepresented by lower status degrees and certificates and in turn lower status occupations. Each of these three underrepresented population groups may require targeted and tailored initiatives to make substantive progress toward a larger share being college and career ready and ultimately persisting toward and attaining college degrees. The report includes data and analyses that could be useful in designing interventions.

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