ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Tuition and Fees in the West 2014-15. Policy Insights
Author: Bransberger, Peace
Date: 2015-05-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Tuition,Fees,Policy Analysis,Public Colleges,Institutional Characteristics,Access to Education,Paying for College,Educational Finance,Income,Tables (Data),State Aid,Annual Reports,Funding Formulas

This issue of &quot;Policy Insights&quot; reviews the results from the annual survey, conducted by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), of tuition and fees at public colleges and universities in the WICHE region, and discusses related policy implications. The WICHE region includes 15 states--Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawai'i, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming--and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the first of the U.S. Pacific territories and freely associated states to participate as a WICHE member. Complete data from the survey are available in &quot;Tuition and Fees in Public Higher Education in the West, 2014-15: Detailed Tuition and Fees Tables&quot; (www.wiche.edu/pub/tf), published by WICHE in November 2014. The survey was administered in the summer and fall of 2014 to state higher education executive offices or system offices in the Western states. Survey results indicate that the average resident undergraduate tuition and fees for the academic year 2014-15 at public two-year institutions in the WICHE region (excluding California) increased by 2 percent ($67) from the previous year, while published prices at public four-year institutions grew by 2.3 percent ($180). By comparison, nationally, the one-year increase was 3.1 percent for both two-year and fouryear institutions. In general, state appropriations to higher education have stabilized in the past several years, though some states are still facing a challenging funding environment, and states are tackling the issue of affordability from a variety of angles.
Standards, Assessment, and Readiness: Addressing Postsecondary Transition Issues across State Lines
Author: Michelau, Demarée K.
Date: 2015-01-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Barriers,Performance Factors,Academic Standards,College Readiness,Career Readiness,Student Evaluation,Outcome Measures,Program Implementation,Partnerships in Education,Educational Cooperation,Best Practices,Data,Research Reports,Admission Criteria,College Admission,Information Dissemination,Change Strategies,Elementary Secondary Education,State Standards

This brief describes major challenges ahead for states, institutions, and most importantly, students as the standards and assessments from the Common Core Standards (CCSS) are implemented. It also offers recommendations to create a network structure that would assist K-12 and higher education leaders in addressing those challenges. To begin the conversation about these challenges, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), with funding from the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation, convened higher education and K-12 leaders from the Western region and additional bordering states in October 2014. The meeting established four goals: (1) to gain an increased awareness of issues related to readiness for college and careers, common academic standards, and assessments that may emerge as students cross state lines to enroll in postsecondary institutions after high school; (2) to forge relationships with colleagues in other states to assist with the ongoing implementation of common academic standards and assessments in the region, particularly where cross-state collaboration is necessary; (3) to identify principles of good practice as a basis for a national framework for preempting some of the obstacles related to student movement across state lines as common academic standards and assessments are implemented; and (4) to determine whether an ongoing conversation (perhaps through a formal network of K-12 and higher education leaders) would be valuable and lead to more successful student transitions. Organized to address the four key areas, the October 2014 meeting focused on data and reporting, admissions, college and career readiness, and communications.
A Glimpse beyond State Lines: Student Outcomes from WICHE's Multistate Longitudinal Data Exchange Pilot Project
Author: Bransberger, Peace
Date: 2014-07-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Data,Pilot Projects,Longitudinal Studies,Higher Education,Outcomes of Education,Interstate Programs,Enrollment,Graduation Rate,Mobility,Employment,Income,Education Work Relationship,High School Graduates,Undergraduate Students,Public Colleges

This report presents findings from Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education's (WICHE) &quot;Multistate Longitudinal Data Exchange Pilot&quot; (&quot;MLDE&quot; or &quot;Exchange&quot;), which includes an array of analyses of the combined dataset covering 192,689 students from the four states (Hawai'i, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington) that participated in the pilot program. These results describe what can be known about participation in postsecondary education, degree completion, employment, and geographic mobility. The findings provide details about what happened to students who were Class of 2005 high school graduates or first-time college undergraduates at public institutions in these states during the 2005-06 academic year as they made their way into and through college, and beyond. In general, these findings document the MLDE pilot project's proof of concept, showing the need for cross-state data in examining post-collegiate outcomes while also demonstrating that it is possible to assemble such data and make them available to participating states. Appended are: (1) Technical Details; and (2) National Student Clearinghouse Data Preparation and Coverage.
Collaboration and Coordination to Improve Adult College Completion Efforts. Policy Exchanges
Author: Lane, Patrick
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Partnerships in Education,Stakeholders,Graduation,Adults,Adult Students,Educational Attainment,Cooperation

The Adult College Completion Network--funded by Lumina Foundation and facilitated by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE)--brings together and supports entities working to increase college and certificate completion by adults with prior postsecondary credits but no degree. The network was founded in part on the premise that improving outcomes for such individuals would require robust collaboration among diverse stakeholders: the workforce system, state higher education agencies, postsecondary institutions, businesses and employers, local governments, community-based organizations, and others. This brief provides examples and research that can help stakeholders working in this sphere to forge new relationships and strengthen current partnerships. It begins with a look at general research on the coordinated delivery of public services to identify some of the common characteristics of highly effective collaborations. Then, it focuses on three noteworthy efforts: a consortium to increase degree attainment by adults in Georgia, a citywide effort to increase degree attainment in Louisville by 2020, and a healthcare collaborative designed to meet workforce needs in the Cincinnati area.
Effective Collaboration and Coordination: Lessons from Research and Practice. Western Policy Exchanges
Author: Lane, Patrick
Date: 2014-01-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Grants,Access to Education,Postsecondary Education,Low Income Groups,Coordination,Stakeholders,Educational Finance,Research,Educational Cooperation,Adult Education,Allied Health Occupations Education,Partnerships in Education

The College Access Challenge Grant (CACG) statutory language requires states receiving the funds to attempt to coordinate grant activities with other stakeholders in the state working to increase postsecondary access and success for low-income students. The extent to which the U.S. Department of Education has monitored and enforced (or even could monitor and enforce) this part of the law remains unclear, but beyond statutory compliance, there are many valid reasons for coordinating efforts: leveraging limited grant funds to have a broader impact, improving potential program sustainability, and developing partnerships that can better serve low-income students, just to name a few. This brief provides examples and research that can help states use remaining CACG funding to improve coordination of the diverse stakeholders working to promote postsecondary access and success. By examining compelling examples of collaboration between diverse partners, this brief informs those who are interested in forging new relationships and strengthening current partnerships so that their efforts can be more effective in serving low-income students. The brief begins with a look at general research on the coordinated delivery of public services to identify some of the common characteristics of highly effective collaborations. Then it focuses on examples relevant to those working to increase access and success for low-income students. Included are examples from a CACG-funded consortium to increase degree attainment by adults in Georgia, as well as from two non-CACG initiatives: a citywide effort to increase degree attainment in Louisville by 2020; and a healthcare collaborative designed to meet workforce needs in the Cincinnati area.
Closing the Degree Gap: The West's Contributions. Policy Insights
Author: Kelly, Patrick
Date: 2014-10-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Policy Analysis,Access to Education,Success,Educational Finance,Educational Attainment,Higher Education,Achievement Gap,Regional Characteristics,Racial Distribution,Credentials,Age Differences,Ethnicity,Grade 9,Educational Assessment,Educational Indicators,Benchmarking,Educational Policy

This &quot;Policy Insight&quot; is a supplement to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education's (WICHE's) annual &quot;Benchmarks&quot; indicators, which summarize the Western states' progress with improving access to, success in, and financing of higher education. This brief explores one variant for how WICHE states might meet projected educational attainment goals--such as the Lumina Foundation's &quot;Big Goal&quot;--that 60 percent of the country's 25- to 64-year-olds should attain a college degree or high-quality certificate by 2025. In particular, WICHE explored what it would take for the Western region as a whole to meet this goal rather than each state individually, allowing for the possibility that some Western states may achieve a higher level and for others it might not be feasible to reach 60 percent of their population having a high-quality postsecondary credential, because of substantial variation among states' current levels of educational attainment and projected population change over time.
Building Capacity for Tracking Human Capital Development and Its Mobility across State Lines. Policy Insights
Author: Prescott, Brian T.
Date: 2014-12-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Human Capital,Capacity Building,Governance,Privacy,High School Graduates,College Freshmen,Labor Force,Public Policy,Data,Higher Education,Employment Opportunities,Employment,Occupational Mobility,Population Trends,Fundamental Concepts,Compensation (Remuneration),Intellectual Disciplines,Majors (Students),Associate Degrees

This issue of &quot;Policy Insights&quot; provides a review of the past five years of the cost and value of higher education, which have gained increased policymaker, consumer, and media attention. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) has worked with four of its member states (Hawai'i, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington) to test how cross-state collaboration and data sharing might inform important questions about the development and mobility of human capital. This brief discusses the pilot phase of this project--the &quot;Multistate Longitudinal Data Exchange&quot; (MLDE)--including the process of developing governance structures and cross-state agreements, the importance and feasibility of complying with privacy laws, and some policy-relevant results from the cohort of almost 193,000 high school graduates and first-time college students that were encompassed by the educational and workforce data exchange. Among other things, the MLDE highlights that public policy is better informed when the movement of students and graduates across state lines is factored into the setting and achievement of state workforce and educational attainment goals. This policy brief discusses lessons learned to date, and concludes by proposing that policymaking is strengthened by the existence and analysis of individual-level data that sheds light on what happens with the mobility of human capital into and out of states, not just within them.
Beyond Borders: Understanding the Development and Mobility of Human Capital in an Age of Data-Driven Accountability. A Report on WICHE's Multistate Longitudinal Data Exchange Pilot Project
Author: Prescott, Brian T.
Date: 2014-07-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Data,Accountability,Human Capital,Mobility,Pilot Projects,Longitudinal Studies,Higher Education,Outcomes of Education,Employment,Education Work Relationship,Information Networks,Labor Force Development,Elementary Secondary Education,Interstate Programs

As educational attainment grows increasingly more essential to individual and societal prosperity and simultaneously more expensive, policymakers' appetite for evidence of the return on the investment in a college education has swelled and they increasingly want to equip prospective college students and their families with concrete information about the likelihood of graduating and obtaining a reasonably well-paying job. It is against this backdrop that the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), embarked on a pilot project to develop a &quot;Multistate Longitudinal Data Exchange (MLDE).&quot; This effort was aimed at building a resource able to track how human capital develops and becomes mobile across a multistate region, and at given states, for their use in policy and program improvement, access to data that go missing from individual state databases whenever individuals cross state lines. Spanning individual-level data covering K-12 education, postsecondary education, and workforce information systems in four initial states (Hawai'i, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington) the pilot sought to determine whether a MLDE could serve as such a resource and, if so, how it could be built. This report describes how this project progressed, presents analytical results from a combined dataset of students who completed high school and started college in any of the four states, discusses the implications of those results, and offers lessons applicable to ongoing efforts to build and use longitudinal data systems for policy and practice. The report includes the appendix: Memorandum of Agreement Between WICHE and the Washington Education Research and Data Center (ERDC).
States in the Driver's Seat: Leveraging State Aid to Align Policies and Promote Access, Success, and Affordability
Author: Prescott, Brian T.
Date: 2014-03-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: State Aid,Alignment (Education),Educational Policy,Access to Education,Success,Paying for College,Educational Finance,Financial Policy,Funding Formulas,Change Strategies,Foreign Countries

With increasingly widespread calls to raise educational attainment levels without substantially growing public investment in higher education, policymakers and others have devoted growing attention to the role of financial aid programs in providing access to, promoting affordability for, and incentivizing success in college. Given relative levels of investment, most of that focus has been on federal financial aid programs. But for students enrolled in higher education, the vast majority of whom attend public institutions, the impact of federal aid policies is filtered through finance policies enacted at the state level. The wide differences in financing strategies among states mean that states ultimately determine to a great extent how college opportunities are distributed, costs are affordable, and students are successful. This concept paper takes a closer look at state financial aid programs and how they are uniquely well-positioned to address many of the financial challenges in college access, success, and affordability that stand in the way of achieving educational attainment goals. It advances a framework for the distribution of aid that is efficient with scarce public funds, encourages students to make progress and succeed, promotes institutional behaviors that are aligned with public needs and expectations, and integrates state policies with federal and institutional policies and practices. Informed by a set of guiding principles, the paper makes the following policy proposals: (1) States can adopt a Shared Responsibility Model (SRM) as the framework for determining the eligibility for a state grant, as well as the amount of the grant; (2) States can encourage well-designed, state-supported programs to assist students in meeting their student contribution; (3) States can embed demand-side incentives that promote student success; (4) States can embed supply-side incentives that ensure that institutions share in both the risk and rewards of student success; (5) States can leverage grant aid programs to encourage institutional aid expenditures that are aligned with state goals for student success, affordability, transparency, and predictability; (6) The federal government can recommit to its historic partnership with states in promoting well designed grant programs through a contemporary LEAP program; (7) States can ensure that their grant programs include an expectation that standards of academic quality are maintained; and (8) States can require that their financial aid programs are systematically evaluated.
Human Services Program Evaluation: &quot;How to Improve Your Accountability and Program Effectiveness&quot;
Author: Barrett, Thomas
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Human Services,Program Evaluation,Program Effectiveness,Accountability,Needs Assessment,Costs,Outcome Measures,Money Management,Program Implementation,Evaluators

The term &quot;outcome evaluation&quot; has become one of the most popular terms among human service providers and those whose job it is to evaluate the impact of human service programs. In the public sector alone, there are over a hundred instruments in use to evaluate the impact of state human service programs. Most states, many providers, and most accrediting bodies have taken on the challenge of developing better program evaluation because there is universal agreement that better evaluation systems are needed. This multiplicity of approaches may have been appropriate for the early stages of development, but eventually some standardization is necessary. This program evaluation discusses the following topics as a means to inform and guide sound policy and practice decision making: (1) Why Do You Need to Know about Program Evaluation?; (2) Getting Started; (3) Needs Assessments; (4) Client Outcomes and Costs in Human Services Organizations; (5) Financial Management in Human Services Organizations; (6) Special Programs in Program Evaluation; (7) Research Designs in Program Evaluation; (8) Implementation and Maintenance of Program Evaluation; and (9) Role of the Evaluator. [Individual chapters contain appendices and references.]
Equity in Excellence for Colorado's Future: &quot;A Policy Audit and Analysis&quot;
Author: Michelau, Demarée K.
Date: 2014-08-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Higher Education,Educational Change,Educational Policy,Competency Based Education,Colleges,Alignment (Education),College Students,Student Rights,Enrollment,Student Financial Aid Officers,Student Personnel Services,College Faculty,Faculty Development,Transfer Programs,State Aid

Equity in Excellence is a two-year project launched in 2013 to support the implementation of Colorado's higher education reform agenda. With a focus on the metropolitan Denver area, the project intends to align the state's higher education policies with concrete, equity-focused actions at its public community colleges and four-year institutions. The purpose of this policy audit is to inform project, state, and institutional leaders about current policy and practice in Colorado with respect to equity as they work with the Center for Urban Education (CUE) at the University of Southern California to assess and analyze how to better align state policy with equity-focused actions at the institutional level. Specifically, this audit analyzes alignment, gaps, and opportunities in state, system, and institutional policies, as well as the interaction between them, with an eye toward intentional and unintentional outcomes. It provides an external, objective perspective, with the goal of assisting Colorado's state and institutional higher education leaders in designing (or redesigning) policies to achieve the goals laid out in the state's master plan, and to make those policies equitable toward all students. The following is appended: Equity in Excellence Advisory Board Members.
Statistical Report: Academic Year 2014-15. Student Exchange Program
Author: Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education
Date: 2015-01-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Higher Education,Undergraduate Students,Graduate Students,Professional Education,Educational Finance,Student Exchange Programs,Enrollment Rate,Interstate Programs,Out of State Students,Regional Cooperation,Tuition,Foreign Countries

This report covers fall 2014 enrollments for WUE [Western Undergraduate Exchange], WRGP [Western Regional Graduate Program], and PSEP [Professional Student Exchange Program]. It details the funds that flow between students' home states and the enrolling PSEP institutions that receive them. This newly expanded format gives detailed enrollment for participating WRGP programs and WUE institutions. The &quot;WUE Enrollment Report&quot; will be discontinued as of the 2014-15 academic year, and going forward, it will be replaced by the &quot;Statistical Report&quot;.
WICHE Workplan FY 2016
Author: Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Interstate Programs,Educational Finance,Access to Education,Higher Education,Success,Labor Force Development,Educational Innovation,Accountability,Educational Cooperation,Policy Analysis,Educational Research,Mental Health Programs,Educational Technology,Foreign Countries

The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) and its 16 member states and territories work collaboratively to expand educational access and excellence for their citizens. By promoting innovation, cooperation, resource sharing, and sound public policy, WICHE strengthens higher education's contributions to social, economic, and civic life. In fiscal 2016, WICHE's four units--Programs and Services; Policy Analysis and Research; Mental Health Program; and WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET)--will strive to assist members' institutions and students, focusing on five areas: (1) Finance: Examining appropriations, tuition, and financial aid policy and practice at the institutional, state, and federal level; (2) Access and Success: Improving students' access to higher education and success in it, especially those students not served well in the past; (3) Workforce and Society: Helping to ensure institutions are meeting workforce and society needs; (4) Technology and Innovation: Developing innovations that improve higher education and lower costs; and (5) Accountability: Working to ensure that students receive the education they've been promised, and that government is receiving a strong return on its investment. This report discusses potential future projects, as well as recently completed projects.