Professional Development Collection: Colleges & Universities

For many students, a bachelor's degree is considered the golden ticket to a more financially and intellectually fulfilling life. But the disturbing reality is that debt, unemployment, and politically charged pseudo learning are more likely outcomes for many college students today than full-time employment and time-honored knowledge. This raises the question: is college still worth it? Who is responsible for debt-saddled, undereducated students, and how do future generations of students avoid the same problems? In a time of economic uncertainty, what majors and schools will produce competitive graduates? Is College Worth It? uses personal experience, statistical analysis, and real-world interviews to provide answers to some of the most troubling social and economic problems of our time.

Boost student success by reversing your perspective on college readiness The national conversation asking "Are students college-ready?" concentrates on numerous factors that are beyond higher education's control. Becoming a Student-Ready College flips the college readiness conversation to provide a new perspective on creating institutional value and facilitating student success. Instead of focusing on student preparedness for college (or lack thereof), this book asks the more pragmatic question of what are colleges and universities doing to prepare for the students who are entering their institutions? What must change in an institution's policies, practices, and culture in order to be student-ready? Clear and concise, this book is packed with insightful discussion and practical strategies for achieving your ambitious student success goals. These ideas for redesigning practices and policies provide more than food for thought--they offer a real-world framework for real institutional change. You'll learn: How educators can acknowledge their own biases and assumptions about underserved students in order to allow for change New ways to advance student learning and success How to develop and value student assets and social capital Strategies and approaches for creating a new student-focused culture of leadership at every level To truly become student-ready, educators must make difficult decisions, face the pressures of accountability, and address their preconceived notions about student success head-on. Becoming a Student-Ready College provides a reality check based on today's higher education environment.

In higher education, almost 80 percent of strategic plans for campuses don't get implemented. This is despite a great deal of time, money, effort, and resources. How to Implement Your Campus Strategic Plan is your guide to effective practices that initiate strategic change. Including protocols tested in over 50 schools across the United States, this practitioner's manual for successful strategic implementation and execution will benefit your institution and those within it. You'll discover: Thirteen strategic planning implementation mistakes to prevent wasted allocation of time, funds, and resources. Informal and practical surveys to evaluate organizational culture, implementation capacity, and boundary management. Eight powerful and collaborative meeting designs that create the meaningful engagement of stakeholders, encourage honest feedback, and delegate responsibility of formulated solutions to the right parties. The Push Agenda, a prioritization process for the final year objectives of a strategic plan that reenergizes stakeholders and enables them to " finish well." An engaging, inclusive, five-phase process with an 80 percent rate of goal accomplishment for over 50 institutions. Improve the chances of strategy-based goal achievement for your school and your mission. Get How to Implement Your Campus Strategic Plan now for more effective and collaborative strategic planning that facilitates abiding change.

Provides an insightful analysis of the market stresses that threaten the viability of some of America's colleges and universities while delivering a powerful predictive tool to measure an institution's risk of closure. In The College Stress Test, Robert Zemsky, Susan Shaman, and Susan Campbell Baldridge present readers with a full, frank, and informed discussion about college and university closures. Drawing on the massive institutional data set available from IPEDS (the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System), they build a stress test for estimating the market viability of more than 2,800 undergraduate institutions. They examine four key variables--new student enrollments, net cash price, student retention, and major external funding--to gauge whether an institution is potentially at risk of considering closure or merging with another school. They also assess student body demographics to see which students are commonly served by institutions experiencing market stress. The book's appendix includes a powerful do-it-yourself tool that institutions can apply, using their own IPEDS data, to understand their level of risk. The book's underlying statistical analysis makes clear that closings will not be nearly as prevalent as many prognosticators are predicting and will in fact impact relatively few students. The authors argue that just 10 percent or fewer of the nation's colleges and universities face substantial market risk, while 60 percent face little or no market risk. The remaining 30 percent of institutions, the authors find, are bound to struggle. To thrive, the book advises, these schools will need to reconsider the curricula they deliver, the prices they charge, and their willingness to experiment with new modes of instruction. The College Stress Test provides an urgently needed road map at a moment when the higher education terrain is shifting. Those interested in and responsible for the fate of these institutions will find in this book a clearly defined set of risk indicators, a methodology for monitoring progress over time, and an evidence-based understanding of where they reside in the landscape of institutional risk.

Read award-winning journalist Frank Bruni's New York Times bestseller: an inspiring manifesto about everything wrong with today's frenzied college admissions process and how to make the most of your college years. Over the last few decades, Americans have turned college admissions into a terrifying and occasionally devastating process, preceded by test prep, tutors, all sorts of stratagems, all kinds of rankings, and a conviction among too many young people that their futures will be determined and their worth established by which schools say yes and which say no. In Where You Go is Not Who You'll Be, Frank Bruni explains why this mindset is wrong, giving students and their parents a new perspective on this brutal, deeply flawed competition and a path out of the anxiety that it provokes. Bruni, a bestselling author and a columnist for the New York Times, shows that the Ivy League has no monopoly on corner offices, governors' mansions, or the most prestigious academic and scientific grants. Through statistics, surveys, and the stories of hugely successful people, he demonstrates that many kinds of colleges serve as ideal springboards. And he illuminates how to make the most of them. What matters in the end are students' efforts in and out of the classroom, not the name on their diploma. Where you go isn't who you'll be. Americans need to hear that--and this indispensable manifesto says it with eloquence and respect for the real promise of higher education.

Make sure you're preparing with the most up-to-date materials! Look for the newest edition of this book, College Admission 101, 3rd Edition (ISBN: 9780593450574, on-sale May 2022). Publisher's Note: Products purchased from third-party sellers are not guaranteed by the publisher for quality or authenticity, and may not include access to online tests or materials included with the original product.