In the News

Institutions to watch: The National Association of Higher Education Systems convened four systems—including Texas State University System, Southern Illinois University System, University of Hawai’i System, and Montana University System—in an improvement community focused on course sharing. The goal was threefold: help students avoid bottleneck courses, provide them with access to classes and programs that may not be offered at their…

Elevating teaching Recently I was in New York for a teaching conference organized by the Association of College and University Educators, or ACUE. If you’re not familiar with the organization, it offers online courses and certification for faculty members who want to incorporate more evidence-based teaching practices into their work. The idea behind the approach…

The Supreme Court recently heard arguments on the Biden administration’s plan for student loan forgiveness, and it has reignited debate over student debt. While some believe the plan is a necessary step toward addressing the burden of student loans, others argue that it fails to address the real problem of the cost of attending college…

Studying the role of the faculty and staff in the course-articulation process. Sophia Sutcliffe, Dan Knox, and Marjorie Dorimé-Williams March 16, 2023   For many students, transferring between community colleges and four-year institutions is sometimes the only path to a bachelor’s degree. Community colleges provide a valuable service to students due to lower costs, closer…

In 2022, we published 50 blog posts in “Beyond Transfer” elevating the insights of researchers, practitioners, equity-minded reformers and students themselves. Amid the tremendous diversity of contributors and topics included in the 2022 lineup, the unifying thread was each author’s commitment to leveling the playing field for the growing share of students who attend multiple…

When the overseers of 75 percent of all public undergraduate education in the US decide to do something, transformative change happens – at scale. This opportunity is now before us, thanks to the determined leadership of the National Association of System Heads (NASH), a group whose few dozen members are a small enough group to…

The broken record of broken transfer seems to be on constant repeat in the higher education sector. Going back decades, many states, systems and institutions have enacted sweeping policy changes and invested significant resources in supporting transfer student success. Yet student outcomes have shown little improvement and appear to have even regressed during the pandemic. The question…

It seems that one striking contrast between the plans being developed by NASH and those previous efforts designed to extol the worth of a college degree is this newfound emphasis on reaching out directly to the public. “What is different here is the collective response were are organizing through our membership to tell this story,”…

The National Association of System Heads begins an initiative to bolster the public’s view of higher education by demonstrating—and where necessary improving—how the institutions drive social mobility and individual “prosperity.” NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—A coalition of dozens of public university systems across the country is launching a campaign aimed at improving public perception of the value…