The commission believes that American education is the nation's greatest strength and most powerful force for advancing the common good. To return America to its place as the global leader in educational attainment, the commission has put forth a 10-part recommendation aimed at strengthening the educational pipeline throughout a student's trajectory from preschool to college completion.
- Latino Edition
- National
- The College Completion Agenda websites:
One: Early Childhood
Provide a program of voluntary preschool education, universally available to children from low-income families —
that states provide a program of voluntary high-quality, preschool education, universally available to 3- and 4-year-old children from families at or below 200 percent of the poverty line.
Six: College Admission
Clarify and simplify the admission process —
that public and private institutions of higher education continue to uphold the highest professional standards in admission and financial aid and collaborate to make the admission process more transparent and less complex.
Two: College and Career Counseling
Improve middle school and high school college counseling —
that states and localities move toward professional norms for staffing middle and high school counseling offices and that colleges and universities collaborate actively to provide college information and planning services to all students (with a special focus on low-income students).
Seven: Student Financial Aid
Provide more need-based grant aid while simplifying and making financial aid processes more transparent —
that federal and state officials encourage increased access by providing more need-based grant aid, making the process of applying for financial assistance more transparent and predictable, and finding ways to inform families, as early as the middle school years, of aid amounts likely to be available to individual students.
Three: Dropout Prevention and Recovery
Implement the best research-based dropout prevention programs —
that states and local educational agencies adopt targeted interventions (starting in elementary and middle schools) focused on early warning signs of students in danger of dropping out, to identify such students and put an educational safety net under them.
Eight: College Affordability
Keep college affordable —
restraining growth in college costs and prices, using available aid and resources wisely, and insisting that state governments meet their obligations for funding higher education.
Four: Standards and Alignment
Align the K–12 education system with international standards and college admission expectations —
that governors, legislators and state education agencies work to provide a world-class education to every American student by aligning high school programs with international benchmarks tied to the demands of college, work and life.
Nine: College Completion
Dramatically increase college completion rates —
that institutions of higher education set out to dramatically increase college completion rates by improving retention, easing transfer among institutions and implementing data-based strategies to identify retention and dropout challenges.
Five: Educator Quality
Improve teacher quality and focus on recruitment and retention —
that states, localities and the federal government step up to the crisis in teaching by providing market-competitive salaries, creating multiple pathways into teaching, and fixing the math and science crisis.
Ten: Adult Education
Provide postsecondary opportunities as an essential element of adult education programs —
a renewed commitment to adult education opportunities, one that supplements existing basic skills training with a new “honors GED,” and better coordination of federal and state efforts to provide adult education, veterans benefits, outreach programs and student aid.
