Completing College: Rethinking Institutional Action

Completing College: Rethinking Institutional Action Review

Even as the number of students attending college has more than doubled in the past forty years, it is still the case that nearly half of all college students in the United States will not complete their degree within six years. It is clear that much remains to be done toward improving student success. For more than twenty years, Vincent Tinto’s pathbreaking book Leaving College has been recognized as the definitive resource on student retention in higher education. Now, with Completing College, Tinto offers administrators a coherent framework with which to develop and implement programs to promote completion.

            Deftly distilling an enormous amount of research, Tinto identifies the essential conditions enabling students to succeed and continue on within institutions. Especially during the early years, he shows that students thrive in settings that pair high expectations for success with structured academic, social, and financial support, provide frequent feedback and assessments of their performance, and promote their active involvement with other students and faculty. And while these conditions may be worked on and met at different institutional levels, Tinto points to the classroom as the center of student education and life, and therefore the primary target for institutional action.

Improving retention rates continues to be among the most widely studied fields in higher education, and Completing College carefully synthesizes the latest research and, most importantly, translates it into practical steps that administrators can take to enhance student success.

Color and Money: How Rich White Kids Are Winning the War over College Affirmative Action

Color and Money: How Rich White Kids Are Winning the War over College Affirmative Action Review

What is the real story behind the fight over affirmative action in college admissions? Veteran journalist Peter Schmidt reveals truths that will outrage readers and forever transform the debate.

His book exposes the hidden agendas of all sides, revealing how:

* The conservative opposition to affirmative action preaches equality in college admissions, yet guts programs that help poor kids get in the running.

* The higher education establishment feeds lies to the federal courts and the public about the benefits of affirmative action, and attempts to squelch any talk about how selective colleges’ favoritism toward the privileged undermines professed commitments to diversity.

* Affirmative action has evolved from a means of bringing about social justice into a tool colleges cynically use to sell themselves and attract corporate support.

* Lower and middle class students of all races are being lost in the affirmative action struggle.

The underlying premise is that affirmative action is a band aid used to hide a very deep wound that neither side of the debate has much interest in treating any time soon. The real winners in the war over college affirmative action are rich white kids, whose spot on the inside track is secure no matter which side comes out on top. The real losers are African- American, Hispanic, and Asian-American kids, who continue to have the deck stacked against them, and those worthy white kids who lack cash and connections and find their futures sacrificed by colleges for “diversity” and the almighty dollar.

 

Unafraid to shine a harsh light on schools such as Harvard, the University of Michigan, Princeton, and the University of California, this is a startling and brave book that will inspire a national dialogue on class, race, and education.