Beyond Free College
Making Higher Education Work for 21st Century Students
Stephen J Handel author Eileen L Strempel author Debbie L Sydow editor Kate Thirolf editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield
Published:5th Feb '21
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Beyond Free College outlines an audacious national agenda—consistent with, but far more comprehensive than, the current “free college” movement—that builds on the best of US higher education’s populist history such as the G.I. Bill and the community college transfer function. The authors align a wide constellation of higher education trends—online learning, prior learning assessment, competency-based learning, high school college-credit— with a rapidly shifting student transfer environment that privileges college credit as the pivotal educational catalyst to boost access and completion. The book’s agenda seeks greater productive investment in postsecondary education by privileging a single metric—lower-cost-per-degree-granted—as the animating driver of a transfer pathway that will fulfill the potential of its historical, progressive innovators. Beyond Free College’s goal is as simple as it is urgent: To galvanize higher education advocates in an effort to reorganize, reorient, and reignite the transfer function to serve the needs of a neotraditional student population that now constitutes the majority of college-goers in America; and in ways that advance completion, not just access to higher education.
Although written before the pandemic of COVID-19, Beyond Free College: Making Higher Education Work for 21st Century Students outlines a compelling, research-informed pathway forward for our country. Inspired by models such as StriveTogether and the G.I. Bill, Strempel and Handel issue a clarion call for an immediate strategic national reinvestment in our higher education infrastructure. With a clear focus on degree completion and the cost of producing those degrees, we as a nation are called to re-enact the support provided to our veterans returning from World War Two. The G.I. Bill garnered bipartisan support, and provided tuition dollars, alongside essential life supports for food, housing, and childcare. At this critical time in our nation’s history, as we confront a pandemic and a racial reckoning, the research is unassailable: Education, properly supported and strategically focused, can transform lives, families, and our society.
-- Nancy L. Zimpher, Chancellor Emeritus, State University of New YorkAfter reading Strempel and Handel’s inspiring book I come away all the more convinced that people who get bachelor’s degrees need to go to colleges that give them. We also need to strengthen our transfer systems and mandate that all public four-year colleges keep at least 20% of their overall enrollment open to two-year college transfers. A “must-read” for those wanting to know how to make higher education work better in the 21st century.
-- Anthony P. Carnevale, research professor and director, Center on Education and the Workforce, Georgetown UniverISBN: 9781475848649
Dimensions: 228mm x 160mm x 19mm
Weight: 445g
182 pages