The ambitious goals to increase America’s college completion rates will not be met unless significant investments are made to expand early childhood learning to the nation’s poor, improve counseling in middle and high schools, and steps are taken to control college costs and provide more need-based aid to students.
Those are among the 10 recommendations made in a new report released Wednesday by the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center.
Officially known as the College Completion Agenda 2011 Progress Report, the report is meant to provide an annual snapshot of how close or far the nation is from reaching the College Board’s goal to increase to 55 percent the proportion of 25- to 34-year-old Americans who hold at least a two-year degree or higher by the year 2025.
The goal is in line with the Obama administration’s goal to make the United States the leader in educational attainment by 2020.
Currently, the college completion rate among 25- to 34-year-olds is 41.1 percent, the report states.
Based on recent slippage, neither the Obama administration’s 2020 goal nor the College Board’s 2025 goal will be met unless improvements are made in several key areas, said the report’s lead author, John Michael Lee Jr., policy director at the College Board’s Advocacy & Policy Center.
“Unless we reverse the trend, especially among our young men of color, we won’t reach the goal,” Lee said.
