Just a decade ago, our adult population led every industrialized nation in educational attainment. Now, we rank 10th in the percentage of young adults with postsecondary credentials. To match today's leading industrialized nations and meet the employment needs of this country, the United States must eliminate this degree gap and produce more graduates with associate's or bachelor's degrees.
To do so requires immediate action.
First, we must give need-based financial aid the highest priority. We should also target low-income, first-generation students by allocating greater public resources to community colleges and regional four-year institutions to help students succeed there; improved early intervention programs for first-generation and high-risk students need to be developed and implemented to track and ensure student success.
Then there's the highly complex federal financial aid application system, which badly needs to be overhauled. An immediate improvement would be to allow income data reported on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid to be verified directly by the Internal Revenue Service before it is processed and the data transferred to the educational institution. By streamlining the process, we believe more low- and middle-income students would apply for aid and enter the higher-education system.
In Maryland, programs to attract first-generation college students, be they teenagers or adults, are making access to higher education a top priority. Maryland's P-20 Leadership Council and Virginia's P-16 Council are working to ensure that curricula match the basic skills needed in community colleges and four-year institutions, to create a wider pool of students and a more diverse group of graduates.
We're not suggesting that everyone needs a two- or four-year degree. But our economy and our communities need more people who have the knowledge and skills to thrive in the global economy. Everyone should have the option to participate successfully in a postsecondary experience, and educators need to help more students succeed.
James E. Lyons Sr. is Maryland's secretary of higher education. Daniel J. LaVista is executive director of Virginia's State Council of Higher Education.
