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You don't need to be Paul Revere to realize that more Americans are going to college than ever before. Sixty-six percent of 1998 high school graduates enrolled in college the following fall.7 In the fall of 2000, approximately 15.1 million students enrolled at postsecondary institutions. More than 40 percent of these students are enrolled part-time, and a similar proportion are older than 24 years of age. This fall enrollment figure, which is substantially less than year-round enrollment, is projected to reach 17.5 million by 2010. Additionally, more Americans are taking adult courses and certificate programs-in 1998, 50 percent of adults participated in formal learning.8
Yet, more remains to be done.
Unfortunately, about one-third of students who enter college or trade school drop out before they earn a certificate or degree.9 This number is unacceptable. The problem is acute among minorities: 29 to 31 percent of African Americans and Hispanics drop out of college in their first year, compared to 18 percent of whites.10 These numbers, too, are unacceptable. All Americans deserve access to postsecondary education, and the message must be clear that the expectation is that everyone will finish. Today, there is no excuse for leaving anyone out.
So, in the 20th anniversary year of the U.S. Department of Education, in the wake of the 1998 Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization and the creation of a separate performance-based organization for administering student financial assistance programs and new initiatives moving OPE in different directions, with a new HEA reauthorization due in three years, with all the technological, scientific, demographic, political, and cultural changes taking place in our country and around the globe, OPE thought it appropriate to start a national discussion on key issues facing the postsecondary education community. This is one of the very few times a federal agency has launched such a systematic discussion.
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