Summer may be here, but things don’t seem to have slowed down, as evidenced by the amount of reports released recently. Here are three that you should know about.

1. America’s Divided Recovery: College Haves and Have-Nots, from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, reveals that those with at least some college education have captured 11.5 million of the 11.6 million jobs created during the country’s economic recovery. Low-skill, blue-collar, and clerical jobs, were virtually decimated by the Great Recession. One of the report’s key findings is that associate degree holders gained 3.1 million jobs and bachelor’s degree holders gained 4.6 million jobs, compared to workers with a high school diploma or less, who added only 80,000 jobs.
2. Structural Equity: Big-Picture Thinking & Partnerships that Improve Community College Student Outcomes, from the Aspen Institute, highlights four community colleges that have successfully cultivated robust, cross-sector partnerships to create seamless educational pathways for students. The report also reveals three strategies used to help eliminate some of the barriers that perpetuate student success gaps along racial/ethnic and socioeconomic lines: think big-picture to redefine student success and set equity goals; work externally to change the student experience; and work internally to build urgency and commitment to the goal.
3. Certificate and Degree Pathways, a Snapshot report by the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) Research Center, indicates that students who earn an associate degree or certificate as their first college credential and then go to a four-year institution are significantly more likely to earn a baccalaureate within six years. Data show that of all associate degrees reported to the NSC for the 2009–10 academic year, 536,351 were earned by students with no previous degrees or certificates. Within the next six academic years, more than 64 percent of these students enrolled at a four-year institution and 42 percent earned a bachelor’s degree.

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