Roundup: Week of September 17 – September 21

OECD Report Finds Other Countries Catching Up to U.S. in Higher Ed

Though the United States continues to lead the world in its proportion of college-educated citizens, other countries are quickly catching up, according to a report released Tuesday by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). The report, “Education at a Glance 2007,” is the OECDs annual survey of higher education systems in its 30 member countries. While the probability that the average U.S. citizen will seek a postsecondary education is the highest in the world (64 percent), only 54 percent of Americans who enter college ultimately obtain a degree. That figure ties the United States with New Zealand for “lowest survival rate” among the surveyed countries and is well below the OECD’s average rate of 71 percent. Moreover, the report found that the U.S. higher education attainment rate among 25- to 34-year-olds has remained flat at around 39 percent for the last three decades, causing America to fall behind other OECD countries whose rates have been rising. In addition, the report noted that the U.S. is falling behind other countries in producing graduates with science degrees.

Ed Dept to Eliminate Automatic Paper FAFSA Mailings

Due to an increasing reliance on electronic forms, paper copies of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) will no longer be automatically mailed to high schools, the Department of Education announced last Friday. Though the department annually prints millions of paper FASFAs, it processed only 500,000 hard copies last year. For example, one high school, which the department singled out but did not name in its news release, requested 75,000 paper copies but returned only 68 for processing. Students wishing to fill out a hard copy can still get one either by requesting it or printing it off the Web. Student-aid advocates were split on the shift to electronic forms. Some, such as Luke Swarthout of the Public Interest Research Group, told the Chronicle of Higher Education that an online FAFSA could make it easier for students to complete the form because it will be linked to other government records. Others, however, speculated that an online form would be harder for lower-income students to access.