Giving to the College Board
The College Board strives to ensure that every student has the opportunity to prepare for, enroll in, and graduate from college. Gifts and grants to the College Board help both educators and students reach their full potential, making college a possibility for everyone. For the millions of students we empower, for the teachers and educators we support, and for the schools and communities on whose behalf we advocate, the College Board believes that an investment in education is the gateway to a successful future.
Latest News
A recent College Board convening focusing on policies and practices that are increasing the educational success of young men of color was highlighted in the online publication, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. The event, titled Young Men of Color: Charting a Way for Educational Success, was an exciting gathering of education professionals and thought leaders, including Shawn Dove, campaign manager for the Campaign for Black Male Achievement at Open Society Foundations.
This month, the College Board launched BigFuture, a comprehensive college-planning site that provides a space where students can begin to define and plan for their futures. BigFuture provides students and parents with guidance in the college-planning process, offering the perspectives of teachers, counselors, and college admission and financial aid professionals in the form of videos and other tools.
The Access & Diversity Collaborative was established in the immediate wake of the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the University of Michigan cases by the College Board’s Advocacy and Policy Center, and provides guidance to colleges, universities, and state systems of higher education in developing and implementing their access- and diversity-related policies.
Visit the Access and Diversity homepage for the latest legal developments affecting Access and Diversity Initiatives, including an analysis of Fisher v. the University of Texas. Download the Access & Diversity toolkit, a new resource with 10 tools to help professionals develop and implement student-related access and diversity policies. The College Board continuously seeks to collaborate with outside organizations to continue work on this important issue.
The College Board has released The 8th Annual AP Report to the Nation, an annual report showcasing nationwide Advanced Placement participation and results. In addition to the data included in this publication are a glimpse at today’s AP experience in classrooms, districts, and universities; recommendations for achieving the nation’s education goals; strategies for success; and profiles of the districts that were awarded the AP District of the Year Award for their success in bringing equity and excellence to their students through AP courses and exams.
The College Board Receives an Investing in Innovation “i3” Grant Award
The College Board has received an award of $2,988,000 from the U.S. Department of Education for a 2011 Investing in Innovation, or i3 grant. The project is titled, “Student Success in AP Biology: Expanding the STEM College Readiness of High-Need Students”, and will develop, pilot, and evaluate new technology-enabled student- and classroom-level feedback reports to increase the rates at which high-need students succeed on the AP Biology Exam. Generous matching support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the amount of $260,000 brings even further credibility to this important initiative.
The federal government has recently taken steps to simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in order to make it easier for students and families to navigate. To assist states in preparing for these developments, the College Board, with support from the Lumina Foundation for Education, undertook an effort to estimate the effects of these potential changes. The College Board collaborated with and collected data from five states to study the impact of FAFSA simplification in a range of systems and to provide examples for other states with policies and approaches resembling one or more of those studied. The College Board has recently published the results in an Executive Summary, Can Simple Be Equitable? Lessons from State Grant Programs.
School counselors have the potential to significantly affect student outcomes and prepare students for college and career success. Yet the field of school counseling has not received the level of research, policy attention, and funding found in other educational fields. The 2011 National Survey of School Counselors, supported in part by the Kresge Foundation, was conducted by the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center’s National Office of School Counselor Advocacy (NOSCA). The survey will reveal how counselors feel about their mission, role, the support received from their schools, and will provide clear pathways to reform. More
Despite an important demographic shift across the United States, a limited proportion of Latinos are earning college degrees. The College Board Advocacy & Policy Center introduces its newly released publication, The College Completion Agenda Progress Report 2011: Latino Edition. The report and state policy guide, combined with a dynamic interactive website, contain in-depth findings about the educational progress of Latino students and offer a series of recommendations for addressing the challenges they face. More
Jamie Merisotis, president and CEO of the Lumina Foundation, writes about the need for a better educated populace, the enduring value of a college education, and Lumina’s efforts to improve the quality of post secondary education.
About 40 percent of African-American and Latino students attend racially isolated schools in which at least 90 percent of students are minorities, while just 8 percent of white students attend schools with at least 50 percent minority enrollment. Achieving Educational Excellence for All: A Guide to Diversity-Related Policy Strategies for School Districts, a new publication by the College Board and the National School Board Association (NSBA), aims to aid educators on possible ways to promote diversity and abide by the law. This publication is one way of informing district-specific K-12 student diversity policies that advance educational achievement for all students.
The Advocacy & Policy Center introduces the Young Men of Color initiative with the release of two new reports: The Educational Experience of Young Men of Color: A Review of Research, Pathways and Progress, and Capturing the Student Voice. The reports come alive through a dynamic new website that combines data and research with findings from in-depth student interviews featured through video storytelling.