Overview

Postsecondary education has never been as important as it is today. Economic competitiveness depends on states' ability to educate their citizens, retain talent, and develop clusters of innovation.

Focus of Center Activities

The NGA Center supports governors and their advisors with framing papers and examples of best practice.

The Honor States Grant Program leverages postsecondary education leadership and accountability for increased college-ready high school graduation rates and college graduation rates. The Action Agenda for Improving America's High School identifies roles and responsibilities for colleges, universities, and state higher education systems. Minnesota, a Phase I Honor States grantee, is using some of its

• NGA Center funds to develop a statewide accountability system for higher education that includes performance reporting on college readiness.

• Productivity and Accountability is supported by funding from the James B. Irvine Foundation, National Science Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation. States' long term fiscal outlook demands that higher education become more productive if attainment gaps are to be closed. The NGA Center highlights promising and innovative strategies to contain costs and improve learner productivity. Please click on "Higher Expectations Part I and Part II" to become more familiar with these issues.

• Pathways to Advancement is an initiative of the NGA Center designed to help states expand postsecondary access and attainment for working adults. Supported by the Lumina Foundation for Education, the project will assist a select group of states improve the number of adults who gain postsecondary credentials.

Publications

• The Pathways to Advancement Project: How States Can Expand Postsecondary Educational Opportunities for Working Adults
• Graduation Pays
• Improving the School to College Transition
• Stronger Fiscal Incentives Can Improve Secondary and Postsecondary Outcomes
• Action Agenda for Improving America's High Schools

Related Links:

• Enrolling in College, Ready or Not
  Written by Charles Reed, chancellor of the California State University system, and NGA's Kristin Conklin, this Chronicle of Education opinion piece discusses the need for postsecondary institutions to participate in the creation of college-readiness high school standards, produce teachers that are prepared to teach to such standards, and provide immediate remediation to enolled students who are identified as not college-ready.

• The NCHEMS Information Center for State Higher Education Policymaking and Analysis

• Policy Alert: State Shortfalls Projected to Continue Despite Economic Gains

• Policy Alert: Income of US Workforce projected to decline if Education Doesn't Improve