A Chronicle of Higher Education “Top 10 Books on Teaching” Selection Winner of the Virginia and Warren Stone Prize Constrained by shrinking budgets, can colleges do more to improve the quality of education? And can students get more out of college without paying higher tuition? Daniel Chambliss and Christopher Takacs conclude that the limited resources of colleges and students need not diminish the undergraduate experience. How College Works reveals the surprisingly decisive role that personal relationships play in determining a student's collegiate success, and puts forward a set of small, inexpensive interventions that yield substantial improvements in educational outcomes. “The book shares the narrative of the student experience, what happens to students as they move through their educations, all the way from arrival to graduation. This is an important distinction. [Chambliss and Takacs] do not try to measure what students have learned, but what it is like to live through college, and what those experiences mean both during the time at school, as well as going forward.” —John Warner, Inside Higher Ed

"One of the best theoretical and applied analyses of universityacademic organization and leadership in print. This book issignificant because it is not only thoughtfully developed and basedon careful reading of the extensive literature on leadership andgovernance, but it is also deliberately intended to enable theauthor to bridge the gap between theories of organization, on onehand, and practical application, on the other." --Journal of Higher Education

A tenured prof. breaks ranks to reveal what's wrong with American higher education and how it affects you. Professors can be underpaid. Marginalized. Over-reviewed. But one fact remains: The success of your education depends on them. Part industry expose and part call for a return to engaged teaching, Campus Confidential shows how the noble project of higher education fell so far and how we can redeem it. A must-read for parents thinking about their kids' futures: This book answers the questions most other college resources don't: Who exactly is teaching my kid? What questions to ask on the campus visit? How to get the most out of your tuition dollars? Jacques Berlinerblau is a tenured professor at one of the best schools in the country, and he has seen it all. He started his career at a community college, and on his way to the top he has been everything from a abused adjunct to an assistant professor to a coddled administrator. He has the inside scoop on the real world of Higher Ed. today.

The first practical guide of its kind that helps students transition smoothly from high school to college The transition from high school—and home—to college can be stressful. Students and parents often arrive on campus unprepared for what college is really like. Academic standards and expectations are different from high school; families aren’t present to serve as “scaffolding” for students; and first-years have to do what they call “adulting.” Nothing in the college admissions process prepares students for these new realities. As a result, first-year college students report higher stress, more mental health issues, and lower completion rates than in the past. In fact, up to one third of first-year college students will not return for their second year—and colleges are reporting an increase in underprepared first-year students. How to College is here to help. Professors Andrea Malkin Brenner and Lara Schwartz guide first-year students and their families through the transition process, during the summer after high school graduation and throughout the school year, preparing students to succeed and thrive as they transition and adapt to college. The book draws on the authors’ experience teaching, writing curricula, and designing programs for thousands of first-year college students over decades.

The bestselling analysis of higher education's impact, updated with the latest data How College Affects Students synthesizes over 1,800 individual research investigations to provide a deeper understanding of how the undergraduate experience affects student populations. Volume 3 contains the findings accumulated between 2002 and 2013, covering diverse aspects of college impact, including cognitive and moral development, attitudes and values, psychosocial change, educational attainment, and the economic, career, and quality of life outcomes after college. Each chapter compares current findings with those of Volumes 1 and 2 (covering 1967 to 2001) and highlights the extent of agreement and disagreement in research findings over the past 45 years. The structure of each chapter allows readers to understand if and how college works and, of equal importance, for whom does it work. This book is an invaluable resource for administrators, faculty, policymakers, and student affairs practitioners, and provides key insight into the impact of their work. Higher education is under more intense scrutiny than ever before, and understanding its impact on students is critical for shaping the way forward. This book distills important research on a broad array of topics to provide a cohesive picture of student experiences and outcomes by: Reviewing a decade's worth of research; Comparing current findings with those of past decades; Examining a multifaceted analysis of higher education's impact; and Informing policy and practice with empirical evidence Amidst the current introspection and skepticism surrounding higher education, there is a massive body of research that must be synthesized to enhance understanding of college's effects. How College Affects Students compiles, organizes, and distills this information in one place, and makes it available to research and practitioner audiences; Volume 3 provides insight on the past decade, with the expert analysis characteristic of this seminal work.

The long awaited sequel to the landmark work first published in 1991, this volume continues the longtitudinal study of how the college experience impacts on the lives of students in the US.

From the day they arrive on campus, college students spend four years—or sometimes more—making decisions that shape every aspect of their academic and social lives. Whether choosing a major or a roommate, some students embrace decision-making as an opportunity for growth, while others seek to minimize challenges and avoid risk. Practice for Life builds a compelling case that a liberal arts education offers students a complex, valuable process of self-creation, one that begins in college but continues far beyond graduation. Sifting data from a five-year study that followed over two hundred students at seven New England liberal arts colleges, the authors uncover what drives undergraduates to become engaged with their education. They found that students do not experience college as having a clear beginning and end but as a continuous series of new beginnings. They start and restart college many times, owing to the rhythms of the academic calendar, the vagaries of student housing allocation, and other factors. This dynamic has drawbacks as well as advantages. Not only students but also parents and faculty place enormous weight on some decisions, such as declaring a major, while overlooking the small but significant choices that shape students' daily experience. For most undergraduates, deep engagement with their college education is at best episodic rather than sustained. Yet these disruptions in engagement provide students with abundant opportunities for reflection and course-correction as they learn to navigate the future uncertainties of adult life.