In this issue of OPPORTUNITY: Reality versus Policy....The Changing Human Capital Economy of the United States, 1948 to 2010 we examine the restructuring of employment in the United States between 1948 and 2010. To the extent we expect education to prepare young people for employment during their adult lives, our analysis makes clear that many jobs in some goods producing industries that paid well in the past are gone forever. Yet the human capital economic evolution is producing new jobs in many service providing industries that pay well, but only with large investments in postsecondary education and training.

Males have become seriously underrepresented in higher education over the last three decades, and failure to get a higher education sharply curtails their prospects and welfare the rest of their lives. This analysis of recently released data from the Census Bureau explores the origins of male disengagement from higher education. These data focus on male feelings about school in elementary and secondary education. -- Efforts to restore male enrollments in higher education must begin no later than the middle school grades if boys are to be prepared for the challenges and opportunities of higher education.

How to Limit Opportunity for Higher Education, 1980 to 2011

This issue of OPPORTUNITY is a prescription for how to curtail higher education opportunity. It is a record of regressive social policy making at the state, federal and institutional levels over the last three decades.... The consequences of these regressive policy choices have been born primarily by the growing minority and low income populations who most need government assistance to access and complete higher educations.

Student Persistence in Higher Education, 1947 to 2010

This issue of OPPORTUNITY explores student persistence in education when school enrollment is no longer compulsory. State laws generally require school enrollment through age 16. Thereafter enrollment is voluntary--and ever more expensive. So students begin leaving the education pipeline: during high school, between high school and college, and during college. By the time of college graduation at the bachelor's degree level, about 70% of students who had been enrolled at age 16 have left the education system. The data presented in our report look at these persistence and attrition data over time and across different population groups.

An overdue editorial.....Give 'em Pell!

This issue of OPPORTUNITY is an editorial arguing for major expansion of the Pell Grant Program. All of the current discussion about Pell Grants are about where to "reform" or selectively cut back Pell Grants for students from low and lower-middle income families. We believe that this is the wrong discussion and we refuse to be a part of it. Instead we outline the arguments why the Pell Grant Program needs to be expanded, where it needs to be expanded, and how to pay for this expansion.