I have a new piece out in The 74 this week on some good news in the education world:

College attainment rates rose just 1 or 2 percentage points per decade for the first half of the 20th century and only began to pick up in the 1970s. Although the most recent data only go through 2018, the 2010s have already seen a gain of 5.1 percentage points, more than the gains in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. If the 2010s ended anything like the decade began, it will easily be the best decade we’ve ever seen in terms of college attainment.

We just went through a decade of stagnant achievement scores, and ideally we’d see improvements in both achievement and attainment. Still, I argue it’s worth celebrating the attainment gains given their link to improved life outcomes for students.
Read the full piece here.