The buzzword “access” has been around for decades, yet, as the current issue of American Academic points out, the goal of ensuring Americans equal access to college remains elusive. Decades have passed since President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed that Americans’ right to freedom from ignorance is a “fifth” freedom behind those enumerated by FDR: freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

Still, as issue editor (and Salem State University English professor) Paul Jude Beauvais points out, “Although postsecondary education is more accessible to a larger percentage of the population how than at any other time in the nation’s history, the same factors that Lyndon Johnson identified—race, birth, income—still play too large a role in determining who is able to attend college, which college a person is able to attend, and whether a person is able to remain in college until graduation.” 

American Academic, an annual journal sponsored by the AFT Higher Education Program and Policy Council, explores these obstacles under the issue theme “The Uneven Road to College Opportunity: Who Gets Left Behind?” It delves into how the benefits of higher education are being “privatized,” how access problems are limiting the advanced study prospects of first-generation college graduates;  the challenges for undocumented students, the evolving role of historically black institutions, the difficulties of Latino students in acquiring aid; and the Internet as an asset or barrier for low-income student learners.

To get a copy of the 2007 American Academic, contact the AFT higher education department at 202/879-4426 or e-mail americanacademic@aft.org, or you can read it online at http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_academic/index.htm