Studying College Students in the 21st Century: Meeting New Challenges

The confluence of several demographic, institutional, economic, and technological changes may not only alter fundamentally the way we think about what it means to go to college but also change the methodologies we now use to assess the impact of college. In this article, we outline and discuss the implications of four such forces: the changing undergraduate student population, the increasing importance of community colleges, shrinking financial support for higher education, and the rise of information technology.