When it comes to getting its young people to enroll in college and then do what it takes to graduate, the United States is losing its international edge. Although the nation ranks near the top in the proportion of 35- to 64-year-olds with college degrees, it drops to seventh among countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the educational attainment of younger adults, ages 25 to 34. And while other OECD nations have made dramatic gains in the proportion of young people going to and finishing college, U.S. college-participation rates have remained relatively flat since the early 1990s. Today, the likelihood that a 9th grader in the United States will enroll in college four years later is less than 40 percent, with students from low-income families and African-American and Hispanic students far less likely to do so than their more affluent, white peers. When they do enroll, low-income students also are more likely to attend public two-year colleges or private institutions that do not grant degrees. The failure to adequately prepare young people for college is part of the problem