By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 21, 2006 10:39 AM

Like most people, I have a favorite novel ("Mindbridge" by Joe Haldeman), a favorite movie ("Tootsie" with Dustin Hoffman), and of course a favorite ice cream (chocolate chip, Baskins-Robbins).

But how many people have a favorite federal government report?

Mine is "Answers in the Tool Box: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns and Bachelor's Degree Attainment," published in 1999 by the U.S. Department of Education. I am thrilled to announce the publication of its sequel, "The Toolbox Revisited: Paths to Degree Completion From High School Through College."

The first Toolbox provided the most powerful argument by far for getting more high school students into challenging courses, my favorite reporting topic. Using data from a study of 8,700 young Americans, it showed that students whose high schools had given them an intense academic experience -- such as a heavy load of English courses or advanced math or Advanced Placement -- were more likely to graduate from college. It has been frequently cited by high school principals, college admissions directors and anyone else who cared about giving more choices in life to more students, particularly those from low-income and minority families.

The new Toolbox (after March 15, order online at www.ed.gov/pubs/edpubs.html) is 193 pages of dense statistics, obscure footnotes and a number of insightful and surprising assessments of the intricacies of getting a college degree in America. It confirms the lessons of the old Toolbox using a study of 8,900 students who were in 12th grade in 1992, 10 years after the first group. But it goes much further, prying open the American higher education system and revealing the choices that are most likely to get the least promising students a bachelor's degree.

Then it does something I have rarely seen in any educational report. It asserts that raising the college graduation rate is more the responsibility of the students themselves than the business executives, educators, foundation officers and government policy makers who are most likely to read the report.

Both Toolbox I and Toolbox II are the work of Clifford Adelman. His full title is senior research analyst, Policy, Research and Evaluation Staff, Office of Vocational and Adult Education, U.S. Department of Education. He is a very serious social scientist, but with a passion for clarity that make reading his work a trip.

He doesn't spare the reader the technical stuff. Here is a sentence from page 38 of the new Toolbox: "Likewise, following Pedhazur's (1982) rules of thumb for identifying potential collinearity problems from correlations, table 11 advises that if we use the high school academic curriculum index, we should not invoke either highest level of math or science momentum in the same multivariate model." But after chopping your way through a patch of Adelman underbrush, you are rewarded with a flash of insight, such as this new Toolbox dismissal of old assumptions about students in the pipeline toward a degree:

"There is no linear path to a degree," he says. "The default 'pipeline' metaphor . . . is wholly inadequate to describe student behavior [which] moves in starts and stops, sideways, down one path to another and perhaps circling back. Liquids move in pipes; people don't."

The Toolbox Revisited has some good news. By 2000, the portion of the high school class of 1992 who spent at least some time in a four-year college had a college graduation rate of 66 percent, up from 60 percent for the high school class of 1982 after that same period of time.

But many of our assumptions about how they managed that feat are wrong, Adelman says. For instance, despite our national obsession over picking the right school, Adelman shows is it not where you go to college but how you use that time in college that most closely correlates with getting a college degree. If you earn at least 20 credits your first year, don't take more than one break from college of more than a semester (not counting summers) and keep your grades up, your chances of getting a bachelor's degree are very good.

Also, Adelman says, it is not true that freshman year is the make or break time for undergraduates. Ninety percent of them show up for sophomore year, although those with bad first-year grades are unlikely to survive much longer.

Undergraduates themselves have to make the right choices, Adelman says, but he has plenty of advice -- some of it new to me -- for administrators who want to point their students in the right direction. He says colleges should use summer terms more often for popular courses and credit-bearing internships, so that students can move more easily toward graduation. He says colleges that allow students to drop courses with no penalty long after an initial sampling period, or allow students to repeat no-credit remedial courses, are creating conditions that raise the likelihood that those students will not graduate. They are also are depriving other students of a chance to fill those seats.

Adelman says high school students who delay entry into college -- aside from a few top students who need a breather before they head for very selective schools -- are increasing the risk that they will not get a degree. "The later they show up, the more their postsecondary fate is in jeopardy," Adelman says.

And no longer do all students start college in the fall. In Adelman's sample, 6 percent of traditional-age students, meaning recent high school graduates, started in the summer term and 12 percent started in the winter or spring.

So if it is the students who have to bear the burden of getting themselves a degree, how exactly should they do that? Toward the end of the report, Adelman offers seven tips. I call them the "College Completion Cliff Notes." They are vintage Adelman, very un-government-report-like, so I will finish by just quoting them in full:

"1. Just because you say you will continue your education after high school and earn a college credential doesn't make it happen. Wishing doesn't do it; preparation does! So . . .

"2. Take the challenging course work in high school, and don't let anyone scare you away from it. Funny thing about it, but you learn what you study, so if you take up these challenges, your test scores will inevitably be better (if you are worried about that). If you cannot find the challenge in the school's offerings, point out where it is available on-line, and see if you can get it that way. There are very respectable Web sites offering full courses in precalculus, introductory physics, humanities, music theory, and computer programming, for example.

"3. Read like crazy! Expand your language space! Language is power! You will have a lot less trouble in understanding math problems, biology textbooks, or historical documents you locate on the Web. Chances are you won't be wasting precious credit hours on remedial courses in higher education.

"4. If you don't see it now, you will see it in higher education: The world has gone quantitative: business (obviously), geography, criminal justice, history, allied health fields -- a full range of disciplines and job tasks tells you why math requirements are not just some abstract school exercise. So come out of high school with more than Algebra 2, making sure to include math in your senior year course work, and when you enter higher education, put at least one college-level math course under your belt in the first year -- no matter what your eventual major.

"5. When you start to think seriously about postsecondary options, log on to college and community college Web sites and look not so much for what they tell you of how wonderful life is at Old Siwash, but what they show you of the kinds of assignments and examination questions given in major gateway courses you will probably take. If you do not see these indications of what to expect, push! Ask the schools for it! These assignments and questions are better than SAT or ACT preparation manuals in terms of what you need to complete degrees.

"6. See if your nearest community college has a dual-enrollment agreement with your school system, allowing you to take significant general education or introductory occupational courses for credit while you are still in high school. Use a summer term or part of your senior year to take advantage, and aim to enter higher education with at least six credits earned this way -- preferably more.

"7. You are ultimately responsible for success in education. You are the principal actor. The power is yours. Seize the day -- or lose it!"