Established in 1952, the Council for Aid to Education (CAE) is a nonprofit company headquartered in New York. It is aimed at measuring and improving soft skills among students at colleges and universities, including K-12 schools. As defined by CAE, these "high-order skills" include critical thinking, problem solving, and effective communication.

The CAE was formerly a part of the RAND Corp. After acquiring CAE in 1996, the two entities separated in October 2005.

Although CAE is primarily U.S.-based in origin and governance, its assessment work, especially around critical thinking and higher-order skills, has been used internationally through partnerships, translated assessments, and global research collaborations. For example:

• CAE reports that its assessments have been used by more than 800,000 students globally across 1,300+ institutions.
• Its CLA+ assessment has been administered in multiple countries, including the U.S., United Kingdom, Italy, Mexico, Finland, Chile, and Australia.
• CAE partnered with the OECD on international critical-thinking research involving students across seven countries.

CAE's central products include two primary assessments designed to uncover potential shortcomings in a program's curriculum or students' skills sets:

• Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA+)
• College and Career Readiness Assessment (CCRA+)

CAE also offers resources to help institutions teach these "high-order" skills. In addition to these two pre-made assessments, CAE also collaborates with institutions to design, develop, and deliver custom assessments to measure skills most applicable to a specific program or institution.

CAE offers research and evaluation tools to help answer questions like:

• How strong are your students’ skills?
• How do they stack up against peers at similar schools?
• Are your programs and supports really making a difference?
• How are at-risk students progressing?
• What’s the link between these skills and students’ academic success? Career success?

CAE offers student reports and institutional reports of its assessments.

Resources

https://cae.org/

https://www.ecampusnews.com/teaching-learning/2023/11/16/colleges-intentionally-teach-critical-thinking-skills/