The Other 85 Percent

How long should it take for a working adult to finish college?

May 8, 2008 | Filed under: Capella, Capella University, College rankings, Mike Offerman, The Other 85 Percent, college, college degree, continuing education, distance learning, elearning, higher education

Recently, Alan Contreras, the administrator of the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization, spoke to college and university presidents and board members at the annual meeting of the North Central Association of Colleges and School’s Higher Learning Commission annual meeting. He stated that, in his view, there are three critical variables that higher education institutions must address, and that it is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve more than two of the desired states at any one time. The three variables are:

• Ease of admissions requirements
• High quality instructional delivery
• High completion rates

The easiest way for schools to achieve quality instruction and high completion rates is to admit only those who have clearly demonstrated they can succeed–elite admissions approaches typical in select liberal arts institutions. But if you ease the admissions requirements, and keep high quality instruction, some will not succeed and completion rates suffer. Or, if you just focus on completion rates and ease admissions, it is likely that you will need to relax instruction to get folks through. The real challenge is to figure out how to achieve all three: admissions requirements that extend access, high quality instruction, and high completion rates.

But perhaps we also need to rethink what defines success in terms of completion rates when we deal with adults. Currently, completion calculations are tied to a short timeframe — how many students complete a bachelor’s degree in four or five or six years. That may be an acceptable concern for the high school graduate who engages in full-time academic study. But is it right for part-time students who must work to pay their way through school? Is it right for the working adult who may need to enroll in one term and then take a term off due to work and other responsibilities? Is there something wrong with an adult who takes seven, eight, or even ten or more years to earn an undergraduate degree?

The way we currently measure and report both retention, as a predictor of completion, and completion rates is wrong for adult and part-time students. IPEDS data measures retention by how many first-time, full-time students remain in the same school from one fall term to a second. We currently treat colleges and universities as if there is something wrong if students don’t stay at the same school for a second year. Does that make any sense for working adult students who, as first-time–full-time students are at the greatest risk of not being able to maintain full-time status at the same school? Our metrics are skewed to the traditional student and are not useful when considering the other 85%.

It may well be that for this audience we should be interested in how many people successfully complete courses as well as how many eventually complete a degree. This is especially true for those attending community colleges, where many students do not intend to complete an entire program but are only seeking courses for transfer or to earn a certificate. But it is also true at other institutions.

Reflecting on the three variables that Contreras identified, we need to rethink admissions and redefine retention and completion if we are truly going to extend access and get away from elitism. For working adult and part-time students, current measurements simply do not reflect reality. We need to eliminate the measurement of only first-time, full-time students and we need to take an expansive view of the time required for completion. We may wish that all students would complete a bachelor’s degree in 150% of the time a degree might be completed with full-time study, a standard that now exists and sets the timeframe for bachelor’s degree completion at six years. But is that realistic? I think not. Do we really want to look only at students who attend a single institution? That is what the current approach assumes. Do we really care if someone takes fifteen years to finish a degree? Isn’t it more important that they finish than that they finish in a fixed amount of time? And, is it better to have some college credits than to have none? As a society that exists in a shrinking world, aren’t we better off to encourage students of all ages to achieve some post-secondary education, even if that does not result in a complete degree or completion in a artificially defined period of time?

Adult-serving institutions need a different approach. The best approach would be to measure how many adult students complete the courses they start and to measure how many persist over a period of three to five years rather than from year one to year two. This approach would require that we measure persistence across institutions, following the student rather than merely looking at a single institution. And, for degree program completion, to measure how many students complete a degree program, again across institutions, in five years, ten years and more than ten years.

Reactions? Please let me know if you agree or disagree with what I propose, or feel free to offer suggestions of your own.

Mike

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