We can do better at helping working adults continue their education

This article by Nancy C. Rodriquez in University Business lays out the problems facing college transfer students in Kentucky.  In an earlier posting, I referenced Kentucky’s desire to increase the number of college graduates in that state.  Kudos to Kentucky for this, a desire that is shared by many other states. 

Ms. Rodriquez states that despite the “sweeping reforms” in 1997 by the State’s General Assembly to increase the number of community college students transferring to public universities, today there are fewer such transfers than there were ten years ago.  She states that there are at least three reasons:  university requirements that make it difficult to transfer credits, lack of advisors to help the community college students, and reluctance by the public universities to actively recruit community college students.

While Ms. Rodriquez is not dealing exclusively with students who fit the other 85 percent category, many community college students work, have families and are older than traditionally-aged university students.  And Ms. Rodriquez cites an example of a transfer student who is 27 years old.

A major assertion in this blog is that public policy does not adequately address the needs of older, working students. Public policies on higher education are established to serve the student who comes directly to a university after high school and studies full-time.  There are at least two examples in Ms. Rodriquez’s article that demonstrate how public policies, broadly defined, negatively impact working, adult, part-time students.  While there are institutionally based policies that she cites, I only want to focus on those that operate across institutions; that represent public policy.

The first problem she cites is that financial aid, other than federal financial aid, has moved from being needs-based to being merit-based.  This means that, almost by definition, it is going to highly qualified students coming directly to the university from high school.  These funds are not available to returning adults and part-time students.

But, even more onerous is a policy or practice about how the federal government counts students for retention and program completion.  The government only counts those who are “first-time, full-time undergraduate students.”  This definition is restricted to those students attending college for the first time.  And this is how retention and completion rates are calculated.  Ms. Rodriquez cites the fact that community college students are not actively recruited because “they don’t count toward an institution’s graduation, ACT average or retention rate.”  That is true and the result, while unintended, of focusing just on traditional assumptions about who attends college is damaging.  And the damage is not just in negatively impacting transfers.  Those institutions that serve adults students are damaged by this calculation because when they serve “first-time, full-time” adult students, they are serving an audience least likely to persist and complete.  These adults are most likely to start, stop, restart and take a long time to complete.  Yet, when only these students are counted, the adult serving institution that has relatively large numbers of transfer students and very limited numbers of “first-time, full-time” students can look like it has extremely low completion rates.  But the calculation only uses a small subset of the full population of students.  Again, these are the students that are the most likely not to stay and complete at their first institution.  This practice seriously distorts the overall experience of the institution and its students.

Nonetheless, institutions that serve adults at a distance, like those involved in Transparency by Design, are dedicated to serving adults students.  That is why we have relatively generous transfer policies, work closely with community colleges, and can be of help to states like Kentucky that want to increase the number of their citizens who have earned a bachelor’s degree or higher.  We recognize that all transfer students need extra customer care.  We know that is a need and an expectation of adult students who are often also transfer students and are faced with confusing rules and practices.  Institutions and divisions of institutions that educate adults online serve students in the states and communities in which they live and are most likely to stay.  We are dedicated to high quality higher education and are willing to share the results of our education by publicly reporting our learning outcomes through Transparency by Design.  Too often, the services we provide are overlooked by states, like Kentucky, that seek increased education levels and improved economic vitality.

We stand ready to help states like Kentucky and applaud them for their desire to raise the education levels of their citizens.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Mike