The fact that learning has been improved is wonderful. That alone makes this effort worthwhile. But there is no denying that Ms. Twigg is disappointed. She makes that abundantly clear when she says “you’re dealing with a culture that does not care about reducing costs.”

The article cites several schools that just stopped tracking costs. Twigg is quoted again, “if administrators do not continue to be involved and simply let it devolve to a faculty project, most faculty don’t care about costs.” The problem is stated as one where there are disincentives for saving money because the provost merely takes it away.

This is truly scary. There are faculty quoted as saying they think higher education should receive more funding and therefore they are not invested in trying to reduce costs. But, those outside of higher education are fed up and much of their anger is about the constantly increasing price of attending college. This is no small disconnect. The academic culture appears to be one of supposed entitlement because the work of higher education is assumed to be so important. But there are limits and we are either dangerously close to hitting those limits or may even have surpassed them. Twigg is quoted as saying “people in higher education believe in what we’re doing, as long as they don’t have to do it.”

Any ideas on how to change this culture?

Mike

Your thoughts? Please feel free to leave a comment.

Mike

Institutions responding to the survey indicated that they believe current economic challenges will have a positive impact on overall online enrollments.  That remains to be seen.

Since so many online enrollments are by adult and other part-time, working students, I wonder what will happen to these students as the economic impact becomes more obvious.  An economic downturn of the current magnitude can have different impacts at different institutions and not always in the ways expected.  In some cases, when the economy turns down, there are budget cuts at universities and colleges that actually reduce access for adults and part-time, working adults.  It depends on how a college or university is structured and how online or external degrees are funded.  If the revenues go into some type of general fund and are not necessarily available to the program, then expansion or even continuation of programs can be threatened.  On the other hand, if the degree programs are offered by a unit that is able to retain tuition revenues, then there is the possibility that the programs will continue and even expand.  But even in those cases there may be pressure to treat these programs as “cash cows” to help ride out reductions in other funding sources. 

And cuts are certainly on the way, especially in public institutions.  This Inside Higher Ed article has examples from two of our largest states.  Particular attention should be given to the possibility of the California State University System reducing enrollments by 10,000 students.  It would seem to be politically risky for the system to cut 10,000 traditional students and expand programs for “non-traditional” students.  So, it might be assumed that there will be reduced access in that system.  While New York is calling for budget cuts and reductions in aid on an average student basis, it may also see reduced access.   Add to this the recent story out of the University of Iowa that faculty are being limited in the number of online courses they may teach and the pressures on online programs begin to multiply.

There are at least two interesting elements to the Sloan Consortium’s report.  First, they explain that the earliest pioneers in online learning began such offerings little over a decade ago and only 15% of all U.S. colleges and universities had offered online courses prior to 1999.  They go on to say that the growth of online enrollments in 2008 is not because of growth in the number of institutions offering online courses and programs but because of growth at the early pioneer institutions.  These institutions offer the greatest array of offerings and account for most of the growth.  A second issue the Sloan report addresses is the importance of geography.  They report that over 85% of all online enrollments come from within 50 miles of the campus of the college or university offering the online programs.  The author’s conclude that offering online courses does not necessarily expand the geographic reach of a college or university, but speculate that those schools that succeed in widening their reach may grow faster than others.

I suspect that these two issues may be connected, and the growth of those who serve beyond a 50 mile radius is likely to be happening already.  That the pioneer online institutions have long worked to offer their programs nationally and to develop brands that were recognized beyond their immediate region.  That most other schools find it challenging to market and brand themselves nationally.  And that this is why the majority of growth is produced by the pioneers.

But what is troubling to me is that, even when states are cutting support for public colleges and universities, there is a growing demand for workforce education, and there is continually increasing demand for online programs, there are still states with public policies that inhibit that access.  Some of the same states that are facing the most severe economic stress have some of the most restrictive policies for out-of-state institutions that seek to offer online programs within those states.  It is the adult-serving online programs that can help address increasing demand even in times of economic downturn.  We know how to serve adults, today’s workforce, and how to deliver online programs across the country.

There is a need for public policy rationality, for states to figure out how to work with adult, online programs that are offered across state borders.  And, where state policies might include the idea of protecting in-state institution, there is a need to recognize that those very institutions may be facing diminished capacities to meet the increasing demands of adult and other part-time, working students in these states.

Please let me know what you think.

Mike

This will allow the institutions involved in Transparency by Design the opportunity to expand our work. The initial public reports will be published in early 2009.

Mike

Preparing our graduates to succeed in their professional lives is not about lowering higher education to some crass level at which only job skills are taught, as some critics claim. It is being accountable that we are preparing our students to be successful professionals, whether they choose to be university professors or to engage in another profession.

It is good to see that the Council of Graduate Schools has recognized the problem and is taking steps to address it. The Council encourages universities to work with the organizations that will hire their doctoral graduates, to help students and faculty to understand the workplace into which they will be sent. The marketplace for doctorates has also recognized the need for change and is demanding doctorates that do more than prepare people for the relatively limited number of jobs at research institutions.

Your thoughts?

Mike

All those inputs I mentioned were nice, cost a lot and now we, the public, want to know what they produced. 

If we ask the question about what is the goal of higher education from a public policy perspective, it would be to produce thoughtful and productive citizens who are able to participate in our democracy, earn a decent living, and contribute to our economic vitality.  We certainly want citizens who can communicate effectively, think critically about a range of issues, and reason analytically.  But we also want citizens prepared to do the work that drives the economy and allows them to realize a good life.  If a student majors in accounting, for example, you want that person to be able to do effective and responsible accounting work.

How do we look at program level learning, such as accounting?  Are there institutional and program-level standards, to which a student is held accountable?  How do we express the level to which a student measures up to those standards?  How do we know a student learned the necessary content when reading a transcript that lists course titles and letter grades?  I am not the first to say that very little is gleaned from the traditional transcript.  This is very disappointing because the use of portfolios and an increasing emphasis on learning outcomes assessment enables us to do much better.

Colleges can clearly articulate standards for learning outcomes and define proficiency levels for each outcome, ranging from basic skills to a distinguished level of proficiency.  Assessments can be designed to measure the level of proficiency a student demonstrates for each intended outcome.  These assessments can be embedded in a portfolio that records the student’s achievement.  The type of information provided in this sort of learning record is superior to a mere listing of course and letter grade.

Pressing deeper into what the goals for higher education should be, what level of proficiency should we try to attain for our students?  Our goal should be to work with every student to help them to achieve the highest possible level of proficiency.  That would mean that we should aspire to have every student demonstrate a distinguished level of proficiency.  When measured against standards that are clearly articulated and vetted in the world in which the student will work, I would say that it is possible to teach to excellence and to expect students to demonstrate the highest levels of proficiency.  It should be our goal to have every student aspire to and potentially achieve a level of proficiency that is distinguished.  Distinguished not in a competitive comparison to other students, but in terms of the stated and accepted standards.

But those who expect a bell curve will argue that it is impossible to have many or most students achieve a distinguished level of learning – if too many students achieve that level, the standards are soft.  Academic rigor must be lacking. Why would that be so?  Again, if standards are set, are vetted in the world of work, and the students are able to demonstrate that they are achieving a level defined as exceptional or distinguished, what is soft?  Why is there an assumption that rigor is lacking?  We should base judgments about rigor and quality on what is produced, not what is put in, or how many are failed.

I would submit that if we are committed to evidence-, standards- and outcomes-based education, then we need to give up on the old approach that dictates failure and accept that many of our students can and will demonstrate exceptional or distinguished levels of proficiency achievement.  The old approach is elitist and competition-driven and requires that only a select few can rise to the level of the exceptional or distinguished.  I believe that we can remove elitism not only from admissions decisions but from learning outcomes assessments by focusing on standards that are shared transparently and require demonstration of proficiency.  This approach assumes a shift from a competitive base to a modified mastery-learning base.  Modified in that we don’t keep teaching the student until she gets what is being taught but that we teach and support her to achieve the highest possible level of mastery.

Academic rigor is more about what we do to teach and support students so that they can demonstrate the highest level of proficiency rather than to assume that rigor means some must fail and most must be simply “average.”

What do you think?

Mike

It was agreed during the CHEA discussion that “colleges have a long way to go in showing that they are effectively educating students,” and that there is a relatively short window in which to get this done before Congress might consider mandates on learning outcomes reports. The article above captures the different opinions and the hesitation of many higher education officials and accreditation agencies about such mandates.

As I asserted in March, Transparency by Design is an effort by colleges and universities that serve adults through online programs intends to offer annual reports that detail core and program level learning outcomes. Again, it is not our intent that such reports be mandated as part of accreditation. Rather, this information is intended to empower and enable prospective adult students to make good choices amongst an array of possible options.

But, there is another reason that we should continue our work on Transparency by Design. In addition to empowering prospective adult students, we must help the public to understand that there are online programs and institutions that are focused on high levels of quality, on learning outcomes, and on being transparent about what they are doing. We see the Transparency by Design reports as a way to allow prospective students, employers, oversight agencies and the public to be able to identify the quality online higher education providers. This is important because the internet has not only enabled the delivery of higher education, but has also enabled the growth of scams and outright fraud in the form of diploma mills.

Unfortunately, these types of illegal operations undercut the value of legitimate colleges and universities that offer degrees online. They undercut the hard work that serious adult students have invested in earning degrees online.

I would argue that it is imperative that we continue the work of Transparency by Design, if only to counter these types of activities and to earn the trust of our students, their employers, and the public. And, it seems as if we may also lead the way to what some in Congress and the Department of Education declare is an important step toward greater accountability.

What do you think?

Mike

As I have written previously in this blog there are a number of institutions that serve adults at a distance that are working together to develop reports for prospective adult students. The Transparency by Design effort is intent on providing more than rhetoric by delivering the kind of information that adult students need to make the critical decision about what college to attend – and to allow interested readers to assess our effectiveness. We have recently been joined by two additional institutions, American Intercontinental University Online and Colorado Technical University, and have been working diligently to collect the data required to make our initial reports, as planned, in early 2009.

We have partnered with WCET, an office of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), to be our independent, third-party aggregator and publisher of the institutional reports. Transparency by Design has been referred to as one the three major accountability efforts in the country. This initiative is also one of three major initiatives of the Presidents’ Forum, an alliance of institutions that serve adults, and we expect additional institutions from the Forum to join us once the initial fourteen institutions “prove this concept” with our 2009 reports.

What truly distinguishes this effort from other accountability initiatives is that we will provide reports of learning outcomes both at the core level (writing, critical thinking, etc.) and at the program level. And we are working on common research questions to use in follow-up surveys of our alumni.

It is my sense that we are taking to heart the concerns expressed by Mr. Vedder and others who continue to call for colleges to be more transparent.

What are your thoughts? I welcome any feedback you have.

Mike

First, thanks for posting the New York Times article.  Second, I chose to wait to reply until after the annual meeting of the Higher Learning Commission in Chicago that took place over the past few days.  I wanted to get a sense of what is happening at the largest of the regional accrediting agencies.  The theme was “Finding Common Ground:  Accreditation, Assessment and Accountability.”

There is no question that the regional accrediting agencies are searching for new ways to do their work.  But, it is my impression that the expectations for accrediting agencies have changed dramatically.  So, rather than assuming that they have failed, it is more accurate to recognize that what is expected of them is much more demanding now than it has been in the past.  One speaker mentioned that, in the past, the accrediting agencies were expected to assess and recognize “adequacy” on the part of accredited institutions.  That is adequacy to plan, deliver and assess quality at their institution.  The current expectation is to set a common, high standard for quality.  Those are very different things.  There is no question that the current expectation is to assess outcomes rather than inputs.  This is a good thing, but it is also challenging for institutions and accrediting agencies to make the change. 

In one session for institution presidents and board members, three national accountability initiatives were described:

•    U-Can of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities
•    College Portrait of the National Association of State Universities and Land
•    Transparency by Design

The presidents and board members were asked if the Higher Learning Commission should require participation in one of these three efforts by the institutions it accredits.  I cannot say how the other small groups reacted, but in the small group I joined it was agreed that it would be too soon for the Higher Learning Commission to make such a move.  Depending on the success and evolution of the various efforts, it may be that such a move would be desirable in the future.

I think the overarching significance of the three national initiatives and the spirit they share is a strong commitment to transparency.  The regional accrediting associations can and will benefit from increased institutional transparency, as will the institutions and their students.  One reason there are three initiatives is that there is such variation in the missions of American institutions of higher education.  And that variation in mission and purpose is what makes me very concerned about any attempt for a “one size fits all” set of minimum standards for evaluating colleges.  The basic premise of this blog is that the prevailing view that dominates higher education public policy, including discussions about quality standards, is seriously out of touch with reality.  While higher education service to full-time on-campus students who come to the campus directly from high school is important, that type of student is in the distinct minority.  Most college students are older, working, participating on a part-time basis, and have many competing responsibilities.  An example of wrong-headedness in what might be an important metric is the idea of completing a bachelor’s degree in four years.  How relevant is that to the working mother who is taking a course or two at a time?  And there are lots of folks in that situation, many more than the full-time, twenty-year-old, on-campus student.  My fear is that a single set of standards will follow the same tired path and focus on an out-dated view of who attends college and how they participate.  Adult students will not be recognized and their needs will not be addressed in a single, unified standard.

Now, it is possible that the standard would be about actual learning outcomes, like those addressed in Transparency by Design.  But, what I see so far is mainly a desire to restate existing measures, and those measures are not about learning outcomes. They are based on the dated view of a full-time, on-campus, young student as the norm.

Your thoughts?

Mike

We had to deal with that risk as we developed Transparency by Design and the detailed information we will provide to prospective adult students to help them make informed decisions about what college or university to attend, with emphasis on institutions that serve adults at a distance, such as online universities.  There are some who look at Transparency by Design and say that it goes beyond what is necessary, that the information produced will be used in negative ways, and that it may lead to outcomes like those that Eaton outlines.  But, the intent of the institutions involved in Transparency by Design is to inform and empower prospective adult students, to help them understand the institutions and what they have to offer, and to be enabled to make informed decisions about which school is right for them.  All of the Transparency by Design schools are accredited institutions and believe in voluntary accreditation.  We also believe in voluntarily providing meaningful information to adult students.  In fact, we hope that by being more transparent about learning outcomes we can assert voluntary self-regulation and make government regulation unnecessary. 

Obviously time will tell if Eaton is correct in this assessment of the future.  I certainly hope that she is not.  Your thoughts? 

Mike