Thank you.

Mike

Diane Auer Jones has proposed that schools start to report a “federal regulatory compliance fee” so that students and others can see the impact of added reporting requirements. She does a nice job of explaining her proposal and the reasons such a move would be useful.

Perhaps her idea is a good one. Not only for the reasons she presents, but because it would be interesting to see how much actually is spent on required reports. A part of me wonders why it would be so difficult and costly to report graduation rates for athletes.

There just seems to be an unending chorus of voices lamenting reporting requirements.  But, per the title of this post, don’t colleges and universities have some obligation to report on the most fundamental aspect of why they exist? Don’t we have an obligation to account for whether learning occurs and people finish their education?

I agree that there have been lots of added reporting requirements, and that these add costs. But the reports that I think we should object to because they are burdensome and costly are in the non-academic areas. Perhaps any federal compliance reports might separate out costs for academic reports and non-academic. Perhaps rather than railing about too many reports, we in higher education should define what it makes sense to report and what does not. Doesn’t it make sense that we should report about learning?

Too often the loudest objections are not about useless and bureaucratic reports, but rather about reporting on the very essence of our work.

What do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment.

Mike

I object to the opening comment that Tamar Lewin makes:  “only one in five of the students who enroll in two-year institutions graduates within three years.  And even at four-year colleges, only two in five complete their degree within six years.”  As I have written in the past, the three and six year timeframes are wrong-headed, and I think the findings in this survey highlight that fact.  I am certainly interested and hopeful that students will finish their degrees.  But to say that the 150% point (3 years for a 2-year degree, 6 years for a 4-year degree) is when they should finish is silly, especially when you consider that 85 percent (per this blog’s name) of college students are either older, studying part-time, and/or working while going to school. We need to consider a longer timeframe that allows for the reality of how these students proceed through to degree completion.  

But let’s look at the study—and at the article.  What do they tell us?
•    60 percent of those who dropped out were financially independent—got no financial assistance from their parents.
•    The story flips when the parents help out—60 percent of the students who got some financial support from their parents finished their degree.
•    Of those who dropped out, 70 percent did not have scholarship or loan aid while of those who finished, only 40 percent did not receive such aid.
•    The top reason for dropping out is that it was too hard to support themselves and go to school at that same time.
•    More than 1 in 3 said that even if they got funds to cover tuition and books, they still could not afford to return to school due to family and work obligations.
•    Of those who finished, 72 percent came from households with annual income over $35,000, while of those who dropped out, more than 50% came from households with less than $35,000 per year

There are at least two things going on here. One is the 85 percent issue. We still make public policy assuming that college students go directly from high school to study full-time on a campus, and are supported by their parents. This despite the fact that 85 percent are older, and/or studying part-time, and/or financially independent, and/or working.  The second thing is that lower-income students face significant challenges.  A good number of lower income students are part of the other 85 percent.

No wonder the survey respondents did not see adding online courses or making the application process easier as solutions. They are dealing with major challenges in finding the time, money, and energy to pursue a college degree. Their ideas for child care, cost reduction, and allowing more financial aid for part-time students make complete sense for what they face.

What results will this study have? Will anyone listen to the facts about the challenges facing the vast majority of contemporary college students?  When will we stop being driven only by the assumption that the high school student and his/her parents are the singular audience for higher education public policy decision-making?

Your thoughts? Please feel free to leave a comment.

Mike

The article reports that several law deans reported that they are too busy with budget cuts, tough job markets and soaring costs to be bothered with whether students learn. OK, they did not exactly say that last part, but that is still the message. What they did say is that they would likely have to “hire additional staff members to collect data and develop testing metrics, and some curriculum changes could be expensive.”

Excuse me?  What is it that you do in your law schools?

Some of the deans say that you cannot measure what will make a good lawyer through traditional assessment techniques. Now, that is a novel argument.  Well, not really. We hear that same lament from every profession. We are special. We cannot become, per a quote in the article, uniform and rigid.

And this is in the face of a job market where employers complain that they are hiring law school graduates who cannot do the job without extensive training after being hired.  Phillip A. Bradley is quoted as saying “many law firms are developing core competencies they expect of their lawyers, but many law schools aren’t delivering graduates who come close to meeting them.”  “Some law schools are of the view that delivering law graduates who have been ‘trained to think like a lawyer’ is sufficient.”

Seems like these law school deans need to wake up.

The idea of producing law graduates trained to think like lawyers reminds me of my experience attending orientation to law school some decades ago.  To get from the main campus to the law school meant walking through the campus of the art school, and we were told that “by god, when someone meets you on the path, you had damned well better look like a lawyer, and not some artist.”  Sort of reminds me of the way tobacco used to be sold—you, too, can be a Marlboro man.  It’s all in the attitude and the brand of cigarette you smoke – or the reputation of your law school.

I guess things haven’t changed all that much over the years. Apparently the law schools can still train ‘em to look and think like lawyers, and that should be good enough.  They don’t need any of this radical assessment of learning stuff.

Please let me know what you think with a comment.

Mike

What lousy public policy. What we have developing now is a whole myriad of systems that may or may not communicate with one another, and that frustrate any serious attempt to understand what happens to students who may start at one college and end up at others.  What types of students might do that? Well, the other 85% for starters.  

So, who opposed having the feds develop a single, unified federal system?  Let me quote Peter Ewell from the article:  “It is clear that this agenda is moving forward, despite opposition from the private colleges. The accountability push is such that these numbers are just simply going to be produced whether anyone likes it or not.”  But, doing it state by state is certainly not efficient.

Ewell goes on to say that “private colleges are all in favor of data. They just don’t want anybody but them to know.”

I have blogged many times about Transparency by Design and its Web site, College Choices for Adults, which is intended to provide useful information to adults seeking to enroll in a college. A national database that could track students who attend multiple schools would be very useful for our work. We would be able to indicate how many adults who end up attending multiple schools actually finish their desired degree.  Without this information, we simply don’t know. This is but one kind of information that could be gathered from such a database. And, those institutions in Transparency by Design not only want the data, but we want to share it, to make it transparent.

Why would any colleges oppose having data available?  Because in a world devoid of data, the reliance on reputation (whether deserved or not) rules.  There are many schools that rely on reputations that may or may not have been earned, but that drive their institutional revenues. Any change to rely on something that is based on data might threaten their reputations … and their revenues.

Mr. Ewell is correct when he says that numbers are going to be produced whether anyone likes it or not. Too bad that the numbers could not be produced in the most efficient way, and in a system that considers the entire country.  But, we have public policy to prevent that … because there are some who might lose.

Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Mike

We all know that 40,000 students is a big number, but thinking about it in terms of other well known institutions emphasizes how dramatic this reduction really is.  For example, Penn State University enrollment is just over 40,000 students.  Thinking about California turning away roughly the same number of students that currently attend Penn State is a scary thing.  And, when you add the 10,000 student reductions Cal State has made in 2009-2010, the total number of student reductions represents roughly the enrollment of the University of Texas-Austin.

This is beyond sad news.  And, to quote the Cal State System Chancellor Charles B. Reed, “Denying students access to higher education is just about one of the worst things you can do in a recession.  The state needs our graduates to enter the workforce and help the state’s economic recovery.”  And, I would add that the country needs those graduates AND California’s recovery as well.

Perhaps the time has come to fundamentally rethink and recreate how states go about the job of making higher education available to their citizens.  Preventing more cuts like those announced at Cal State, and coming up with new solutions to fit our challenging times seems to be a responsibility we all share.  Just as the “Great Depression” resulted in important and lasting public policy changes some decades ago, perhaps our current economic situation can only be overcome with some bold changes. I am not certain just what those changes might look like, but it seems that change is imperative given the magnitude of the Cal State reductions and the likelihood that other states and systems will be announcing reductions as well.

Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Mike

But, I wonder how seriously.  For an organization that has “learning outcomes assessment” in its name, why only look at core learning such as writing, critical thinking and analytical reasoning. What about learning outcomes in the student’s major? At the program level? The report states that the most common approach is to use something like the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), and to focus on the core areas. Of course, if you aren’t going to pay attention to whatever the assessments have to tell you, maybe it is just too much trouble to think about what ought to be measured.

As I have stated many times in this blog, the basic focus of Transparency by Design and its Web site http://www.collegechoicesforadults.org has been on program-level learning outcomes. Some have criticized us because the outcomes are not directly comparable—that is because every school claims unique program outcomes, and that those outcomes differentiate their school and programs. Regardless, why isn’t any other initiative looking at that level of learning? Why isn’t the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment encouraging that level of assessment?  If we are all going to get real about assessing learning outcomes, let’s get down to the important stuff:  what is it that we intend to have students learn in order to earn a degree?  How do we know if our graduates are actually learning what they are supposed to be?

I would hope the courage is out there for others to begin to do what the Transparency by Design institutions have started. But, the outlook is not promising. Just recently I was warned by a person from a traditional school that we should all be careful what we measure, because if you measure it, you may not be pleased with what you find.  You certainly would not want what you find to get out in the open!

The approach of the institutions in Transparency by Design is the exact opposite. Let’s measure what is important and, if we are not doing well today, let’s get about fixing it.  It is unfortunate that much of higher education goes through the motions of assessment, avoids assessing the really important things, and then ignore what they find.  I would suggest that it is precisely because of this culture that we are under such pressure to measure more, be transparent about what we find, and use assessment to drive improvement.

Please feel free to leave a comment. Thank you.

Mike

I empathize with the blight of the public university. While federal stimulus funds may be saving the day for the 2009-2010 academic year, and maybe even into 2010-2011, the 2011-2012 year seems to portend disaster. These institutions must do something different and, likely, dramatic.

But, I am concerned as the public universities consider their options. Let’s say the decision had been made to privatize. Would that not likely lead to fewer of Colorado’s young people having access to a public university education? Certainly that would be one scenario. That leads to another idea discussed by the Board of Governors: to limit admission for students who reside in the state, and to increase the number of students from out of state since they pay higher tuition and fees. That would require some level of policy change since current rules are that state funded schools must assure that 55 percent of their student body is comprised of in-state students.

It is not just Colorado that is wrestling with the budget challenges and arriving at the idea of increasing revenues by admitting non-resident students. Inside Higher Ed reports on a number of states either increasing non-resident numbers or considering doing so. A review of where most states are in terms of serving their residents through their public universities reveals that most schools are very reasonable and are fulfilling their missions to serve students from the state. This article cites the University of Vermont as an exception, with ¾ of its freshmen coming from outside Vermont. But, Vermont is an exception in that it is a blended institution—both private and (as they describe it) “quasi-public.”  The University of Delaware is reported to have more than half its students coming from outside the state. I will simply note that both are small states.

Concerns about possible changes to place a preference on non-resident students are basically about equity of access.  The concern is about state schools “enrolling wealthy white students.”  Pat Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, is quoted on the potential impact of such a move in California, “So, now that the majority of kids in the state will be more Latino, you are going to recruit more out-of-state students who are likely to be white?”

This equity concern is an important one. There is no question that public universities and their boards are going to faced with some tough decisions and some basic considerations about the appropriate mission of the public school. They would be wise to consider the cautions offered in the second article above about whether it will be an easy sell to out-of-state students.  Once again, it will likely be only the elite publics that will find it possible to make the sale.

Please feel free to leave a comment.

Mike

But there is more to the story.  The decision in Maryland was a sensitive one because it was based on the desire to protect historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) from competition by nearby universities. I understand and support the desire to assure that these historically black institutions receive some protection from competition. I just don’t know how to protect a school in a situation like this. Perhaps it would make more sense to help Morgan State develop an online version of its program, so that the people of Maryland would be able to access a Maryland-based doctoral program.

Regardless, there is an element of absurdity here.

Your thoughts?  Please feel free to leave a comment.

Mike

Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments.

Mike