Treating – and protecting – college students as consumers
2009 Dec 15
This Inside Higher Ed article describes a white paper by Louis Soares of the Center for American Progress. Soares calls for the creation of an Office of Consumer Protection in Higher Education. The office would encourage colleges to produce better data on how effectively they serve students, and set up a way for disgruntled students to seek solutions to problems they have with colleges. This idea of being accountable by providing better information to prospective students (consumers) is in line with Transparency by Design and http://www.collegechoicesforadults.org. I think that Soares’ proposal is a very good idea and hope that it becomes a reality.
Predictably, the higher education establishment dismissed the idea. Frank Balz of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) is quoted as saying that there is not a lack of information, but a glut that is hard to wade through and that “its hard to see how adding a layer of bureaucracy will improve anything.” This represents a viewpoint held by many that any new requirements or expectations for accountability should be resisted. I do not share that view. Anything that empowers the prospective student to make good choices is of great value. And, while there may be lots of data out there, very little has been converted into meaningful, actionable information. That is especially true when it comes to assessing learning outcomes. The proposal by Soares is probably not perfect, but it certainly is a step in the right direction. And a step forward in an inevitable march toward greater assessment of, and transparency about, whether learning actually occurs in our schools.
I am pleased to see this call for action. Your thoughts? Please feel free to leave a comment.
Mike
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National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) – Good or bad?
2009 Dec 9
A few years ago when there were calls for increased accountability coming from multiple places, including the U.S. Department of Education, one response was to point to the assessment of student engagement using the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). The NSSE results were cited as an example of accountability for outcomes. It always seemed to me that we had lots of proxies for outcomes: completion rates, assessments of writing and critical thinking, student satisfaction and then engagement. But, we have almost no examples of measuring learning at the program or major level. That is why our work with Transparency by Design and the Web site http://www.collegechoicesforadults.org places such emphasis on articulating intended program-level learning outcomes, measuring whether those outcomes are achieved, and reporting this to prospective students. We also report on NSSE data, alumni satisfaction, current student satisfaction and more because we think that the intended user of our site – the prospective adult student – should have access to a range of information. If the Web site is to be useful, it should offer various types of information, and the student can decide which information is most important and useful to them. Read the rest of this entry »
Share ThisWorking learners — the ‘Other 85 Percent’ of college students
2009 Dec 2
Working Learners: Educating Our Entire Workforce for Success in the 21st Century is a good read with an important message – and it addresses the needs of the other 85 percent. Louis Soares of the Center for American Progress writes in this paper that working students, those who combine work and postsecondary education, “have little scheduling flexibility because of work and family obligations and thus pursue postsecondary credentials at a slower pace.” He goes on to say that “most postsecondary institutions, however, ask working learners to get their education the same way that traditional students do. Programs are typically available over 16-week semesters, with each course usually requiring multiple campus visits each week—very often during the day.” Read the rest of this entry »
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Has the time FINALLY come for higher education change?
2009 Nov 25
As Inside Higher Ed reports, there has been yet another gathering of higher education leaders talking about how higher education needs to change. This time they talked about the need to serve diverse and non-traditional students, borrowing ideas from the for-profit colleges and creating flexibility for students. All sound good until you hear that one element of the conversation was that these leaders acknowledge that they have been having this conversation for decades without meaningful change.
There is no question that trouble is brewing. The worst economic downturn in decades should be enough to stimulate action. At least one would hope that to be the case. And Jane Wellman of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity and Accountability offered what is described as a “blunt” assessment that no new money is going to come to higher education. Unfortunately, the article reports that this group demonstrated a long-honored tradition of talking about the predominant institutional model at the exclusion of community colleges and, perhaps, other alternative models.
It is good to see that leaders of the institutions that attended this gathering are talking about change – even if they have talked rather than acted for many years. Maybe this time will be different … though I would not want to place any bets on that. The real question is not whether change will occur, there are simply too many external pressures for that not to happen, but whether the change can or will come from within mainstream higher education. Time will tell.
Please feel free to leave a comment.
Mike
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Completion rates at colleges and universities — Don’t believe what you hear or read!
2009 Nov 19
I spend a lot of time with colleagues from traditional, face-to-face colleges and universities and often hear them dismiss schools that have been reported to have very low completion rates. It is obvious that these folks, despite working in higher education, do not understand the national problem we have with data on completion rates. And, if these folks don’t understand the problem, just imagine how confusing it is for people from outside higher education to understand that the way completion rates are calculated is just plain dumb—and misleading. Read the rest of this entry »
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Are colleges and universities trying to “game” the college rankings game?
2009 Oct 29
In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, Christopher C. Morphew and Barrett J. Taylor, a professor and a doctoral student in educational leadership, describe their finding that schools often use multiple mission statements, in part to influence their standing in the U.S. News and World Report rankings. As they write, this may or may not be such a big deal. But, it is one more piece of evidence that, as much as colleges and universities like to complain about the rankings, they do whatever it takes to look better without ever really talking about learning outcomes. Read the rest of this entry »
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Challenging conventional wisdom about what college should cost
2009 Oct 19
Jane Wellman and Dennis Jones offer some important challenges to conventional wisdom about college costs in this Inside Higher Ed article. They see a developing national agenda for higher education driven by the goal put forward by President Obama to return the U.S. to world leadership in degree attainment levels by 2020. Achieving that goal will require extraordinary measures and management of costs. Read the rest of this entry »
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How to best package higher education
2009 Oct 12
Inside Higher Ed details how “skill training” is delivered at Kellogg Community College in Michigan. This is a story of breaking up the standard way that postsecondary education is packaged. That is, taking the standard 3-credit course and breaking it into its parts, taking concepts or competencies one at a time, instead of packing them together. What the folks in the College’s Regional Manufacturing Technology Center have done is to offer modules of one concept or competency or skill rather than embedding these in a larger course or even larger credential. And they have really set an accountability standard in that they get paid only if they can prove that the student is proficient in the skill they were trained on. Read the rest of this entry »
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Do colleges and universities who receive the most public funding produce the most degrees?
2009 Oct 6
All higher education institutions are under pressure to produce more degrees within current resources. This pressure is particularly strong for publicly supported colleges. Inside Higher Ed considers a new report from the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity and Accountability. Patrick Kelly of the National Center for Education Management Systems (NCHEMS), who conducted the study, correctly states that “how well higher education institutions perform with the resources they have, and how they can improve performance with few or no new resources, are uncomfortable questions that are here to stay.” Read the rest of this entry »
Share ThisJust what might it take to reform higher education?
2009 Sep 29
In his commentary in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Robert Zemsky ponders just what it would take to create change in American higher education. He suggests that the kind of reform being seen in Europe could not happen here. He notes that various reform efforts in the United States have not been fruitful – that we should learn from those efforts that strong rhetoric changes nothing, reform must come internally, cannot be externally prescribed, and there is a need for systemic change. He poses several “dislodging events” that might drive change. Read the rest of this entry »
Share ThisWelcome to The Other 85 Percent. So what does "the other 85 percent" refer to? Research has shown that only about 15 percent of higher education students still fit the traditional definition of young adults age 18 to 22 who live on campus and go to school full time. more
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