Posts published in July, 2010

Carnegie Launches Statistics Pathway To Lower College Remediation

More Students Attend Two Year Colleges And Less At Four Year Colleges

Fewer low- and moderate-income high school graduates are attending  4 yearvcolleges in America, and fewer are graduating. Enrollment in four-year colleges was 40% in 2004 for low-income students, down from 54% in 1992, and 53% in 2004 for moderate-income students, down from 59% over the same period, according to a report by the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. College expenses and financial aid have become increasingly larger considerations for parents and students, driving more qualified students away from enrolling in four-year colleges. Moreover, completion rates are lower at 2 year colleges, so overall college completion could decline in the future.

College Board Overhauls Writing Placement Test

Students at many colleges  either place out of introductory composition or earn credit for the course. The College Board changes involve an additional type of essay — more research-oriented and less philosophical — as well as shifts in the multiple choice questions. The changes follow modest dips in recent years in the number of students taking the tests (last year the figure was 35,000), as many colleges have rejected the idea of using a standardized test for writing placement and credit. While some college officials said that the College Board’s move was a step in the right direction, others said it did not go far enough and predicted that skepticism would grow of evaluating writing competence through tests

Public Opinion And College Presidents Disagree That Colleges Can Be more Efficient

Guest blogger : Will Doyle, Assistant Professor , Vanderbilt University (w.doyle@vanderbilt.edu)

As state budgets continue to suffer and funding for higher education continues to shrink, it’s worth noting that the leaders of institutions of higher education and the public don’t see the problem in the same way.

Some of the most recent public opinion data comes from Immerwahr’s “Squeeze Play 2010” report for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and Public Agenda. The big finding from this report is that most people think that colleges care more about the bottom line than they do about students. Most important, however, may be that 60% of the public agrees that colleges could accept many more students without raising prices or hurting quality. There’s also a general perception that many qualified students do not have the opportunity to go to college, coupled with a sense that college is necessary for a young person to succeed in life. So the public thinks that college is necessary, that many qualified people can’t go and that colleges could probably do more with less.

College presidents seem to think that there’s no possible way they could do more with less. Immerwahr interviewed more than two dozen college presidents, the results of which are in a report titled “The Iron Triangle”. The iron triangle for presidents consists of costs, quality and access. The presidents Immerwahr interviewed are convinced that changes in one part of that triangle must inevitably affect another. So, for instance, an increase in access without a concomitant increase in costs will result in a decrease in quality. College presidents, in contrast with the general public, seem to think that there’s no possible way to have either more access or higher quality without increasing costs.

State Roadmap For Comprehensive College Readiness Policies

Here is a link to the most complete and clearly written systemic reform policy for improving college readiness

http://www.highereducation.org/reports/college_readiness/index.shtml

This brief addresses the state policy dimensions of college readiness. It identifies the key issues and problems associated with the college readiness gap, which is a major impediment to increasing the numbers of college students who complete certificates or degrees. This policy brief also provides governors, legislators, and state education leaders with specific steps they need to take to close the readiness gap in their state. These findings and recommendations were prepared by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB).

State Should Use Computer Assisted And Distance Learning To Improve Remedial College Courses

Guest bloggers Shawn Kothari and Mohit Agrawal, Princeton University (skothari@princeton.edu)

In 2009 President Obama announced the $12 billion American Graduation Initiative, a program to invest in America’s community colleges and produce 5 million new college graduates by 2020. The initiative represents the federal government’s growing recognition of the role community colleges will play in securing America’s future. We applaud the Obama Administration’s new emphasis on this critical—but chronically overlooked—sector of higher education. In an era that demands advanced training for even middle-class employment, community colleges offer convenient and cost-effective educations. Moreover, courses at these institutions can be attended part–time, allowing flexibility for students to continue employment and raise families.

Despite these potential contributions, community colleges face several hurdles in their attempts to serve students. The chief obstacle is the widely disparate yet largely poor preparation many students have as they enter community colleges: students enter with both insufficient knowledge and skills. At many institutions, students take a placement exam upon matriculation, and a large percentage test into remedial programs known as “developmental courses”. Developmental courses impose many burdens on students. They add time to and raise costs of the degree program, and these courses are not part of the “college” experience students are seeking. Developmental courses also adversely impact community colleges: schools must hire more faculty to teach these high-school level courses, drawing resources away from higher-level programs that impart true college-level skills to students. Most importantly, the number of students who require developmental coursework is sobering—at one particular community college in Virginia, 75% of entering students test into Algebra, the equivalent of an 8^th or 9^th grader’s math course.

A variety of organizations around the country have studied the problems posed by developmental courses; some, including the National Center for Academic Transformation, have designed and piloted new programs at individual community colleges. These ad hoc programs have shown promise, but their reach and benefits are limited to a few isolated schools. The State of Indiana, recognizing the difficulties faced by students who test into developmental courses, recognizing the costs and other burdens placed on our community colleges by the large number of students who limp through such courses, and recognizing the proven potential of innovative programs in addressing these challenges, should pursue targeted strategies that lower costs of course administration while raising student outcomes.  We recommend, as a first step, that Indiana develop a unified computer-assisted curriculum—coupled with distance education components—for developmental math courses.

Computer-assisted courses, largely conducted online, comprise a teaching model that has the potential to be used in a variety of new applications.  Computer-assisted courses provide instant feedback and can be adapted to fit an individual student’s needs.  These are the exact features needed for an effective developmental math course as students see mistakes as they make them and the computer can tailor the curriculum to focus on the student’s weaknesses. Moreover, computer-assisted courses can be coupled with distance education, allowing students to complete parts of the course from home.  This allows the busy community college student more time to balance his work and family lives with his education.

In addition to the academic benefits, computer-assisted courses are cost effective. Creating computer-assisted courses for developmental math helps reduces the need for additional faculty and frees up funding for other programs. Additionally, a coordinated state-level program will avoid unnecessary administrative duplication by each community college, helping to further lower program costs. Moreover, though creating such an initiative entails an upfront investment, grant money is available to cover these costs. Last month, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $110 million to fund innovative programs that replace weak remedial courses. The State should consider applying to the foundation for the necessary seed capital to develop the computer-assisted courses.

Gov. Daniels’s announcement of a $150 million higher education budget cut last December signals the importance of lowering the cost of delivering college-level education. A stronger and better-educated workforce will also help Indiana attract and create new high-paying jobs. We thus strongly urge state lawmakers and education officials to prioritize the implementation of a unified computer-assisted model for developmental math courses at our state’s community colleges

Do Community College Adjunct Professors Inhibit College Completion?

  Adjunct Professors have grown to a majority in many community colleges and often teach a majority of remedial/developmental courses. Do these part time professors hinder student progress? They often have no offices at a college and commute to teach at several campuses. The answer to the questions in this blog is we do not know much.

 A study of four year state colleges indicates that for every 10 percent increase in instruction of first year students by adjuncts, the probability of these students returning as sophomores drops by as much as 4 percent. insidehighered.com 

 But there are other studies that show no or positve impact from adjuncts. We need many more controlled experimental studies to draw any conclusions.

The End Of Men :Implications For College Success

This months  Atlantic has a terrific summary of the decline of men relative to women in many spheres.It is by Hanna Rosin at www.theatlantic.com, and she includes college education as a focus where black women graduates exceeded African American males by over 100% in 2009.

New Federal Financial Aid System For Students Starts Today

A new era in financial aid has begun. The Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program was officially put to rest today and from now on, the government will make all new federal student loans directly to students through their colleges. As a result, the federal student loan program will now be substantially simpler and less costly, and much less susceptible to the types of corruption and abuses that have run rampant in the FFEL program. As monumental as the shift to direct lending is, it is, however, just one of the changes to federal student aid that took effect on Thursday that will benefit students and borrowers. Among other things, the maximum Pell Grant is increasing, the interest rate on federally subsidized Stafford loans is decreasing, and improvements have been made to a federal program that aims to help borrowers with low incomes who are heavily indebted.Source: Higher Ed Watch