Posts published in March, 2013

Governors Priorities For Higher Education : A 50 State Analysis

Each year, incumbent governors throughout the country outline their public policy priorities in State the State addresses while newly-elected governors discuss their state plans in their inaugural addresses. These speeches promote recent accomplishments, discuss challenges confronting the state and articulate policy proposals aimed at advancing the governor’s agenda.
AASCU has analyzed the 50 speeches that have taken place since the beginning of 2013 to assess the extent to which policy priorities related to higher education have been integrated into the governors’ plans for the coming year. The analysis includes 49 states and the District of Columbia. The final state address will be given in Louisiana on April 8. Taken together, these addresses provide a current national portrait of state chief executives’ priorities involving higher education.
A summary of this year’s speeches suggests the following themes:

• Higher education continues to play a vital role in state economic and workforce development strategies. Similar to last year, higher education was mentioned most frequently in the context of state economic and workforce development. In all regions of the country, including both party affiliations, governors discussed the role of colleges and universities in providing skilled workers to state-based industry, and partnering with businesses to facilitate job creation and economic growth. Related topics included an emphasis on STEM education and technology transfer. Of the 50 addresses, 31 tied higher education to economic and workforce development.
• Restoring state investment in higher education and keeping college affordable are a focus. Growing state revenues have provided a number of governors with an opportunity to propose increased funding for higher education. A number of speeches expressed concern over higher tuition and student debt levels. Efforts to boost state funding were often matched with calls for implementing performance-based funding, restraint in tuition increases, and boosting campus efficiency.
• A growing emphasis on college- and career-readiness. Several governors stressed the importance of having students ready for the rigors of college and the workforce, with a number of state leaders highlighting remediation rates for recent high school graduates. The number of governors who discussed this topic grew substantially from last year.
• Emerging issues include online college programming and medical education. Several state chief executives have proposed state efforts to create additional online college opportunities geared toward working adults in an effort to spur degree completions and to meet state educational attainment goals. Governors also emphasized policy proposals to help alleviate the shortage of nurses and physicians to serve in high-need communities.

Topic areas from this year’s gubernatorial addresses are shown below, rank ordered according to their prevalence. A state-by-state accounting of higher education-related gubernatorial public policy proposals stemming from this year’s addresses is provided via the link below.
2013 State of the State Addresses and Higher EducationCompiled by:
Thomas L. Harnisch, Assistant Director of State Relations and Policy Analysis
Emily A. Parker, Senior Research and Policy Associate

Texas Administration pay Linked to College Completion

College Graduation Data For Nearly Every College In USA

A new National Student Clearinghouse Research Center report digs deeper into college graduation rates. It finds that of the 1.9 million students enrolled for the first time in all degree-granting institutions in fall 2006, 54% had graduated within six years. Another 16.1% were still enrolled in some sort of postsecondary program after six years, and 29.8% had dropped out altogether

Low Income Women And Community College Success

What Matters for Community College Success? Assumptions and Realities Concerning Student Supports for Low-Income Women comes at a critical time. In line with national efforts, California has undertaken a series of reform initiatives to improve student success in the state’s community colleges, especially with respect to completion rates, which have not been up to par (California Community Colleges Student Success Task Force, 2012). For example, only 31% of the 2003–2004 cohort of California community college students seeking a degree either obtained a certificate or degree or transferred to a university within six years of enrolling. In response to these types of statistics, and in order to improve retention and completion rates, Governor Brown recently signed into law the California Student Success Act of 2012. This legislation is designed to improve completion rates by requiring community colleges to develop student success and support programs with, among other things, expanded orientation, assessment, and educational planning services for students. These types of broad efforts have placed a spotlight on how support services can facilitate student success, and what institutional conditions must exist in order for them to do so.

To better understand the barriers to and supports for student success, this report focuses on the experiences of one large segment of community college students—low-income women. In general, women have made significant gains in college enrollment and completion, often outpacing men in both categories.
This report and others from the PATHWAYS to Postsecondary Success team can be accessed at www.pathways-ucaccord.org/publications

Big Increase In High School Enrollment In College Courses

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a new report documenting the rapid and sustained growth of dual and concurrent enrollment nationwide, demonstrating the important role that partnerships with colleges and universities have in increasing the rigor of the high school experience.

During the 2010-11 school year, NCES estimates that nearly 15,000 public high schools (82 percent) enrolled students in 2 million college courses, for which students earned both high school and college credit. This is an increase from 71% in school year 2002-03, when NCES last conducted the study. Over the intervening eight years an additional 4,000 public high schools established dual and concurrent enrollment partnerships to offer college courses.
The majority of students were able to take college courses without leaving their high school campus through the concurrent enrollment model, which utilizes college-approved high school instructors to teach college courses. Over three-quarters (77%) of dual enrollment students were taught at secondary school locations, including career centers run by the public school system. At 89% percent of high schools where academic college courses are offered on site, high school instructors deliver some or all of the college courses.
Sandy González of Schenectady County Community College in New York, President of the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships (NACEP) remarked: “The new report from NCES documents the remarkable growth in concurrent enrollment partnerships between high schools and colleges throughout the past decade. Colleges and universities increasingly recognize the need to share resources and create a more continuous education system for students.”
The report, conducted by the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Education, provides nationwide estimates based on a representative survey of public high schools. It concludes that high school students took 2 million college courses in 2010-11, up from 1.2 million in 2002-03. This represents an annual growth rate of greater than 7% over the intervening eight years. Even higher growth rates were seen in schools where a majority of students are ethnic or racial minorities (12%), rural schools (12%), and in the Northeast and Southeast regions of the country (9%). A companion report on postsecondary providers of dual enrollment courses will be released in March.
Research studies show that earning college credit while in high school improves college transitions and creates the academic momentum necessary for students to complete college degrees. Recent reports from the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and the Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) have called on colleges and universities to further engage with their secondary partners to address the critical need to improve students’ readiness for college.

The NCES report, Dual Credit and Exam-Based Courses in U.S. Public High Schools: 2010–11, is available at:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013001.pdf