State Performance Funding For Colleges Spreading

In moving toward incentives for meeting state-mandated goals, Missouri would join a number of states that have recently adopted or are considering performance-based funding models in higher education. Pennsylvania will set aside 2.5% of its higher education budget for performance funding, while Tennessee will ultimately award more than 90% of its postsecondary money through such a system. See a recent report on performance funding programs. (Stateline.org, 09/08/11)

College Critic Says Too Many Students Go To College- And There Is No Economic Benefit

BY RICHARD VEDDER for the Cleveland  Plain Dealer

A degree from a four-year college is something that many people would profit from, but far from all. My guess is that perhaps one-third of graduating high school seniors should enter college.

The remaining majority should go to community colleges, career colleges or trade schools — or, in some instances, directly enter the work force.

Those arguing college is worth it point to the large earnings differentials of college graduates compared with those with just high school diplomas. Those differentials exist, but they are subject to at least five types of criticisms.

First, comparing high school and college graduates is like comparing apples to oranges. On average, college graduates are smarter and more disciplined (as evidenced by higher high school grades and test scores). In a world without colleges, those otherwise college-bound students would do better than the others anyhow, because employers want smart, disciplined, loyal workers.

Second, there are enormous uncertainties and risks associated with going to college. Federal data suggest over 40 percent of college entrants fail to graduate within six years. For the considerable number of students who drop out of school after two to three years with large college debts, the college “investment” is often a poor one, and those students are frequently stigmatized by employers and friends as being failures.

Third, many college graduates these days are getting jobs that historically have been taken by those with high school diplomas, and for which a college degree at best marginally increases one’s income. There are over 80,000 bartenders and nearly 19,000 parking lot attendants in America with bachelor’s degrees or more, and among the over 300,000 restaurant servers with degrees, there are over 8,000 with master’s, doctorate or professional degrees (for example, a law degree). We do not live on Lake Wobegon–not everyone is above average; indeed about half make less than the average.

By one way of calculation, one in three American college graduates today are in jobs that the Labor Department says require less than college-level skills. As college enrollments have soared, the number of graduates easily exceeds the increase in employment in the managerial, professional and technical jobs that are historically the home of most college graduates. While the current sluggish economy has aggravated that tendency, it was building even before the downturn starting in late 2007.

Fourth, not all colleges are created equal. Perhaps 50 years ago just being “a college graduate” was quite a distinction, and not all that much fuss was placed on the college attended, with a few exceptions like Harvard. Not today. According to PayScale.com, median earnings of people who graduated 10 to 19 years ago from Harvard, Northwestern, Stanford, Case Western Reserve universities or Kenyon College, exceeds $90,000 a year, compared with less than $60,000 at Kent State and barely $70,000 at Cleveland State. Their sample size is pretty large, but not all-inclusive. Nonetheless, the data are probably fairly accurate, and show that graduating from Harvard is far more remunerative than graduating from, say, Kent.

My associate Ryan Brady has estimated that the present value of lifetime earnings of graduates of 44 top colleges (as ranked by either U.S. News & World Report or Forbes) averages 42 percent more than graduates at 44 colleges ranked at the bottom of the Forbes list, a group that includes several of Ohio’s state schools (for example, CSU, Youngstown State and the University of Akron).

Also, the financial advantages of going to college need to be weighed against the costs, and those costs have been rising sharply,

Fifth, even within schools, earnings vary enormously by major. Persons with degrees in, say, social work, anthropology or elementary education will on average earn far less than graduates in electrical engineering or accounting. To be sure, there is more to going to college than getting a high-paying job, but the financial burden of getting the degree is increasingly great.

Who should go to a four-year college out of high school? Students whose high school experience indicates they have a good chance to succeed in college–kids in the top two-fifths of their high school class (perhaps top one-quarter at high schools with poor academic reputations) who took college preparatory courses and had decent ACT or SAT scores, for example.

Students who do not meet those criteria should seriously consider a two-year community college or a for-profit institution and, if they succeed, then transfer to a four-year school. The ease of transfer into four-year institutions has improved somewhat in recent years, and one of the very best students I ever had (among more than 10,000) was a fairly recent transfer into Ohio University from Cuyahoga Community College.

It is wrong for admissions counselors, U.S. presidents and leading foundations to tell students “you must go to college,” an overly simplistic message that creates heartaches for many.

Four years of college works for some, but by no means all.

Richard Vedder is distinguished professor of economics emeritus at Ohio University and directs the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington, D.C.

Some ,But Not Many Community College Students Overcome Poor Preparation

Catching Up in Community Colleges: Academic Preparation and Transfer to Four-Year Institutions

by Josipa Roksa & Juan Carlos Calcagno —  Published In Teachers College Record online

Background/Context: Transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions remains a contentious issue in higher education, with proponents showing that students do indeed transfer to four-year institutions and opponents arguing that starting in community colleges hinders baccalaureate degree attainment. One particularly salient issue in this debate is academic preparation. Although virtually all studies of transfer control for academic preparation, there is a dearth of research focusing on whether and how academically unprepared students can catch up in higher education.

Research Questions: We address two research questions: To what extent do academically unprepared students transfer to four-year institutions? And, can successful completion of intermediate outcomes, such as passing college-level math and writing courses, meeting specific credit thresholds, and earning an associate’s degree, diminish the role of initial preparation and increase the probability of transfer?

Research Design: Using event history techniques, we estimate the likelihood of transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions. Analyses include 20,900 first-time degree-seeking students who enrolled in Florida community colleges in the fall of 1998. Student enrollment is tracked through the summer of 2003.

Results: Community colleges can indeed serve as an alternative road of access to four-year institutions, even for academically unprepared students: Almost 20% of students in our sample who entered community colleges unprepared for college-level work made the transition to four-year institutions. Moreover, we found that successful completion of intermediate outcomes, such as passing college-level math and writing courses, meeting specific credit thresholds, and earning an associate’s degree, enhances the probability of transfer. However, the ability of community colleges to mitigate the negative effects of inadequate academic preparation on transfer is limited; regardless of the intermediate outcome completed, academically unprepared students continued to lag substantially behind their more prepared counterparts.

Conclusion: Community colleges can serve as a democratizing force in higher education; however, their ability to overcome inadequate academic preparation with which some students enter higher education is limited. Improving academic preparation in K–12 is thus a crucial component of enhancing transfer.

A New Perspective on College Costs

EDUCATION OUTLOOK-AEI, october 2011 Cheap for Whom? How Much Higher Education Costs Taxpayers By Mark Schneider and Jorge Klor de Alva

KEY POINTS IN THIS PUBLICATION • Tuition at both public and private for-profit and not-for-profit US higher education institutions is increasing, but taxpayers are also bearing significant hidden costs. • Average taxpayers provide more in subsidies to elite public and private schools than to the less competitive schools where their own children are likely being educated. • High dropout and low graduation rates drive up taxpayer costs, so degree completion and retention should be a focus of US higher education reform and state and federal policy discussions. • Business as usual in higher education is too expensive. We need new modes of delivery for higher education to reduce taxpayer costs and rein in tuit

College Completion Declines For Ages 25-34 Compared To 55 to 64

The United States still leads the world in having a college-educated workforce, but it is the only country among the world’s leading economies whose incoming workers are less educated than those retiring, according to a new study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

It finds that in 2009, Americans accounted for more than one in every four of the 225 million people with postsecondary degrees in the G-20 countries.  But a closer look at the statistics reveals a deep generational divide among degree-holders:  Americans make up more than a third of all postsecondary degree holders, ages 55 to 64, but only one-fifth of those ages 25 to 34. The biggest increase in college completion is in China.   Source:Education Week

A Closer Look At Rising College Costs

Economists Robert Archibald and David Feldman address this problem in their new book Why Does College Cost So Much?  Higher education, they argue, is a people-intensive, artisanal service, requiring a highly educated, well-paid workforce.  And like other services that rely on highly skilled providers, such as legal assistance or medical care, its costs will rise faster than inflation.  Unlike many consumer products, higher education does not benefit significantly from a reduction in the cost of materials.  This does not mean that costs cannot be controlled:  Larger classes–say, a minimum of 100 students–would certainly increase faculty productivity, but the quality of instruction would be adversely affected.  Improving cost per student without harming quality is a far more elusive goal.

Archibald and Feldman suggest replacing the Pell Grant and other programs and offering federal savings accounts for all families. Source, Stanford Magazine.

Online University Does Better With Adults Than Young Students

By Duke Cheston

Comments

September 27, 2011

Online higher education has been growing by leaps and bounds over the last decade and a half, leading some to speculate that it will totally revolutionize higher education. However, so far, online education hasn’t done much to reduce prices or create flexibility in the structure of courses. One exception to this general rule is Western Governors University.

The university made headlines in early August when Texas governor Rick Perry announced that his state was forming a partnership with WGU. Although the online school is already available to Texans and everyone else in the United States, a state-based presence (a local office housing a chancellor, recruiters, and advisers) will raise publicity for the still largely unknown school.

“WGU Texas provides another flexible, affordable way for Texans to fulfill their potential and contribute their talents for years and decades to come,” said Governor Perry. How so? Let’s take a look at WGU.

Western Governors, founded in 1997 by 19 governors of western states, is a non-profit all-online university. Though established by politicians, it’s a private institution, sustaining itself on tuition dollars.

Based out of Salt Lake City, Utah, WGU is committed to helping students obtain a degree quickly and cheaply. It has largely dropped the traditional professor/students/semester model of education in favor of a “mentor-guided, competency-based model that requires students to demonstrate their knowledge rather than spending time in course work.”

Rather than attend classes taught by professors, students study by themselves, receive regular advice and encouragement from a dedicated adviser (“mentor”), and get help from experts when needed. Students can also take tests as soon as they’re ready, as opposed to waiting on professors’ and other students’ schedules. In fact, WGU’s unusual structure and unusually low cost led Time magazine to call it “the best relatively cheap university you’ve never heard of.

Compared to other accredited online colleges, it certainly is affordable.  Many other online degrees cost about the same as a traditional university education. For instance, an online bachelor’s degree in business from for-profit DeVry University will cost $68,906 including fees. The same degree from the University of Phoenix, taking five courses per semester for eight semesters, will cost $72,200. These degrees are cheaper than a four-year degree from an Ivy-league school like Harvard, but they’re considerably more expensive than paying in-state tuition at a school like UNC-Chapel Hill.

By contrast, WGU charges a flat fee of about $3,000 per six-month period, depending on what degree a student is pursuing.  A nursing degree, for example, costs the student more than a business degree ($3,250 per term compared to $2,890 per term). Textbooks, in the form of e-books, come free with tuition. The average student takes 30 months to graduate, meaning an average degree costs about $15,000. “The price of going here is just ridiculous,” said Ray Shawn McKinnon, an ex-pastor in North Carolina seeking a BS in human resource management through the school.

Making Western Governors even cheaper is its recent partnership with Burck Smith’s company, Straighterline.com. Straighterline, though not itself an accredited university, offers some of the cheapest college courses available (you can knock out freshman year for only $999, for example), which can then be transferred to accredited universities such as WGU.

Another technological challenge Western Governors University claims to have conquered is flexibility. McKinnon, the ex-pastor, explained this advantage by comparing WGU to some classes he had taken with another online school. He complained that his previous school was basically a “bricks and mortar” college delivered in an online format. Like most other WGU students, McKinnon (who is 30 years old) is a “non-traditional student,” a working adult going back to school (the average age is 36).  He felt his previous experiences and training should have helped him move through some courses more quickly, but, with traditional semester-long classes, he couldn’t do that.

Western Governors’ unique structure solves that problem. Rather than making students go over material they may already know, WGU is competency based. Students can take their assessments—tests are given at locations (including students’ own homes) where students’ identities are verified by camera and bionic confirmation—as soon as they’re ready.

The tests are often based on industry certifications, and sometimes are actual industry certifications. Before McKinnon finishes school, for example, he’ll have to pass the Assurance of Learning exam administered by the Society for Human Resource Management.  Other certifications include teaching licensure exams and various information technology exams.

Further, WGU’s flat tuition rate means students can take as many classes as they are able to finish in a given period. McKinnon is on track to finish his degree in only three terms. One graduate of WGU even claimed on an online review site that he completed a 4-year accounting degree in six months without any incoming credits.

A problem inherent to any online education is the isolating nature of it. Taking classes by yourself online entails lots of alone time, or at least lots of independent study. Add in the pressure from knowing that your future depends on your performance, and it’s a recipe for cabin fever. I personally took an online class a couple years ago to prepare for the MCAT, the medical school entrance exam. A month before test time, the stress of cramming alone in my apartment nearly drove me crazy.

Jen Woodbury, a former real-estate agent in Hawaii seeking an MBA, had a similar experience and says Western Governors has largely fixed the problem.

In a previous online program, “I did feel like a number,” she said.  “WGU,” on the other hand, “was 180 degrees different…. They’ve done an excellent job of making you feel a part and not isolated.”

Part of the solution is WGU’s mentor program. The university assigns a “student mentor,” essentially a life coach, to work with students regularly—at least a phone call every other week.  Also, for each course, there are also one or more “course mentors” who have specialized knowledge of the subject matter.

Woodbury, the former real-estate agent, said that despite the lack of face-to-face contact, mentors provided the sense that someone cared how you were doing. “I have to say I didn’t experience that at a traditional four-year education,” she added.

McKinnon and Woodbury also mentioned that the online forums with fellow students and academic mentors were both academically helpful and encouraging.

Of course, Western Governors hasn’t solved all the problems of online higher education.  One of the things WGU doesn’t do well, it seems, is cater to young people. According to the federal Education Department’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the graduation rate for first-time, full-time students (i.e., typical college students) who began their studies in 2004-05 was only 16 percent.

“It does take a lot of discipline,” said McKinnon, and many college-age kids don’t seem to have enough to make WGU work for them.

But WGU mostly targets a different demographic, anyway. According to WGU spokeswoman Joan Mitchell, first-time full-time students represent less than ten percent of the student body. The average WGU student, she explained, is 36 years old. When taking this into account, the overall graduation rate is “40 percent and it’s going up,” she said. Mitchell added that 54 percent of current students are on track to graduate on time.

Indeed, WGU’s target demographic is the source of its strength: it’s a non-traditional school for non-traditional students. It has four colleges, and they’re all job-oriented: the Teachers College, the College of Business, the College of Information Technology, and the College of Health Professions. Its mission statement includes enabling students to “earn competency-based degrees and other credentials that are credible to both academic institutions and employers.”

Absent is anything resembling the promotion of John Henry Newman’s “philosophic habit of mind” and there is not a word about lighting any sort of life-long educational “fire,” but, again, that’s not why WGU students sign up.

They sign up for an education that will impress employers, and employers seem to be duly impressed. A survey conducted by Western Governors in 2010 found that 97 percent of employers rated WGU graduates as equal to or better than graduates of other universities. Ninety-four percent were willing to hire another WGU graduate, and fifty percent said they were extremely willing to do so.

Western Governors is, by all appearances, a step forward in the field of higher education. “I think it’s going to catch on,” said Ray McKinnon.

If WGU wants to head east and set up a presence in North Carolina, our own governor should follow Rick Perry’s lead and give this innovative school a warm welcome.

Finance Cuts Threaten College Access Across USA

Access and Funding in Public Higher Education—the 2011 National Survey
By Stephen G. Katsinas, The University of Alabama, Mark M. D’Amico, University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Janice N. Friedel, Iowa State University
With Pell Grants cut, tuition rising at more the double the rate of inflation, and with state funding for both college budgets and student aid cut or stagnating, students and their families are being squeezed. Also squeezed in the protracted recession are funds for workforce development and lifelong learning that build economic competitiveness. These trends likely mean first, that college access is shrinking overall, and second, postsecondary education is able to meet less and less of marketable skills workers and the economy demands. Thus, our nation’s economic competitiveness is imperiled.

New Comprehensive Report On College Completion In USA

For the past six months, Complete College America has been compiling data from 33 states to produce a report that paints – for the first time ever – a comprehensive picture of today’s college student, the challenges students face and the reasons why they are not completing their degrees and certificates.

 

You won’t want to miss the story in this morning’s New York Times about the report and what it means.

Can We Drastically Lower College Remediation?

How to Break the Cycle of Remedial College Classes
By Brad Phillips, GOOD Education
This month, more than half of community college freshmen and at least a third of university students started college already behind. They’re in at least one remedial course that does not count toward a degree, thus beginning at least four months—and sometimes years—delayed in getting the degree they enrolled to earn. This colossal disappointment is largely avoidable. Students need not toil in remedial courses that cost precious time and money