College Completion

With the economy stuck in neutral, tuition prices and student loan debt skyrocketing, and parents and students increasingly questioning the value of a college degree, our public institutions urgently need a different approach to the challenge or educating an increasingly diverse mix of students at a reasonable cost. Today, New America's Education Policy Program released The Next Generation University, a policy report about the future of public higher education. The report comes at a time when too many public universities are failing to respond to the nation's higher education crisis. Rather than expanding enrollment and focusing limited dollars on the neediest of students, many institutions are instead restricting enrollments and encouraging the use of student-aid dollars on merit awards. But, according to the report, some schools are breaking the mold by boldly restructuring operating costs and creating clear, accelerated pathways for students.

The report focuses on six public research universities: Arizona State University, University at Buffalo, University of California at Riverside, University of Central Florida, Georgia State University, and the University of Texas at Arlington. These universities are continuing their commitment to world class research while increasing enrollment and graduation rates, even as the investments from their states have declined. 

The report includes case studies on each of the six universities, which were selected after an analysis of federal education data, site visits, and interviews. Based on similarities in their approaches to reform, the report's recommendations include:  

At the Institutional Level

1. Increase size to ensure broad access, test new ideas from pedagogy to student services, and serve growing populations.
2. Create direct connections between two- and four-year colleges to ease access for transfer students.

At the State Level

1. Guarantee a low net-price for low-income students.
2. Adopt performance-based funding.
3. Create transfer policies that encourage completion.
4. Ensure students in the K-12 pipeline are prepared.

At the National Level

1. Develop Next Generation Leaders for Next Generation Universities.
2. Acknowledge that external recognition remains important in higher education, and provide recognition for increasing access and student success.
3. Create a demonstration program that challenges four-year public higher education institutions to innovate.

These recommendation and lessons will be featured at an event held at the New America Foundation from 10am to 3pm. You can learn more about the event and watch a livestream here. Follow the conversation on twitter using #NextGenU.

Download the full report here.

In addition to the report, New America has released two related issue briefs:

In "Technology and the Next Generation University," New America's Rachel Fishman explores the barriers to technology-enhanced education and presents promising practices Next Generation Universities employ to overcome them.

In "Formation of the Next Generation University: Role of State and System Policy," HCM Strategists' Iris Palmer, Kristin Conklin, and Nate Johnson explore how transfer policy, financial aid, net price, performance funding and the K-12 pipeline affect Next Generation Universities within their state context. It makes recommendations for state and higher-education system policymakers on how to ensure public institutions are meeting the needs of the state.

HCM Strategists, in conjunction with the release of The Next Generation University has developed a new interactive tool:

Next Generation Universities: Select Dimensions of Research University Output, Productivity and Efficiency 2006-2011

This dashboard, created by HCM Strategists and Postsecondary Analytics, includes a selection of measures of public research university performance through the great recession, showing how they have fared over time and in comparison to the sector as a whole. It helps illustrate the very different ways research universities have experienced and responded to the challenges of the last several years, and which institutions have been able to sustain or grow the number of students served in spite of the financial challenges they faced.

Please note that the dashboard is a large file (2.5 mb) and may take up to a minute to load. It requires Adobe Flash, which is already installed in most browsers.

Also released at the event are two conference papers from the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University: 1) More Students, More Degrees, More Dollars: How Universities Can Close Budget Gaps while Benefiting Students; and 2) The High Price of Excess Credits: How New Approaches Could Help Students and Schools.

For more on this issue, check out this post from Clare McCann on our sister blog, Ed Money Watch.

For those who care about increased higher education transparency, the last few days have been a trip through the Congressional looking glass, culminating with yesterday’s introduction of a bill to “study” higher education transparency. On Thursday a bipartisan group of senators and representatives introduced the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act, which would help provide students, families, and taxpayers with answers to critical questions like whether students at particular institutions graduate, whether they get jobs, and whether they can comfortably pay back their loans. A televised discussion among Senators Wyden (D-OR), Rubio (R-FL), and Warner (D-VA), Representatives Hunter (R-CA) and Andrews (D-NJ), students, and guidance counselors underscored the urgent need for better information about higher education outcomes and value.  

It seems pretty straightforward. Students, families, and policymakers have questions. And this legislation would provide answers. But the day after the legislation was introduced, an unnamed senior Congressional education staffer said of the effort, “But a federal unit record system is only designed to answer questions no one is asking, namely: how do we bring No Child Left Behind and its command and control mentality to higher education.”

Let’s ignore the intentionally distracting NCLB reference and instead focus on this doozy: “designed to answer questions no one is asking.” Perhaps the staffer has fallen through the looking glass, because from this side it seems like everyone is asking these questions.

Both political parties spent much of last year’s election cycle talking about the need for better college information for students and families. The GOP platform called for greater transparency around “completion rates, repayment rates, future earnings, and other factors that may affect their (college) decisions.” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) put “making it easier for parents and students to make informed decisions about what type of post-high school education is right for them” on his short legislative to-do list. Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chair of the House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training, said at a hearing on college data, “We have so much data, and we seem to know so little. What a tragedy for all the money that we’re spending in this country.” President Obama used his State of the Union to unveil a college scorecardthat provides comparable, easy-to-understand indicators of college value. Organizations that represent business and students, including the Chamber of Commerce and Young Invincibles, have been calling for better information for students and employers.

All of this was just in the past year. But the bipartisan drumbeat for transparency started much earlier. Three years ago, the National Governors Association launched its Complete to Compete initiative, which called for answers to a basic set of higher education outcomes questions. And long before that a commission appointed by former Secretary of Education Spellings “urge[d] the creation of a robust culture of accountability and transparency throughout higher education” in the form of a searchable database.

Congress itself has asked these questions. In 2008 it created a federal advisory committee to recommend changes in how graduation rates and other measures of success are calculated for two-year institutions. The Committee on Measures of Student Success issued its recommendations in 2011, which included broadening whose success “counts” to include part-time, transfer, and other students who don’t fit the antiquated first-time, full-time model. Since we currently have no idea how the students who receive hundreds of billions of dollars in federal financial aid are faring (either in or after college), the Committee recommended counting them, too. The success measures weren’t limited to two-year institutions, and they included post-college outcomes like employment. This Congressionally established committee not only identified the questions, it provided specific recommendations on how to answer the questions.

But despite this rare bipartisan agreement on the need for better data, and on the already-identified ways to get the data, Representative Messer (R-IN) introduced a bill yesterday that would require the formation of yet another commission to conduct yet another study on what college information is needed, or whether anyone needs it.

Where have these folks been for the last seven years? Students, families, taxpayers, and policymakers don’t need another study. They need better information. And they need it now.

This post originally appeared in New America's blog In the Tank

When I was an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I took approximately 8-10 large lecture classes. I remember walking into my first lecture as a freshman—Introduction to International Relations—and choosing between a seat on the first floor or in the balcony. I chose the first floor, somewhere in the middle. The “classroom” that day was brimming with more than 500 students. As the professor went over the syllabus, it became evident that attendance at lecture was “strongly encouraged” as there would be no way to quickly take attendance. By the second lecture, there were many empty seats.

Many freshmen and sophomores who attend public universities find themselves stuck in these large, introductory courses. With no one to check up on them or give them personal attention, many fall through the cracks—they may stop attending class and then do poorly on exams, or they may fall behind and withdraw from the course.

With this in mind, when I began to research online courses and credentials at public universities for a policy report, I assumed I would find the same problems endemic to large lectures—high attrition and low success rates.  Instead, I found something that surprised me:  While some online courses may suffer the same problems as lectures, several universities have discovered simple ways to keep students engaged once they start exhibiting drop-out warning signs, like neglecting assignments or lectures. In many instances, the data collected about online students by some institutions create a safety net to prevent drop outs where none exists in a face-to-face lecture-hall setting.

It’s not often that you see members of Congress (or anyone for that matter) defending a college with a zero percent graduation rate. But that is exactly what is happening for Oregon’s Marylhurst University. Both of the state’s Senators and three of its representatives recently wrote a letter to the Department of Education defending the University against claims from the Department’s own College Scorecard that it has a 0% graduation rate.

Zero percent is certainly at odds with the rhetoric on the website of this small, open-admission, Catholic liberal arts school. Student success is in the first sentence of a lengthy and passionate case for cultivating ethical, engaged leaders capable of taking on the challenges of a rapidly changing world.

But talk is cheap and self-promotion is easy, which is why Republicans and Democrats have been calling for better, more comparable data that students can use to inform their college-decision making processes. Marylhurst, however, isn’t alone in tooting its horn. The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning recognized the university as a national leader for its "outstanding commitment to the expansion of lifelong learning opportunities and for innovative efforts to improve access and quality in academic programs for adult learners."

It turns out that adult learners are the problem. Or, more accurately, how the federal government counts (or doesn’t count) adult learners. The College Scorecard reports graduation rate data only of first time, full time students. However, just three percent of Marylhurst’s students fall into that category. The vast majority are working adults taking upper division courses part time in order to complete a degree started elsewhere. And these students seem to be doing well. Out of 911 undergrads enrolled last year, 204 graduated. But the success of these students doesn’t count, at least not according to the federal government.[i] Disregarding the majority of students at an institution is not fair. Not fair to the institution, not fair to students.

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center released a state supplement to its earlier Completing College: A National View of Student Attainment Rates. The national report, summarized here, provided a more comprehensive picture of college completion rates by utilizing a database that captures college completions by traditional and nontraditional students. 

This newly issued state supplement provided state-by-state data on six-year student success outcomes and college completion rates within the four-year public, two-year public, and four-year private nonprofit sectors.

California is currently home to two of the most important things happening in higher education, one good, one bad. The good thing is the rapid advancement of cheap and free online courses offered by companies like Udacity and Coursera. The bad thing is the catastrophic failure of California lawmakers to provide enough money to support basic access to foundational courses at community colleges. Tomorrow, California Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg will announce a plan that essentially tries to use the one to fix the other. This groundbreaking initiative has broad implications for the nature, financing, and regulation of higher learning.

As of today nearly half a million students are on waiting lists for basic courses in California’s public higher education system, increasing the cost and duration of college and reducing the number of students who ultimately earn degrees. This is a human tragedy and a policy failure on a massive scale. Under the plan, waitlisted students would be able to take online classes that have been approved by California’s Open Education Resources Council, a faculty-led body that was created by recent Steinberg-sponsored legislation creating free open textbooks. ACE certification would be a point in course's favor. Students would have to take in-person proctored exams to pass the courses. Public colleges and universities in California would be required to accept those courses for credit.

A new study by the Council of Graduate Schools shows that for the 7th straight year applications to U.S. graduate schools by international students increased.
 

A Stronger Nation Through Higher Education, a report released this week by the Lumina Foundation for Education, tracks progress on the Foundation’s “Big Goal:” sixty percent of Americans obtaining a high-quality postsecondary degree or credential by 2025. The report assesses higher education attainment rates at the national, state, and county levels; presents various breakdowns of the data, including by race, ethnicity, age, and level of education; and provides the attainment rate of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas.

Among the findings:

• The percentage of working age adults (ages 25-64) who held a two- or four-year degree increased slightly from 38.1 percent in 2009 to 38.3 percent in 2010.
• In 2010, the attainment rate for young adults was a full percentage point higher (39.3%) than the attainment rate for all adults.
• 54.37% of adults in the Washington, D.C.-Arlington-Alexandria metropolitan area hold at least an associate’s degree (54.37%). This is the highest rate of educational attainment among the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country.
• At the current rate of increase in the percent of Americans obtaining a postsecondary degree or credential, only 46.5 percent of Americans will hold degrees by 2025.

In addition to the data summaries, A Stronger Nation assesses the state of higher education attainment and its ramifications for the future of our country. The report also provides strategies for closing the gap and reaching the 60 percent attainment goal by 2025.

This report marks the third report in what will be an annual series through the target date of 2025.

In last night’s State of the Union, President Obama announced the release of the College Scorecard, a consumer information resource that helps students and families compare colleges and universities on important measures such as costs and graduation rates. “Colleges must do their part to keep costs down…” said President Obama, “Parents and students can use [the Scorecard] to compare schools based on simple criteria: Where you can get the most bang for your educational buck.” While better information is not the cure to solving all problems with student access and success in higher education, it can lead to more informed decision-making and, in turn, improved outcomes. But information only helps students and families if it gets into their hands and they know how to use it.

The College Scorecard is not a new initiative. In last year’s State of the Union, President Obama put higher education “on notice” saying that, “If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down.” In the days that followed he announced a new higher education reform package that included two new consumer information tools: the Scorecard and the Financial Aid Shopping Sheet. After thousands of public comments on both, the finalized Shopping Sheet was released in July and now the new Scorecard is out today. I’ve already written extensively about the Shopping Sheet, but what will the new Scorecard mean for students and families?

The Pew Research Center has recently published an analysis of educational attainment in the United States. Drawing on data from the March 2012 Current Population Survey (CPS), the report looks specifically at the high school and college completion rates of adults ages 25 and older. Highlights of the report include:

• Over the past 40 years, the adult population in the United States has reached greater levels of educational attainment. In 1971, only 12 percent of the adults in the U.S. had a bachelor’s degree or higher, only 22 percent had some college, and only 57 percent had a high school diploma.
• In 2012, among all adults ages 25 and older, 31 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher, 57 percent had some college, and 88 percent had a high school diploma. These levels of educational attainment are even higher when looking at the young adult population alone. In 2012, among young adults ages 25-29 the proportion are higher--33 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher, 63 percent had some college, and 90 percent had a high school diploma.
• Although record proportions of adults in the U.S. have higher levels of educational attainment than in years past, gaps persist among racial and ethnic groups. Among young adults ages 25 to 29, Asians have the highest level of college completion. In 2012, 60 percent of Asians had a bachelor’s degree or higher, 40 percent of Whites had a bachelor’s degree or higher, 23 percent of Blacks had a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 15 percent of Hispanics had a bachelor’s degree or higher.
• In the last 20 years, there has been a significant increase in the proportion of 25 to 29 year olds having completed some college, rising from 45 percent in 1991 to 63 percent in 2012. Such increases have occurred among all major racial and ethnic groups. In 2012, 81 percent of Asians had completed some college, 69 percent of Whites had completed some college, 59 percent of Blacks had completed some college, and 41 percent of Hispanics had completed some college.

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center has issued its latest signature report --Completing College: A National View of Student Attainment Rates. The report seeks to provide a more comprehensive picture of college completion rates by utilizing a database that captures a greater number of students in college completion metrics. Unlike the traditional measure of college graduation rates that only includes first time, full-time students who complete at the institution in which they first enrolled, the National Student Clearinghouse’s database allows for the calculation of a college graduation rate that includes completions of both traditional and nontraditional students. Including nontraditional students—students who delay college entry after high school completion, attend on a part-time basis, and students who may attend multiple institutions—is of growing importance as the number of nontraditional students now outpaces the number of traditional students. The report examines the six-year college completion outcomes of first-time, degree-seeking students who enrolled in college in fall 2006.

Among the report’s findings:

• Among students in the Fall 2006 cohort, 81.7% were age 24 or younger upon first entering college and 17.4% were over age 24. By type of starting institution for the Fall 2006 cohort, 44.2% enrolled in a 4-year public, 33.6% in a 2-year public, 19.1% in a 4-year private nonprofit, 2.8% in a 4-year private for-profit, and less than 1% for both 2-year private nonprofit and 2-year private for-profit institutions.
• Over the six-year time period, 41.5% of the Fall 2006 cohort enrolled exclusively full-time, 7.2% enrolled exclusively part-time, and 51.3% had a mixed enrollment (i.e., periods of full-time and part-time enrollment). When looking at enrollment intensity by age, there were significant differences. Among students age 24 or younger, 44.7% were enrolled exclusively full-time, 3.2% were enrolled exclusively part-time, and 52.1% had a mixed enrollment. Among students over age 24, 27.1% were enrolled exclusively full-time, 25% were enrolled exclusively part-time, and 47.8% had a mixed enrollment.
• Among all students in the Fall 2006 cohort, within six years of starting school, 42% had completed a degree or certificate at the institution in which they first enrolled, 12.1% had completed a degree or certificate at a different institution, 16.1% were still enrolled in school, and 29.8% were no longer enrolled at any institution. Six-year outcomes were significantly different when looking at the various attendance patterns and when looking at age of first enrollment.
• Among students attending exclusively full-time, 65.6% had completed a degree or certificate at the institution in which they first enrolled, 10.6% had completed a degree or certificate at a different institution, 3.7% were still enrolled in school, and 20% were no longer enrolled.
• Among students attending exclusively part-time, 17.5% had completed a degree or certificate at the institution in which they first enrolled, 3.1% had completed a degree or certificate at a different institution, 11.4% were still enrolled in school, and 68% were no longer enrolled.
• Among students with a mixed enrollment intensity, 26.3% had completed a degree or certificate at the institution in which they first enrolled, 14.6% had completed a degree or certificate at a different institution, 26.8% were still enrolled in school, and 32.4% were no longer enrolled.
• Among students age 24 or younger upon first enrolling in college, 43.4% had completed a degree or certificate at the institution in which they first enrolled, 13.4% had completed a degree or certificate at a different institution, 16.9% were still enrolled in school, and 26.4% were no longer enrolled.
• Among students over age 24 upon first enrolling in college, 35.9% had completed a degree or certificate at the institution in which they first enrolled, 6.2% had completed a degree or certificate at a different institution, 13.5% were still enrolled in school, and 44.4% were no longer enrolled.
• Six-year completion outcomes also varied by the type of institution at which students in the Fall 2006 cohort first enrolled. 
• Among students starting at a 4-year public institution, 48.6% had completed a degree or certificate at the institution in which they first enrolled, 8.7% completed at a different 4-year institution, 3.2% completed at a different 2-year institution, 16% were still enrolled, and 23.4% were no longer enrolled.
• Among students starting at a 4-year private nonprofit, 58.6% had completed a degree or certificate at the institution in which they first enrolled, 10.5% completed at a different 4-year institution, 2.4% completed at a different 2-year institution, 10% were still enrolled, and 18.5% were no longer enrolled.
• Among students starting at a 4-year private for-profit, 37.8% had completed a degree or certificate at the institution in which they first enrolled, 3% completed at a different 4-year institution, 1.9% completed at a different 2-year institution, 13.8% were still enrolled, and 43.3% were no longer enrolled.
• Among students starting at a 2-year public institution, 23.9% had completed a degree or certificate at the institution in which they first enrolled, 9.4% completed at a different 4-year institution, 3% completed at a different 2-year institution, 20.1% were still enrolled, and 43.6% were no longer enrolled.
• Among students starting at a 2-year private nonprofit, 42.6% had completed a degree or certificate at the institution in which they first enrolled, 8.6% completed at a different 4-year institution, 3% completed at a different 2-year institution, 13.5% were still enrolled, and 32.3% were no longer enrolled.
• Among students starting at a 2-year private for-profit, 58.1% had completed a degree or certificate at the institution in which they first enrolled, 2.4% completed at a different 4-year institution, 1.2% completed at a different 2-year institution, 8.4% were still enrolled, and 29.8% were no longer enrolled.