Community colleges have been judged by the graduation rates of first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students, even though they’re the minority on campus. To evaluate colleges’ performance, the U.S. Education Department named a group of policy experts to develop new measures of success that include the academic and employment outcomes for part-timers, returnees and transfers, reports CollegeBound.
The Committee on Measures of Student Success released its draft report last week.
Changes in reporting student outcomes are needed to take into account the broad mission and multiple role of community colleges, the committee concluded.
For instance, students often see community college as a stepping stone to a four-year institution and transfer before getting a degree. Also, workers come to campus to take a few classes to upgrade their skills. And more than half now attend part time.
The federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) reports graduation rates only for full-time students. Students who transfer to a four-year college or university before completing an associate degree are considered drop-outs.
Among the preliminary recommendations:
-Report graduation rates of part-time, degree-seeking students;
-Distinguish between remedial and nonremedial students in IPEDS graduation rates;
-Create a reporting category that reflects students who transfer to other institutions;
-Voluntarily collect, disclose, and report measures of student learning and employment.
Still deadlocked on employment outcomes, the committee will meet again, reports Inside Higher Ed. Some members want to require college to report graduates’ employment and salary; others — “especially those representing two-year institutions” — did not.
The federal gainful employment rule issued in June is intended to evaluate whether students in vocational programs actually find work in their field and earn enough to pay off their student loan debt. While it applies to certificate and non-degree programs at community colleges, it has not been applied to liberal arts degrees or other programs that are not strictly vocational in nature.
“I think this is weak,” said Harold Levy, a former New York City schools chancellor and managing director of Palm Ventures, who led the fight for more data collection and disclosure on students’ job prospects. “This is not asking for much. This is not asking for anything terribly useful.” Palm Ventures has invested in for-profit colleges, and many for-profit college advocates are in favor of applying the gainful employment rule to a broader range of institutions.
The gainful employment rules makes sense for students in job training programs, but not for liberal arts students, said Wayne Burton, president of North Shore Community College, in Massachusetts.
