Ohio cuts funds for university remediation

Cash-strapped Ohio will stop funding remediation at four-year universities beginning in the 2014-2015 academic year, notes the Hechinger Report.

At least 13 other states, including Florida, Missouri and South Carolina, have tried to slow the spiral of spending on remedial education, typically by restricting funding to colleges and universities that provide a lot of it.

But some experts worry that this shift will discriminate against students from low-performing high schools in poor areas, pushing more students away from universities and into already-overburdened community colleges.

Universities may partner with community colleges to give their students access to remedial courses. Wright State University in Dayton, where half of new students need one or more remedial courses, is working with nearby community colleges to develop a remedial-education curriculum.

Job training funds run low

Community colleges are running out of money to train laid-off workers, warns Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: Challenges Community Colleges Face to Reach the Unemployed from the Education Policy Center at the University of Alabama.

Few states now offer free retraining at community colleges, say members of the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges

Unemployment, meanwhile, has remained stubbornly high, while stimulus funds have dwindled and state tax revenues have yet to bounce back. This year members from 21 states reported that funds for work-force training had been exhausted.

Nearly three-fourths of survey respondents agreed that in the face of such challenges, community colleges are being pushed to offer “quick” job training without academic credit. That limits colleges’ ability to invest in more expensive long-term programs, the report says, in fields like allied health, engineering, and information technology—the very fields that need more workers and tend to offer better pay. Forty-two members indicated that their states need more funds to expand programs in those areas.

Community colleges may have reached their limits, the report warns. “Right now, workforce training is an underfunded Band-Aid,” said Stephen G. Katsinas, the center’s director and a coauthor of the report.

Report: Focus on motivated students

California community colleges, which raised tuition by a whopping 37 percent this year, continue to struggle with declining state revenues and rising student demand.  Nearly half of students can’t get the classes they need. Meanwhile, completion rates are so low that the cost per degree or certificate completed is 40 percent higher than the national average.

The California Community Colleges Task Force on Student Success recommends focusing scarce resources, such as financial incentives and registration priority, on first-time students and motivated students who choose an academic plan and make progress toward completion. The task force’s draft recommendations (pdf), called a system “reboot,” would move away from what the report calls “open access and limited success.”

That’s raised controversy, reports Inside Higher Ed.

Colleges should be graded on publicly available score cards that measure completion rates and other “student success” metrics, the task force said. And students who declare their program of study early and follow an academic work plan should be given priority in registering for classes – a key advantage for a system that turned 130,000 students away last year after a $300 million budget cut.

The Legislature created the task force to analyze performance-based funding, an issue the report ignores. State legislators are complaining about that, while faculty leaders question the focus on easy-to-educate students, reports Inside Higher Ed. But some college leaders are supporting the report.

Eloy Oakley, president and superintendent of Long Beach City College, said it’s time to rethink priorities.

For example, California’s funding formula typically allocates more money for enrollment growth, which Oakley said has long encouraged colleges to chase growth at the expense of quality. And various student enticements that are currently in place, like a tuition waiver for lower-income students, do not recognize academic progress.

“We’re rewarding the wrong types of behavior,” Oakley said.

“Policies that enable students to wander around the curriculum, withdraw and repeat classes multiple times, avoid services that could steer them along a productive pathway, and accumulate an unlimited number of units are a disservice to enrolled students and to those who can’t get into the system for lack of available classes,” according to the task force.

“The thinking here is that it’s time to free up that slot for someone else,” said Erik Skinner, the executive vice chancellor.

The focus on “success” will mean failure for the neediest students, warns Daniel Luzer in the Washington Monthly. The Obama administration’s college-completion agenda, and pressure from foundations that funded the task force, put the focus on graduating more students while “turning others out,” Luzer writes. “That’s not student success, that’s just institutional advancement.”

California underfunds community colleges

California isn’t on track to produce more college graduates and has no strategy to reach that goal, concludes a new report (pdf) from Sacramento State’s Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy. As the largest and most accessible higher education sector, community colleges can contribute the most to a degree-completion strategy, the report finds. Yet the state is underfunding its community colleges, notes California Watch.

The University of California and California State University systems spend more per student than comparable institutions in other states, while the California Community Colleges spend less, according to the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity and Accountability.

Source: Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy

However, due to very low completion rates,  the California Community Colleges spent 40 percent more per degree or certificate than the national average for community colleges. (The data doesn’t include transfers to four-year institutions.) The cost per completion was $65,474 per degree or certificate in 2009, compared to the national average of $46, 759.

Source: Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy

Community colleges enroll many remedial students, part-timers and and people who aren’t seeking a credential, the report notes.

The state’s Task Force on Student Success is studying funding options, but is unlikely to increase community college funding or move to performance-based funding, an earlier California Watch story reports. The focus is on boosting completion rates.

. . . under the draft recommendations, students who remain on academic probation for too long or rack up more than 100 units of study could lose both enrollment priority for classes and eligibility for state-funded fee waivers. All students could be required to declare a program of study earlier. New students would have to take a diagnostic assessment, and if they test below college level, they could have to participate in a student success course.

. . . The new policies would aim to reward students for following pathways that will most likely lead to completion of a certificate, degree, transfer or career goal.

Six years after enrolling in a California community college, 70 percent of degree-seeking students had not completed a certificate or degree and had not transferred to a university, according to a 2010  study (pdf).

LA halts construction spending

Construction spending is on hold in the Los Angeles Community College District while officials try to figure out how to pay for maintenance on new buildings. The district is using a $5.7 billion bond issue to expand its space by 60 percent, reports the Los Angeles Times. But state budget cuts — expected to get even worse in mid-year — have forced the district to cut 500 classes and turn students away because of state budget cuts.

The stalled buildings include such projects as a $38-million fashion and fine arts building at Los Angeles Trade Technical College and a $7.4-million fitness center and sports field at West Los Angeles College, according to a district website.

Meanwhile, the district attorney investigating the district’s management of construction projects.

The Times reported in February that the district had squandered tens of millions of dollars on design and preliminary construction of projects that officials ultimately decided to scrap. At West Los Angeles College, officials spent $39 million on four major buildings, then discovered they didn’t have enough money to complete them; most — and possibly all — of the funds were wasted.

Don Gauthier, president of the Faculty Senate at Los Angeles Valley College, said colleges will have to choose between faculty salaries and building maintenance.

House bill cuts Pell for part-timers

Part-time students would lose access to Pell Grants under a bill proposed by House Republicans. The maximum grant would remain at $5,550, reports Community College Times.  

Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), chair of the Labor, Education, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, proposes to reduce Pell costs by $2.3 billion in fiscal 2012 by limiting the lifetime eligibility for Pell Grants to 12 semesters, down from 18, and denying grants to students who lack a high school diploma or GED.  In addition, students with a family income above $15,000 would be expected to contribute something  to the cost of their education; the current line is drawn at $30,000.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), said working students would lose hundreds of dollars in grant aid.

“That seems exactly the wrong step to be taking when so many people are relying on Pell Grants to go back to school or stay in school to gain the education and skills they need for jobs in the new economy,” she said.

Cutting off part-timers will affect many community college students.

In award year 2009-10, more than half of the 497,414 half-time students receiving Pell Grants attended community colleges. Of the 48,300 students receiving Pell who attended less than half time, 32,802 were community college students.

The cost of the Pell program doubled in two years to reach $30 billion, notes Community College Times. The number of Pell recipients grew by 46 percent from 5.5 million in 2007-08 to more than 8 million students two years later.

The proposed changes are likely to raise graduation rates, which are believed to be low for Pell recipients. (Amazingly, the Education Department doesn’t collect Pell completion data.) Part-timers are much less likely to complete a certificate or degree, concludes a new Complete College America report, Time is the  Enemy.  In addition, students with neither a diploma or the GED typically start in low-level remedial classes — a “Bermuda Triangle” — and don’t advance to college-level classes, much less to a credential.

A Senate appropriations bill passed earlier in September preserves the Pell maximum with no changes to eligiblity.  A compromise will be negotiated.

The House appropriations bill also would eliminate or reduce funding for colleges that predominantly serve Native Americans, Alaska natives, native Hawaiians, Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, Hispanics and blacks.

CCs need middle-class students

Perpetually underfunded community colleges should recruit middle-class and upper-middle-class students to build political capital and financial support, argues Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Community colleges receive less public support per student than four-year institutions, according to the Delta Cost Project. Over the last 10 years, community colleges are the only postsecondary sector that’s seen no increase in funding.  “The students with the greatest needs and greatest challenges receive the least amount of public funding,” Kahlenberg writes.

The gross mismatch between the grand expectations for community colleges and the declining resources calls for creative thinking about how to boost funding for—and results from—two-year institutions.

Funding cuts may accelerate the white, middle-class flight from community colleges, he writes. To prevent that, colleges should strive for socioeconomic integration.

Conscious efforts to win back middle- and upper-middle class students could, by contrast, create a virtuous cycle of greater political capital and stronger financial support from state and local governments. In addition, a return of upper-middle class students, who, on average, are more likely to graduate, could foster positive peer influences on all students in community colleges. Middle-class students might be attracted by community-college honors programs, early college programs, or opportunities to gain a bachelor’s degree in a community-college setting.

A community-college sector that “educates students from all kinds of backgrounds will be stronger and benefit everyone who attends,” Kahlenberg argues.

States link funds to college performance

Increasingly, states are linking some college funding to performance goals, reports Stateline.

Missouri will link increases in state funding to state goals, such as graduation, retention, performance on professional certification exams and low tuition, after fiscal 2013.

In most states, performance-based funding isn’t big money.  Pennsylvania will set aside 2.5 percent of its higher education budget for target-linked funding.

Tennessee is the exception: Eventually, more than 90 percent of higher education funds will be tied to performance.  Colleges receive credit when students achieve goals with extra points for at-risk and non-traditional students.

Performance funding isn’t a new concept in higher education. From 1979 to 2007, 26 states — including Missouri, Pennsylvania and Tennessee — implemented the concept in some form, according to a recent report from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. Many of those programs were established in the 1990s, when states were flush with cash, and then subsequently abandoned. The current climate of fiscal austerity has made lawmakers more receptive to reviving the programs.

Models should be simple and clear, advises Julie Bell, director of the education group at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

States should link performance funding to graduation, rather than relying on internal measures, such as student evaluations of teaching quality.

The state has to offer enough money to give the institution a genuine incentive to change behavior.

Missouri has been cutting funds for colleges and universities, concedes Paul Wagner, deputy commissioner of higher education. “A lot of people are saying, ‘What’s the point of talking about how you’re distributing new money?’ ”

Some fear that performance-based funding will pressure colleges to lower standards to raise graduation rates. Tennessee professors call that “watering the soup.”

Community college funding declined by $488 per student from 2008 to 2009, according to a Delta Cost Project report. Community colleges’ tuition increased $113 per student, while spending declined by $254.

$5 billion for facilities? Colleges are wary

Community and tribal colleges will get $5 billion for “facilities modernization needs” — if President Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill makes it through Congress.

It’s a big if. Show Us the Money is the response from college leaders, writes Inside Higher Ed. Congressional Republicans may see the college and K-12 funding as a boondoggle.

“There are more fundamental things that we need to do with community colleges” than fixing up brick-and-mortar campuses, argues Mark Schneider of the American Institutes for Research.

“What we really need to invest in is some new models,” like promising distance education programs or competency-based degrees, says Schneider, a visiting scholar with the American Enterprise Institute and former commissioner of the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics.

The proposal calls for distributing money to the states based on community college enrollment.  California would receive $1.1 billion,  while Rhode Island would get only $12.7 million. The money would be available for repairs and upgrades, not for new construction. States would decide how to allocate the funds.

CC enrollment surge is over

After years of rapidly rising demand, community colleges are projecting flat enrollments for the fall, reports Community College Times.  “On average, a range of decreases from 5 percent to increases of about 5 percent” is likely.

Michigan’s Washtenaw Community College predicts a decline of up to 9 percent, while Grand Rapids Community College is seeing a 1.8 percent drop. Both lost students when the state’s No Worker Left Behind program, which paid for two years of college for laid-off workers, expired.

Population changes are affecting enrollment: In 27 states, mostly in the North, the number of high school graduates is declining.

California community colleges don’t have funding to provide classes for students.

San Bernardino Valley College (SBVC) in California has no shortage of people who want to take classes, yet enrollment is down 14 percent from last year. That’s because the state mandates how many full-time equivalent students it will fund, and this year that number was cut. If the college admits more than that cut-off number, it assumes the costs, which SBVC can’t afford, according to President Debra Daniels.

Many of the classrooms have lines out the door of people just hoping that they can take the seat of someone who may not show up for class.

“It breaks my heart,” Daniels said. “People want in and they can’t get in.”

Community college leaders in California are now concerned about possible mid-year cuts by the state, which would prompt them to turn away more students, cut programs, or reduce classes or student services.

Elsewhere, some community colleges report the same number of students are taking fewer credit hours. Some are working several part-time jobs, while others can’t afford full-time tuition.

Other community colleges are growing at much slower rates: Indiana’s Ivy Tech grew by 73 percent over  seven years; this year, enrollment is up by 2 percent.