College consumers need more info

Do Colleges Need a Consumer’s Report Card? asks career Marty Nemko in The Atlantic. He’s seeking feedback on his nutrition label for higher education.

If government can require “every package of taco-flavored Doritos (to) tell you the percentage of the FDA recommended daily allowance of vitamin A to zinc is in each ounce,” colleges should provide information to help prospective students make what “may be our life’s most expensive (and important?) purchase,” Nemko writes.

The data might include: the percentage of freshmen that graduate in four years, the progress they make in reading and critical thinking, the employment rate and earnings for recent graduates by degree, and (as the Occupiers would approve) the actual four-year cost of school, including cash and loan financial aid, broken down by family income and assets.

There are plenty of college guides out there and “more statistics, facts, and opinions are a mere Google-search away,” Nemko concedes. Would a standardized college report card just add to the information overload?

‘Dream’ adds 23 ‘leader colleges’

Achieving the Dream has added 23 community colleges to its list of 52 “leader colleges,” reports Inside Higher Ed.

These colleges improved graduation rates, closed achievement gaps and changed lives, said the nonprofit. For example,  Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas strengthened remedial education coursework and increased the college’s three-year completion rate to 24 percent from 10 percent over a four-year period.

Few Baltimore students earn degrees at 2-year college

Baltimore high school graduates increasingly go to community colleges rather than four-year colleges, according to a Johns Hopkins report (pdf). It reported in the Baltimore Sun. Only 5.8 percent of those who started at a two-year college earned a degree in six years compared with 34 percent of those who started at four-year-colleges, reports the Baltimore Education Research Consortium. The report tracks the class of ’04 through 2010.

Baltimore lacks a “college-going culture,” researchers said. The city sends fewer high school graduates to college than the national average. Some city schools now focus on career preparation, offering the chance to earn certificates in a range of fields such as health, bioscience, hospitality and cosmetology.

Since 2008, the number of career-preparation programs offered in the city has jumped more than 50 percent, and the number of students participating in them has increased by nearly 40 — to more than 6,200.

Parents are concerned about “their kids’ readiness to do well in the real world,” city schools CEO Andres Alonso said earlier this year in a discussion about career preparation versus college preparation.

Guidance counselors should encourage more students to attend four-year colleges, the report advised.

That’s not realistic, responded Mark McColloch, vice president of instruction for the Community College of Baltimore County. Eighty-nine percent of new CCBC students in 2010 needed remedial classes, he said.

Only 5 percent of Baltimore students completed a CCBC degree from 2004 to 2010, according to the report.

“The achievement is a function of background … not a function of someone doing something wrong, whether it be in college or high school, to Baltimore City students,” McColloch said. “It’s that students who are more at-risk come to two-year schools. And we are better prepared to deal with someone from that kind of background.”

Sending unprepared students — 89 percent fail the CCBC placement test! — to four-year colleges and universities doesn’t seem like a bright idea to me.

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.

Better measures of success

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.

WGU challenges for-profits

Western Governors University — an accredited, low-cost, nonprofit online university — is The College For-profits Should Fear, writes John Gravois in the  Washington Monthly. Designed for working adults, WGU costs less than $6,000 a year, while tuition at for-profit universities averages $15,600.

WGU degrees are based on competency, not on “seat time,” so students can move at their own pace.

By gathering information from employers, industry experts, and academics, Western Governors formulates a detailed, institution- wide sense of what every graduate of a given degree program needs to know. Then they work backward from there, defining what every student who has taken a given course needs to know. As they go, they design assessments—tests—of all those competencies. “Essentially,” says Kevin Kinser, a professor of education at the State University of New York at Albany, “they’re creating a bar exam for each point along the way that leads to a degree.”

. . . At the beginning of a course, students are given a test called a “pre-assessment.” Then they have a conversation with their mentor—a kind of personal coach assigned to each student for the duration of their degree program—to discuss which concepts in the course they already grasp, which they still need to master, and how to go about closing the gap. The students are then offered a broad set of “learning resources”—a drab phrase, sure, but no more so than “crowded lecture hall”—that may include videos, textbooks, online simulations, conversations with a WGU course mentor (an expert in the subject matter who is on call to answer questions), or even tutors in the student’s hometown.

Students pay $6,000 for as many courses as they can finish in two semesters.  The average student is able to complete a bachelor’s degree in two and a half years for about $15,000.

Traditional-age students don’t do well in WGU’s online, competency-based program, but the model works for adults with some college and work experience. The average student is 36 years old, the same as in University of Phoenix’s online programs.

WGU offers bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education, business, information technology and health professions, mainly nursing. The model works well for professions with a proficiency test, such as the nursing certification exam or the Praxis for teachers, Gravois writes. For example, Ray Shawn McKinnon, a former pastor hoping for a business career, will have to pass the national human resources management certification exam to earn his MBA in human resources.

In an online education sector plagued by accusations of low quality, Western Governors can show that its degrees are backstopped by the official guardians of various professions. (It also helps that WGU students tend to score higher than the national average on such professional exams.)

WGU’s six-year graduation rate — calculated by the feds only for first-time, full-time students — is only 22 percent, the same as the for-profit average.  WGU estimates 40 percent of all students, including part-timers and those returning to college, complete a degree.  Those rates look back to 2004, when WGU’s program was weaker, writes Gravois. This year, 77 percent of first-year students returned for a second year, “higher than the national average at both for-profits and traditional schools.”

As the for-profit colleges report shrinking enrollments, WGU’s enrollment is growing by 30 percent a year.  Indiana has made WGU a state university, which means students can qualify for state aid. Washington, Texas, California and Arizona and other states may follow suit.

Chickens, eggs and college returns

Is there a college premium?

Four-year college graduates earn nearly $1 million more over a 40-year working life than non-graduates, concludes The College Payoff, a new report by the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce.  Even at an average cost of $102,000 for four years, college is the best investment you’ll ever make, advises Brookings’ Hamilton Project.

The case for the college premium confuses chickens and eggs, responds Richard Vedder, a Ohio University economist, on the College Affordability site.

Those who go to college are, on average, brighter, more knowledgeable, more disciplined, and more conscientious than those who go to work after higher school. . . . Even if those in the college going population had NOT gone to college, they would have earned more than those others who did not go on—simply because they are better workers.

The college premium varies significantly by field of study, the Georgetown report finds. For example, 28 percent of workers with an associate degree earn more than the median wage for four-year college graduates. There’s a high premium for a degree in engineering, not much for social work or early childhood education.

The Georgetown report only looks at graduates: Forty to 50 percent of college enrollees don’t complete a degree, Vedder adds.

There is a substantial risk element to making a college investment, particularly those with attributes (low high-school grades, poor test scores, etc.) that suggest the probability of dropping out is high. Adjusting for this risk factor lowers the expected income gains from college dramatically.

In addition, as more Americans enter the labor market with college degrees, the payoffs are likely to change, writes Vedder, who predicts diminishing returns for a college degree.

A growing proportion of new college graduates are taking jobs that don’t require a degree. While they may earn more than co-workers with high school diplomas, their college premium will be reduced.

Finally, a degree’s value depends on the college’s reputation, Vedder points out. The Harvard premium is high. Chicago State? Not so much.

“We need the IRS to provide us average earnings data by college to help evaluate the differential rate of return on investments in the various colleges,” Vedder writes.

College is a good investment for good students, but not for everyone, Vedder adds in an EdCommons discussion.

Looking at those graduating from high school, I would guess somewhere between 25 and 40 percent should go to four-year schools, because they have the relatively high grades, tests scores, innate intelligence, ambition and motivation — good predictors of college and often vocational success.

The other 60 to 75 percent should pursue less-risky options, Vedder advises. That includes community college or a career college offering specialized occupational training.

More degrees without more education

Under pressure to award more degrees, colleges may lower standards to pump up graduation numbers, warns Watson Scott Swail of Educational Policy Institute on College Puzzle.

Some propose giving a bachelor’s degree to students with 120 credits, even if the student hasn’t completed a course of study.  Such graduates won’t strengthen the workforce, Swail writes.

Others want high school students to earn college credits to speed their way to an associate degree. Unlike Advanced Placement, dual-enrollment classes recruit average and below-average students. Can these students really handle college-level courses? Swail suspects the classes will have to be watered down.  That will produce more semi-educated people with degrees.

AP is backed by national exams. Dual-enrollment courses — sometimes taught by high school teachers — don’t have a way to show that students are performing at the college level. I predict that will be a growing concern.

Florida CC hit by diploma scandal

A Florida community college awarded associate degrees to students who hadn’t completed core requirements, reports The News-Press. Edison State College in the Naples and Ft. Myers area has suspended two administrators.

Students were allowed to substitute unrelated electives, such as theater, mythology and photography, for core classes in banking, accounting and management.

Raising graduation rates may have been the motive.

Course substitution forms were filed as late as graduation day in past semesters so students could receive diplomas. Edison’s graduation rate historically has been low, with 8 percent of students completing an associate degree program in two years.

Last month, a report showed Edison had climbed from No. 73 to 49 nationally in the number of associate degrees awarded, and a record number of graduates in 2010-11.

Over a five-year period, 2.5 percent of students were allowed to substitute courses; some may have been legitimate. Most inappropriate substitutions were in accounting, business management, and drafting and design.

Edison State’s accreditation will be reviewed in the fall.

The skills gap

Despite high unemployment, some employers can’t find skilled workers, AP reports.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — John Russo’s chemical lab in North Kingstown has been growing in recent years, even despite a deflated economy, and he expects to add another 15 to 20 positions to his 49 employees over the next year.

But the president of Ultra Scientific Analytical Solutions has found himself in a vexing spot, struggling to fill openings that require specialized training in a state where the jobless rate is close to 11 percent, the third-highest in the nation.

“It’s very difficult to find the right person, and there’s all walks of life trying to find jobs. I honestly think there’s a large swath of unemployable,” said Russo, whose firm manufactures and supplies analytical standards. “They don’t have any skills at all.”

The skills gap is a national issue.

Several states have created “lifelong learning accounts” to help workers save for education and training. Michigan’s  “No Worker Left Behind” initiative offers up to $10,000 for  unemployed or low-wage workers to train for jobs at community colleges.

Rhode Island is trying to move from low-tech, low-skill manufacturing and service jobs to a “knowledge” economy centered on IT and life sciences, AP reports. Downtown Providence’s Jewelry District has been rebranded the “Knowledge District.” But it doesn’t have knowledge-intensive jobs or well-educated workers.

For every 100 Rhode Islanders who start high school, 73 will graduate, a hair over the national average. Of those 73, 40 will enter college and 21 will earn a degree. Community College of Rhode Island‘s on-time graduation is only 9.8 percent; the vast majority of new students require remedial courses.

“If we don’t address this skills problem, American businesses will lack the world-class work force needed to compete at a global level, and many Americans will remain out of work, instead of accessing the high quality jobs of today and tomorrow,” said Penny Pritzker, a Chicago business executive who is advisory board chair of the Aspen Institute’s skills gap campaign.

Ultra Scientific finally found someone to operate a machine that performs high-pressure liquid chromatography. Russo hired a Ph.D. from Thermo Fisher Scientific, which is shuttering its manufacturing facility in east Providence.