September 2011 Archives

Although Latinos are the largest and fastest-growing minority group in K-12 schools in the United States, their college-completion rate is 19.2 percent compared with the national average of 41.1 percent, according to a report released today.

The College Board Advocacy & Policy Center chronicles the challenge facing Latinos, along with a a state policy guide and interactive website focusing on Latino education developed in collaboration with the National Council of La Raza,a national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization.

As of 2008, 63.9 percent of Hispanic high school completers enrolled in a two or four-year college immediately after graduation, the report notes. (See post here from last month about trends on Latino enrollment.)

"This report is a call to action. Our nation will not become number one again in college completion unless we commit ourselves to giving these students the support they need to achieve their full potential," said Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, in a press release.

To put the Latino completion rate in perspective, the completion rates for an associate degree or higher for 25- to 34-year-olds in 2009 was 69.1 percent for Asians, 48.7 percent for white, and 29.4 percent for African-Americans.

Among the report's recommendations to boost Latino education attainment:

1. Provide low-income families with the option of universally available preschool for children to enter school better prepared to learn.

2. Improve middle and high school counseling to bridge the information gap among Latino students about the coursework and academic preparation necessary for college.

3. Identify students early who are at risk and implement the best dropout-prevention programs, since Latino students represent the largest group dropping out of high school.

4. Better align the K-12 system with college-admission expectations so Latino students are ready for the rigor of college courses.

5. Improve teacher quality and focus on recruitment and retention; Latino children are most likely to attend poorly resourced schools and to have teachers without advanced degrees and who have the least teaching experience.

6. Simplify the college-admission process so it is more transparent and accessible to first-generation students.

7. Give more financial aid based on need and provide institutions with incentives to enroll and graduate more low-income and first-generation students.

8. Keep college costs affordable by using resources wisely and insisting that state governments fund higher education.

9. Improve completion rates by reforming transfer policies, improving retention, and using approaches that rely on data and academic-support programs

10. Supplement existing basic-skills training with a new "honors GED," as part of adult education programs, and better coordinate existing adult education, veterans benefits, outreach programs, and student aid.

The report will be discussed in Miami today at a roundtable hosted by the College Board and Miami Dade College with Caperton, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and Eduardo J. Padrón, Miami Dade College president. Another forum on the topic will take place on Oct. 6 in Washington.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Enough already. That's what college officials have to say about federal regulations that require a range of activities, from entrance counseling for financial-aid borrowers to reporting data on campus crime and graduation rates.

Nearly 86 percent of senior executives and office administrators say the regulations in the Higher Education Act are "burdensome" or "very burdensome," according to the preliminary findings of the Higher Education Regulations Study released yesterday.

The critical findings were based on the opinions of 2,000 college officials captured in an online survey and follow-up interviews.

The review was mandated by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, which charges the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance with looking at the extent to which regulations are overly burdensome and need to be streamlined, improved, or eliminated.

The perception of survey respondents was that the HEA regulations overlap other state and federal rules and are more burdensome than other federal regulations or those from states and nongovernmental agencies. College officials also lashed out at the scope of the information required to be disclosed and felt there needed to be an overhaul of the regulations.

A majority of those surveyed said that 14 of the 15 regulations selected for review by the committee were "burdensome" or "overly burdensome."

Rather than having general regulations, 83 percent of executives and 73 percent of office administrators said they supported sector-specific regulations. The majority also supported performance-based regulations.

A final report will be delivered to Congress at the end of November.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The U.S. Department of Education has announced that 34 colleges and universities will share $13 million in grant money as part of the Strengthening Institutions Program to help improve institutions to better serve low-income students. Funds can be used for planning, faculty development, academic programs, student support services, customized course instruction, construction and maintenance, administrative management, and the establishment of an endowment fund.

The program funds grants for five years. The amounts ranged from $160,000 to $400,000, with most schools receiving close to $400,000.

Grantees included:

Central Alabama Community College, Childersburg, Ala.
Mesa Community College, Mesa, Ariz.
South Mountain Community College, Phoenix
Pima County Community College, Tucson, Ariz.
Lassen Community College, Susanville, Calif..
Lewis and Clark Community College, Godfrey, Ill.
Ivy Tech Community College, Indianapolis
Union College, Barbourville, Ky.
Our Lady of the Lake College, Baton Rouge, La.
Becker College, Worcester, Mass.
The Community College of Baltimore County, Baltimore
Kennebec Valley Community College, Fairfield, Maine
Grand Rapids Community College, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Three Rivers Community College, Poplar Bluff, Miss.
Western Piedmont Community College, Morganton, N.C.
Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, Salisbury, N. C.
Bismarck State College, Bismarck, N.D.
Daemen College, Amherst, N.Y.
Jamestown Community College, Jamestown, N.Y.
Jefferson Community College, Watertown, N.Y.
Northwestern Oklahoma State University, Alva, Okla.
Southern Nazarene University, Bethany, Okla.
Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City
Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, Okla.
Cedar Crest College, Allentown, Pa.
Immaculata University, Immaculata, Pa.
Pennsylvania Highlands Community College, Johnstown, Pa.
Piedmont Technical College, Greenwood, S.C.
Cleveland State Community College, Cleveland, Tenn.
Bellingham Technical College, Bellingham, Wash.
Clark College, Vancouver, Wash.
Chippewa Valley Technical College, Eau Claire, Wis.
Western Technical College, La Crosse, Wis.
West Virginia Northern Community College, Wheeling, W.Va.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

What many think of as a traditional college student—one who lives on campus, attends classes full time, and doesn't need to work much—makes up only 25 percent of those in higher education today. Three-quarters of students are college commuters, often juggling families, jobs, and schools. Four in 10 attend part time.

Outside of being an interesting demographic shift, this new normal on campus has significant implications for completion, according to a report, Time Is the Enemy: The Surprising Truth About Why Today's College Students Aren't Graduating and What Needs to Change, by Complete College America, a national nonprofit based in Washington. The findings include self-reported data from 33 states (Click here for state-by-state numbers.)

Even when given twice as much time to complete certificates and degrees, about 25 percent of part-time students finish a four-year degree in eight years, compared with 61 percent of those who attend full time, and 8 percent get an associate degree in four years, compared with 19 percent of full-time students. Just 12 percent of part-time students get a one-year certificate in two years, while 28 percent of those going full time finish.

This report is unusual in that it looks at the success and failure of part-time students; the federal government requires colleges and universities to track only students who are first-time and are going full time. "All students are now being counted. We have a much more complete picture of where we stand ... and what needs to be done so that all students have a fair shot at success," the report says. It also urges states to uniformly and regularly measure the progress of part-time and full-time students.

The high cost of college has forced many Americans to work while going to school (50 percent work more than 20 hours a week), extending the years in school and allowing other demands to take over, leading to dropouts. Also, the report found, students often get bogged down in remedial classes or take courses unrelated to their degree.

While getting a bachelor's degree should take four years, it takes full-time students on average 4.7 years and part-time students 5.6 years.

Among the ideas to fix the problem, suggested by the report:

Reduce the time it takes to earn a certificate or degree. Consider shorter semesters, less time off between terms, and year-round scheduling. Make sure unnecessary credit requirements are not added to programs, and create comprehensive transfer agreements to make it easier for students to take credits across campuses, systems, and states.

Embed remediation in regular college curricula. Rather than sticking underprepared students in developmental courses, start them in credit-bearing classes in the first year, with extra class time and tutoring. Overhaul the placement system, and revisit the structure of remedial math, which can be a barrier for many students.

Restructure programs to match working students' schedules. The report suggests college use block schedules with fixed classroom meeting times (perhaps 8 a.m. to 2 pm.) so students can have a predictable time to be available for work each day. Provide peer support and a learning network for students of similar backgrounds in the same program.

Require formal, on-time completion plans for every student, updated annually. Put caps on credit hours, so students don't waste time on extra classes. Also promote online learning and allow students to move on once they've demonstrated competency to reduce the amount of time they must be in class.

"Unless we move with urgency, today's young people will be the first generation in American history to be less educated than their predecessors," the report notes. "Consider this a sobering wake up call—and an urgent appeal for action now."

Complete College America is funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (which provides support to Education Week's parent company, Editorial Project in Education), the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Lumina Foundation for Education (which underwrite coverage of district high school reform and P-16 alignment, respectively, in Education Week.)

Posted by Caralee Adams at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A new curriculum being developed in Yale University's backyard aims to instill a college-going attitude in students from pre-K through 8th grade as they spend one day a month focused on skills, from goal-setting to financial literacy.

The hope is that the program being announced by New Haven Public Schools officials this morning will better prepare students to take advantage of the New Haven Promise scholarship program, which pays college tuition for up to four years for students who meet residency, academic, and civic requirements.

Last year, the New Haven Promise awarded 112 scholarships to students from the pool of 150 who qualified (800 met the residency requirements). The goal is to double that number of awards next year, with the help of this and other initiatives to create a college-going culture, says Emily Byrne, New Haven Promise director.

The new college-going curriculum, which will be taught starting in October, is divided into monthly topics with activities tailored toward students in pre-K-3, 4-5, and 6th-8th grades.

To develop the lessons, New Haven created a college-going working committee with administrators, teachers, and experts from College Summit, a national non-profit organization that focuses on programs to create a college-going culture.

In May, the schools hosted a "College Day," where the district superintendent and teachers shared with students stories of their pathways to college. "We asked students if this was the first time they thought of going to college—and it was too large of a number that said yes," explains Byrne. "We want kids to be successful in school, graduate from college, and get good quality jobs. That doesn't happen if we just start the conversation in high school."

To reach out to parents, this summer and fall, volunteers in New Haven knocked on doors in city neighborhoods to talk with families about the scholarship program and the importance of college preparation. Volunteers handed out "parent kits," which are guides full of tips and resources designed to empower parents to be more involved in their child's education.

New Haven also offers a college-focused financial literacy class series for parents, "Saving for College 101." The three classes include the basics of banking, financial aid, and long- and short-term savings tools. The hope is to emphasize the importance of saving for college early and to demystify the financial aid process, officials say.

"It's more than a scholarship program," says Byrne. "We want to provide support to students to meet the criteria" to qualify for the tuition. Partnering with College Summit in one New Haven high school resulted in a jump in college applications from 65 percent to 100 percent in two years. "We want to replicate that and have a commitment to raise funds to roll out in College Summit into all high schools in five years," says Byrne.

Spending six hours on college-going activities once a month is a big time commitment for teachers, but Byrne says 89 percent of teachers surveyed after the pilot agreed continual conversation on college was good.

If students see the relevance of what they are doing in class, they are more connected to school and are motivated to perform well, says J.B. Schramm, the co-founder and chief executive officer of College Summit.

But is this pushing too early? Won't kids change their minds?

"Kids are always thinking about what they want to do—be an astronaut or a fireman," says Schramm. "We are trying to help them start seeing how each of those dreams has an education foundation."

And the effort has to be broad and long-term. "To build a college-going culture across a city, you have to start early," says Schramm. "People are so excited about the child's opportunity, but if they haven't been to college themselves ... they have to be equipped in order to support their kid on this long journey."

Posted by Caralee Adams at 5:57 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Colleges often like to say they are "need-blind" when it comes to the application process. But in this tight economic climate, admissions officers admit that there is increasing pressure to recruit students with the ability to pay.

A national survey released Wednesday by Inside Higher Ed asked behind-the-scenes questions of 462 top admissions officers — anonymously — in an effort to elicit candid responses.

The economic downturn appears to be having a particular impact on public institutions, where admissions directors acknowledge new efforts to recruit full-pay undergraduates as priority "targets," the survey found. At private institutions, admissions directors said top targets for increased attention are transfer students, adults, part-timers, out-of-state residents, and international students.

The focus on students with money varies by type of institution. According to the survey, about 48 percent of moderately-selective institutions have enhanced efforts to pursue "revenue" students, and about 31 percent of less-selective campuses are doing so, compared with just 9 percent of the most-selective colleges and universities.

The push has become strong enough that 10 percent of the admissions officers at four-year colleges surveyed said they are letting in full-pay students with lower grades and test scores than other admitted applicants.

The survey also revealed 28 percent of admissions directors felt pressure from senior-level administrators to admit certain applicants and 24 percent were pushed from trustees or development officials.

In deciding which students to move off wait lists, admissions officers acknowledge that ability to pay does become a factor, previous surveys by the National Association for College Admission Counseling have shown.

Money creeping into the admissions equation is likely not a shock to many. Still, it has drawn criticism, such as from the Huffington Post, which says it is discriminatory. "In no way is it morally acceptable for individuals to gain entrance into schools based on financial credential over academic success in 2011—a decade and generation that is supposed to be a more modern and progressive society," writes Krystie Yandoli.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

During the next decade, high school enrollment is expected to decline, while the number of students going to college will continue to increase. And more Americans will be completing postsecondary certificates and degrees, but not likely at the rate many hoped if the country is to become the world's leader in education attainment again.

New forecasts released yesterday from the National Center for Education Statistics are merely projections, but they do help educators and policymakers craft strategies in anticipation of population trends.

Among the highlights of Projections of Education Statistics to 2019:

• The number of high school students in grades 9-12 will grow less than 1 percent from 2007 to 2019. By contrast, there was a 23 percent surge in high school enrollment from 1994 to 2007.

• The number of high school graduates is expected to rise by just 1 percent in the next decade, compared to an increase of about 27 percent in high school completion in the previous 12 years.

• Enrollment in college and other postsecondary training is on pace to grow by 17 percent through 2019—about the same for full-time and part-time attendance. Filling in for the fewer number of high school grads will be more students in their late 20s going back to school. This increase is far less than the boom from 1994 to 2008, when college numbers swelled by 34 percent.

• The college completion picture is much brighter: The country is expected to produce 23 percent more bachelor's degrees and 30 percent more associate degrees in the next decade. While encouraging, completion rates would have to grow at a much faster clip than anticipated to reach the goal of the Obama Administration and several nonprofit advocacy groups: increasing the percentage of Americans with college degrees from roughly 40 to 60 percent by 2020.

• Women are expected increasingly to outnumber men on campuses, with female enrollment projected to grow by 21 percent, compared to 12 percent for men. This would translate into women making up 59 percent of all postsecondary students by 2019.

• Looking at growth in college enrollment by racial and ethnic groups, the report projects Hispanic and Latino students will increase by 45 percent, 30 percent for black students, 30 percent for Asian/Pacific Islander students, 7 percent for white students, and 5 percent for American Indian or Alaska Native students.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 6:46 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The talk of college completion is turning into action in many state legislatures around the country.

Policymakers are getting serious about making higher education more accountable and encouraging students to progress by passing measures that link funding formulas to performance metrics. Nearly 80 new laws related to college completion have been approved in states so far in 2011, and the range of approaches are chronicled by Boosting College Completion, a two-year initiative by the Education Commission of the States funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The organization's website provides an overview of the action by states and categorizes the measures into the various phases — from studying new funding formulas to establishing and implementing frameworks. It lists efforts affecting completion, transfer and workforce issues.

Some states are easing into changes, such as Nevada, where a committee is being created to consider funding based on course completions and other performance metrics yet to be defined.

In Arkansas, the legislature passed nine college-completion related laws.Over a five-year period, it will phase in outcomes-based funding, which considers how well a college is doing with student retention and transfer rates, number of credentials awarded overall, and number of graduates from under-served populations.

Colorado is directing the commission on higher education to design a master plan to increase the degrees and certificates awarded in a year by 30 percent in a decade to provide support for economic development; renegotiate performance contracts with individual postsecondary institutions; and create a performance-based funding plan that will base 25 percent of institutional funding on student success metrics.

These enactments will become law in the coming months, depending on the state, says Matthew Smith, associate policy analyst for Boosting College Completion.

"You see a lot of legislatures really internalizing the national agenda for college completion and looking at specific targets, in terms of numerical goals for educational goals and workforce outcomes," says Smith. There is action with funding, governance, and moving students through the system more quickly, he says. The vocabulary has changed to focus on promoting effectiveness and improvements in student-centered outcomes, rather than focusing on institution efficiency and cost-cutting, says Smith.

Smith adds this report will be the first of many that the organization plans to release on legislative action relating college completion issues, such as developmental education and dual enrollment, in the coming months.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Unless prospective college students know about the potential grants and aid available, the sticker shock of tuition can scare them away from applying. But that is about to change.

This fall, colleges are busy complying with a new federal requirement to have a "net-price calculator" so students can get a better sense of the true cost of attending a specific institution. According to an article today in Inside Higher Ed, while it appears to be a win-win — helping families make more informed financial decisions and allowing schools to leverage the calculators for outreach — some experts are watching colleges as they roll out tools with varying degrees of accuracy and usefulness to meet the late October deadline.

Depending on the school, students type into the calculator information about their family income and academic record to receive an estimate of what merit- or need-based aid they might get and how that translates into a bottom-line price of attending. But schools ask different questions and, therefore, provide different pictures of cost. Sometimes the information is too vague or not institution-specific enough to allow families to make good comparisons, the article notes.

For the consumer, the hope is that the calculators, or financial-aid estimators, will make pricing policies more transparent and perhaps encourage schools to make more aid available to stay competitive. As the Inside Higher Ed piece explains, on average, college tuition was discounted 42 percent in 2010, meaning families are often pleasantly surprised to find that they they often pay far less than the advertised sticker price.

Admissions and marketing officers see the pricing tool as a way to inform students about the affordability of their schools and get contact information from students to use for follow up with recruitment, the Inside Higher Ed article found.

In any case, it will be interesting to gauge the reaction this fall as the first crop of prospective students have this new tool at their fingertips. Families have the 2008 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act to thank for this attempt to demystify the cost of college and provide better information for comparison shopping in what has become huge investment.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 7:22 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

To meet President Obama's goal to have the country lead the world in having the most college graduates by 2020, administration officials say every type of higher education institution — including Historically Black Colleges and Universities — need to ramp up completion efforts.

To help achieve this, the administration is committed to increased federal funding and leveraging support of the private sector, philanthropies and alumni to support HBCUs, John Silvanus Wilson, director of the White House HBCU Initiative, told a gathering of leaders from that community in Washington this morning,

To highlight the specific benchmarks for colleges, Wilson unveiled a new feature on the U.S. Department of Education website that went live today. From a U.S. map featuring every HBCU here, users can click on an individual campus to link to its website and to see the current number of degrees produced, the total degrees needed by 2020 to meet the President's goal and how that breaks down by year.

For instance, the four HBCUs in Maryland, (Bowie State University, Coppin State College, Morgan State University, and University of Maryland-Eastern Shore) generate 2,222 undergraduate degrees annually. They need to add another 16,522 degrees by 2020, or 300 degrees each year, cumulatively to help reach the goal.

"This is going to be no easy task," said Wilson. "And our work just got harder." Recent reports from Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation show the United States ranks 16th, down from 9th in terms of the most educated population. The country has not led the international ranking since 1995. South Korea is the current leader.

Wilson congratulated some campuses for upward trends in graduation, including Spellman College, in Atlanta; Lincoln University, in Lincoln University, Pa.; Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas and Alabama A &M in Normal, Ala.

"Our HBCUs have friends in the White House like we've never had before," said Wilson. He outlined the administration's support for federal funding for HBCUs, teacher preparation programs, and fully funding the Pell Grant program to help students pay for college. Wilson urged continued investment in the federal aid program for low-income students, which serve nearly two-thirds of students at HBCUs.

The administration is pushing to help HBCUs in three other strategic areas: capital expansion, by working with federal agencies and the philanthropic community; messaging to improve perception enhancement; and campus enrichment, including efforts to address the recruitment and retention of African-American males, Today, 70 percent of students at HBCUs are women.

Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Obama, also addressed the 2011 HBCU conference and urged support for the president's proposed American Jobs Act to revitalize communities hit hardest by the recession. Jarrett noted that with 16 percent unemployment in the African-American community —and nearly 30 percent among young black youth—action is needed now to create new training programs for minorities, fund construction projects for schools, and hire teachers.

Solving the nation's problems will take everyone, including HBCUs, said Jarrett. "You serve as a role model, a beacon of hope for our country," she told the conference attendees. With shrinking endowments, rising costs and falling enrollment, HBCUs have have felt the pain of the recession acutely. "Everyone has to change the way they do business, and HBCUs have always been leaders in getting better outcomes with fewer resources," she said.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Two reports out this week reflect the tough financial reality that many colleges are facing in this economy—and its impact on students.

Students and families are getting squeezed with higher tuition, as schools try to make ends meet with less federal and state revenue. More cuts to operating budgets are expected, along with continued tuition hikes and flat to diminished financial aid for students, according to the Access and Funding in Public Higher Education report issued by the Education Policy Center at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

The report found large states with fast-growing minority populations have been particularly hard hit financially. In 21 states, high unemployment has exhausted work-force training funds, and more money is needed to expand programs linked to high-wage jobs in fields such as health, information technology, and engineering.

The findings were based on an annual survey of 51 members of the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges.

Equally dismal was another report from the Delta Cost Project, a Washington-based non-profit research organization. Trends in College Spending 1999-2009: Where Does the Money Come From? Where Does It Go? What Does It Buy? outlines the decline in funding per student and large losses of private gifts and endowment returns, particularly hurting community colleges.

Cost per degree continued to rise in 2009 except at comprehensive and community colleges; only community colleges are spending less per degree or completion compared to 10 years prior, the study found.

Four-year public colleges were able to offset cuts with tuition hikes, deferred maintenance and trimming of administration costs to keep per student funding levels and instructional funding stable in 2009. However, two-year institutions experienced a 2.5 percent decline in funding for students—and reductions are predicted for the foreseeable future.

Public and private institutions across the board showed improvement in getting more students to college completion in the past decade. U.S. postsecondary institutions granted more than 3.2 million degrees in 2009, an increase of nearly 38 percent since 1999. Private non-profit research and master's institutions have the highest degree productivity, measured as degrees or certificates compared to enrollments, but all sectors became more productive between 1999 and 2009.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 7:26 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

While much of the reporting on college access and completion is on students who enter straight out of high school and proceed through graduation, the path is not that linear for many. Sometimes life gets in the way of a degree and students drop out just shy of a degree for personal, financial, or academic reasons.

"Near completers" are considered students who have completed most of their course requirements and maintained their grades for a degree, but are short a few credits. The challenge of re-engaging these students and supporting them to the finish line of college completion was the focus of the National Summit of Near Completion in Washington this week.

If educators and policymakers can solve the mystery of why students left campus, lure them back, and give them incentives to complete their studies, it could be a huge help in meeting the goal set by the government and philanthropic organizations to increase the number of college graduates in the country in the next decade.

Near-completers, by definition, already have most of the skills represented by a college degree and many have jobs that reflect their investment in education. However, receiving the credential could boost near-completers' earning power and open other career doors. It would also be a win for employers, educators, and policymakers, according to a background paper by the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a Washington-based nonprofit that sponsored the summit.

Students who are close to receiving a degree represent the "low-hanging fruit" in our national agenda to increase the number of college graduates, the IHEP notes. Yet there are significant barriers to achieving the near-completion agenda, and thought leaders at the summit tackled four:

Recruitment: How to you identify and attract students back to higher education who may have left because of some failed relationship between the institution and the students?
Assessment: Systems are needed to review the prior knowledge students may have attained outside the classroom and what credits can be accepted.
Affordability: For those already in the workforce, returning to school can be costly, and institutions should consider help with tuition or books to offset the expense.
Recognition of completion: If a student starts at one school, but finishes at another, the issues of credit transfer and degree requirements can be tricky.

The big hurdle comes down to the incentive for institutions. Since graduation rates are based on first-time, full-time freshmen, the school has little reason to invest much in helping near-completers get a degree since their completion won't count in the college's overall rate.

Economic pressures are prompting so many students to go part time or draw their education out over so many years that new measures are needed to keep up with the changing times. Also, more research is needed to better estimate the number of near-completers out there and best practices that work in connecting with this population. Higher education is stretched so much now that it will need more information and structures in place before this agenda is likely to garner much more momentum.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The SAT scores are in for the graduating class of 2011, and while more students than ever are taking the college-entrance exam, the performance of test-takers is down in every category. (See full story here.)

The average SAT is now 1500, compared with 1501 for last year's cohort. Since 2007, critical-reading and writing scores have declined 4 points each, while math has managed to remain steady.

The College Board attributes the dip to the larger, more diverse participant pool that includes more first-generation, ethnic and racial minority,and low-income students. Still, the downward trend in reading and writing is cause for concern, says Wayne Camara, vice president for research and development for the College Board.

While there is no one explanation, he says educators need to look at curriculum as a factor. For example, in 2001, among the 18 percent of students who took less than four years of English in high school, the average critical reading score was 500. In 2011, about 17 percent take less than four years, and their scores have dropped to 462. The decline in critical-reading scores wasn't as great for students who took honors or AP English.

In math, however, SAT scores in 1991 have grown from an average of 500 to 514 this year. Camara says this is related to reform efforts in which students are taking four and five years of math, including advances classes such as calculus. "We are looking and wondering if those kind of efforts in English and reading and writing would benefit students," he says.

This year, the College Board introduced a new measure: the SAT College Readiness and Career Benchmark. Research determined that students who get a 1550 on the SAT have a 65 percent chance of achieving a B-minus average or higher in the first year of college. In the results released today, 43 percent of test participants met that benchmark. SAT worked with researchers who work on the National Assessment of Educational to come up with the measure. The figure seems about right when you think that about one-third of all high school students are considered college- and career-ready by NAEP and the new SAT benchmark reflects that 43 percent of those with the intention of going to college are ready.

The College Board was firm in its assertion that the SAT benchmark is intended to be used to measure the college readiness of groups of students—not individual students—so states can evaluate whether more students are graduating college-ready from one year to the next. Why not use it as a gauge of individual college readiness? Camara says the benchmark is only one factor and students' grades, course rigor, and other attributes should be looked at together in admissions decisions.

For students who had a parent with a bachelor's degree, 60 percent were college-ready compared with 25 percent from families without a college education. Participation in this year's SAT test was 12 percent higher for first-generation college-goers, compared with last year.

The ACT, which has had college-readiness benchmarks since 2006, saw a rise in this year's results with 25 percent of students meeting all four of ACT's standards in math, science, English, and reading—up from 21 percent in 2005.

While many follow the ACT and SAT results closely, there are critics. Bob Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, says the SAT results released today show that No Child Left Behind and state high-stakes testing programs are undermining school quality, even when measured by other standardized exams.

"Proponents of NCLB and similar state-level testing programs promised that overall achievement would improve while score gaps would narrow," Schaeffer said in a press release. "Precisely the opposite has taken place. Policymakers need to embrace very different policies if they are committed to real education reform."

Posted by Caralee Adams at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

It's out. U.S. News and World Report posted its 2012 Best Colleges rankings on its website at 12:01 a.m.

The countdown clock had been ticking away, building anticipation of fate of the 1,600 colleges and universities that the magazine ranks by category: national universities, national liberal arts colleges, regional universities, and regional colleges.

The names of the top 25 national universities were unchanged from 2011, although the order changed a bit. Harvard and Princeton tied for first, followed by Yale third and Columbia fourth. New to the top 10 was the University of Chicago, which was tied for fifth, along with Stanford University, California Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University of Pennsylvania. Duke University rounded out the list in 10th.

In the top 10 national liberal arts colleges, Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore Colleges led the list. Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., moved into ninth from 11th place, taking the place of Davidson College, near Charlotte, N.C.

The best regional college in the North was the United States Coast Guard Academy; in the South, John Brown University; Midwest, Taylor University; and for the West, Carroll College.

U.S. News ranked the top regional universities:
North:Villanova University, Fairfield University, and Loyola University Maryland
South: Rollins College, Elon University, and Stetson University
Midwest: Creighton University, Butler University, and Drake University
West: Trinity University, Santa Clara University, and Gonzaga University.

The magazine's list of top undergraduate teaching universities, based on a survey from earlier this year, starts with Dartmouth College, Princeton University, and Miami University of Ohio.

In this year's economy, the Best Value list may be of particular interest. This considers a school's academic quality and net cost of attendance for a student who receives the average level of need-based financial aid.

Also, the High School Counselor Rankings provide another perspective.

For the first time this year, U.S. News has included in the rankings all for-profit colleges and universities that grant bachelor's degrees, are regionally accredited, and were eligible to be ranked based on the publication's criteria. Many of these schools have large online bachelor's degree programs.

To compile the lists, U.S. News rankings chief Robert Morris explains its five-step process, which includes questionnaires, analysis, and cross checks.

Still, many are critical of the lists' influence and reliance on presidents' subjective peer evaluation, and blame it for fueling college marketing to draw in more applicants and boost selectivity rates. Some discourage students from putting too much stock in the listing, and others are urging schools not to participate in the survey.

Editors encourage students to use the ranking as a starting point for families comparing colleges, acknowledging that many other factors, including some that can't be measured, should figure in your decision, such as the school's cost, the availability of financial aid, course offerings, the feel of campus life, and the setting and geographic location.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

News out from the U.S. Department of Education today on student-loan repayment reflects the hard times that young people are having with unemployment and the increasing trouble that those who attend for-profit colleges are having in paying back their debt.

The official fiscal 2009 national student-loan cohort default rate has jumped to 8.8 percent, up from 7.0 percent in FY 2008. This is the highest the default rate has been since 1997. When it was first calculated in 1987, it was 17.6 percent and peaked in 1990 at 22.4 percent.

The increase was felt in every sector, but was most pronounced for proprietary schools, where default rates went from 11.6 percent to 15 percent. Default rates were up from 6.0 percent to 7.2 percent for public institutions and from 4.0 percent to 4.6 percent for private institutions.

"Borrowers are struggling in the economy. We see a strong relationship between student-loan default and unemployment rates," said U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Education James Kvaal in a press call this afternoon. "Another trend is the growth in for-profit colleges. Many of those colleges offer innovative, excellent program, but we also see a disproportionate default rate among students enrolled in those programs."

This year's figures revealed 150,000 borrowers from proprietary institutions defaulted on loans—a significant increase from 100,000 in last year's report, and most were from four-year for-profit schools, said Kvaal.

The rates are calculated by looking at a snapshot in time for 3.6 million student borrowers from 5,900 schools with first loan repayments due between Oct. 1, 2008, and Sept. 30, 2009. Of those, 320,000 defaulted before Sept. 30, 2010.

This is not a lifetime default rate. Students who default after two years are not included in these figures. Default is defined as a student who is past due in payments by 270 days.

Next year, the Education Department will begin measuring the default rates for three years in hopes of getting a better picture of the loan-repayment landscape, said Kvaal. Because it can only include more students with an additional year, next year's totals are guaranteed to be higher, he noted.

The department reported that four proprietary schools and one private institution with excessive default rates may lose eligibility in one or more federal student-aid programs: Tidewater Technical, Norfolk, Va.; Trend Barber College, Houston; Missouri School of Barbering & Hairstyling, St. Louis; and Sebring Career School, Houston; and Human Resource Development & Employment-Stanley Technical Institute, Clarksburg, W.Va.

Last year, five institutions lost eligibility. In the 1990, there were hundreds each year that had rates so high they were no longer able to make federal student loans, says Kvaal.

For students, defaulting on a student loan has serious consequences, affecting their ability to borrow in the future, receive federal benefits and subject them to wage garnishment, says Kvaal. Most of these defaulted loans will be collected through private agencies.

For student-loan default rates by state or institution, go to the data center of the Federal Student Aid Gateway here.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

It makes sense: If students are focused on why they are going to school, they are more likely to finish. Yet many community college students still take two years or more to choose a career path, and studies find that can have detrimental results.

New findings from the Community College Research Center show that entering an academic or vocational program at a community college is strongly correlated with student completion—and the earlier students make the decision, the better. This connection with a career path and graduation held regardless of the student's background or academic readiness.

Yet, many students enter community colleges with no idea of what they want to study. And that lack of direction contributes to the dismal graduation rates at two-year institutions. While just 30 percent of community college students overall graduate or transfer to four-year institutions within six years, the CCRC found the success rate jumped to 50 percent for students who declared and pursued a concentrated field of study.

In a study just released yesterday, researchers Davis Jenkins and Madeline Joy Weiss followed 62,000 students at community and technical colleges in the state of Washington over seven years. They looked at those who passed at least three college-level courses in a single field and found just half met that criteria. Students from low-income backgrounds were less likely to focus on a field of study than others, the study found.

Often, students get bogged down in developmental courses, where they struggle academically and don't receive counseling to help put them on a career path and focus their education, the researchers note.

Another study, published in April by Jenkins, found that the sooner students declared and pursued a certain program, the more likely they were to finish their studies. Analyzing community college data, researchers found that half of students who entered a program of study got a degree or went on to a four-year college within five years. Among those who waited to declare a focus until the second year, only one-third completed, and for those students who didn't enter a program until their third year, just 20 percent were successful.

To address this problem, the CCRC authors suggest community college administrators:

• Require freshmen to take a college success course and come up with a plan for their studies that includes career goals;

• Provide remediation that helps students understand the context and value in relation to potential career paths;

• Create prescribed course sequences for various programs to keep students on track;

• Minimize elective courses to help student accelerate their time to a degree.

Researchers emphasized the importance of not only improved counseling, but also the role of faculty to recruit students into their programs. To get students on track with a career and improve graduation rates, the papers also noted the need for better communication with high schools.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 6:38 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Supporting the growing movement to promote college- and career-readiness, the nonprofit organization Achieve announced yesterday a new initiative to provide online resources and partnerships with states to advocate high academic expectations and preparation for all students.

The Future Ready Project features a new website that will serve as an advocacy resource center. It is geared for education reform leaders, state policymakers, and parents looking to build coalitions of support.

It provides free information, including fact sheets and research to help make the case for advancing the college- and career-readiness agenda. One section offers ideas for how to reach out to involve students, leverage social media, and work with the press. The website also has links to organizations, such as Complete College America, that provide state-specific materials to enhance advocacy efforts.

The second half of the Future Ready project is a push to partner with states to develop a comprehensive communication and outreach strategy around the college- and career-ready movement. To craft these steps and goals, Achieve hopes to work with top state school officers, commissioners of higher education, politicians, and nonprofit reform advocates.

The first four states to sign on to work on the project are Ohio, Florida, Massachusetts, and Indiana.

"If our country is going to remain competitive in the global economy of the 21st century, college and career readiness must be the bedrock of all education reform initiatives," said Michael Cohen, president of Achieve, in a press release.

The Washington-based, independent organization has been working on education reform issues since 1996, when it was created by the nation's governors and business leaders.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 5:37 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Only reporting the graduation rates of first-time, full-time students does not fully capture what's happening on community colleges campuses. So a group of policy experts suggest two-year institutions look at the progress of part-time and transfer students, as well as track the learning outcomes and employment of their students to give a better picture of the performance of community colleges.

The Committee on Measures of Student Success, named by the U.S. Department of Education in June 2010, released its draft report of recommendations Friday. If adopted, they could significantly expand how community colleges collect and report data. The committee was created under the Higher Education Opportunity Act to help two-year degree-granting institutions of higher education comply with the law's disclosure requirements for graduation and develop alternate measures of student success.

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.

Traditional federal graduation-rate data currently focus on full-time, degree-seeking students. At two-year institutions, about 37 percent of those students receive a degree or certificate within four years. At four-year colleges, 57 percent of students graduate in six years.

Citing these stats from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), community colleges say they have been given a bad rap for low-performance. While the IPEDS data are important, the draft committee reports says they do not fully convey student success at two-year institutions. "Varying student characteristics and varying student motivations for attending two-year institutions underscore the need for federal measures of student success to take into account the multiple outcomes," the report says.

Among the committee's preliminary recommendations for two-year colleges:
-Report graduations rate 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; and
-Voluntarily collect, disclose, and report measures of student learning and employment.

To comply, the committee suggests the Department of Education provide institutions with technical assistance.

The recommendations were made by a 14-member committee, comprised of community college leaders and independent higher education policy experts, with input gathered at public meetings.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The 2012 U.S. News and World Reports' Best Colleges ranking to be released on Sept. 13 will include for the first time for-profit colleges and universities that grant bachelor's degrees and are regionally accredited—many of which are online programs.

The news came in an article about the methodology behind the list posted on the U.S. News website by ranking guru and economist Robert Morse. Recently profiled in the Washington Post about the controversial, yet popular rankings, Morse has been at the helm of Best Colleges at U.S. News since 1989.

This year, readers will notice that some institutions were moved from one category to another, and others were added. U.S. News sorts more than 1,600 colleges into four groups: National Universities, National Liberal Arts Colleges, Regional Universities, and Regional Colleges. To do this, researchers rely on the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Carnegie updated its list in 2010 for the first time since 2006, and those changes were reflected in the 2012 U.S. News list. Morse says the biggest changes in the ranking this year are linked to this category update.

So, the anticipation mounts. While U.S. News has emerged as the go-to list for college rankings (last year's publication had 10 million Internet hits the day it was released), critics urge prospective students to look at a variety of guides to find the best fit. Others to check out: The Fiske Guide, which rates rather than ranks colleges, Newsweek's Best Colleges for You and Washington Monthly's College Guide.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

For those trying to sort out the details of the new federal regulations, referred to as "program integrity" rules, the U.S. Department of Education launched a Q&A website this week. Here, you can find out how the much-debated gainful-employment rules will work.

The gainful-employment rules released in June are designed to force career-college programs (mainly at for-profit colleges) to be more transparent and accountable. Under the new regulations, a program can lose access to federal student aid if too many of its students fail to find "gainful employment" as defined by three measures linked to loan repayment and income.

The hope is to better inform potential students about the potential benefits of programs and keep them from going into deep student-loan debt that they can't afford to repay, a common problem cited by critics.

The Dept. of Education site also covers common questions on incentive compensation for college recruiters, state authorization for postsecondary educations institutions, retaking coursework after failing, credit hours, ability-to-benefit rules for non-Native English speakers, misrepresentation by education institutions, fees and graduate success, return of Title IV funds for students who withdraw, and satisfactory academic progress policies.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Many students graduating from public high schools in Illinois—even students with good grades from top schools —are not prepared for the rigor of college, according to an analysis of state education data by the Chicago Tribune published Wednesday.

Public school graduates at 10 of the state's 11 four-year universities averaged less than a 3.0 grade point average their freshman year, raising questions about college-readiness efforts.

"The High School-to-College Success Report" tracked more than 90,000 high school students who had at least a B average and graduated between 2006 and 2008. Of that group, the average freshman GPA was 2.52 across all state universities and community colleges, roughly C+ work.

Graduates who enrolled in Illinois' four-year public universities during that time frame averaged a 2.78 GPA as freshmen, compared with 3.37 in public high schools.

For each high school, families can look up average high school GPAs and grade point averages earned at each public university and community college that students attended. The data are searchable on the Tribune website. Wide disparities between high schools were evident.

Of the more than 600 public high schools in Illinois, just 29 had graduates whose average GPA at the state's public universities and community colleges was at least 3.0.

Why the dip in performance?

The newspaper quotes officials as placing blame on factors ranging from inadequate high school preparation to high school grade inflation, newfound independence, and increased partying away from home.

As educators and policymakers work to unlock the secret to improving college performance, stories like these may fuel support for increased rigor and better alignment between K-12 and higher education,

One college official in the Tribune article planned to have more contact with high school instructors and guidance counselors to explain the university's expectations.

Posted by Caralee Adams at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend