Graduation rates in different colleges

A recent report reveals wide disparities in graduation rates between colleges of comparable selectivity and competitiveness. The American Enterprise Institute has published a report that identifies the colleges and their performances. Inside Higher Education has published an overview of the report.

Higher Education Accountability

In my morning reading of Inside Higher Ed, I noted that accountability for student learning outcomes was on the docket at a meeting this week among representatives of the U.S. Department of Education, various higher education associations, and accreditation agencies. The upshot of the negotiations, which have been tense in the past, was that institutions of higher learning will continue to set their own agenda for the outcomes they seek to achieve. Efforts to deputize accreditation agencies to define and collect data on other outcomes appeared to be overruled. This action may be framed as a step forward for continued higher education academic freedom or a loss for those concerned about assured consistent quality of learning across various higher education institutions.

Possible overhaul of Perkins Act and WIA?

Community colleges may figure prominently in the Obama administration's efforts to retrain unemployed workers. In a May speech described in Inside Higher Ed, the President promised to "lay out a fundamental rethinking of our job training, vocational education, and community college programs." In particular, he indicated that the various federal programs that address workforce education may be brought together or coordinated under a single policy. The announcement came in a speech announcing a new effort to make it easier for the unemployed to obtain financial aid for education while receiving unemployment benefits. A new website has been established by the departments of Education and Labor to inform the newly unemployed about educational opportunities.

College Completion Fund

Real work deadlines effectively shut down my blogging activities for the past few months, but today's reports about the Obama Administration's new College Access and Completion Fund caught my interest. The administration wants to dedicate $2.5 billion over the next five years, starting with the 2009-2010 budget, to improve low-income students' college completion rates. As reported in Inside Higher Ed, the program would channel money to states to develop and evaluate such programs. The discussion at a panel convened by the College Board favored basing state funding on completion, rather than enrollment, rates. Indiana is phasing in such an approach, while Ohio officials are discussing whether to plunge directly into it. To date, most of the discussion revolves around 4-year colleges, but there is some interest in including 2-year colleges based the successful remedial education at El Paso Community College in Texas. MDRC and The Gates Foundation were present.

Catching Up with the New Year

The beginning of the year is a time for renewed resolve, and in this spirit, I'm passing along some fundamental background reading on community colleges from the National Center for Education Statistics. This federal agency gathers data from most post-secondary institutions that participate in financial aid programs. Below are some reports based on these data, and all reminded me of my experiences as a young woman who took a non-traditional path through higher education, dipping in and out of the workplace with little financial support from my family.

Community Colleges: Special Supplement to The Condition of Education, issued by the U.S. Department of Education in August 2008, reports that 45 percent of community college freshmen drop out after two years of school, which is much higher than the 16 to 17 percent of 4-year college freshmen who drop out. About 39% of the community college dropouts originally intended to transfer to a 4-year college. Some research has noted that the federal data collection system needs to keep better track of how many of these "drop outs" in fact transfer to other higher education institutions (Cabrera, Burkum, & La Nasa, 2003). There is, it seems, a lot of shopping around and moving around among adults seeking to improve their skills.

Career and Technical Education in the United States: 1990 to 2005, another report from the Department of Education, reported that, in high school, more boys than girls focus on work-related courses, but in post-secondary schools, more women than men take the credential or work-related courses. Most women focus on careers in health fields, business, and computers. In addition, from 1990 to 2004, there were big increases--ranging from 35 percent to 66 percent--in the number of career education students who worked full-time while they studied. Part-timers have a higher chance of dropping out than full-timers.

National Assessment of Vocational Education reported the good news that U.S. colleges and universities are open to a more diverse group of students than ever, but also reported the bad news that these diverse students are not always completing their degrees.

Profile of Undergraduates in U.S. Postsecondary Institutions: 1999-2000 reported that while men can secure higher incomes with a minimum of post-secondary coursework, women do not experience the same income increases until they complete a certificate or degree.

Exciting Efforts to Improve California Community College

Tony Bryk, new president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, announced last night he is putting community college at the top of the foundation's priority list. At a gathering of community college educators and researchers, Bryk and colleague Rose Arca, presented findings of the foundation's Strengthening Pre-collegiate Education in Community Colleges (SPECC) program, which has involved 11 colleges in collaboratively sharing strategies to improve teaching and learning in basic skills. Future efforts will focus on developmental math and supporting institutional leaders to use data to improve programs. Speakers included Myra Snell, Los Medanos Community College mathematics instructor; Frank Chong, president of Oakland's Laney College; and David Wolf, a former president of different state community colleges and an accreditation leader.

A few tidbits jumped off the page for me. First, Tom Bailey, director of Columbia University's Community College Research Center, has published a new paper that reviews some of the challenges faced by most community college students in attaining a degree. At the meeting, one of the speakers estimated that 58 percent of incoming community college students need one basic skills class and that only 29 percent in those in English basic skills and 7 percent in mathematics basic skills ever graduate. Figures like these explain why foundations are converging on community colleges as the cause du jour: the William & Flora Hewlett, Irvine, Walter S. Johnson, Lumina and, recently as mentioned in this blog, Gates. Foothill College biology instructor Celeste Carter reminded everyone about the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education program and the STEM Talent Expansion program.

WestEd was handing out information about seminars into Reading Apprenticeship strategies that community college instructors in all subjects can use to help students struggling with English basic skills. Instructor professional development has become a major focus, and the trick, according to Snell, is to help instructors see it less as "tutoring for bad teachers" and more as understanding how to teach students better. At Los Medanos, they have used Japanese lesson study and, as she put it: "You pay them and hold meetings on Friday afternoons from 4-7 and give them dinner. " As noted in this blog earlier, Chabot College is now serving as the home base of "faculty inquiry" in the state's community colleges with Hewlett's support. Snell noted that it's not enough for faculty to do good instruction--they need to "document it, share it, and build on it."

Chong described ambitious efforts to invite high school dropouts to return to school through college programs and special culturally-sensitive programs focused on African Americans and Latinos. Wolf brought a dose of reality, explaining that few state legislators in California have any interest in community colleges, even though, since Prop. 13, their rules have increasingly controlled and constrained community colleges. I need to look up the "50 percent rule." A Google search yielded no answers, but apparently, this is highly problematic for community colleges.

College on less than $600 a year

California's 109 community colleges offer the most affordable option in the U.S. for students and their families. A new report ranks the state at the top of the nation, noting that more than 2.5 million students turn to the system for education. This news contrasts with the sobering announcement from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that the state's current fiscal crisis will lead to budget cutbacks and tuition increases.

The same report flunked all other 49 states for charging families too much, including the state of Washington, where it is estimated a family spends more than a third of its income on a 2-year college degree. The same state, however, offers baccalaureate degrees through its 2-year college program, often by partnering with 4-year colleges. Similar efforts are under way at New Jersey and Arizona community colleges. One report estimates that 36% of low income families' students complete college compared to 81% of high income families, figures that have inspired The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support efforts to help more low-income American students finish college.

The report ranked states on preparing high school graduation rates, college participation rates, rates of completion, and baccalaureate attainment rates.