More College Students Start, but Don't Finish, Science Majors

A new report from UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) has found that growing numbers of freshmen are interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors, but that only a fraction graduate in those fields within 5 years. In a first, a roughly equal number of underrepresented Latino and African-American students express interest in science fields as whites and Asian-Americans--but their graduation rates still lag behind. The findings are the latest of several reports produced by a multi-year research project called Post-Baccalaureate Experiences, Success, & Transition (BEST). It is funded by multiple agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and the National Science Foundation. The BEST project studies results from a series of annual surveys, higher education databases, and some classroom field observations to identify programs that successfully retain minority students in STEM majors. Some investigators have called for integrating transcript analysis into this work to get a deeper understanding of student progress at the post-secondary level.

Longitudinal Data Quality

California has made progress in tracking student achievement data from grades K-12, but still lags behind in tracking students as they transition from high school to post-secondary programs. This is a finding from the latest annual national survey of the Data Quality Campaign, (DQC), a non-profit organization founded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and nine other foundations in 2005 to foster longitudinal data collection for policy making purposes. While California has improved its database to permit policy makers to identify schools that are excelling in student achievement, it has not yet incorporated student transcript data or links to post-secondary databases. Those activities are expected to support what the DQC calls "P-20/workforce" databases, which permit policy makers to see what aspects of education lead to specific job force outcomes.

Accountability in the Spotlight

To improve graduation rates among community college students, two foundations have invested $2 million in pilot studies of accountability systems at 20 campuses. The Lumina Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are supporting the project, which aims to give colleges timely feedback about student performance. The results are expected in 2011. Eight initial sites are: Cuyahoga Community College in Ohio, Dallas Community College District in Texas, Greenville Technical College in South Carolina, Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana, Laney College in California, Louisiana Community and Technical College System in Louisiana, Oklahoma City Community College in Oklahoma, and Pima Community College District in Arizona. The primary focus is on establishing common definitions and metrics.

Latest on Regulating For Profits

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has put back into action a state board the oversees for-profit colleges, according to a report today in Insider Higher Ed. Called the Bureau for Private Post-Secondary Education, it represents the latest incarnation of an on-again, off-again government program to protect consumers. For-profit colleges with regional accreditation are exempt from the bureau's oversight. Some consumer groups have complained that the new bureau fails to provide adequate enforcement and protection for students, but proponents say it effectively weeds out "degree mills" while reducing paperwork and lawsuit threats for legitimate for-profit providers.

New Higher Education Research Focus to Compare For-Profits and Public Schools

An excellent "fly on the wall" overview of the University of Phoenix's courtship of big-money foundations and higher education researchers appears in Inside Higher Ed. The ultimate goal: A new research institute for the study of the post-secondary education options and success rates for low-income students, key clients of the for-profits.

Systems for Tracking Community College Outcomes: Process Measures Needed

Community college system administrators are testing data-based accountability systems that track how successfully students are graduating, transferring to 4-year schools, and obtaining workforce certificates. These systems represent an attempt to track outcomes, which is needed because the proportion of Americans obtaining college degrees has fallen from first to 13th place in the world. About 45% of U.S. post-secondary students attend community college, but past research indicates that only one in 10 actually complete their degree within 3 years. To change this picture, many states (e.g., Ohio) have experimented with aligning their traditional funding approach away from enrollment to program completion. To support these efforts, states have databases tracking outcomes. There is interest in improving early warning signs so community colleges can intervene to improve outcomes. For example, Oregon tracks graduation and program completion rates, but leaders also say they need process data that tracks early indicators of the proportion of students on target for program completion. Oregon's system outline can be found here. In reviewing the process data, the focus remains on courses that students take or do not take, and not so much on learning indicators. Another approach receiving much study is to reward students for making progress toward degree completion and maintaining a 2.5 to 3.0 GPA. See the MDRC reports here.

Workforce Training: Community College Bond Funding Crowds Out For-Profits?

According to Inside Higher Ed, an economist has just published a study that tests the hypothesis that local bond measures improve public awareness about community colleges' workforce education options and shift students away from for-profit vocational schools. Published in a new academic journal edited by U.C. Berkeley economist Alan Auerbach, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, the article examined the relation between California bond measures and enrollment patterns at the state's 109 community colleges and the for-profit vocational schools in their vicinity. The author, Stephanie Riegg Cellini, a recent UCLA doctoral graduate, wrote in her article that a policy implication of her findings might be, for example, to have legislators consider the fate of both community college and for-profit institutions. One idea, she wrote, was for legislators to emphasize "transfer only" in community colleges and cede the "workforce training market" to the for-profit schools to increase economic efficiency, which focuses on improving market forces to ensure the greatest number of buyers and sellers can be matched. She makes the case that offering workforce courses in community colleges may be diluting their capacity to support transfer, as only 4% of students do transfer to 4-year colleges each year. Increasing transfer can lower costs for higher education at the public level since it is substantially cheaper to support students in the community college than the 4-year college. In California, a community college charges one of the lowest tuition rates for education in the nation, about $330 per year even though the actual per-student cost for education is about $4,419. It costs about $10,078 a year to support a student in the California State University system. By contrast, the for-profit institutions charge between $3,000 and $10,000 for tuition, and have much smaller campuses. Students going to for-profit institutions can obtain support for their studies from federal grant and school loan programs. Financial support for the study came from the UCLA Center on Education Policy and Evaluation and the ASHE/Lumina Foundation for Education Dissertation Fellowship.