- UW Ranked 16 in the world: The annual Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), compiled by Chinese university Shanghai Jiao Tong, places the University of Washington at number 16 in the world. The rankings are heavily based on institutional and faculty achievements in STEM fields, including number of Nobel prizes and Fields medals won, and various citation measures. The US dominates this list, with 17 of the top 20 slots and 151 of the top 500.
- Ohio latest state to consider greater autonomy for public institutions: In a reversal of previous reforms that attempted to consolidate the university system in Ohio, Governor Strickland endorsed the idea of ‘enterprise universities’ in his state budget, released March 2011. Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents Jim Petro was tasked with creating a detailed plan for legislative consideration. He unveiled The Enterprise University Plan last week. The plan provides three levels of increasing autonomy from various state government requirements in exchange for a reduction in per student funding of 10-20 percent. The state would continue to cap tuition increases at 3.5 percent per year. While the support of Ohio State President Gordon Gee looks likely, it is not yet clear how other universities or faculty members and legislators will react to this plan as many large questions about both intended and unintended consequences have already surfaced. For related information see our previous post, Quest for Greater Autonomy for Public Higher Ed Continues, and our OPB brief on institutional autonomy.
- Federal government joins lawsuits against for-profits: After implementing significant higher education regulation reform through the Department of Education, the Obama Administration shows a commitment to act by joining existing and new lawsuits against several for-profit higher education institutions accused of violating federal law. For related posts, see Federal Scrutiny of For-Profits Spurs State Action.
Tag: quality
Is Public Higher Ed in CA Showing Evidence of Strain?
The Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy at California State University, Sacramento recently released a report titled “Consequences of Neglect: Performance Trends in California Higher Education.” The report claims that, although California is considered the world’s leader in public higher education, the state’s college and university system is closer to average—and may be declining.
The report uses six measures of higher education quality and access—preparation, affordability, participation, completion, benefits, and finance—to measure California’s performance in relation to other states. Their findings, if correct, are troubling:
- Preparation: The report uses graduation rates, standardized test scores, and the percentage of students taking college preparatory classes to measure preparation for college. According to the report, college preparation in California is worse than most states, particularly in rural and inland areas and for black and Latino students. However, these measures have been steadily improving over the past seven years.
- Affordability: Without taking into account room and board, the California system ranks high in affordability (largely due to the very low tuition at California community colleges), however, because of the high cost of living in California, affordability is significantly compromised. Furthermore, tuition and fees have been increasing dramatically at UC, CSU, and CCC, which will negatively impact affordability.
- Participation: One of the highlights for California is that participation in public higher education remains high (California ranks 6th in the percentage of 18-24 year old enrolled in college), though the trend is declining as tuition and fees increase.
- Completion: Although California ranks 12th in the nation in the number of associate degrees awarded per 100 high school graduates, it ranks only 41st in the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded per 100 high school grads. The report suggests focusing efforts on improving the transfer process from California’s two-to four-year institutions.
- Benefits: The report lists benefits from education in California as average, with high personal income tempered by low proportions of citizens with bachelor’s degrees and very low voter turnout.
- Finance: State appropriations per student FTE in California are slightly lower than the national average, and local and state funding has been steadily decreasing during and after the Great Recession.
The report urges California’s government to protect their investment in colleges and universities, long considered the best public higher education system in the world. Furthermore, it cautions policymakers not to be blinded by the stand-out performances of a select few California universities, while ignoring the vast majority of California’s higher education institutions that may be struggling.
Harkin Holds What Could be Last Senate Hearing on For-Profits
Days after the Department of Education released its finalized Gainful Employment rule, Senator Tom Harkin held his fifth Senate hearing investigating the practices of the for-profit higher education industry. Senator Harkin focused the hearing on the high levels of student borrowing and outsized loan default rates for students at for-profit institutions. Previous hearings and reports have revealed that:
- Less than 10% of postsecondary students are enrolled in for-profits, yet they receive 23% of federal aid, and account for 44% of all loan defaults.
- 95% of all students at for-profits borrow money to attend, compared to less than a quarter of community college students, 64% of students at public four year institutions, and 72% at private four year institutions.
Additionally, Harkin grilled Department of Education Under Secretary Martha Kanter on whether the softened gainful employment rule released by the Department would do enough to help reign in exploitative practices of the for-profit higher education industry, noting that stock prices in the industry increased significantly upon publication of the revised rule whereas previous iterations had sent prices down. Kanter, who was attending in place of Secretary Arne Duncan, defended the regulation as a step forward.
Harkin concluded that while the Department of Education regulations were ‘better than nothing’, he continues to believe that Congressional action via legislation may be necessary.
No Republican members of the committee were present, and no further hearings on the topic are scheduled at this time.
For previous OPBlog posts on this topic see:
- Senator Tom Harkin and the HELP Committee Continue to Investigate For-Profit Colleges
- Under Federal Fire, For-Profit College Point Finger at Publics
- New Federal Higher Ed Regulations Published Today
- Federal Scrutiny of For-Profit Colleges Turns to Recruitment of Veterans
- GAO Details How For-Profit Colleges Exploit Veterans
- Momentum Building to Reign in For-Profits
Pew Survey of College Presidents Highlights Divergent Views from General Public
Along with its survey of the general public, the Pew Center recently published a survey of 1,055 two- and four-year, public, private and for-profit college presidents, concerning the quality, accessibility, and affordability of higher education. The two surveys were conducted around the same time and asked similar questions. However, there were notable differences between the opinions of college presidents and the general public on key issues in higher education. On the whole, college presidents were less concerned about affordability and access, and more concerned with student and academic program quality. Some highlights of the data include:
- 38 percent of college presidents think higher education is moving in the wrong direction, with only 7 percent believing the US system will be the best in the world in 2021
- 42 percent of presidents believe college is affordable for most families (compared with 22 percent of the general population)
- 17 percent of presidents believe students get excellent value for their money (only five percent of the general population agrees)
- The majority (58 percent) of college presidents believe students come to college less qualified than their counterparts ten years ago, and only seven percent think current students study more than students ten years ago
Interestingly, leaders of for-profit schools were most likely to be pessimistic about the affordability and direction of higher education and student preparation. Conversely, presidents of the most selective schools were most optimistic about those factors. Furthermore, the majority of college presidents think it is unlikely that the nation will meet President Obama’s degree attainment goals by 2020. To find out more, check out the Chronicle’s analysis, our blog post on the general public survey or the full Pew Center report on its website.
Legislature Authorizes Tuition Setting for WA Institutions
As of today, House Bill 1795 has passed both the Washington State House and Senate by wide margins and is on its way to the Governor. As outlined in our previous post, this bill gives Washington’s four year public institutions the ability to set resident undergraduate tuition rates, alongside new financial aid and accountability requirements, for a limited time.
Note that due to the ongoing state legislative special session, as well as the need for time to discuss the policy alternatives authorized in HB 1795, the Board of Regents will likely approve the FY 2012 UW operating and capital budgets, including tuition rates for the 2011-12 academic year, at their July 21 meeting instead of in June.
In the meantime, Interim President Phyllis Wise will be holding two community conversations where she will discuss and answer questions about the budget and tuition-setting:
- Friday, May 13, 2011
Foege Auditorium, William H. Foege Genome Sciences Building
8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. - Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Microsoft Atrium, Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
We hope to see you there.
Momentum Building to Reign in For-Profits
It was speculated that Republican gains in Congress last November could stall the Senate’s aggressive investigation of the for-profit higher education industry and sweeping new Department of Education regulations that are set to go into effect July 1. While bipartisan action in the House did attempt to block some of the regulations, particularly the controversial gainful employment rule, they survived the final 2011 budget deal.
Meanwhile, as federal efforts to better regulate this run-away industry, which enrolls 10 percent of total students, eats up 24 percent of federal aid and accounts for 45 percent of student loan defaults while making billions of dollars of profit annually, continues, several states, including Florida and Illinois, have launched their own investigations. Today, it has been reported that Attorneys General from at least 10 states will embark on a joint investigation of the industry.
Adding to pressure facing the industry is widespread media coverage, including investigative efforts from the New York Times, ABC News, and Frontline, among others. Even Stephen Colbert has addressed the topic.
While the for profit higher education industry lobbying effort is massive (likely paid for with the federal student aid dollars that, on average, make up over 90 percent of the annual operating budgets for these institutions), mounting scrutiny has already had effect as some of the industry’s largest actors have begun ‘maturing’ some of their practices ahead of anticipated regulations.
For past OPBlog posts on this continuing story see:
- Senator Tom Harkin and the HELP Committee Continue to Investigate For-Profit Colleges
- Under Federal Fire, For-Profit College Point Finger at Publics
- New Federal Higher Ed Regulation Published Today
- Federal Scrutiny of For-Profit Colleges Turns to Recruitment of Veterans
- GAO Details How For-Profit Colleges Exploit Veterans
Administrator Pay Flat at Public Institutions
CUPA-HR salary survey data, analyzed by Inside Higher Education, shows that, similar to faculty members, median pay for senior and mid-level administrators at public institutions of higher education was flat in 2010.
At private institutions, members of all three categories showed modest gains of between 1 and 2 percent, contributing to a growing gap between pay at public and private institutions.
NYRB Assesses Recent Higher Ed Literature
The New York Review of Books has published a high level review of the recent spate of ‘higher education in crisis’ books. In Our Universities: How Bad? How Good?, Peter Brooks takes a look at common themes contained in four recent publications on the state of higher education in the US.
Read the whole piece if you get a chance, but we have pulled out a couple of passages that especially struck us:
- “On the whole, one has to say that the relative autonomy of the American university has been far more beneficial than the contrary. American higher education is a nonsystem that is messy, reduplicative, unfair—just like American society as a whole—but it has made genuine commitments to quality and to a greater degree of social justice, to the extent that is within its control, than most other institutions of the society.”
- “Research and teaching have always cohabited: anyone who teaches a subject well wants to know more about it, and when she knows more, to impart that knowledge. Universities when true to themselves have always been places that harbor recondite subjects of little immediate utility—places where you can study hieroglyphics and Coptic as well as string theory and the habits of lemmings—places half in and half out of the world. No country needs that more than the US, where the pragmatic has always dominated.”
- “[Universities] often fail, they need reform and course correction, but they are not, at their best, merely venal and self-serving. They deserve better critics than they have got at present.”
More on the Public/Private University Resource Gap
Two higher education news stories leapt out at us this morning as emblematic:
- Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett announced 50 percent state funding cuts for four-year public institutions. The largest institution, Penn State, would see its state subsidy reduced from $465 million per year to $233 million. The University describes the proposed cuts as devastating: “A reduction of this magnitude would necessitate massive budget cuts, layoffs and tuition increases, with a devastating effect on many students, employees and their families,” said Al Horvath, senior vice president for Finance and Business. “While we have for many months been planning for a potential state funding cut, we could not have envisioned one so damaging to the future of the University and the Commonwealth.”
- Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, the University of Southern California kicked off the day with an announcement of a new, record high, unrestricted $200 million gift to the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. The College will be named after the alumni donors, David and Dana Dornsife, who told the Los Angeles Times that they “had confidence in USC faculty and administrators to spend it wisely.” USC intends to use the money primarily to enhance the humanities and social sciences through faculty hiring, graduate fellowships and research funding.
As mentioned in yesterday’s post about faculty salaries, the growing resource gap between public and private institutions predates the Great Recession, which appears to be dramatically accelerating the existing trend. Read the 2009 Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) report, Competitiveness of Public Research Universities & Consequences for the Country, to learn more about this concern: “from 1987 through 2006 revenue per student in private research universities in every revenue category except state funding has grown to be multiples of that available to the publics.”
GAO Details How For-Profit Colleges Exploit Veterans
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report and recommendations, DOD Education Benefits: Increased Oversight of Tuition Assistance Program is Needed, ahead of another Senate hearing focused on the conduct of for-profit colleges, this time held by Senator Tom Carper.
The GAO report focused on the DOD Military Tuition Assistance Program, which provides tuition benefits for active duty soldiers. In 2009, the program provided $517 million in tuition assistance to over 375,000 service members of which for-profit institutions received a disproportionate amount. The report addressed two primary points:
- DOD oversight of schools receiving Tuition Assistance Program funds
- The extent to which DOD coordinates with accrediting agencies and the U.S. Department of Education in its oversight activities
The Senators discussed the gaps in oversight exposed by the report, and also discussed the fact that Tuition Assistance Program revenue is not included in the calculation to determine whether at least 10 percent of annual revenue comes from non-federal sources, which is required for an institution to be eligible to receive federal student aid. This is a rule that Senator Tom Harkin has specifically mentioned as a target for reform in earlier hearings he has held on for-profit institutions.
Meanwhile, the association that represents for-profit colleges is suing the US Department of Education in an attempt to block new federal regulations, and House Republicans included an amendment to block the controversial gainful employment rule from moving forward in their recently passed budget.
For past OPBlog posts on this continuing story see: