In a recent post at The Hill, top-level college administrators Bruce Leslie, Ed Klonoski, Patricia A. Ladewig, Scott Kinney and Thomas Babel describe the need to “build a holistic system of metrics around the issues that matter the most for student success,” in order to better equip legislators to make decisions and develop policy regarding education. The group represents schools like Alamo Colleges and Regis University, and schools with an overt focus on online learning, like Charter Oak State College, Capella and DeVry Inc. In the post, they outline their goal of providing essential in-depth data by drawing from a diverse set of schools:
For the past two years, we have worked along with a coalition of 18 presidents from two-year, four-year, graduate, public, private not-for-profit and for-profit institutions in order to begin that process. Together, we constructed a framework for utilizing data effectively in building higher education policy.
The full report indicates some areas in which colleges need to show improvement; namely:
• repayment and default rates on student loans
• student progression and degree completion rates
• the real cost for an institution to produce a degree
• graduate employment outcomes
• the quality of student learning assessments
Check out the post for their summary of the context of this initiative, and see what you think of their report’s findings. Did they make the right calls?
When thinking of graduation and persistence rates, here is an extract of something I posted recently.
Colleges are currently required to report graduation and persistence rates on all First-Time, First-Year students who start in the Fall of each year by the cohort year they begin (see Group A below).
But colleges should be required to report graduation and persistence of ALL students who come to their respective institution. There are two other important groups, though, that need to be included and reported separately from Group A.
Group A is the standard First Time – First Year student that starts college in the fall (or First Term of the year).
Group B is all First Year Students that start “Off Year” (i.e., a First Time college student who begins in any other term of an academic year that is not the Fall or First Term of the Academic year). Group B is currently not reported at all. This group may be similar to Group A, but is currently totally off the radar.
Group C is all Transfer students, regardless of when what term they started in the academic year. Give the college who finishes them the credit. Group C typically graduates at a very high rate, but it too is currently totally off the radar.