I recently had the chance to read a research report titled “With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them,” published by Public Agenda with financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  The authors of the report surveyed over 600 young adults between the ages of 22 and 30.  The purpose of the survey was to compare the answers of students who dropped out of college to the answers of students who graduated within the three year (for community colleges) or six year (for four-year colleges) standards as measured by the U.S. Department of Education.  Jean Johnson and Jon Rochkind, along with Amber Ott and Samantha DuPont, wanted to validate the reasons why students depart from colleges before graduating and see if the students themselves offered reasons different than many of the recent research studies.

The authors point out that according to the U.S. Department of Education, only 20 percent of community college students graduate within three years and only 40 percent of four year college students graduate within six years.  In fact, only 27 percent of college students attend the traditional residential college that most people envision as the idyllic college environment.  Even more telling of the changes in college student profiles, 45 percent of students attending four year colleges reported working more than 20 hours per week and 60 percent of students attending two year colleges reported working more than 20 hours per week.

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An August 11th article in The New York Times caught my attention.  Written by Tamar Lewin, the article describes a policy brief released by the College Board which concludes that for the most part, recent graduates are carrying “manageable” debt loads.  Using data published in the Department of Education’s National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, the policy brief notes that while the number of students using loans to pay for their post-secondary educations has increased in the last five years, the volume of students who carry overly burdensome levels of debt upon graduation remains small in comparison.

According to the policy brief, of the students who earned a degree or certificate program during the 2007-2008 academic year, some 41 percent graduated with no debt whatsoever.  Those students borrowing more than $40,000 to pay for their educations represented only six percent of total student borrowing.  Students borrowing money to pay for a certificate program carried substantially less debt overall than those borrowing money to pay for an associate or bachelors degree.  A meager one percent of those borrowing money for a certificate program found themselves $40,000 or more in debt upon graduation while ten percent of those borrowing to complete a bachelors degree carried that level of debt or more upon graduation.  The above statistics found in the College Board’s policy brief are logical when one considers the number of credits required to complete each of the three degree types compared above.  What’s not logical is the $40,000 threshold selected to evaluate reasonable debt loads.  Obtaining a $40,000 loan for a certificate program is almost certain to lead to a negative ROI unless the certificate is related to technical training in an extremely high paying profession.  Even then, it is a risky venture.  While borrowing $40,000 for a four year degree sounds better, it may not be relative to the average loan balance of graduating students.  The College Board briefing does not take into account the students who borrow money to attend college who don’t graduate at all, or the students who attend college until their money runs out.  Using limited outcomes with a broad brush to stimulate policy discussions can be misleading.  With approximately half of college freshmen graduating in six years, we shouldn’t ignore the half that don’t finish.

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On October 26, 2009, the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) issued the results of its first annual survey of Provosts and Chief Academic Officers.  When I read the press release and skimmed through the survey, I asked Dr. Jennifer Stephens, our Associate Vice President and Dean of Assessment, to provide me with a guest article describing the survey and the significant findings.

For those of us working for regionally accredited, market-driven institutions, the survey confirms that we utilize assessment and assessment tools in many more ways than traditional research institutions.  I cannot speak for all for-profit institutions, but we embraced assessment as a tool when we realized its value in diagnosing what worked and what didn’t as the online learning field continued to evolve through improvements in pedagogy and technology.  A group of like-minded, for profit and non-profit institutions joined together to form Transparency by Design (TBD), an initiative to publish learning outcomes in a common reporting format.  As we continue to utilize assessment for quality improvement, our faculty will gain the knowledge of what works better for online teaching and our students will benefit through better designed and better instructed classes and programs.  Organizations like NILOA and TBD will share best practices with the goal of providing better outcomes for students.

I think you will enjoy reading the results of the survey as summarized by Dr. Stephens.   I look forward to seeing future surveys that indicate that progress in the utilization of assessment tools is being made by all institutions of higher education.

Over the past decade, calls for assessment and accountability have increased as the educational community has become more vocal about the need to be more systematic in assessing student performance.  This is evidenced by: 1) regional and national meetings that focus on assessment; 2) accountability initiatives such as the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA), University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN), and Transparency by Design; and 3) the recent sharp increase of assessment tools and organizations that focus on the assessment of student learning outcomes.

To better understand the dynamics of student learning outcomes assessment in higher education institutions, the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) was launched in 2008 to assist institutions and others in discovering and adopting promising practices in the assessment of college student learning outcomes. The vision of the NILOA is to discover and disseminate ways that schools can productively use assessment data internally to inform and strengthen undergraduate education, and externally to communicate with policy makers, families and other stakeholders.  The NILOA project is based at the University of Illinois and Indiana University. Stan Ikenberry and George Kuh serve as co-principal investigators, and Peter Ewell serves as a Senior Scholar. The initiative is guided by a National Advisory Panel and supported by foundations including Lumina Foundation for Education, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Teagle Foundation.

To advance their mission and as their first big project, the NILOA surveyed provosts or chief academic officers at all regionally accredited, undergraduate-degree-granting, two and four year, public, private, and for-profit institutions in the U.S. about the assessment activities conducted at their institutions.  In the spring of 2009, the questionnaire was administered to 2809 institutions.  There was a 53% response rate with 1518 schools responding.  

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