Today I had the honor of hosting the ribbon cutting event for American Public University System’s (APUS) latest addition to its Charles Town campus, a 1,660 panel solar array.  The array is the largest solar project in the state of West Virginia and will produce approximately 480,000 kWh of energy.  The energy produced will provide between 40 and 50 percent of the energy needed to power the 105,000-square-foot green Finance Center which is under construction adjacent to the array and being built to US Green Building Council’s LEED Gold standards.  The array features 15 universal electric car charging stations and doubles as covered parking for the university’s staff and guests.  The array was fully constructed with American-made components and will produce enough electricity to power 30 average size homes annually.  To equate this to vehicles and commuting, the amount of electricity generated by the array would enable the average gas-powered vehicle to travel 1.9 million miles, the equivalent of 120 commuters driving 15,000 miles each year. 

I was joined at our ribbon cutting event by several notable dignitaries including West Virginia Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito.  Vice Mayor of Charles Town, Don Clendening and Mayor of neighboring Ranson, David Hamill were also on hand to commemorate this event.  Congresswoman Capito, Vice Mayor Clendening, and Mayor Hamill have all expressed and demonstrated their own commitments to sustainability and sustainable development so it was especially fitting to have them in attendance.  We were able to demonstrate the universal electric car charging stations thanks to three local car dealerships (Apple Valley Chevrolet in Martinsburg, Younger Auto Group in Frederick and Hagerstown, and Renn Kirby Mitsubishi in Frederick) that showcased their own electric vehicles during the event.  The APUS Sustainability Committee also hosted an information booth to share information with visitors about the university’s comprehensive sustainability initiatives. 

Today’s event and the comprehensive sustainability program at APUS not only represent our own commitment to sustainability but also illustrate the American spirit of ingenuity and innovation in general.  It was as much about providing renewable energy for our university as it was about making a commitment to our local and extended communities that we will continue to work to promote a more sustainable future for us all.  In 2007 when I signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) as a charter signatory, I did so because I believe higher education has a unique opportunity to shape the future of the nation in addressing the issues associated with climate change. 

With access to some of the best and brightest minds, higher education would be remiss if it did not use that opportunity to address one of the nation’s – the world’s – most pressing problems.  The hallowed halls of the university can, in the most traditional sense, be seen as places for the exchange of theory and ideas.  Higher education has a unique opportunity, however, to lead by example and turn those theories and ideas into action.

One of the most visible sustainability efforts that we have undertaken relates to buildings.  As part of our commitment to the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), we have pledged to build all new construction to at least US Green Building Council (USGBC) LEED Silver standards.  Our new 45,000-square-foot Academic Center, built on a brownfields site, is currently in the LEED certification process and we hope to achieve a Gold designation.  There are many green features in that building which we completed and occupied in late 2010.  The HVAC system is highly efficient and operates through multiple zones, for example.  In addition, the building is outfitted with energy efficient windows which are covered with sunshades to assist in further regulating indoor temperatures.  Occupancy sensor lighting fixtures and ENERGY STAR appliances can be seen throughout the building.  All materials used in construction and all furniture originated within 500 miles of the building site, decreasing the carbon emissions associated with materials transportation.  Perhaps, the crowning achievement of the Academic Center is 99 solar panels situated on the roof which supply approximately 7 percent of the building’s total energy needs.

On the other end of the building “spectrum,” however, are APUS’ comprehensive adaptive reuse practices.  Rather than utilize existing green space to construct new buildings, we decided to invest in the historic downtown Charles Town community by purchasing and renovating existing structures for our office spaces.  At least 5 of our buildings have great historical significance and we took measures to restore as much of the historic value as possible to those buildings while updating them to create greater energy efficiency (most have energy efficient windows and HVAC systems, low flow toilets, motion sensor lighting, etc.). 

Etter Hall (our main administration building), for example, was built in the early 1800s as the home and office of physician Charles Taylor Richardson.  The building became the area’s first hospital in the early 1900s, a capacity it served for several decades.  By 1950, however, the community had outgrown that hospital and the building became a nursing home.  APUS purchased the building in 2003.  Though we updated many aspects of the building (including the elements previously listed), the elevator car is the original (and, was one of the first in this area, quite a novelty) with upgraded electrical controls and doors.  The wooden floors in Etter Hall are also original to the building. 

Aside from our buildings, APUS has undertaken several other initiatives to minimize the school’s environmental impact.  Our computers, printers, and servers are ENERGY STAR rated as are many of our buildings’ appliances.  Our printers are set to default to print on both sides of the page for multiple page documents.  We have recently expanded our recycling program to make it more comprehensive.  Using The Big Green Box Program, we are now recycling batteries and other electronics.  Though you may take up to a year to fill The Big Green Box before sending it back to be recycled, APUS filled its first box in only 5 weeks, sending nearly 40 pounds of batteries to be recycled.  Earlier this year, APUS introduced a carpooling program to its staff in order to address carbon emissions associated with employee commuting.  The program has seen early success and I suspect that it will continue to be successful, especially given the rising cost of gasoline.  Coupled with our carpooling program is a telecommuting policy that allows many staff employees to work from home at least one day a week; others telecommute every day.  Thanks to several paper reduction initiatives we have seen a 25 percent reduction in paper usage even in the face of tremendous employee growth. 

Thanks to APUS’ online format, our carbon footprint is comparatively lower than many other schools’, particularly since our faculty and students may teach and study from their home, office, or another convenient place.  However, while we do not have to contend with the emission challenges associated with student commuting, the maintenance and operation of dormitories, dining halls, sports facilities, etc., we will continue to work toward reducing our environmental impact even further.  Though Earth Day is a noble effort to call global attention to the state of our environment, at APUS the commitment to sustainability is alive and well throughout the year. 

Next week I will share an article about APUS’ latest green building project, a 1,660 panel solar array that doubles as a covered parking structure.  The array, the largest in the state of West Virginia, will provide approximately 50% of the power necessary for a green building that is currently under construction adjacent to the school’s green Academic Center. 

In September 1962 Rachel Carson published her groundbreaking work, Silent Spring, documenting the negative impact of pesticides on the environment, specifically on birds.  The book received nationwide acclaim and landed on the New York Times best-seller list where it stayed for 31 weeks.  In 1962, the New York Times wrote of Carson and Silent Spring, “’She tries to scare the living daylights out of us and, in large measure, succeeds.’” The editors of Discover Magazine recently included Silent Spring among its list of the 25 greatest science books of all time.  Prior to Carson’s book, environmentalism and sustainability were lofty ideals that had very little concrete application and brought even less sense of collective urgency.  As a result of Carson’s book, however, tangible actions were taken (the banning of the harmful pesticide DDT).  Carson proved to us all that even the voice of one individual can make a difference and with her voice, given to us through her work, Silent Spring, the modern environmental movement was born. 

Through various fits and starts, the American environmental movement has continued to gain momentum.  The passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1970 was a promising step in the right direction and represented the world’s first national policy on the environment.  The NEPA met with resistance in the United States, however, but sparked a larger movement and environmentalism as a discipline and practice began to spread across the globe.  National efforts to address environmental problems including climate change became more commonplace and the United Nations established its Environment Programme in 1972 as a result of the UN Conference on the Human Environment.  In recent years, despite international criticism regarding the United States’ stance on several international environmental treaties (most notably the Kyoto Protocol) Americans are beginning to see sustainability featured more prominently in their daily lives.  Addressing what is arguably the world’s most pressing collective issue will take more than a conscious recycling effort.  We must realize that negative changes to the environment impact every aspect of our lives and must be addressed in a holistic and comprehensive fashion.  One sector of American life is taking sustainability very seriously – American higher education is leading the march toward promoting sustainability. 

As colleges and universities began to consider the impact of their own operations on the environment, they also began to disseminate information about sustainability to their students, either formally or informally.  In 2006, as a result of planning sessions among a group of college and university presidents and a representatives from a variety of environmental organizations (including Second Nature and ecoAmerica) held at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) conference at Arizona State University, 12 devoted college and university presidents outlined what would later become known as the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).  By March 2007, 152 college and university presidents (I was one of them) signed the precedent-setting commitment aimed at providing a framework for addressing sustainability in higher education.  Today, nearly 700 institutions of higher education have signed the commitment.  Each of them has committed to reducing their environmental impact and working toward eventually achieving complete carbon neutrality by a date of their individual choosing based on their specific circumstances (based on our location in West Virginia and the limited fuel mix available to us at this point, APUS has chosen 2050).  While the goal is ambitious, I am convinced that if there is any collective group capable of addressing such a pressing issue, it is higher education. 

Colleges and universities have served as the nursery for nurturing social movements in America for decades.  As with the civil rights movement and the women’s rights movement, the growing movement to address our collective issue of global environmental change is being fostered on college and university campuses across the country.  It makes sense that these settings would nurture such movements – college campuses are packed with great minds eager to learn and understand, eager to make a difference in the world.  Though the ACUPCC provides a logical and effective framework for implementing sustainability into operations and curricula, many schools who have not signed that specific commitment are taking the issue of environmental change very seriously, as well. 

As students graduate from colleges and universities that recognize the critical nature of and are working to address the issues of global changes in the environment, they will enter the workplace more prepared than any previous generation to tackle these issues on an even grander scale.  As with other social movements whose sparks were ignited on college campuses and eventually spilled into our larger society, so too will be the path of the sustainability movement.  Colleges and universities are realizing that it is no longer enough to discuss lofty ideals in a theoretical setting.  We all must take collective action to address the world’s most pressing problems.  I applaud those schools that are working to address the issues related to environmental change and feel confident that this is just the first wave of a movement that will continue to grow.

In 2004, the American Public University System (APUS) Board of Trustees elected Dr. Kate Zatz as a new board member.  As APUS’s newly appointed president, I visited Dr. Zatz who worked at Hudson County Community College in Newark, New Jersey.  We talked about a number of things during my visit and I asked her if she could recommend any publications about student retention.  She handed me a copy of Leaving College and told me that it was an excellent resource for reading about student attrition research.  I read it and distributed copies to others at APUS.  Later on, Leaving College and my interest in student retention would inspire my doctoral dissertation and subsequent research related to online student retention.  When I received a pre-publication notice for Completing College: Rethinking Institutional Action a few months ago, I ordered a copy.

In the preface to Completing College, Vincent Tinto states that the goal of his book is not to develop a new theory of retention but to suggest a framework that institutions can utilize in applying policies and actions to improve retention and college completion.  Based on the quantity of dog-eared pages and highlighted paragraphs in my copy, I would say that he has accomplished his goal.

Tinto cites four conditions that must be present at colleges and universities in order to enhance retention and completion.  These four are expectations, support, assessment and feedback, and involvement.  Conveniently, he has organized a chapter of the book to discuss each of these conditions and provides case studies as well as references to research that support the effectiveness of actions in the areas that improve retention and completion.  Another chapter entitled “Administrative Action” provides policies and practices including investments, organizing for a focus on retention, and the timing of actions.  While he notes that some retention practices are effective throughout college, Tinto strongly advocates an institutional focus on the first year student for the most effective return on time and expenses invested.  A three step action plan for institutions is recommended.  The first step is for an institution to align and sequence courses and support courses so that success in one leads to success in the following course(s).  Next, faculty actions and interactions in the classroom are critical to student success.  Lastly, faculty development is critical to the institution’s retention efforts and must be included in a plan.

In the book’s final chapter, Tinto calls for institutions to keep a focus on their retention initiatives and not to let them fade away over time as leaders and participants move on to other responsibilities.  He writes that many institutions have retention projects but that few take them seriously (most include retention projects as just one more item on a long list of projects).  Tinto notes that for adult students in particular, success is measured one class at a time and that dropouts are not always dropouts until a number of years have elapsed (he recommends keeping a dropout in the system for nine years).

Similar to Leaving College, Completing College has two relevant appendixes at the back of the book.  Entitled “Retention and Persistence” and “Retention and Accountability,” these appendixes discuss the difficulty of measuring and defining persistence.  Tinto urges that no one rush to judgment without examining the attributes of students, the nature of their intent, as well as the types of institutions that they attend.  Disappointingly, but understandably, data is not presented related to persistence and completion rates for online institutions or programs nor for for-profit institutions.  While Tinto mentions that these results should be studied, he states that there are not enough reliable studies to make a meaningful comparison.  After discussing various initiatives related to accountability, Tinto states that none of them take into account student swirling (which I have written about before), double dipping, and transfer.  In the case of students enrolling at multiple institutions, Tinto states that this situation raises the issue of which institutions should be accountable and for what.

All in all, Completing College exceeds my expectations as a college administrator.  Vincent Tinto’s research subsequent to Leaving College provided him with the idea of constructing a framework that colleges and universities can use as a basis for action related to improving retention and completion.  The case studies and research cited are excellent examples of projects that worked in certain institutions and with certain students.  The appendixes are helpful for distribution to those on the outside who may still think that all college students are first-time, full-time freshmen who live on campus and who graduate in four years.  Improving retention and completion is a must if our nation is to return to its globally competitive position.  Vincent Tinto has capped his years of research with an excellent book for institutions to utilize if they are serious about improving retention.  I intend to order a few extra copies.

According to a March 20 report from the BLS, for those veterans serving active-duty since 2001 (known as the Gulf War-era II veterans) the unemployment rate was 12.1 percent in 2011.  The jobless rate for all veterans was 8.3 percent, comparable to that of the US population as a whole.   The BLS report points out that 26 percent of Gulf War-era II veterans reported a service related disability in August 2011 while only 14 percent of all veterans reported the same.  There can be little doubt from these statistics that America’s bravest men and women, those who were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the nation’s safety, have come home to a bleak employment situation. 

Unemployment among veterans has been a persistent problem.  In a 1972 report of the National Advisory Council on Vocational Education, Chairman Lawrence Davenport encouraged “an all-out national effort” to address the “crisis” of unemployment among returning Vietnam veterans (during a time of otherwise relatively high general unemployment).  In another era of high unemployment, America’s veterans are returning home to face seemingly insurmountable obstacles in finding meaningful employment.  It is encouraging, however, to see that some organizations are taking this collective responsibility as their own and working to make a difference in the lives of our military men and women and their families. 

On March 21, Aon and Wounded Warrior Project hosted their 4th Annual Salute to America’s Wounded Warriors at the Sheraton National Hotel in Arlington, Virginia.  Approximately 45 wounded veterans had the opportunity to meet with recruiters from more than 60 companies with open positions and a commitment to supporting the nation’s veterans.  In addition to the veterans in attendance, a handful of military spouses also participated.  Without question, military spouses and families make a tremendous sacrifice as well as their loved one in uniform and we should support their achievement as well.  While I was not at this event, I asked several American Public University System (APUS) recruiters and staff to participate.  They reported back that they were impressed by the high quality of the candidates they met. 

The recruiters who were in attendance tell me that during his opening remarks (prior to the actual meetings between potential employers and participants), Aon Director of Human Resources, Dave Dahler, announced that one veteran had already been offered a position with Morgan Stanley.  Once the meetings started, recruiters moved around the room, stopping at veterans’ tables to discuss potential opportunities (a sort of “reverse career fair”).  Recruiters jockeyed for position in line at many of the veterans’ tables and it was clear that both groups saw tremendous mutual benefit in the event. 

Those who attended the event related some of the opening remarks of Aon Board Member, retired four-star general of the US Air Force, and 15th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers.  General Myers quoted George Washington who said (paraphrasing) during the Revolutionary War that we must take care of our veterans in order to ensure that they continue to fight for the nation.   Washington’s remarks ring as true today as they did in the days of the nation’s founding.  He also recounted the treatment of veterans returning home from the nation’s foreign wars.  He explained the experiences of Vietnam veterans returning from war to an economy nearly as stagnant as the current one.  Though both groups of veterans are returning from war, from risking their lives, to an unwelcoming economic situation, today’s veterans have a benefit over those who served three decades ago.  Today’s veterans are returning home to a nation that while perhaps divided over the political reasons associated with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are collectively proud of their men and women in uniform and eager to assist their transition to civilian life. 

Events like the one that Aon and Wounded Warrior Project hosted in Arlington are evidence that despite the unfortunate economic situation, many corporations and organizations are throwing their efforts behind supporting our returning veterans and “wounded warriors.”  I would like to applaud Aon as well as the Wounded Warrior Project for their commitment to America’s veterans.  I would also like to thank the companies who participated alongside APUS to provide employment opportunities to those who are arguably our nation’s most deserving. 

(To see some photos from the event, visit Callie Hardman’s photography blog.)

In research that I conducted initially for my doctoral dissertation and then later in a paper with my colleagues Phil Ice and Angela Gibson, I identified several factors as significant variables leading to student disenrollment from an online program.  These variables include no transfer credit received, student’s last grade of F, student’s last grade of W, and low number of courses completed by the student in a 12-month period.

Over the past year and a half, my colleagues and I have continued to examine the student disenrollment patterns at the American Public University System (APUS) and have discussed those patterns with colleagues at a number of other institutions offering online programs.  More and more, I have come to believe that the persistence of students who complete three or more undergraduate courses at APUS and the tendency of students who complete fewer than three courses at APUS to eventually disenroll are much more correlated to adult student behaviors previously identified by researchers using data from traditional institutions.

During the past decade, a major increase in enrollments has occurred  with the number of adults attending online programs versus face-to-face programs.  The reasons are obvious:  working adults are able to attend online programs from any location at any time.  Those with jobs that frequently take them out of town no longer have to juggle schedules to meet the requirement of taking a face-to-face class, but can log in from another city or country; the only requirement is a computer and an internet connection.  Additionally, adult students with a family can come home from work and log in to their classroom after dinner and after the children go to bed.  Those adults whose jobs require them to work non-traditional evening or night shifts can log in during times that suit them and not worry about losing sleep to attend face-to-face courses at a local college or university.

One of the earlier studies regarding persistence rates of adult students was published by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).  In this study, researchers Laura Horn and Mark Premo identified seven risk factors that were associated with the likelihood that a student would not graduate from college.  These risk factors were:  being independent, attending college part-time, working full-time while enrolled, having dependents, being a single parent, delaying entry to college, and not having a traditional high school diploma.  Working adults attempting to complete an associates’ or bachelor’s degree are likely to have at least three of these risk factors and those with children may have five or six.

Other studies of persistence relating to adult students provide explanations and characteristics of transfer students.  Noting that my own research indicated that students who had transferred credits were  more likely to graduate than those who did not transfer credit, I reviewed some of the literature about transfer students and student attendance patterns.  Wright and de los Santos wrote about this phenomenon in “Maricopa’s Swirling Students: Earning One-Third of Arizona State’s Bachelor’s Degrees” in 1990.  Later, director of Indiana University’s National Survey of Student Engagement, Alex McCormick, wrote a research article titled “Swirling and Double-Dipping: New Patterns of Student Attendance and Their Implications for Higher Education,” outlining the various patterns of student attendance and their implications.  In his article, McCormick attributes the likelihood of students to attend multiple institutions to the standardization of credits and the ability to transfer credits from one institution to another rather easily.  McCormick outlines eight different patterns of attendance for swirling students.  These are: 
• Trial enrollment – Students experimenting with another institution before formally transferring
• Special program enrollment – Students completing most of their coursework at their home institution but completing a special program (e.g., semester abroad) elsewhere
• Supplemental enrollment – Students enrolling at another institution for one or more terms to supplement or accelerate their program (examples include summer programs or taking a course at another institution because it’s unavailable at the home institution)
• Rebounding enrollment – Students alternating enrollment at two or more institutions
• Concurrent enrollment – Students taking courses at two institutions simultaneously
• Consolidated enrollment – Students who satisfy their home institution’s residency requirements but a substantial number of their credits come from at least two other institutions
• Serial transfer – Students who make one or more intermediate transfers sequentially in order to complete a degree
• Independent enrollment – Students pursue work unrelated to their degree program and no credits are transferred

McCormick notes that several longitudinal studies exist and while they provide descriptions of attendance patterns, they fail to provide explanations for those patterns.  He cites Clifford Adelman’s 1999 study that examined the longitudinal data of the 1982 high school graduates’ cohort and identified that students who attended multiple institutions accounted for approximately 60 percent of all students who began at four year institutions.  Approximately 37 percent of all students from the 1982 cohort attended two institutions and 22 percent attended three institutions.  Confirming some of the classifications outlined by McCormick was Adelman’s finding that three in five of the 1982 graduates who attended two institutions returned to their first college, as did half of the 1982 graduates who attended three colleges.  It’s important to note that Adelman’s longitudinal study over 16 years examined college attendance data over a much longer period than the NCES data required to be reported by institutions participating in the Federal Student Aid program.

The studies mentioned by McCormick and Adelman are excellent starting points for discussions about why more research is necessary to determine the explanations of student swirling.  Is it possible that adult students might attend even more institutions today because the availability and popularity of online courses and programs has increased substantially over the past decade?  The Sloan Consortium’s most recent publication, Going the Distance:  Online Education in the United States 2011, has identified that nearly one third of all college students completed at least one online course in 2010-2011.  At the recent Council of College and Military Educators (CCME) Conference, the Department of Defense reported that 75 percent of all military tuition assistance payments were for students attending online programs.  While the military may be more mobile than most working professionals, the data otherwise supports the increasing trend of adult students enrolled in online courses/programs.  As noted earlier, the risk factors for college completion are compounded for working adult students and may lead to explanations of some institutions’ student transfers.

More and more, I am convinced that the United States needs a national database that tracks the progress of college students as they attend multiple institutions.  The Predictive Analytics Reporting (PAR) Framework funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and managed by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) Cooperative for Education Technologies has a database with 640,000 student records from students attending online programs at six different institutions.  That’s approximately 10 percent of the students who took online courses last year according to the Sloan survey mentioned earlier.  The National Student Clearinghouse provides data as it is contributed by participating institutions, but institutions are not required to belong to the consortium and only recently has the Clearinghouse been able to accept student data from institutions with non-traditional financial aid enrollment periods.  In addition, that data does not aggregate by institutional profile in a more granular format (adult serving, commuter college, online, etc.). 

During the last reauthorization of the Higher Education Opportunity Act in 2008, Congress inserted a provision prohibiting the Department of Education from creating such a database.  To quote McCormick, “if educators, policymakers, and researchers are to assess institutional impact, they will need better information about [an] institution’s attendance profile, if not detailed information about the source of credits at the student level.”  As Adelman and others have identified, there are multiple types of institutional profiles as well as profiles of students who attend those institutions.  Before a policymaker or pundit makes a disparaging remark about student persistence rates at a particular institution or group of institutions, they need to have data far beyond that related to first-time, full-time students that has been the baseline for institutional reporting to the Integrated Post-secondary Education Data System (IPEDS).  Institutions and researchers should collaborate to provide more insights to explanations for adult student drop out beyond “life happens.”  More research on adult student swirling needs to be conducted, particularly for those students attending online programs or institutions.

The first article, from The Chronicle of Higher Education, discusses the concept of “badges” that are awarded by various websites, training companies, individuals, etc. The concept is that the badge is relatively easy to earn (to keep the learner motivated and engaged) and indicates that they have achieved a certain skill level or learning competency.  At the Khan Academy, students receive a “Great Listener” badge for sitting through 30 minutes of video lectures and can earn an “Awesome Listener” badge after completing a full hour of video lectures.  In addition, visitors and users of that site can earn badges indicating “Master of Algebra” or “Challenge Patches.”  Similarly, MITx is a newly announced venture by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), slotted to be released in an experimental prototype version in the spring of 2012 and designed to recognize people who complete MIT’s online courses and successfully pass the tests and quizzes.  MIT has an arrangement with OpenStudy to offer badges to students who are helpful in course discussions.  The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has a $2 million grant to test the badge platform in education.  With the Foundation’s support, The Mozilla Foundation (best known for the Firefox browser) is “building an Open Badge Infrastructure to enable the interoperability and collection of badges” which will “support badges from any issuer across the Internet.” 

Both The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Education wrote about the tenured Stanford professor who has left to form a startup, Know Labs.  Sebastian Thrun and a colleague taught an artificial intelligence MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) this summer to more than 160,000 students and he plans to commercialize that type of course through the Udacity portal owned by his startup, Know Labs. Thrun’s venture will not only offer courses developed and taught by him but also by others.  One of the first courses that Udacity will offer is “Building a Search Engine” which will be seven weeks in length and which will be taught by David Evans, Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Virginia.  Thrun is betting that the word (grades/recommendation) of a highly regarded professor will win over prospective employers or current employers of students taking courses.

Richard Vedder, an economist at Ohio University, wrote an article for the Chronicle’s Innovations blog entitled “Beware: Alternative Certification is Coming.”  Most of the article talks about Straighterline’s lower priced college course offerings and the announcement last week that Straighterline is offering students the opportunity to take the Educational Testing Service (ETS) iSkills test and the Council on Aid to Education’s (CAE) Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) test (the one made famous by New York University Professor of Sociology and Education, Richard Arum and University of Virginia Assistant Professor of Sociology, Josipa Roksa in their book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses).  Vedder also discusses the Khan Academy and MIT certification offerings.  My favorite paragraph from his article relates to his discussion of the first week of beginning economics courses when professors explain the point that:  “If the price of something rises a lot, people look for substitutes.  Resources are scarce and they [people] maximize their utility by shifting away from high priced goods or services to the lower priced good or service.”

The comments sections in the online postings of these articles range the gamut from commending the idea to ridiculing it.  I happen to think that these alternatives to traditional higher education are to be expected as part of the continuing onslaught of alternatives for a service that many can either not afford or believe is overpriced.  As Christensen states in his books about innovation (specifically Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns and The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out), it’s not always the disrupter that succeeds, but sometimes the incumbent who adopts the disruptive technology and deploys it successfully.

One of the issues that I see with badges is the issue of identity verification and assuring that the person who earned the badge is actually the person who did the work.  Just like the recent SAT test taking scandal on Long Island, if I have a talent at taking a certification course and there are no checks and balances in the system, I may be able to take the course/test for others using their identity.  That problem can be solved, but some solutions are more expensive than others and the expensive solutions may overweigh the cost of the badge or the alternative certification. 

As soon as employers start accepting the badges, the value equation for higher education will lower, putting additional stress on a system that is already stressed by its high prices.  If employers value the training of a superstar professor over a university, that will be another disruptive force to the sector.  The situation reminds me of the scenarios described by Nicholas Carr in his book, The Big Switch (which I wrote about in my blog in July 2008).  Carr’s premise is that the lower cost of technology switches the power from institutions with lots of capital to the individual entrepreneur who is able to “rent” powerful servers and technology from vast farms owned by Google, Microsoft, etc.  Having accreditation and a fancy campus with many faculty and staff may not overwhelm a solo professor/instructor able to convey valuable knowledge to students and to “certify” them by awarding a badge.

The fact that “badges” and other forms of alternative certifications are surfacing daily is another example of the evidence that traditional higher education is overpriced and under siege.  According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, the primary reason that students don’t attend or complete college is financial.  In fact, 57% of adults responding in the survey said that the higher education system does not provide good value for the investment and 75% said that it is not affordable.  The trend is for U.S. employers to seek workers with at least some post-secondary education.  If our colleges and universities are unable to provide employers with graduates with these credentials, it opens opportunities to corporations, organizations, or even individuals offering the alternative credentialing.  Colleges and universities should look to some of these alternatives as viable means to providing a lower cost education as well as a way to preserve or grow their existing enrollments.

Unlike Clayton Christensen who writes about innovative companies as a Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (thus making his transition to writing about innovative universities less surprising), DeMillo’s background is in engineering and computer science.  His observations, however, stem from his background as a professor at a traditional “brick and mortar” school.  From his position inside the hallowed halls of academia, he notes that the institutions in the middle, those between the elite institutions (top 75) and institutions that admit everyone, are the ones that are in trouble with a value proposition squeeze coming from above (elite) as well as below (business model to serve anyone or everyone at a lower price point).  DeMillo stresses that modern universities are businesses (contrary to some of the myopic ideologues who insist that non-profit institutions don’t have a business model) and are competitive organizations run by smart people.  Similar to Christensen, DeMillo argues that the class-oriented society and culture of higher education creates a faculty-centered model that is difficult to break out of for institutions undergoing competition for enrolled students.  (For a review of Christensen’s book, Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way to World Learns, see my August 2008 blog article.  To see my review of Christensen’s book, The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out, see my August 2011 blog article.)

DeMillo states that in any market, the winners are those with competitive brands, price, or value.  Brand is difficult to build for all but the elite colleges and universities, price continues to increase for almost all institutions and in most cases is becoming uncompetitive, and value is a concept seldom understood by the faculty at most institutions.  Because most college presidents are promoted from the ranks of academics, they are ill-equipped to understand the importance of strategic planning and understanding competitive threats from business disruptors like creative proprietary institutions.

DeMillo states that his book is “ultimately an essay about value.”  Most of the world does not understand the traditional American business model for higher education that is faculty-centered and resource inefficient, not to mention costly.  If American universities want to “survive” (DeMillo’s choice of words) over the next generation, they must apply the following three lessons of our global economy to their operations:

1. Focus on value and deliver a degree that is priced reasonably and that is of reasonable quality.
2. Focus on costs by controlling them in ways that are unthinkable by faculty-centric institutions to include:
a. Deskilling (greater use of adjuncts)
b. Better use of physical plants
c. Better use of materials
3. Establish an individual institutional reputation versus continuing to chase the elite institutions at the top.

DeMillo takes the time to review and report on activities of proprietary or for-profit institutions that he credits for being student-centered because students provide their main source of income.  DeMillo states that enrollment growth is a good thing at a for-profit in that it increases revenues and profits and allows the institution to reinvest those profits in additional services and programs.  Traditional institutions determine their charges from a fixed cost model designed to measure the cost of hours of instruction in the classroom with little consideration for the appropriateness of the charge or the specific relevance of matching labor delivered to competitive market costs.  Online programs run by proprietary institutions price based on services consumed or delivered and unencumbered by a high fixed cost structure; because of this, they are able to provide a competitively priced product with a value recognized by the students they serve.

Institutions in the middle are subsidized by public funds, sponsored research, endowments, or church support.  Tuition fluctuations at these institutions create revenue gaps that have to be covered by increases in one or more of the relevant subsidies.  Those subsidies are shrinking.  DeMillo states that it is not clear how much disruption institutions in the middle can tolerate, but for many, resources are stretched and stressed beyond the breaking point.  DeMillo argues that all institutions in the middle have to pay attention to price sensitive customers.

DeMillo spends some time talking about non-profit and proprietary institutions that are process centered and provides examples about efficiencies that lower the production cost for those institutions.  Another topic that he spends a little time discussing is “hacking degrees.”  Hacking is a topic that continues to be discussed by many writers including Anya Kamenentz, author of DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education.  It is a controversial topic for those focused on traditional education but more strategic for those focused on the capabilities of technology and the learning that the internet and employers provide many adults.  In my opinion, it is a topic that is not covered enough in this book given its potential for impact on the higher education sector.

Like any good researcher, DeMillo provides recommendations for institutions in the middle to “survive” and thrive in the 21st century.  Broadly speaking, institutions should define their value and become “architects” for new business models.  As it applies to the definition of value, institutions should forget about who is above them, focus on what differentiates them, establish their own brand, not romanticize their weaknesses, and be open.  From an architecture perspective, institutions should balance faculty-centrism and student-centrism, use technology, cut costs in half, focus on their own measures of success, and adopt the New Wisconsin idea which is to be truthful to the community that you serve.  His recommendations are sound and grounded.  Because of the entrenched culture at many of the institutions in the middle, I doubt that few will be able to follow DeMillo’s recommended path to improving their performance and financial stability.  Those that are able to follow the path, should see improvements in reputation, enrollments, and be able to distinguish themselves from their competition.

Bailey points out that the public sector has frequently employed the expertise of private industry in various attempts to solve the nation’s problems.  For example, in March 2010, President Obama reached out to private-sector businesses, agreeing to provide some $150 billion in support of those businesses developing an alternative to foreign oil.  He said to the CEOs in attendance, “’Your country needs you to mount a historic effort to end, once and for all, our dependence on foreign oil…And in this difficult endeavor, in this pursuit on which I believe our future depends, our country will support you.’” 

In another example, Bailey points out that the Review of US Human Spaceflight Plans Committee established by the White House Office of Space and Technology Policy recommended that NASA seek private sector assistance in developing commercial spacecraft.  “The review argued that this would free NASA to focus its attention and investment on developing more advanced capabilities, particularly in deep-space exploration.”  In each of these examples, a significant problem or dilemma has been acknowledged and government has rightly recognized that private sector innovation has the business agility and market understanding to propose and execute a meaningful solution.

In the realm of education, however, the pattern of public-private cooperation has not held true.  Bailey states that “Instead of involving the private sector, education policymakers have actually created policy and funding barriers that skew support to non-profits and prevent for-profits from participating in programs aimed at improving teaching or learning.”  He uses the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s Investing in Innovation competition as an example of education policymakers “shutting out” private sector for-profit institutions.  He explains that Congress wrote that legislation in a way that effectively excludes the for-profit education sector. 

In explaining why government is hesitant to engage the private sector in the higher education debate, Bailey recounts some of the most pronounced criticisms of online education.  He explains that many fear that government support for for-profit universities could lead to “market distortion.”  On the other hand, systematically excluding the private sector can lead to its own variety of market distortions and fundamentally, “these concerns do not outweigh the benefits of having a thriving marketplace of private-sector entrepreneurs tackling social problems, particularly in education.”  Interestingly, there also seems to be resistance to government engagement of private sector education institutions because of a belief by some that one should not make a profit on education.  It is difficult, in my opinion, to justify this notion – especially in light of the fact that government engagement of private industry in the areas of clean energy, healthcare, and space exploration has set the precedent that it is okay to turn a profit while addressing some of the nation’s greatest challenges.  Additionally, no president of a non-profit college or university operates continuously on negative margins.  Prudent managers of non-profits are obligated to cover operating costs or explain why not.  The non-profit system actually encourages continued increases of expenditures during good economic times since the tax code questions a non-profit that continually generates a substantial surplus.  In order to reduce surpluses, additional projects are funded.  In addition, the taxpayer subsidies of non-profit entities are already very large.  In addition to allowing families of students to receive education tax credits, alumni and parents are allowed to deduct charitable gifts, and the institution does not pay income taxes on its endowment earnings, the receipt of charitable gifts, and generally, little to minimal property taxes and no income taxes are paid. 

Private enterprise plays an integral part in the fulfillment of national policy initiatives.  As Bailey points out, “Private industry routinely takes technologies pioneered by the government and turns them into cheap, reliable and robust industries.”  Why should online higher education be any different?  The federal government developed the initial product – education (via compulsory, free public K-12 education, and eventually the establishment of government subsidized institutions of higher education) – and placed significant value in obtaining that product.  In an era of considerable funding cuts and a bleak financial outlook for most institutions, it seems that now is the optimal time to engage the private sector for its opinion and ideas in order to reach President Obama’s stated education goals. 

Schneider and de Alva note that consumers are largely oblivious to the cost of an item, focusing almost solely on the price instead.  As long as the price seems reasonable (or, at least comparable to other similar products), the consumer is not likely to consider what the actual cost of the product is.  As the authors point out, nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in higher education.  Since the downturn of the economy in 2008, a deluge of articles have been published exploring the price of a college education (see the “Impact of the Economy on Higher Education” section of this blog) but little has been written for the American public about the true cost of a degree (that data is typically buried in academic policy and research reports that typically do not receive broad media coverage).  Schneider and de Alva have undertaken the daunting task of publishing the total cost of a bachelor’s degree for the American taxpayer.  Their findings are notable, assuming that those in a position to influence public policy and a broader national discussion read their paper.

The authors divided their sample into the following categories: public, private not-for-profit, and private for-profit institutions.  Beyond that,  they used a variation of the well-known rankings reported in Barron’s Profiles in American Colleges which provides six categories for schools ranging from “noncompetitive” (open admissions schools) to “most competitive” (highly selective, elite institutions).  Interestingly, American taxpayers subsidize the least competitive schools far less than they do the most competitive.  The irony is that the largest and fastest growing sector of the college population includes low-income and non-traditional students who are attending the lesser competitive schools.  These schools tend to offer greater flexibility for part-time students, working adults, and other “nontraditional” student populations.  To provide perspective on the dramatic differences in taxpayer subsidies, consider that “among not-for-profit institutions, the amount of taxpayer subsidies hovers between $1,000 and $2,000 per student per year…”  Among the most selective institutions in the nation, “the taxpayer subsidy jumps substantially to more than $13,000 per student per year.”

The amount of return (ROI) is important when considering any investment and can mean the difference between whether one makes an investment or not.  In the case of higher education and the taxpayers’ “investment,” the return is far lower than necessary to justify the current subsidy trends of the more highly subsidized institutions.  “For public institutions, taxpayers are investing more than $60,000 for each bachelor’s degree granted in the three less competitive categories, close to $75,000 in the highly competitive institutions, and more than $100,000 for each bachelor’s degree granted in the most competitive flagship institutions.”  In the less competitive schools, high dropout rates and longer time taken for completion of the degree decrease the taxpayers’ total ROI.  The highest dropout rates, however, tend to be found in the lesser competitive institutions – the same institutions receiving the least taxpayer subsidies (or none at all in the case of private for-profit institutions). 

According to their research, bachelor’s degrees earned from the private for-profit institutions offer the highest ROI for taxpayers since so little taxpayer money is invested into those schools.  The authors also consider the income taxes paid by those without and those with bachelor’s degrees.  Data shows that individuals holding a bachelor’s degree have lifetime earnings substantially higher than individuals without a college degree and therefore pay more in taxes, providing a benefit to the taxpayer. 

For example, because for-profit institutions receive no state appropriations but pay income taxes, there is a “net ‘profit’ to the taxpayer” for bachelor’s degrees earned at schools within this category.  Table 2 in the report shows that there is a benefit of approximately $6,100 to the taxpayer and over the degree holder’s lifetime, taxpayers will realize a net benefit of approximately $60,900 thanks to higher taxes paid by the graduate holding a bachelor’s degree from a for-profit institution.  By contrast, at a public school (non-/less competitive category), the taxpayer will subsidize approximately $6,000 per bachelor’s degree per year and ultimately see a total cost of $67,600 per bachelor’s degree.  Over the lifetime of the graduate’s career, the taxpayer will not see a positive ROI for subsidies provided for the benefit of the degree-holder.  The ultimate net cost to the taxpayer for a bachelor’s degree earned from a public school in the “non-/less competitive” category is $7,500.

In concluding, the authors make several recommendations that are worth re-iterating here.  First, they encourage stakeholders to focus efforts on addressing issues of college completion and retention.  This makes sense considering that the bulk of taxpayer costs associated with degrees earned at the lesser competitive schools (where the majority of students are earning degrees) is a result of high dropout and slow completion rates.  Additionally, the authors recommend that policymakers reverse “the current policies that result in providing the lowest levels of taxpayer support to the institutions that enroll the highest percentage of low-income, nontraditional, and minority students…”  Providing additional monetary incentives to these students can help boost the college completion and retention rates, ultimately benefiting the taxpayer as degree holders earn more and pay more in income taxes over the course of a lifetime.  The authors point out that if the Obama Administration’s “completion agenda” is met, taxpayer ROI at the lesser competitive schools where dropout rates are highest will increase.  The authors also recommend that policymakers take notice of the Lumina Foundation for Education’s Guide for State Policymakers which calls for  states to make strides in expanding and strengthening “’lower-cost, non-traditional education options,’” including online education.  Finally, the authors note that little data has been collected regarding the true and complete cost of a bachelor’s degree.  By understanding the real and total cost of the educational product as well as the price, policymakers can gain a better understanding of the true financial picture of higher education.