Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[polly_mer]

So now we are actually "closing" colleges, are we?  Getting more severe as we go.

The colleges are closing.  That's an objective fact.  For a list, see https://www.educationdive.com/news/tracker-college-and-university-closings-and-consolidation/539961/
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Most colleges enroll students who are unready for college per https://hechingerreport.org/colleges-enroll-students-arent-prepared-higher-education/

Many colleges have dreadful graduation rates (below 50% for even 8 years) resulting in national averages that are about 60% graduation in 6 years: http://www.thecollegesolution.com/dont-overlook-college-graduation-rates/. This is especially true for small, indistinguishable institutions that promote the value of a liberal arts education, but have numbers indicating admitting a lot of underqualified students who work a lot and/or have caretaking duties and then don't do much of anything even if they do graduate.

If you'd like to make a case (not links marked this), then I'm willing to read, but I'm not seeing an actual case for how great US education is and people are being unduly negative based on all the data available to me.

Instead, I see articles like https://insidehighered.com/news/2020/01/08/private-college-presidents-gather-talk-challenges-and-opportunities-decade-begins and laugh because Super Dinky is a member of CIC.  Super Dinky and indeed all its close competitors that I investigated as part of being institutional researcher are indeed overpriced and out of touch with needs.  The success stories out of Super Dinky were students who took internships and then moved into full-time employment in their desired fields.  We had a handful of students who were extremely active in organizing student groups who also went on to be successful community members.  However, almost no one really jumped SES classes or did something dramatically different from what their family members did.

In contrast, most of my friends from engineering school who graduated went on to do something different from their family background, even if they are no longer engineers.

We shouldn't close institutions based on their mission.  However, institutions are closing and will continue to close by not delivering on their promise of either a more interesting life through education or a more materially comfortable life by having a good job.

[Wahoo Redux]

If you'd like to make a case (not links marked this), then I'm willing to read, but I'm not seeing an actual case for how great US education is and people are being unduly negative based on all the data available to me.

We are treading the same waters over and over, Polly, including the business about graduation rates (have you actually forgotten that?) and it is just you and I and one or two others who care to read or post about it.  We seem to have driven everyone else away from this subject. 

We've already posted about the misconceptions regarding liberal arts, salaries and employment.

And, of course, who said "how great US education" is?  There is much room for improvement in ed at all levels.  But that simply strikes me as true of any human endeavor, from classical music to medicine to law enforcement.   

You are simply stuck, Polly, on the same ideas----perhaps a bit manically.

But okay, since the only thing we are concerned about is the relative earning power as a valuation of education, let's just consider this.

And this.

And while this might appear a little self serving, it does offer some interesting points.

So "how great" is US education?  I dunno.  I'm not in junior high any more so I am not that concerned with "how great" things are to begin with.  But while certainly not perfect, something is going right.

[marshwiggle]

If you'd like to make a case (not links marked this), then I'm willing to read, but I'm not seeing an actual case for how great US education is and people are being unduly negative based on all the data available to me.

We are treading the same waters over and over, Polly, including the business about graduation rates (have you actually forgotten that?) and it is just you and I and one or two others who care to read or post about it.  We seem to have driven everyone else away from this subject. 

We've already posted about the misconceptions regarding liberal arts, salaries and employment.

And, of course, who said "how great US education" is?  There is much room for improvement in ed at all levels.  But that simply strikes me as true of any human endeavor, from classical music to medicine to law enforcement.   

You are simply stuck, Polly, on the same ideas----perhaps a bit manically.

But okay, since the only thing we are concerned about is the relative earning power as a valuation of education, let's just consider this.

The problem with all of these articles is that they don't really separate the signalling value of education from its intrinsic value. For all of the jobs that don't specifically need a post-secondary education to perform them, the signalling value is likely to be a big part of the value of the degree.

If a school only lets people over 6' try out for their basketball team, they don't deserve any special credit for "training" successful athletes.

[polly_mer]

But okay, since the only thing we are concerned about is the relative earning power as a valuation of education, let's just consider this.

Relative earning power is not only the point that I'm making regarding closing underperforming institutions and redirecting those resources to other more effective means of education.

I keep posting because what's sinking many institutions (i.e., they are closing and often abruptly because they just run out of money one term without enough students) is failure to deal with the entire changed landscape of higher ed.  Those changes include

1) Marshwiggle's reference to signaling and filtering versus actual education.  People who come from good social capital tend to end up with good enough lives, even if they don't max out on earning potential.  That's the case for the people who choose to become teachers, non-profit employees, and others who are firmly middle-class. 

When one looks at the relative value for having a college degree over just a high school diploma, that social capital matters greatly.  In fact, recent research indicates that people who already have excellent social capital get a bigger bump from completing college than those who grew up poor: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/the-growing-wealth-gap-in-who-earns-college-degrees/479688/.  A contributing factor is even the few poor people who go to college tend to not graduate.

"Go to college for a better life" is a great sales pitch, but people in many circumstances have sufficient counterexamples that the pitch falls short.

2) I have concerns for those 36 million folks with some college and no degree.  Some of those folks are doing interesting and good enough paying things, while others would like to go back to college and finish.  What college returners need from their college experience is often very different from what 18 year olds need.  The small, undistinguishable colleges tend to have doubled down in recent years on experiences for residential students, which is not at all what these returning students tend to need or for which they are looking.  The case for general education for these folks is also very weak because these folks want and need targeted skills and/or a profession, not generic practice in one-offs.  As an aside, going back to school to become a professor means one is preparing for a profession, even if the BA will be in the liberal arts.

3) I am extremely stuck on the idea that anything going by the name of "liberal arts" and "college education" rise to the level of being those things instead of pale imitations that keep the doors open for now at the undistinguished institutions until the magical day that the good students return and standards can go back up.  We don't have to focus on post-college income to identify these low-quality institutions.

How has college enrollment not dropped precipitously in recent years when the number of 18 year olds did?  Dipping deeper into the pool for more students who are even less qualified and getting them enrolled is one factor propping up college enrollment.  In 2014-2015, "at least 209 schools placed more than half of incoming students in at least one remedial course."  While concerns exist about how many of the people who test into developmental really benefit from taking those developmental courses and concerns exist about what happens when developmental courses are optional, the overall need to address underprepared students remain at non-elite institutions.

The institutions that are experimenting with addressing the needs of this demographic are showing some promising results, but that costs money and other resources that a struggling institution won't necessarily have.  The alarming rise in discount rates (According to a recent report from NACUBO, "about one-quarter of the participating [private] institutions had a freshman discount rate of 57.5 percent or higher") also correlates with trying to attract the fewer-and-fewer good recent HS graduates and failing.

Having rising graduation rates in the face of factors that should lead to lower graduation rates like more students who are underprepared, "students appeared to be studying less and spending more time working outside of school, and student-to-faculty ratios weren't decreasing" also could indicate a reduction in educational quality if individual institutions are not also implementing the expensive programs that help students succeed through targeted interventions.

[Wahoo Redux]

I just started with "earning power" because it seems to be the measure of college education these days, even by academics themselves.

Then I am not sure what your overall point is, Polly.

1) I knew you'd post, yet again, about the relationship between socioeconomic brithright and social capital.  And yeeeeeeeesssss we all know this one.  "The pitch falls short" is a subjective observation in this regard and has nothing to do with the relative worth of small colleges or the liberal arts, and your links only obliquely relate to this, if at all.  And birthright it is hard to quantify; your own article, chock full of numbers and stats, actually states:

One major bone scholars have to pick with federal college data is that clear information linking family wealth to degree completion is hard to come by, and the information that is available is often outdated.

So as a scientist you must see that it is a bit problematic to codify or even blame higher ed for these trends yet since it is not entirely clear what is going on.

I hate to point out the obvious, but one thing that higher ed critics love to chew on is the college 'sales pitch,' the lack of completion (which we should know from previous discussions is considerably higher for most unis than is generally reported, right?), and student debt. 

And with anything else in a free democratic society I have to point out that no one is forced to go to college.  There may be intrinsic compulsions (mom and dad want junior to go to college) or economic perceptions (junior will end up flipping burgers unless junior heads to Super Dinky for a BA in nursing) but the choice to go to college is one freely made, not coerced, even if it is an ultimately bad or unfulfilling decision.  This is not to say that we shouldn't be working to pare down costs and inequities (and the "Wealth Gap" article covers many of the ways we are trying to do just that) but that it might be time to give the benefit of the doubt to institutions which earnestly offer a legitimate education, and we might let people (even if they are not really college material) try the waters knowing that, if nothing else, the economic benefits and social capital are real should they succeed. 

2)  Who says we know what residential students need or are looking for? 

3)  Ah yes, the lofty standards of yore.  We could use a man like Herbert Hoover again!  I think I heard my grandparents complaining about how much easier we kids have these days...ah well. 

Even here however (and for a scientist you sure are reliant on popular media)....

Denning himself noted [that] the paper, which hasn't yet been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal, "a first stab"—an exploration of a question he welcomes other researchers to look into. It could well be the case, he said, that "schools are just better at helping students" than they used to be. Indeed, many colleges have launched initiatives to help more students graduate, but the effectiveness of these programs varies, and Denning said he does not have specific-enough data to analyze their role in rising graduation rates nationwide.

This trend, not professionally vetted yet, might have several explanations, so let's hold off on declaration for a moment.

I wonder...since we are educating so many more people, particularly at the advanced and adult ed levels...with more educated parents with their social capital intact to hand off to their children...if we are producing more students who grew up in an educated household...and as emphasis on education increases, rightly or wrongly...if we are producing more young people programmed to succeed in school?  You know, that birthright thingee.

Sheer conjecture on my part.  But, as I posted elsewhere, I am of a certain age and certain professional position to look back upon an older generation, look at my own generation, and to look forward to a newer generation----and I don't see yet how the elder generation is particularly more erudite or successful. 

Your last point sounds like more of the same tired old curmudgeonly curmudentude to me.

Now I think this is starting to get boring.

[mamselle]

Maybe start a separate thread on the metadynamics in question?

M.

[marshwiggle]

1) I knew you'd post, yet again, about the relationship between socioeconomic brithright and social capital.  And yeeeeeeeesssss we all know this one. 

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And with anything else in a free democratic society I have to point out that no one is forced to go to college.  There may be intrinsic compulsions (mom and dad want junior to go to college) or economic perceptions (junior will end up flipping burgers unless junior heads to Super Dinky for a BA in nursing) but the choice to go to college is one freely made, not coerced, even if it is an ultimately bad or unfulfilling decision.  This is not to say that we shouldn't be working to pare down costs and inequities (and the "Wealth Gap" article covers many of the ways we are trying to do just that) but that it might be time to give the benefit of the doubt to institutions which earnestly offer a legitimate education, and we might let people (even if they are not really college material) try the waters knowing that, if nothing else, the economic benefits and social capital are real should they succeed. 

This is the problem; without being able to separate signalling value from education value, it's impossible to identify "legitimate education". Similarly, it's impossible to say that the "economic benefits and social capital are real should they succeed", since in the case of signalling value that is basically a truism; i.e. the people who will "succeed" are those who have the social capital to succeed and thus they have the social capital to produce the economic benefits.

The only reason to not care about this distinction is if one's only interest is recruitment. If it only matters how many warm bodies there are, then even if it's all signalling value then it's fine because it sounds enticing. However, if anyone has an honest concern for whether and how much an education is worth for anyone considering it, then separating signalling value from education value is vitally important.

[Hibush]

Evergreen College in Olympia Washington has seen an abrupt decline in students to its free-form curriculum. Its challenges seem more akin to Hampshire College, another 1960's effort to provide alternative education to inspired nonconformists, than to the troubled smallish colleges dotting rural America.

Evergreen now has a response. They have decided that today's student wants the same curriculum, but with some more structure. They will not be going so far as to create actual majors, but students can choose, should the wish to, one of eleven "paths of study."  Moreover courses will have indcators of whether they are introductory, intermediate or advanced, so that students can select based on how far along they are in their college experience.

This is a measured response for a school with a mission to have a radical curriculum. But incremental moves like this will prevent them from lurching too far in the wrong direction.

I wish we had Evergreen faculty join our discussions here pertaining to  the numbers assigned to courses, and exactly which ones count toward the major. Are we providing more structure than the students actually need?

[marshwiggle]

Evergreen College in Olympia Washington has seen an abrupt decline in students to its free-form curriculum. Its challenges seem more akin to Hampshire College, another 1960's effort to provide alternative education to inspired nonconformists, than to the troubled smallish colleges dotting rural America.

Evergreen now has a response. They have decided that today's student wants the same curriculum, but with some more structure. They will not be going so far as to create actual majors, but students can choose, should the wish to, one of eleven "paths of study."  Moreover courses will have indcators of whether they are introductory, intermediate or advanced, so that students can select based on how far along they are in their college experience.

As it says in the article:

"But at Evergreen, enrollment has dropped by 1,000 students since 2017, to about 2,900, indicating something else might be at play. Of course, the strong progressive bent on campus might be a turn-off to some, especially after student protesters made national news in 2017 for occupying the president's office and calling for a professor to be fired."

Evergreen's problems has much more to do with its political climate than its program structure. (Unless much of the political climate can be directly attributed to the (lack of) program structure.)

[mahagonny]

Evergreen College in Olympia Washington has seen an abrupt decline in students to its free-form curriculum. Its challenges seem more akin to Hampshire College, another 1960's effort to provide alternative education to inspired nonconformists, than to the troubled smallish colleges dotting rural America.

Evergreen now has a response. They have decided that today's student wants the same curriculum, but with some more structure. They will not be going so far as to create actual majors, but students can choose, should the wish to, one of eleven "paths of study."  Moreover courses will have indcators of whether they are introductory, intermediate or advanced, so that students can select based on how far along they are in their college experience.

As it says in the article:

"But at Evergreen, enrollment has dropped by 1,000 students since 2017, to about 2,900, indicating something else might be at play. Of course, the strong progressive bent on campus might be a turn-off to some, especially after student protesters made national news in 2017 for occupying the president's office and calling for a professor to be fired."

Evergreen's problems has much more to do with its political climate than its program structure. (Unless much of the political climate can be directly attributed to the (lack of) program structure.)

that's putting it mildly. It looks like one little step away from being a cult. Students requiring white people to stay home on their special day.

[Hibush]

that's putting it mildly. It looks like one little step away from being a cult. Students requiring white people to stay home on their special day.

If it was one peculiar idea that everyone subscribed to, then the cult description would be apt. But my sense is that there is room for lots of peculiar ideas. Evergreen is where the proposals can be more peculiar, but the pushback should also more diverse than on most campuses.

[mahagonny]

that's putting it mildly. It looks like one little step away from being a cult. Students requiring white people to stay home on their special day.

If it was one peculiar idea that everyone subscribed to, then the cult description would be apt. But my sense is that there is room for lots of peculiar ideas. Evergreen is where the proposals can be more peculiar, but the pushback should also more diverse than on most campuses.

What happens when the pushback descends into pushing, shoving, suspicion, name calling, battle lines being drawn (such as 'Professor Present-While-White-Must-Be-Fired' graffiti) and more, is what I wonder.
Perhaps this needs its own thread, where we can all go and get unravelled.

[Aster]

I've almost applied to jobs advertised by Evergreen before.

But the weird extra stuff asked for in the job packet has always kept me from applying. I haven't looked seriously at a job ad for Evergreen for a few years now.

[marshwiggle]

I've almost applied to jobs advertised by Evergreen before.

But the weird extra stuff asked for in the job packet has always kept me from applying. I haven't looked seriously at a job ad for Evergreen for a few years now.

Please elaborate. Inquiring minds want to know.....

[Hibush]

that's putting it mildly. It looks like one little step away from being a cult. Students requiring white people to stay home on their special day.

If it was one peculiar idea that everyone subscribed to, then the cult description would be apt. But my sense is that there is room for lots of peculiar ideas. Evergreen is where the proposals can be more peculiar, but the pushback should also more diverse than on most campuses.

What happens when the pushback descends into pushing, shoving, suspicion, name calling, battle lines being drawn (such as 'Professor Present-While-White-Must-Be-Fired' graffiti) and more, is what I wonder.
Perhaps this needs its own thread, where we can all go and get unravelled.

I consider that a teachable moment. Ask the students whether they actually produced the change they were hoping for, or made themselves feel better but alienated potential allies.

I was a kid during the free-speech movement at Berkeley and the anti-war (et al) protests that closed Stanford. In both cases, some of the protesters ended up learning how to get things done and accomplished a lot of good things in their lives. It was a very tense time--more so than the Evergreen situation. Where it was used as a teachable moment, some good things came out it it. When the administration decided to bash heads in, nothing good came of it.