| Posted on December 7th, 2010 by Randy Proto |
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I recently wrote an op-ed for the Huffington Post that deals with the accountability that students and tax payers deserve. Click on the link below to read the article and let me know what you think:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randy-proto/students-and-taxpayers-de_b_792511.html
| Posted on December 1st, 2010 by Randy Proto |
What is it?
It is based upon principles that have been in use in career schools and colleges for a few decades. It won’t work for all degree paths. But, it will for many. And it may be generally more applicable and effective for adult students than for traditional college-bound high school students. It’s a variation on the “degree in three” conversation. Some institutions use variations on this theme today.
How does it work? There are several approaches to this. One is to simply create certificate/diploma programs in disciplines where it is possible (career colleges have many of these - historically producing over 40% of all certificate program graduates among institutions eligible for federal student aid programs). And, to ensure that those programs broadly can, if the graduate chooses, be applied for credit to degree programs – a challenge in current academic frameworks. Another is to modify the sequence of courses in a degree program itself to allow for early exit or transition into full-time employment and part-time study. I will discuss the later approach here, but the former is also very viable (and could be made more beneficial to students assuming the correct regulatory landscape).
What changes would be made in the latter approach? Take all or most of the courses in a major and load them to the early years in a degree program. Add only those ancillary electives and general education courses that are absolutely necessary to be taken in parallel. Leave all of the remaining courses to the end. Note that this doesn’t necessarily increase a student’s workload. It changes focus. So it can be implemented across a broader spectrum of students than approaches that increase load.
Issue a credential upon completion of the major core (this could be a certificate/diploma in advance of an A.S. degree or an A.S., or A.O.S., in advance of a B.S./B.A. degree). Allow students to continue part-time from the point when that credential is issued, on a resident or online basis, to complete the balance of the degree. Or, as do many for-profits using this approach to delivering degrees, allow students to continue on a full-time year round schedule taking courses modularly one at a time (8 – 10 per year) in a summer session type format at night.
Assume for a moment that this cuts the time to a valuable credential (and to the knowledge base needed to obtain employment) by 33% – 50%. What would this mean for a full-time B.S. degree recipient? One or two added years of increased income. If a degree holder was to be indebted for $20,000 (the median amount for a Bachelor degree) for their education, there would be the net increase in earnings for the period of added employment as an offset to that debt. It could be a substantial improvement in the economics of higher education for many.
If widely implemented it would increase the available labor pool, so some study would be required to determine the aggregate economic impact and if an aggregate economy wide benefit would truly occur.
There are many other potential benefits as well. Completion rates may improve. Completion rates correlate to, among many other things, program duration and level of interest in material. Particularly at less selective institutions. Both factors would be positively affected by a shorter path to a valuable credential and by front loading subjects in the student’s primary area of interest.
Also, adults are better served by this model. Adults need to get the information necessary to accomplish their basic economic objectives as quickly as possible.
For decades, Career Colleges have delivered core courses with little else in their diploma programs. For example, through novel scheduling – essentially a variation of previously mentioned summer sessions year round – our diploma programs typically offer the equivalent of 36 to 42 core credits – similar to a typical B.S. degree’s core – in a 10 to 12 month period, full-time. And in some degree programs that I have designed, this front loaded scheduling has been the approach. Graduates of such programs routinely compete very successfully for jobs. We aren’t talking about physicians or lawyers here. Computer programmers? Accountants? Many healthcare fields? Sure.
Major steps toward success? If testing (licensing, certification) organizations accepted graduates’ initial credential to qualify individuals to sit for exams, and crafted more varied exams than exist today, employers would have a clear window into graduate knowledge (and perhaps skills), enabling these graduates value to the workplace to be third party validated. Employers would have a clearer picture of what they are getting (from a knowledge base perspective) – an asset in the hiring process. A major assist in acceptance would be adoption of the concept by one or more well regarded institutions. Ultimately, both of these occurrences would validate the concept and make a student’s choice of this approach more socially acceptable and hence a more frequent choice.
Current regulatory frameworks advantage degree programs over non-degree certificates. This should be changed to make this work most effectively. Over the past 30 years I have seen federal regulations change in a way that seems to make ‘longer’ be equal to ‘better.’ But that is not de facto the case. In some cases the shortest path is the best path and as an option (one option) in higher education that is the case. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, I believe that if more students saw short-term education as valued by society and viable, more not fewer students would ultimately graduate with undergraduate and graduate degrees. Frankly, I believe in a more flexible educational environment, over their lives more students would engage in liberal studies, but I have little to support that view. Research will be dispositive I suppose.
And, if we could advance additional new regulatory frameworks to solve seemingly intransigent transferability of credit issues, the possibilities for students would be greatly broadened. Students could take their core or a diploma/certificate program at one institution, earn a credential, and bridge over to another for the balance of their program. This could occur in a way that goes well beyond the current community college bridging concept – helping us to better leverage the resources of all of our postsecondary institutions to meet our educational capacity needs.
How would this increase student and taxpayer affordability? By creating many viable paths to college graduation, we increase the likelihood of students taking a more stepwise approach to higher education. This correspondingly enables students to make smaller investments at the outset, enter the workforce to garner an initial return on those investments, reduce any corresponding debt, and continue to build their knowledge and skills as they age. It also provides a greater likelihood of students using private education for part of their higher education experience and public for other parts – more evenly spreading taxpayer costs. Currently, about 70% of students are enrolled in public institutions. If students knew that their educational credentials were portable, perhaps this percentage could be increased but utilization decreased (ex 90% attend for 50% of their education), either reducing taxpayer cost or stabilizing cost but increasing access. There are many other possibilities and implications here. And, many studies have been and are being published regarding them. Finally the requisite testing and certification structure to support this also opens the door to more students independently (and at little cost) attaining verifiable knowledge for credit – a topic well presented in books by Anya Kamenetz and Charles Murray, among others.
After 3 decades of observing both successes and failures in adult higher education in particular, I can say with certainty that for students a sound approach is to enable their career focused post-secondary education to be highly portable and to start to deliver an economic benefit as soon as possible. And, to be delivered in a way which creates immediate relevance for the material being studied and which encourages more students who stop prior to achieving a Bachelor degree to go on and finish one.
Society is bettered by having a well educated populace of lifelong learners. James Truslow Adams said, “There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live…” Our goal as educators should be to encourage and enable all Americans to immerse themselves in both. By frontloading the core we are both capturing the attention of the student faster and building success for those who are career focused. The Career First approach can yield more graduates who have the desire, opportunity and economic wherewithal to continue their education and learn both how to make a living and how to live.
| Posted on November 8th, 2010 by Randy Proto |
As posted today on my blog, check out this article from John Lauerman from Bloomberg Businessweek on Gainful Employment…
| Posted on September 16th, 2010 by Randy Proto |
Last week I submitted comments on the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed ‘Gainful Employment’ rule. My comments are here.
The effort to define an approach that attempts to describe for a prospective student (and to assess for taxpayer’s) the relative value of any institution’s program versus any other institution’s program, and the absolute value of the same, is worthwhile.
I indicate in my comments many of the issues I see with the proposed approach and propose changes that would mitigate many.
However, my top two issue are: that the rule has not been crafted to apply to all career education programs at all institutions and that it makes puts institutions in the position of seeing students as more or less beneficial to the institution based upon their financial status (as represented by their federal aid eligibility) . Career education programs are essentially all programs but liberal arts and certain other academic programs. They represent over 60% of all postsecondary enrollment, a fraction of which is at for-profit institutions.
In the first case, when rules which address issues that are global (ex. excessive student debt, program quality etc) are designed to apply only to a segment of higher education, in my experience they work in unbalanced ways and are prone to have unintended consequences. Rules that address these types of issues are generally more sound if they address all institutions. Why? Because when all institutions are affected there is little possibility of a lack of diligence in their preparation, or of the rules working to entrench some interests and disenfranchise others. More voices at the table with strong vested interests in ensuring that the rules function precisely as intended are good insurance against both of those outcomes. And, if rules address global issues that are problems for or would be of benefit to students broadly, it seems to me to be unfair not to apply them globally.
In the second case, in my experience, I have only seen one rule to date that has caused institutions to consider students’ financial profiles in a fashion that I believe conflicts with the very intent of Title IV aid. That is, a rule that would make an institution less inclined (at a point) to admit someone with more eligibility for aid than to admit someone with less, solely on that basis. It is called 90/10. And it has had many consequences in conflict with its stated intent. Gainful Employment would be the second. Here is why: there is an inverse correlation of repayment rate to Pell Grant eligibility. Some would argue that this is due to program quality. Perhaps in some cases. But on the whole, I think a careful review of the data – when broken down by sector – will show that this relationships exists across most similarly selective institutions. This decreases the likelihood that program quality is the issue. I believe that family resources, and other socio-economic and demographic factors are more responsible. Consequently, institutions will be driven away from serving too many highly eligible students. Also, wages of people who fail to benefit from training, but come from high income backgrounds are likely (I believe) to be higher than those who come from lower income backgrounds and likewise fail to benefit (drop out or are unplaced). If I am correct (or if institutions have this perception) a conflict will be created between the goal of serving all students who can benefit from their education and the goal of institutional survival. Regardless of structure (for-profit, non-profit, public) the latter goal will nearly always win.
Gainful Employment, while conceptually valuable, will have many consequences that are inconsistent with its stated objectives.
As with all educational institutions, there are things at career colleges that don’t work as effectively as they should or could. And as with all educational institutions there are things that are broken. So, let’s fix what’s broken. But, let’s not break what works.
| Posted on August 19th, 2010 by Randy Proto |
I recently wrote in the Huffington Post about a new proposed regulation, call Gainful Employment.
Larry Penley, former President of Colorado State University posted a comment, and has a post on his blog and on HULIQ about the rule, both of which give a clear, rational view of the issue.
It is an issue that all higher education professionals – faculty, administration, public, private non and for profit need to thoroughly understand. In the end, it will affect all of us, and our students.
It will shift some students out of the postsecondary education system entirely. Some of our highest risk students. More than the Department of Education estimates, due to flaws in both its estimate logic and to unrealistic assumptions that occur based upon a lack of understanding of the mentality and experience of those very students. It will do so based upon measures that do not clearly relate to the success of those students. Not a good tradeoff. It will also eliminate access to education for many lower risk working adults - as it assumes that public education will absorb them. The very structure that many of them made a deliberate choice not to use, as it did not meet their need. By some estimates this group could be 30% or more of students displaced by Gainful Employment .
As proposed, Gainful Employment will apply measures to some schools (for-profit) that other schools (non-profit and public) will fail, but not be required to meet. And, because of this some students will be driven away from institutions they are now choosing, to institutions that have exactly the same outcome – or in some ways and in many cases a worse outcome - for similarly situated (demographically and lifestyle) students.
It’s complex and needs a lot of discussion and refinement.
| Posted on July 27th, 2010 by Randy Proto |
This writer does a great job of picking up on my article in Huffington Post and adding depth in her article in The Nation. She also has another very good article that gives a perspective on community college support resources for students among other things. It makes the very important point that students need more than simply access to educational options. They need institutions to provide the support, guidance and access to other resources necessary so that they are likely to graduate, with the right skills and professional development to assist them in becoming employed. She also touches on the lack of a seamless enough path between the Associate degree and the Bachelor degree.
A very informative view. Well worth pursuing.
| Posted on July 22nd, 2010 by Randy Proto |
I explore college affordability in this Huffington Post article. Only one facet though … more to come.
| Posted on July 18th, 2010 by Randy Proto |
I recently came accross this study about college cost structures in some research I was doing for an article. It has a good section detailing some of the actions that we should undertake to improve affordability. It is very comprehensive and a good foundation for interested parties. I don’t agree with some elements, but do with many others. And the data is valuable.
Take a look at Section J on page 74. It lays out a series of possibilities that align with ones and I think are fertile ground…and in at least one instance – shortening time to completion – that I (and other career educators) have been applying for many years. In my case via a concept and content I have coined the “Career First Curriculum.”
Hope the info is helpful.
| Posted on July 4th, 2010 by Randy Proto |
For two very good books on the future of higher education, check out this post on my other blog in case you missed it…….
| Posted on June 30th, 2010 by Randy Proto |
I noticed that this blog under a really interesting section called “Dispelling Myths” quoted my most recent Huffington Post article. The blog picked up the article from another educators blog – HICE School. So I spent some time looking over the author Tony Bates background and some of the posts.
Tony Bates is an excellent resource for anyone involved in higher education…..
| Posted on June 20th, 2010 by Randy Proto |
What do employers want from graduates? Over the past 30 years it hasn’t changed. There are surveys out there (I will find some and post the links). But, long ago I was introduced to a seemingly self evident set of answers by one of my mentors in management. The answers were based upon a survey he had reviewed.
Employers want, in this general order of importance for an entry level position in many fields: demonstrated reliability and perseverance; professionalism and organizational fit; and position specific knowledge and skills. 1, 2, and 3.
Item 1 : Demonstrated reliability and perseverance
Completing a program – a degree or a diploma program (of some meaningful length) is often interpreted, rightly, as a meaningful indicator of a person’s inclination to persevere. To stick with the job they are considering the person for and the tasks it entails until they are complete.
Reliability though is a bit more challenging. For an adult student, prior jobs offer the opportunity to demonstrate reliability. Or they represent a challenge to doing so. For young adults, even more difficult (or less challenging) as this track record is less established. But clearly, the graduate who has the advantage (all else being even close) is the one who can clearly convey: I will be on the job, every day, and will stick with it until the goal is accomplished – you can count on it. That maximizes the chance of getting hired.
So beyond merely granting the degree or diploma – and advice on a job search, what can educators, their institutions, or students themselves do to provide graduates with the ability to tap into this key advantage? Before I explain what I have done, I would be interested in your views….
| Posted on June 18th, 2010 by Randy Proto |
Early in my teaching career, I thought I knew. Give me a week or two, an assignment, a quiz and I could tell who would do well, and who wouldn’t. Who wasn’t “cut out for this.”
Then I met a woman I will call Sue. I was teaching Computer Programming. Sue just struggled from the first. I was teaching day and evening classes. I would get to class at 8 – and Sue was there. I would often leave at 10 pm, and frequently Sue would leave a bit before me. All of this to get to a “C.”
I watched her do the same for her entire program. Sometimes, I questioned the process by which she was admitted. Surely it could have filtered Sue out and saved her the risk and work, I thought.
Right after her class graduated, I went in to our Placement office to speak to the Director – Patty. She informed me that there were several placements from the class already – the first of which was – guess who?
The State of Connecticut needed a maintenance programmer in one of its departments. It didn’t pay very well at the time, so most of our graduates wouldn’t be interested and the interviewers knew that – but the State had good benefits. The staffers just wanted someone reliable who could keep things going for them – competently. And Sue would. And did. It was the right fit.
I don’t know where she is now - but I do know that she changed my perspective on teaching. She, and many students after her taught me that ability, which clearly varies, is related to success, but that students’ determination and good teaching determine the true size of the pool of students who in fact will succeed.
It’s a difficult balance in regard to that admissions process. Does one filter out 100% of the Sue’s, where test scores and other indicators may not indicate their true potential, or give them all a chance so the 20% (or 10% or 30%) who have the determination can succeed?
Not a simple answer – one I wrestle with often.
But in terms of prejudging any student, well, lesson learned.