Today I read that University of Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy scored 48 of a possible 50 points on the Wonderlic, an intelligence test given to all players at the NFL's Scouting Combine held last week and this week in Indianapolis.
McElroy's score is believed to be the second-highest for any player, regardless of position, who has taken the test, and about twice the average score for quarterbacks. Pat McInalley, a former Cincinnati Bengals punter and Harvard graduate, is believed to have scored a perfect 50 while another Harvard graduate, current Buffalo Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, also scored a 48. Fitzpatrick, who threw for 23 touchdowns for one of the worst teams in the NFL, completed a breakthrough season.
Last year I wrote about Myron Rolle, a former Rhodes Scholar who is now on the practice squad for the NFL's Tennessee Titans. The debate among coaches was whether Rolle, who had earned his bachelors and two master's degrees from Florida State in four years, as well as his master's at Oxford, had his heart in the game. Coaches, I had heard, preferred not to coach players who had career options outside of football.
I find these comments silly, as McElroy played every down for a national championship team in 2009-10, while qualifying as a Rhodes finalist and Rolle was a highly respected starting safety. If someone were to tell me that McElroy or Rolle were exceptions among college football players, I wouldn't argue. It takes intense discipline to juggle an education and a high-profile starting job on a football team. It is also a reason why players are "red-shirted," asked to sit out a season, as McElroy was when he came to Alabama.
Last night, I watched the quarterbacks, McElroy included, go through the various exercises at the Combine. In addition, NFL Network host and former San Francisco 49ers coach Steve Mariucci did a simulated interview with one of McElroy's peers, Texas Christian University quarterback Andy Dalton. During the interview, Mariucci asked Dalton some questions, then he went to the white board to diagram a red-zone play he called Touchdown-Checkdown.
As the ex-coach scribbled up the different routes, Dalton tried to watch intently. Mariucci finished and asked the quarterback questions like: "Have you ever been in trouble?" and added that: "we already know the answers to these questions." Dalton smiled and said no, he had never been in trouble, except when he was very young. Coach and player exchanged some pleasantries then Mariucci told Dalton to diagram the play he had drawn on the whiteboard minutes before. Dalton nailed everything, except the name of the play, though the quarterback got the "touchdown" half of it.
I wish that the interview had been conducted with McElroy instead. He would have gotten everything down and probably thrown in some questions or ideas of his own.
I don't know why coaches would question the dedication of a smarter player. You would think they would be happy to have a quarterback who didn't need to hear the same instructions twice while he led a team to an undefeated season through a tough conference schedule.
On the other hand, Greg McElroy follows a long line of successful quarterbacks at Alabama who wore the number 12. The most famous, Joe Namath, did not get his degree until 2007, forty two years after he left campus to begin his career with the New York Jets. His successor, Kenny Stabler, wore the number next. Like Namath, he led a team to a Super Bowl win. He also penned a childrens book: Roll Tide, about Alabama football. But he mentions nothing on his Web site about receiving a degree. Jay Barker wore the number in the early 1990s. He led the Tide to a national championship and he did graduate.
If nothing else, Greg McElroy improved on a legacy at one of the most football-crazy schools in America.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
The College of New Jersey radio station to broadcast minor league baseball--so why not a college-run public radio network?
Yesterday my home town Trenton Times reported that The College of New Jersey's radio station, WTSR will broadcast all 142 home games, as well as all playoff games, for the Trenton Thunder, the New York Yankees Double-A Eastern League affiliate. The agreement with the station will be in affect for three seasons. Thunder general manager Will Smith said that 70 percent of the team's fan base was within the signal strength of WTSR.
This partnership is a win all-around. Students get invaluable work experience, the station gets to raise revenue from a larger base of advertisers, the school gets more positive visibility and the team gets a station with a stronger signal than their previous carrier.
This made me wonder--why can't New Jersey public radio, via the Internet and traditional technology be managed by the state's colleges through a network arrangement? Suppose, for instance, that a Trenton-based office could have college students cover the capital while sharing the programming with the college-based affiliates? The stations would still cover campus news and sports while maintaining their own programming. The same office that would supervise the reporters could also supervise a business office that would sell advertising on behalf of the full network. That too, could be handled by students.
Governor Christie has given New Jersey Network (NJN), the state-supported radio and television network a short lifeline to find a new owner. The colleges and a business partner or a foundation could develop a very credible business plan for radio that capitalizes on the student talent available. The television station could become a student laboratory station as well. This would also mean that a New Jersey public broadcasting network would stay in New Jersey.
This partnership is a win all-around. Students get invaluable work experience, the station gets to raise revenue from a larger base of advertisers, the school gets more positive visibility and the team gets a station with a stronger signal than their previous carrier.
This made me wonder--why can't New Jersey public radio, via the Internet and traditional technology be managed by the state's colleges through a network arrangement? Suppose, for instance, that a Trenton-based office could have college students cover the capital while sharing the programming with the college-based affiliates? The stations would still cover campus news and sports while maintaining their own programming. The same office that would supervise the reporters could also supervise a business office that would sell advertising on behalf of the full network. That too, could be handled by students.
Governor Christie has given New Jersey Network (NJN), the state-supported radio and television network a short lifeline to find a new owner. The colleges and a business partner or a foundation could develop a very credible business plan for radio that capitalizes on the student talent available. The television station could become a student laboratory station as well. This would also mean that a New Jersey public broadcasting network would stay in New Jersey.
Answering the funding issues for charter schools in NJ
Today I commented on NJ Spotlight that most of the state's poorest performing public schools will eventually be forced to adopt the best practices of the best charter schools in order to become more effective.
This will mean changes in school district offices, teaching practices, classroom sizes, and the concept of grade level will go the way of the horse and buggy. Teachers will work longer hours, have supervisory responsibilities but higher pay and more freedom to work with their principals on curriculum. They will make more money, but there will not be merit pay. There will also be better public schools.
Sounds far-fetched? Well, the alternatives: vouchers or hope and pray for children to get into the right charter school do not assure choice or better schools for all. Nor do school board, union and administrative insistence on archaic management practices and policies that have contributed to the worst conditions in the worst schools.
Check out the story and my comments below as slnachbar.
This will mean changes in school district offices, teaching practices, classroom sizes, and the concept of grade level will go the way of the horse and buggy. Teachers will work longer hours, have supervisory responsibilities but higher pay and more freedom to work with their principals on curriculum. They will make more money, but there will not be merit pay. There will also be better public schools.
Sounds far-fetched? Well, the alternatives: vouchers or hope and pray for children to get into the right charter school do not assure choice or better schools for all. Nor do school board, union and administrative insistence on archaic management practices and policies that have contributed to the worst conditions in the worst schools.
Check out the story and my comments below as slnachbar.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
U of Iowa is not forced to sell Jackson Pollock Painting but they should consider other positive options for their art
Over the past couple of weeks there had been coverage of a bill sponsored by Iowa State Representative Scott Raeker (R) that called for the University of Iowa to sell a Jackson Pollock painting that is thought to be valued at $140 million.
The sale, said Raeker, would reportedly create an endowment fund that would reportedly give between 750 and 1,000 students full scholarships to the university in perpetuity.
The bill died in the Iowa legislature on Monday, however the divisions are unlikely to be healed. College and university curators will still be pressured to sell valuable works of art as a means to raise funds for their schools. The University of Iowa's president opposed the bill, as did the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and the American Association of Museums (AAM).
There are two strong sides to sell or keep the painting. The first is that the money is needed more than the painting is, especially on a campus that was damaged by flooding a year and a half ago. The second is that a donation was made in good faith--the painting was meant to be seen by the public for little or no charge--and a sale insults the donor's wishes.
Selling the Pollock to a private collector, a more likely scenario since museums have been hurt in today's economy, would have been an insult not only to the original donors, but it also would have alienated future contributors to the museum and the university as well. How could a wealthy donor consider giving a gift to either, if the institution had not proven to be trustworthy? While $140 million would have been a nice cash injection into the university's endowment, it might have compromised the development office's ability to raise millions more.
I visit museums from time to time in New York and Philadelphia as well as other cities I travel. Museum managers have told me that only a fraction of their collections are shown to the public at a given time. Pieces are in states of cataloging or restoration or they are lent to other museums and higher education institutions.
As one example, the Baseball Hall of Fame, located in Cooperstown, New York, lent a small part of it's collection to the Museum of Natural History in New York City. The museum dedicated a wing to the collection and the cafeteria cooked baseball-themed hot dogs as they are served in three different stadiums. Patrons, myself included, paid an extra charge to see the exhibit, over and above the admission charge to see the rest of the museum's collection, none of which had anything to do with baseball. I would believe that a portion of the extra charge was used to pay the Hall of Fame as well as set-up the exhibit space. I saw this exhibit on a Saturday and it was crowded. It would be no surprise if the exhibit was profitable, or did no worse than cover costs. It was also likely it drew more people to the Hall of Fame.
I would not dare suggest that the University of Iowa put the Pollock on a road show--as you'll see from this story, the painting is extremely large--but why can't the museum or the school earn more from putting undisplayed or small displayed pieces into other museums or university galleries? That gives more positive exposure to the university and its educational mission. Donors intend for the public to enjoy them, but they should not limit the size of the audience to the patrons of a single museum.
The sale, said Raeker, would reportedly create an endowment fund that would reportedly give between 750 and 1,000 students full scholarships to the university in perpetuity.
The bill died in the Iowa legislature on Monday, however the divisions are unlikely to be healed. College and university curators will still be pressured to sell valuable works of art as a means to raise funds for their schools. The University of Iowa's president opposed the bill, as did the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and the American Association of Museums (AAM).
There are two strong sides to sell or keep the painting. The first is that the money is needed more than the painting is, especially on a campus that was damaged by flooding a year and a half ago. The second is that a donation was made in good faith--the painting was meant to be seen by the public for little or no charge--and a sale insults the donor's wishes.
Selling the Pollock to a private collector, a more likely scenario since museums have been hurt in today's economy, would have been an insult not only to the original donors, but it also would have alienated future contributors to the museum and the university as well. How could a wealthy donor consider giving a gift to either, if the institution had not proven to be trustworthy? While $140 million would have been a nice cash injection into the university's endowment, it might have compromised the development office's ability to raise millions more.
I visit museums from time to time in New York and Philadelphia as well as other cities I travel. Museum managers have told me that only a fraction of their collections are shown to the public at a given time. Pieces are in states of cataloging or restoration or they are lent to other museums and higher education institutions.
As one example, the Baseball Hall of Fame, located in Cooperstown, New York, lent a small part of it's collection to the Museum of Natural History in New York City. The museum dedicated a wing to the collection and the cafeteria cooked baseball-themed hot dogs as they are served in three different stadiums. Patrons, myself included, paid an extra charge to see the exhibit, over and above the admission charge to see the rest of the museum's collection, none of which had anything to do with baseball. I would believe that a portion of the extra charge was used to pay the Hall of Fame as well as set-up the exhibit space. I saw this exhibit on a Saturday and it was crowded. It would be no surprise if the exhibit was profitable, or did no worse than cover costs. It was also likely it drew more people to the Hall of Fame.
I would not dare suggest that the University of Iowa put the Pollock on a road show--as you'll see from this story, the painting is extremely large--but why can't the museum or the school earn more from putting undisplayed or small displayed pieces into other museums or university galleries? That gives more positive exposure to the university and its educational mission. Donors intend for the public to enjoy them, but they should not limit the size of the audience to the patrons of a single museum.
Advocate for NJ Opportunity Scholarships Gets Left Out of the Spoils
Today I read on NJ Spotlight that Reverend Reginald Jackson, one of the state's leading advocates for the proposed Opportunity Scholarship (aka voucher) Program is angry that his home town of Orange has been excluded from the original thirteen municipalities that will pilot this new initiative.
While it appears that the language on the bill has been agreed upon by Democrats and Republicans, this new story mentions that the number of pilot communities may drop from thirteen to as few as five. One reason may be uncertainty about tax revenues. Another is the necessity to compromise. In order for the bill to pass, Governor Christie needs Democratic votes, but he cannot afford to alienate his fellow Republicans. Nor can afford to alienate Jackson, who has the influence to deliver a black vote to Christie when he runs for re-election.
I have repeated opposed the Opportunity Scholarship proposal and will continue to do so--it will not deliver "choice for all" as the governor has promised. The state should be concentrating on offering public school choice for all, through charters,the reconstitution of traditional schools and consolidations between districts. It should not be subsidizing tuition to schools that would still be allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion.
In addition, the latest version of the bill allows for up to twenty five percent of the scholarship funds to be given to students who are already enrolled in private or parochial schools in districts with failing schools. This is an odd provision--if the governor's intentions were to help students enrolled in failing schools, why would he want to provide money to support those who had already been given their choice. Suppose those students were already admitted on scholarship to a parochial school. Why should the state take over their support when a needy student is waiting for a chance?
I took a look at the list of Orange public schools as well as the No Child Left Behind reports to get more information that might justify Reverend Jackson's disappointment. Orange has one high school, an alternative high school, eight K-8 schools and one middle school. The high school is in Year 6 for failing to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in Language Arts and Year 8 for failing to meet it in Math.
Presuming that the alternative school, for which I could not find a report, is an adult or drop-out focused school, high school students in Orange have no other public option, unless they are welcomed into a new charter school or a neighboring district. Only one of the K-8 schools has a middle school that made AYP. The one dedicated middle school did not while two other K-8 schools had too few students for analysis.
I don't know if Reverend Jackson reads these reports, but he is justified in his anger. Unlike Newark, which has several charters and parochial schools as well as seven public high schools that have met AYP, the students in his town have too few places to go.
If we are going to have a program such as the Opportunity Scholarships need must be better taken into account. I would be more comfortable seeing students in Orange, who have practically no options, benefiting from such a program than students in Newark whose families have access to "passing" schools and resources.
If I end up helping Reverend Jackson, who I do not know personally, get his school district included into a program I personally oppose, then so be it. But Governor Christie has to hope that the Reverend can deliver more votes than Cory Booker is likely to take away.
While it appears that the language on the bill has been agreed upon by Democrats and Republicans, this new story mentions that the number of pilot communities may drop from thirteen to as few as five. One reason may be uncertainty about tax revenues. Another is the necessity to compromise. In order for the bill to pass, Governor Christie needs Democratic votes, but he cannot afford to alienate his fellow Republicans. Nor can afford to alienate Jackson, who has the influence to deliver a black vote to Christie when he runs for re-election.
I have repeated opposed the Opportunity Scholarship proposal and will continue to do so--it will not deliver "choice for all" as the governor has promised. The state should be concentrating on offering public school choice for all, through charters,the reconstitution of traditional schools and consolidations between districts. It should not be subsidizing tuition to schools that would still be allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion.
In addition, the latest version of the bill allows for up to twenty five percent of the scholarship funds to be given to students who are already enrolled in private or parochial schools in districts with failing schools. This is an odd provision--if the governor's intentions were to help students enrolled in failing schools, why would he want to provide money to support those who had already been given their choice. Suppose those students were already admitted on scholarship to a parochial school. Why should the state take over their support when a needy student is waiting for a chance?
I took a look at the list of Orange public schools as well as the No Child Left Behind reports to get more information that might justify Reverend Jackson's disappointment. Orange has one high school, an alternative high school, eight K-8 schools and one middle school. The high school is in Year 6 for failing to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in Language Arts and Year 8 for failing to meet it in Math.
Presuming that the alternative school, for which I could not find a report, is an adult or drop-out focused school, high school students in Orange have no other public option, unless they are welcomed into a new charter school or a neighboring district. Only one of the K-8 schools has a middle school that made AYP. The one dedicated middle school did not while two other K-8 schools had too few students for analysis.
I don't know if Reverend Jackson reads these reports, but he is justified in his anger. Unlike Newark, which has several charters and parochial schools as well as seven public high schools that have met AYP, the students in his town have too few places to go.
If we are going to have a program such as the Opportunity Scholarships need must be better taken into account. I would be more comfortable seeing students in Orange, who have practically no options, benefiting from such a program than students in Newark whose families have access to "passing" schools and resources.
If I end up helping Reverend Jackson, who I do not know personally, get his school district included into a program I personally oppose, then so be it. But Governor Christie has to hope that the Reverend can deliver more votes than Cory Booker is likely to take away.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Book Review--Kids First: Five Big Ideas for Transforming Children's Lives and America's Future by David L. Kirp
In Kids First, David Kirp, a lawyer and professor of public policy at UC-Berkeley, writes that while more money has been spent towards reducing educational achievement, the share of the Federal budget spent on kids--including childcare, health care, parenting assistance, among other programs, has fallen by 22 percent since 1960. He adds that without new ideas, more and more children will not make it to a healthy, productive adulthood. He goes on to propose five:
+ Strong support for new parents
+ High quality early education
+ Linking schools and communities to what both offer children
+ Giving all youngsters access to a caring and stable adult mentor
+ Providing a nest egg to help pay for college or kick-start a career
The author adds that the costs of delivering programs to address all five ideas should be approximately $50 billion, though some of the money can be reprogrammed from unspent Federal grants or ineffective programs that have exceptionally limited eligibility or missions.
Nor does he call for the creation of new government agencies to administer the money. As one example, the mentoring programs do not need to be run by government at all; private and religious organizations can manage them quite well. Pre-schools are already run at the city and state level, and one state, Maine, has adopted the "baby bond" savings program, and it would be easy for others to follow suit.
Kirp quotes Yale psychologist and former Head Start director, Edward Zigler who says: "Programs for poor people are poor programs." What he means is that the poor are a far less organized constituency for the programs that benefit them the most, versus, as examples, military veterans and the elderly. Middle and upper class voters care less about these programs because they receive no direct benefit from them; the poor are perceived as "takers" in this political climate.
In response, Kirp argues that each of his five ideas should be put into programs that all children would be eligible regardless of family income. This way, the middle class and upper middle class, especially educated voters, would care about the future of the programs and take a larger role in how they are managed. Not to mention users would be likely to oppose any proposed means-tests.
Conservatives have and should support these ideas, Kirp states, because they strengthen family ties, reinforce personal responsibility and encourage savings, and adds that conservatives have provided support at the state level. However, the programs are neither promoted nor structured as a "cradle to college" solution, which they should be.
This book is worth reading for any parent or parent-to-be because it calls for a practical and family-focused agenda that has teeth as well as no ideological axes to grind. While Dr. Kirp served on the child care task force for President Obama's transition team, I would expect that a five-part initiative like his is more likely to happen at the state level. But that, too, may be more family-friendly.
Another story about the future, flagship schools and other public colleges
Over the past weeks, including a previous post today, I have spent some time on the differences between regional public colleges and universities and national research universities. I have argued in these posts that:
+ Regional schools should not try to become as research-oriented as the flagship schools. It is one thing, for example, to devote local resources to local problems, such as economic development, educational opportunity or environmental quality, but quite another to develop national or global solutions.
+ Teaching at regional schools requires a different skill set. Regional schools typically admit students with lesser high school achievements than flagships. If these schools are to get students to graduation, there needs to be more emphasis on teaching and less on academic scholarship.
+ The less selective regional schools need to make larger investments in student success, including programs that involve people who are not on the faculty, than flagship schools do.
+ Closing an poor-performing regional school is extremely difficult; for instance, closing a diverse or historically black school with low graduation rates may amount to political suicide.
Kevin Carey, policy director for Education Sector, a non-partisan, non-profit organization based in Washington D.C. takes these thoughts a bit further. He adds that regional schools--Winona State University in Minnesota is his example--and community colleges should avoid looking more like the flagships because:
+ Schools cannot go backwards in time with their investments. Facilities built to match the flagships cannot simply be closed nor can academic departments be easily dismantled.
+ Regional schools may be in a better position to deliver more cost effective models of instruction, for example, online learning, because they do not involve commitments to facilities nor do they have a negative impact on the school's brand recognition. For instance, Thomas Edison State College in New Jersey has no campus, aside from an administration building in downtown Trenton. While far from the best known school in New Jersey, Thomas Edison has the most students and it offers innovative online programs and tuition payment plans. A four-year degree can be acquired for less than $20,000.
+ The regional schools do not have the budgets nor the students to match the resources of the flagship schools, so they cannot emulate their practices indefinitely. There are not only fiscal problems, there are academic ones as well. As Carey reports, regional schools that go in the direction often fail to graduate more than half of their students and produce teachers of lesser quality than they did when they were formerly teacher's colleges.
This viewpoint is likely to become part of education discussions for the next two years, if not longer. Read Carey's piece to learn more.
+ Regional schools should not try to become as research-oriented as the flagship schools. It is one thing, for example, to devote local resources to local problems, such as economic development, educational opportunity or environmental quality, but quite another to develop national or global solutions.
+ Teaching at regional schools requires a different skill set. Regional schools typically admit students with lesser high school achievements than flagships. If these schools are to get students to graduation, there needs to be more emphasis on teaching and less on academic scholarship.
+ The less selective regional schools need to make larger investments in student success, including programs that involve people who are not on the faculty, than flagship schools do.
+ Closing an poor-performing regional school is extremely difficult; for instance, closing a diverse or historically black school with low graduation rates may amount to political suicide.
Kevin Carey, policy director for Education Sector, a non-partisan, non-profit organization based in Washington D.C. takes these thoughts a bit further. He adds that regional schools--Winona State University in Minnesota is his example--and community colleges should avoid looking more like the flagships because:
+ Schools cannot go backwards in time with their investments. Facilities built to match the flagships cannot simply be closed nor can academic departments be easily dismantled.
+ Regional schools may be in a better position to deliver more cost effective models of instruction, for example, online learning, because they do not involve commitments to facilities nor do they have a negative impact on the school's brand recognition. For instance, Thomas Edison State College in New Jersey has no campus, aside from an administration building in downtown Trenton. While far from the best known school in New Jersey, Thomas Edison has the most students and it offers innovative online programs and tuition payment plans. A four-year degree can be acquired for less than $20,000.
+ The regional schools do not have the budgets nor the students to match the resources of the flagship schools, so they cannot emulate their practices indefinitely. There are not only fiscal problems, there are academic ones as well. As Carey reports, regional schools that go in the direction often fail to graduate more than half of their students and produce teachers of lesser quality than they did when they were formerly teacher's colleges.
This viewpoint is likely to become part of education discussions for the next two years, if not longer. Read Carey's piece to learn more.
Will freedom from tuition caps help New Jersey state schools like TCNJ?
Yesterday New Jersey governor Chris Christie announced his budget proposal for 2012. Among other items, he proposes no cuts in operating aid to the state's four-year colleges. He will also leave decisions on tuition charges to the individual colleges instead of imposing tuition caps. Student financial aid will increase by $20 million--it was cut during the previous year--but that applies to all students attending public or private schools in-state or out-of-state.
It's difficult to say what the presidents of Rutgers and the other state colleges will do for 2012 with respect to their tuition and fees. Now free to do what their trustees will approve, they can choose to impose minimal increases or no increase at all, or raise tuition by double digits as other states have done.
Due to the downturns in the state and national economy, the state's two and four-year colleges are more popular than ever. This past fall, they enrolled approximately 378,000 undergraduate students, forty-eight percent of them in community colleges and 37 percent in the four-year schools. It is safe to say that limited tuition increases made the admission decision easier to make and made it easier for continuing students to remain in school.
I've worked with public universities in several systems in the past. New Jersey's is one of the best, though Virginia's offers a larger number of quality public options. While all of our colleges outside of Rutgers and the New Jersey Institute of Technology were originally founded as teacher's colleges, each now has some defined mission. The next decision for each school, free of a state-imposed cap, is to decide how to advance on their mission.
The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), for example, has become what the College of William and Mary is to Virginia, a smaller alternative to a large state university. In fact, TCNJ with approximately 6,100 undergraduates now enrolls 300 more bachelor's degree seeking students than William and Mary, though more than ninety percent of TCNJ students come from in-state. William and Mary, based in a more populous state, admits nearly a third of its students from outside Virginia, according to the most recent U.S. News Guide.
But while William and Mary has a slightly smaller undergraduate student body than TCNJ, it is also a national research university that awards doctoral degrees. William and Mary also has a law school as well as a graduate business school. William and Mary also grants athletic scholarships in its revenue sports while TCNJ does not.
Interestingly, TCNJ charges in-state students over $2,000 more than William and Mary charges Virginians. New Jersey residents pay around $11,400 to go to TCNJ, Virginians around $9,200 to go to William and Mary.
Over the long haul, TCNJ cannot become more like William and Mary. I can imagine the objections of Rutgers should TCNJ ever decide to grant doctorates or establish a new publicly funded law school or business school. I can also imagine the ambitious fundraising required to launch such efforts, especially in the wake of Rutgers current capital campaign. In addition, investments into scholarship sports would involve construction of new facilities; the current basketball gym seats less than 1,000 fans while the football stadium seats only 6,000.
So what direction does TCNJ go, if it can set its own course?
I live five minutes from the campus and I have used their library and watched basketball games in the gym. The college has built two new dorms since I moved nearby and also offers townhouse apartment options one would be surprised to see on a college campus. TCNJ is capable of housing more than half of its students on-campus and the school still attracts commuters as well. Drive around campus and you will believe this is a very pleasant place to go to school. TCNJ is situated against a lake and there has been a serious effort to maintain a Georgian colonial look, not unlike an older school, with the newer dorms and classroom buildings in the main quad. The school is also within a ten-minute drive of trains to New York or Philadelphia and is a twenty minute drive from Princeton.
My impression is that TCNJ has to emulate one practice of William and Mary, which is to be in a position to better aid its students.
According to College Results Online, TCNJ students and William and Mary students who are eligible for the federal Pell Grant receive grants of about the dollar amount--$3,600 for TNCJ, $3,500 for William and Mary. However, TCNJ has about twice as many Pell Grant-eligible students--approximately 900 versus 460--who more likely come from in-state. TCNJ students also qualify for more state assistance from New Jersey than William and Mary students do from Virginia. However, William and Mary, with a $580 million endowment in 2008--Rutgers' endowment, by comparison, was $545 million in 2009-- is far more capable of providing institutional funds to its students.
And due to its strong brand recognition, William and Mary can charge out-of-state students in excess of $30,000 while TCNJ's out-of-state rate is slightly more than $22,000, same as Rutgers' main campus. William and Mary's rate is also more inelastic; the College is always likely to find families from out-of-state willing to pay and it has access to legacy candidates from alumni all around the world. TCNJ, which was founded as Trenton State College, has approximately 60,000 alumni while William and Mary has more than 85,000.
Going forward, TCNJ will need to become less dependent on the state and Federal grants to assist their students. The past two administrations have build some very nice buildings; the high in-state tuition appears to reflect debt service that has been incurred by the school. I doubt that a double-digit increase is possible in light of the already-high rate as well as potential cuts in the Federal grants. At a time when unemployment rates exceed nine percent, students will have a difficult time making up a tuition increase of $1,200 or more through anything except loans.
Freedom from state-imposed caps might be welcomed by a college administration but it does not necessarily let them off the hook from a tough decision. TCNJ, my example, is not only a very competitive school, it is also a value proposition chosen against smaller privately-supported colleges, while Rutgers is considered more often against larger schools. However, as well-endowed small schools put themselves in a better position to recruit against TCNJ, the Garden State's version of William and Mary will need to be in a better financial position to react.
It's difficult to say what the presidents of Rutgers and the other state colleges will do for 2012 with respect to their tuition and fees. Now free to do what their trustees will approve, they can choose to impose minimal increases or no increase at all, or raise tuition by double digits as other states have done.
Due to the downturns in the state and national economy, the state's two and four-year colleges are more popular than ever. This past fall, they enrolled approximately 378,000 undergraduate students, forty-eight percent of them in community colleges and 37 percent in the four-year schools. It is safe to say that limited tuition increases made the admission decision easier to make and made it easier for continuing students to remain in school.
I've worked with public universities in several systems in the past. New Jersey's is one of the best, though Virginia's offers a larger number of quality public options. While all of our colleges outside of Rutgers and the New Jersey Institute of Technology were originally founded as teacher's colleges, each now has some defined mission. The next decision for each school, free of a state-imposed cap, is to decide how to advance on their mission.
The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), for example, has become what the College of William and Mary is to Virginia, a smaller alternative to a large state university. In fact, TCNJ with approximately 6,100 undergraduates now enrolls 300 more bachelor's degree seeking students than William and Mary, though more than ninety percent of TCNJ students come from in-state. William and Mary, based in a more populous state, admits nearly a third of its students from outside Virginia, according to the most recent U.S. News Guide.
But while William and Mary has a slightly smaller undergraduate student body than TCNJ, it is also a national research university that awards doctoral degrees. William and Mary also has a law school as well as a graduate business school. William and Mary also grants athletic scholarships in its revenue sports while TCNJ does not.
Interestingly, TCNJ charges in-state students over $2,000 more than William and Mary charges Virginians. New Jersey residents pay around $11,400 to go to TCNJ, Virginians around $9,200 to go to William and Mary.
Over the long haul, TCNJ cannot become more like William and Mary. I can imagine the objections of Rutgers should TCNJ ever decide to grant doctorates or establish a new publicly funded law school or business school. I can also imagine the ambitious fundraising required to launch such efforts, especially in the wake of Rutgers current capital campaign. In addition, investments into scholarship sports would involve construction of new facilities; the current basketball gym seats less than 1,000 fans while the football stadium seats only 6,000.
So what direction does TCNJ go, if it can set its own course?
I live five minutes from the campus and I have used their library and watched basketball games in the gym. The college has built two new dorms since I moved nearby and also offers townhouse apartment options one would be surprised to see on a college campus. TCNJ is capable of housing more than half of its students on-campus and the school still attracts commuters as well. Drive around campus and you will believe this is a very pleasant place to go to school. TCNJ is situated against a lake and there has been a serious effort to maintain a Georgian colonial look, not unlike an older school, with the newer dorms and classroom buildings in the main quad. The school is also within a ten-minute drive of trains to New York or Philadelphia and is a twenty minute drive from Princeton.
My impression is that TCNJ has to emulate one practice of William and Mary, which is to be in a position to better aid its students.
According to College Results Online, TCNJ students and William and Mary students who are eligible for the federal Pell Grant receive grants of about the dollar amount--$3,600 for TNCJ, $3,500 for William and Mary. However, TCNJ has about twice as many Pell Grant-eligible students--approximately 900 versus 460--who more likely come from in-state. TCNJ students also qualify for more state assistance from New Jersey than William and Mary students do from Virginia. However, William and Mary, with a $580 million endowment in 2008--Rutgers' endowment, by comparison, was $545 million in 2009-- is far more capable of providing institutional funds to its students.
And due to its strong brand recognition, William and Mary can charge out-of-state students in excess of $30,000 while TCNJ's out-of-state rate is slightly more than $22,000, same as Rutgers' main campus. William and Mary's rate is also more inelastic; the College is always likely to find families from out-of-state willing to pay and it has access to legacy candidates from alumni all around the world. TCNJ, which was founded as Trenton State College, has approximately 60,000 alumni while William and Mary has more than 85,000.
Going forward, TCNJ will need to become less dependent on the state and Federal grants to assist their students. The past two administrations have build some very nice buildings; the high in-state tuition appears to reflect debt service that has been incurred by the school. I doubt that a double-digit increase is possible in light of the already-high rate as well as potential cuts in the Federal grants. At a time when unemployment rates exceed nine percent, students will have a difficult time making up a tuition increase of $1,200 or more through anything except loans.
Freedom from state-imposed caps might be welcomed by a college administration but it does not necessarily let them off the hook from a tough decision. TCNJ, my example, is not only a very competitive school, it is also a value proposition chosen against smaller privately-supported colleges, while Rutgers is considered more often against larger schools. However, as well-endowed small schools put themselves in a better position to recruit against TCNJ, the Garden State's version of William and Mary will need to be in a better financial position to react.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Book Review--'O': A Presidential Novel by Anonymous
In January 1996, now Time magazine columnist Joe Klein came out with a novel called Primary Colors, which he promoted as "Anonymous." The book was on the New York Times best seller list for nine weeks, though it was not a great book.
Narrated from the viewpoint of a campaign aide, Primary Colors was the story of a southern governor known locally for his philandering but wanting to be President. Sounds all too familiar to political junkies? The book was later made into a movie starring John Travolta and Leah Thompson.
Seven months later, Klein "came out" and admitted that he wrote the book. He later wrote a sequel, The Running Mate, as well as The Natural: Bill Clinton's Misunderstood Presidency, a non-fiction account of the 42nd President's two terms in office.
Now we have 'O' the 2011 version of Primary Colors which makes anonymous speculations as to the future of President Barack Obama's next campaign. Unlike Primary Colors, 'O'is written in the third person and tries to cover two campaigns, 'O's and his Republican opponent, Tom "Terrific" Morrison, who appears to be a blending of Mitt Romney and John McCain, a former U.S. Army general turned CEO then later turned governor of Pennsylvania. We will not know who wins this race, but I found it safe to believe that 'O' kept his job by a much closer margin than the last time.
This book takes you inside both campaigns but that's where it stops. There is little drama aside from a rumor that Governor Morrison formerly employed a corrupt vice president while he was a CEO. There is also a character, Walter Lafontaine, one of 'O's earliest supporters who finds himself on the outs with little to do in the re-election campaign. However, over the course of the story he cares less and less, since he must take care of his cancer-stricken mother. I don't know why the author constructed this character, except to show that the campaign tried to find a role for a loyal friend of the president, with as little struggle or embarrassment on their part. A character who is on the outs for little good reason is not interesting enough to devote much copy. Or maybe the author was trying to describe the Obama supporter of the past who has been left out of the present.
I can tell that the author has spent time on the campaign trail with President Obama; he gets inside the candidate's head fairly well. I can even credit him with creating a Republican opponent who might be boring, but far from a complete buffoon. But this book is boring.
There is too little of the drama one would find from following campaigns on CNN or online at Real Clear Politics or by reading the best accounts of campaigns past, including Obama's first presidential victory. There is none of the humor in Primary Colors. And I've noticed that no one has asked who Anonymous is this time around.
Book Review--Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa
This is another one of those education policy and management books that would find in a public affairs section of a bookstore rather than the education section. Academically Adrift adds to the debate over the value of a college education given the costs. The authors concluded after surveying slightly more than 2,300 college students that most students are inadequately challenged and do not learn very much. Further, the demands placed upon them have been reduced over time.
The typical college student, according to the authors, attends thirteen to fifteen hours of classes, studies approximately thirteen hours a week and works an equal number of hours. However, unless the student attends a highly selective school, he avoids courses that demand at least 40 pages of reading per week or twenty pages of writing per semester. Most students, it was also concluded, do not make much use of faculty for assistance.
However, the authors add that the environment has been mutually beneficial for students and faculty. Full-time faculty, which make up slightly more than half of all college employees, down from nearly two-thirds forty years ago, see themselves more as scholars than teachers--this is a fault of the current "system"--while students are satisfied to avoid them at all but the most selective schools. More and more teaching is offloaded onto part-timers who have not completed their doctorates.
The authors used a test, the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) to base their conclusions. The CLA is structured like a case analysis as you would find in business schools. Students are presented with a problem including background information and statistical data and they are graded based on how they think through and write a solution. No advanced mathematical knowledge, such as calculus, is required to perform well on the CLA, though a basic understanding of statistics, common to all majors, is helpful. The student sample in this book took the CLA twice, when they entered as freshmen in 2005 and during their junior year in 2007.
The authors learned that students in the pre-professional programs, specifically business, education and engineering, did not perform as well as liberal arts students on the CLA. Students at selective liberal arts schools did the best and showed the greatest improvement when they took the CLA a second time.
Academically Adrift makes a case that colleges need to be more demanding of their students and that coursework must be more challenging. However, academic rigor bumps up against the politically popular causes of retention and degree completion.
As I read through this book I wondered about possible solutions that could help to satisfy all three objectives. I kept going back to required courses. Most schools require every student to take a distribution of courses across different subjects outside their major in areas such as the humanities, literature, social sciences, mathematics, natural sciences and physical sciences while some also have a requirement such as Western Civilization. Most students shy away from the subjects that they are weakest, quite often for good reason. I know that calculus set back many of my classmates, none of whom ever planned to used it after they took the final.
Colleges need to take responsibility for matching teaching skills with the introductory courses. But more important, they should ask employers what they expect students to know. I would bet that, for example, a statistical foundations course could be developed to help students in all majors learn how to use and interpret statistics and that writing courses could be redesigned around students who major in science or engineering.
I would not expect such changes to come from the more selective schools; they have less reason to innovate. But other schools will rise up and compete based on such innovations, while the best of the best will keep questioning them.
This for-profit art and design school fares well against the non-profits
The debate over gainful employment regulations as well the educational quality of for-profit versus non-profit colleges led me to look into a comparison between the School of Visual Arts (SVA), a for-profit New York-based art and design school versus several other public and private non-profit institutions. I worked with art and design schools for several years, so I have some familiarity with their operations.
Unlike traditional colleges, art and design specialty schools typically require that a student declare their major on the application for admission. The education requires an investment in computer-aided tools that goes beyond what is required in any other major, including computer science or engineering. While students take liberal arts courses, the philosophy of these schools is "artists first." Studio education takes a higher priority than it does at a fine arts school within a larger public or private university.
I used College Results Online to compare SVA against several art and design schools across the country. Unfortunately, Parsons, the New School for Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), both based in New York, are not in the College Results database. Parsons and FIT probably represent SVA's principal competition because they are in the same city. While it is not possible to compare artistic recognition among similar majors between the three schools, Parsons and FIT are internationally known for fashion design, which is not offered by SVA. That may give these schools greater brand recognition in the Big Apple.
FIT is a state-supported school. Tuition and fees are less than $6,000 for New York residents and less than $16,000 for out-of-state students. The out-of-state tuition undercuts SVA by slightly more than $7,000. Parsons is affiliated with New School University, which also offers undergraduate education in liberal arts and performing arts. It is also the host school for the reality television series Project Runway. Parsons alumni include Donna Karan, Norman Rockwell, Marc Jacobs and Jasper Johns. But Parsons also charges more than $18,000 a term, while SVA charges $23,000 for a full year.
When compared with other private and publicly supported art and design schools, SVA:
+ Enrolls over 3,300 students, second-largest of any top art and design school in the College Results database. Savannah College of Art and Design has more than 7,000 students, but they also operate two campuses, one in Savannah and the other in Atlanta.
+ Graduates sixty percent of its freshmen within four years, and more than two-third within six. This is very good considering that twenty six percent transfer out (SVA and the University of the Arts, based in Philadelphia were the only schools to report a transfer out rate, which should give them added points for honesty). Six other art and design schools have a four year rate better than sixty percent: Art Center College of Design (CA), Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Maryland Institute College of Art, the University of the Arts, Corcoran College of Art and Design (D.C.) and the Ringling School of Art and Design (FL).
+ SVA's freshman retention rate of eighty percent was equal to the University of the Arts, but better than Ringling's or Corcoran's. Arts Center and RISD retain over ninety percent of their freshmen, however they are also smaller and more selective schools.
+ SVA charges a lower tuition than any of the six schools that have equal or superior graduation or retention rates. Twenty five percent of SVA's students receive Pell Grants; only Arts Center and Ringling have a higher percentage of Pell Grant recipients, though they also have fewer students.
+ SVA students receive a average $1,000 in state aid--New York residents--highest among the leading schools in terms of graduation and retention. However, SVA offers less scholarship aid from its own coffers than any school excluding Ringling.
While the database is somewhat incomplete with the exclusion of FIT and Parsons, it is positive to say that SVA, a for-profit institution, outperformed nine of the sixteen schools on my list, including the two publicly supported schools, in terms of graduation and retention while also charging a competitive tuition rate. This is a for-profit that actually competes well against most of its sister schools--and you get a New York address to boot.
Unlike traditional colleges, art and design specialty schools typically require that a student declare their major on the application for admission. The education requires an investment in computer-aided tools that goes beyond what is required in any other major, including computer science or engineering. While students take liberal arts courses, the philosophy of these schools is "artists first." Studio education takes a higher priority than it does at a fine arts school within a larger public or private university.
I used College Results Online to compare SVA against several art and design schools across the country. Unfortunately, Parsons, the New School for Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), both based in New York, are not in the College Results database. Parsons and FIT probably represent SVA's principal competition because they are in the same city. While it is not possible to compare artistic recognition among similar majors between the three schools, Parsons and FIT are internationally known for fashion design, which is not offered by SVA. That may give these schools greater brand recognition in the Big Apple.
FIT is a state-supported school. Tuition and fees are less than $6,000 for New York residents and less than $16,000 for out-of-state students. The out-of-state tuition undercuts SVA by slightly more than $7,000. Parsons is affiliated with New School University, which also offers undergraduate education in liberal arts and performing arts. It is also the host school for the reality television series Project Runway. Parsons alumni include Donna Karan, Norman Rockwell, Marc Jacobs and Jasper Johns. But Parsons also charges more than $18,000 a term, while SVA charges $23,000 for a full year.
When compared with other private and publicly supported art and design schools, SVA:
+ Enrolls over 3,300 students, second-largest of any top art and design school in the College Results database. Savannah College of Art and Design has more than 7,000 students, but they also operate two campuses, one in Savannah and the other in Atlanta.
+ Graduates sixty percent of its freshmen within four years, and more than two-third within six. This is very good considering that twenty six percent transfer out (SVA and the University of the Arts, based in Philadelphia were the only schools to report a transfer out rate, which should give them added points for honesty). Six other art and design schools have a four year rate better than sixty percent: Art Center College of Design (CA), Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Maryland Institute College of Art, the University of the Arts, Corcoran College of Art and Design (D.C.) and the Ringling School of Art and Design (FL).
+ SVA's freshman retention rate of eighty percent was equal to the University of the Arts, but better than Ringling's or Corcoran's. Arts Center and RISD retain over ninety percent of their freshmen, however they are also smaller and more selective schools.
+ SVA charges a lower tuition than any of the six schools that have equal or superior graduation or retention rates. Twenty five percent of SVA's students receive Pell Grants; only Arts Center and Ringling have a higher percentage of Pell Grant recipients, though they also have fewer students.
+ SVA students receive a average $1,000 in state aid--New York residents--highest among the leading schools in terms of graduation and retention. However, SVA offers less scholarship aid from its own coffers than any school excluding Ringling.
While the database is somewhat incomplete with the exclusion of FIT and Parsons, it is positive to say that SVA, a for-profit institution, outperformed nine of the sixteen schools on my list, including the two publicly supported schools, in terms of graduation and retention while also charging a competitive tuition rate. This is a for-profit that actually competes well against most of its sister schools--and you get a New York address to boot.
Republicans do the right thing on gainful employment for the wrong reasons
Last week the U.S. House of Representatives voted to temporarily bar the Department of Education from enforcing proposed "gainful employment" regulations that would have impacted students ability to borrow for their college education.
These regulations would have cut off federal student aid to programs whose borrowers have high debt-to-income ratios and low loan-repayment rates. While targeted at the for-profit education community, these policies would have impacted public and private non-profit institutions as well.
While John Klein (R. MN),chair of the House education committee said: "This is an attack on the private sector of higher education," that is not precisely the point. The point is that students must repay loans, not schools. And since graduates or non-graduates are not likely to remain employed in their major field for ten years or longer, it is not possible to predict their future ability to repay their debts.
It is also not possible for federal agencies to predict labor market trends that happen ten years into the future. Thirty years ago, when I was in college, computer science majors were in short supply, as were accountants and chemical engineers. Corporations learned over time that they could out-source the basic tasks within these jobs abroad at lower cost. In addition, people who held these jobs for periods of five to ten years fund that their earning power would improve if they moved into marketing, operations, treasury or general management.
The delay of gainful employment regulations, however, lets no one off the hook. For-profit colleges, according to a November 10, 2010 report by the Education Trust, a Washington D.C.-based non-partisan, non-profit education advocacy group, have exceptionally poor graduation rates. These schools will continue to be scrutinized as cuts in student financial aid receive further consideration. Politicians of both parties do not want to be perceived as pumping a sub-prime educational opportunity.
According to the Trust's analysis, the University of Phoenix (UOP), the nation's largest multi-location for-profit institution, has an six-year graduation rate of nine percent. The best performing campus, located in New Mexico, had a six-year graduation rate of 33 percent. While this institution is the largest, others including Sullivan University (31%) and Westwood College (27%) fared poorly as well. The for-profit models studied by the Trust covered undergraduate versus graduate education; for-profits also sustain a leadership role in delivering online graduate degrees in such fields as business, education, nursing and social work.
Two interesting exceptions, the School of Visual Arts (NY) and the ITT Technical Institutes graduated two-thirds of their 2002 entering classes within six years. These rates are comparable to those of good public or private non-profit schools. However, the art school might have fared poorly under gainful employment regulations since it is exceptionally difficult to project an artist's income. Artists sometimes teach, but they also work in a variety of other fields while they try to earn a living off their art.
Two institutions in the for-profit space, UOP and Kaplan University, are seeking redemption in the marketplace by offering students a way out before they begin to commit to an education. Kaplan now advertises a five-week free trial while UOP has an in-person freshman orientation program designed to help students decideif college and/or UOP is right for them. But this is not enough.
If for-profit schools are to continue to be academically relevant, they cannot continue to be open-admissions institutions. There needs to be more selectivity as well as more rigor for the school to earn respect from employers--these schools are marketed for their pre-professional preparation. Schools that charge more must back up the price with better preparation in an accredited program. Same with public and private non-profit schools that want to get a higher price for their degrees.
I look to theatre camps as an example. One camp, Stagedoor Manor, located in upstate New York, charges more than any other, owing to the alumni base, the thoroughness of the instruction, and contacts with directors and producers in Los Angeles and New York. Stagedoor alumni include Natalie Portman, Robert Downey, Jon Cryer and Jennifer Jason Leigh. If you're a theatre parent and you're serious about your son's or daughter's career, this is where you go.
Another alternative is to become subcontractors to employers as well as schools that have less brand recognition to run online degree programs and extension divisions. While the better known four-year schools have tough decisions to make about lending their name to ventures run by outsiders, other two-year and four-year schools, particularly city and regional institutions, might be more comfortable subcontracting programs out to other management firms. Donald Trump has become willing to manage other builder's construction projects for fees. Why shouldn't the for-profit educational community follow suit?
These regulations would have cut off federal student aid to programs whose borrowers have high debt-to-income ratios and low loan-repayment rates. While targeted at the for-profit education community, these policies would have impacted public and private non-profit institutions as well.
While John Klein (R. MN),chair of the House education committee said: "This is an attack on the private sector of higher education," that is not precisely the point. The point is that students must repay loans, not schools. And since graduates or non-graduates are not likely to remain employed in their major field for ten years or longer, it is not possible to predict their future ability to repay their debts.
It is also not possible for federal agencies to predict labor market trends that happen ten years into the future. Thirty years ago, when I was in college, computer science majors were in short supply, as were accountants and chemical engineers. Corporations learned over time that they could out-source the basic tasks within these jobs abroad at lower cost. In addition, people who held these jobs for periods of five to ten years fund that their earning power would improve if they moved into marketing, operations, treasury or general management.
The delay of gainful employment regulations, however, lets no one off the hook. For-profit colleges, according to a November 10, 2010 report by the Education Trust, a Washington D.C.-based non-partisan, non-profit education advocacy group, have exceptionally poor graduation rates. These schools will continue to be scrutinized as cuts in student financial aid receive further consideration. Politicians of both parties do not want to be perceived as pumping a sub-prime educational opportunity.
According to the Trust's analysis, the University of Phoenix (UOP), the nation's largest multi-location for-profit institution, has an six-year graduation rate of nine percent. The best performing campus, located in New Mexico, had a six-year graduation rate of 33 percent. While this institution is the largest, others including Sullivan University (31%) and Westwood College (27%) fared poorly as well. The for-profit models studied by the Trust covered undergraduate versus graduate education; for-profits also sustain a leadership role in delivering online graduate degrees in such fields as business, education, nursing and social work.
Two interesting exceptions, the School of Visual Arts (NY) and the ITT Technical Institutes graduated two-thirds of their 2002 entering classes within six years. These rates are comparable to those of good public or private non-profit schools. However, the art school might have fared poorly under gainful employment regulations since it is exceptionally difficult to project an artist's income. Artists sometimes teach, but they also work in a variety of other fields while they try to earn a living off their art.
Two institutions in the for-profit space, UOP and Kaplan University, are seeking redemption in the marketplace by offering students a way out before they begin to commit to an education. Kaplan now advertises a five-week free trial while UOP has an in-person freshman orientation program designed to help students decideif college and/or UOP is right for them. But this is not enough.
If for-profit schools are to continue to be academically relevant, they cannot continue to be open-admissions institutions. There needs to be more selectivity as well as more rigor for the school to earn respect from employers--these schools are marketed for their pre-professional preparation. Schools that charge more must back up the price with better preparation in an accredited program. Same with public and private non-profit schools that want to get a higher price for their degrees.
I look to theatre camps as an example. One camp, Stagedoor Manor, located in upstate New York, charges more than any other, owing to the alumni base, the thoroughness of the instruction, and contacts with directors and producers in Los Angeles and New York. Stagedoor alumni include Natalie Portman, Robert Downey, Jon Cryer and Jennifer Jason Leigh. If you're a theatre parent and you're serious about your son's or daughter's career, this is where you go.
Another alternative is to become subcontractors to employers as well as schools that have less brand recognition to run online degree programs and extension divisions. While the better known four-year schools have tough decisions to make about lending their name to ventures run by outsiders, other two-year and four-year schools, particularly city and regional institutions, might be more comfortable subcontracting programs out to other management firms. Donald Trump has become willing to manage other builder's construction projects for fees. Why shouldn't the for-profit educational community follow suit?
Monday, February 21, 2011
Columbia University students set low bar on uncivility at ROTC hearing
Tonight I am reading that a former U.S. Army staff sergeant, Anthony Maschek, awarded the Purple Heart after being shot 11 times in Iraq, was loudly booed and hissed at a gathering of 200 Columbia University students during a university hearing over the reinstatement of ROTC on campus. Maschek, 28, was admitted to Columbia as a freshman this fall, after two years of medical rehabilitation for the serious injuries suffered in combat, including the loss of his legs.
Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, had previously stated that the university was willing to reconsider ROTC following the repeal of the former Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy which removed openly gay and lesbian soldiers from the military. The university has created a task force and conducted a student poll, though the poll responses have not been made public.
Maschek did not deserve the treatment he received, given the injuries he incurred in the service of his country as well as his desire to pursue a college education. More disappointing, President Bollinger made no apology to Maschek in stories reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education or the New York Post. That is almost as disgraceful as the disrespect he was shown his fellow students. I did a Google and read three other stories on this incident. None reported an apology.
Ironically, during the 1960's, Columbia was known for its cooperation with the military. Research funded through the federal Institute for Defense Analysis was conducted by PhDs, et al. on the campus. The university administration also notified military draft boards of students whose grades might have kept them from maintaining their deferments.
While the first practice was academic--military-funded research was conducted at many university campus more than forty years ago, the second considered abhorrent; grade reporting became one of the major issues behind the student strike in 1968. The practice was later rescinded. On that issue the students deserved to win.
The reception Maschek received from his classmates was little different than the "welcomes" received by war veterans who returned to college after the Vietnam Era. While discharged and disabled veterans joined with protesters during the Vietnam War, others former draftees were treated as if they were the enemy. But while they, too, could have gone to college on a string of deferments, they honored the obligation on their draft notice. It took Ronald Reagan's election for the country to acknowledge that those who chose to serve did so with honor.
Anthony Maschek has made a sacrifice the classmates at the ROTC hearing were apparently not brave enough to make. He has not asked for sympathy but his opinion deserves to be heard within a supposedly democratic university community and his service to his country should never be shamed.
I can only hope that students who were present at the hearing over ROTC are brave enough to apologize to him. More important, President Bollinger should, too. He, more than anyone in his university community should stand up and say that uncivil actions towards one student are unbecoming of all students. The apology should be public as well. This incident only cemented a perception of an "elite" school that many college administrators are trying to put behind them.
Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, had previously stated that the university was willing to reconsider ROTC following the repeal of the former Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy which removed openly gay and lesbian soldiers from the military. The university has created a task force and conducted a student poll, though the poll responses have not been made public.
Maschek did not deserve the treatment he received, given the injuries he incurred in the service of his country as well as his desire to pursue a college education. More disappointing, President Bollinger made no apology to Maschek in stories reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education or the New York Post. That is almost as disgraceful as the disrespect he was shown his fellow students. I did a Google and read three other stories on this incident. None reported an apology.
Ironically, during the 1960's, Columbia was known for its cooperation with the military. Research funded through the federal Institute for Defense Analysis was conducted by PhDs, et al. on the campus. The university administration also notified military draft boards of students whose grades might have kept them from maintaining their deferments.
While the first practice was academic--military-funded research was conducted at many university campus more than forty years ago, the second considered abhorrent; grade reporting became one of the major issues behind the student strike in 1968. The practice was later rescinded. On that issue the students deserved to win.
The reception Maschek received from his classmates was little different than the "welcomes" received by war veterans who returned to college after the Vietnam Era. While discharged and disabled veterans joined with protesters during the Vietnam War, others former draftees were treated as if they were the enemy. But while they, too, could have gone to college on a string of deferments, they honored the obligation on their draft notice. It took Ronald Reagan's election for the country to acknowledge that those who chose to serve did so with honor.
Anthony Maschek has made a sacrifice the classmates at the ROTC hearing were apparently not brave enough to make. He has not asked for sympathy but his opinion deserves to be heard within a supposedly democratic university community and his service to his country should never be shamed.
I can only hope that students who were present at the hearing over ROTC are brave enough to apologize to him. More important, President Bollinger should, too. He, more than anyone in his university community should stand up and say that uncivil actions towards one student are unbecoming of all students. The apology should be public as well. This incident only cemented a perception of an "elite" school that many college administrators are trying to put behind them.
Remembering George Washington
Perhaps no president has been decorated in hype and myth more than our first, George Washington, who bold led where no one had led before (pardon the pun). When we look at the accomplishments of all our presidents we have to look back at where it all started.
The American presidency as an institution is a unique office with the the trappings of royalty but none of the security of being in a long-reigning royal family; the office holder knows that he, and someday she, is a guardian of a public trust. This nation is very fortunate that no president has abused the office for personal gain or to attain permanent power. That says much of the person, regardless of party, who is trusted to hold the office, the basic values of the citizens who vote every four years, and the basic structure of our government.
Washington's election in 1789 was the first test of the electoral college. The Constitution would later allow for a public vote. In the first presidential election, each elector cast votes for two candidates. There were 69 electors and a total of 138 possible electoral votes.
Washington was chosen by all 69 electors. John Adams appeared on the ballots of 34, making him the obvious choice for Vice President. Both Washington and Adams were Federalists, as were all but one of the candidates--only one, George Clinton ran under a different banner. He was called an Anti-Federalist.
If you have time, take a moment to get to know our first President a little better on his birthday.
The American presidency as an institution is a unique office with the the trappings of royalty but none of the security of being in a long-reigning royal family; the office holder knows that he, and someday she, is a guardian of a public trust. This nation is very fortunate that no president has abused the office for personal gain or to attain permanent power. That says much of the person, regardless of party, who is trusted to hold the office, the basic values of the citizens who vote every four years, and the basic structure of our government.
Washington's election in 1789 was the first test of the electoral college. The Constitution would later allow for a public vote. In the first presidential election, each elector cast votes for two candidates. There were 69 electors and a total of 138 possible electoral votes.
Washington was chosen by all 69 electors. John Adams appeared on the ballots of 34, making him the obvious choice for Vice President. Both Washington and Adams were Federalists, as were all but one of the candidates--only one, George Clinton ran under a different banner. He was called an Anti-Federalist.
If you have time, take a moment to get to know our first President a little better on his birthday.
Friday, February 18, 2011
DePaul's decision to drop SATs may strengthen a diverse university community
Yesterday I read in the Chronicle of Higher Education that DePaul University in Chicago has decided not to require the SAT as part of an application for admission. This university of 16,000 undergraduates is also going a step further: they will not use the SAT for any purpose, even placement into freshman English or mathematics course, or for scholarships.
DePaul's decision is significant for both the size of the school--it is one of the largest private universities in the county.Eliminating the SAT requirement would not fundamentally change the composition of their freshman class in terms of grades and test scores.
If you're familiar with DePaul, you may already be from the Chicago area or you might be a college basketball fan.
DePaul, which plays in the Big East, was one of the dominant college basketball programs in the country during the 1940's. Led by George Mikan, the first true center in college and pro basketball history--he was six-ten, with a deadly hook shot--DePaul won the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in 1945, at a time when the NIT was the more prestigious post-season event. Mikan scored 53 points in the title game.
One of the pioneering players in the NBA, Mikan was to pro basketball what Babe Ruth was to Major League Baseball. In seven seasons with the Minneapolis (now Los Angeles) Lakers, Mikan averaged twenty three points per game at a time when only one or two other players would approach twenty. In his first three seasons, he averaged more than 28. There was once a sign posted outside Madison Square Garden: Tonight--George Mikan vs. the Knicks. The Lakers were like the Yankees were in baseball; they won four NBA championships with Mikan at center. Mikan was voted in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959, only three years after he retired.
Ray Meyer, who coached Mikan when he was only 28, remained at DePaul for 42 years. He won more than 700 games, competing in 13 NCAA tournaments and 8 NITs, before he was succeeded by his son, Joe. Detroit Piston fans will remember Mark Aguirre, who starred at DePaul under Meyer, as one of the leaders of their championship teams.
More important, DePaul is not only a large private university, it also has large graduate business and law schools. When I was in college, I read in Mike Royko's Boss, that the ticket to a successful legal career in Richard J. Daley's Chicago was to earn a DePaul law degree.
With respect to academic demographics, DePaul is quite similar to Loyola, also in Chicago, according to CollegeResultsOnline, a database managed by the Education Trust, a non-profit education advocacy organization based in Washington D.C., except for student body size. Loyola has approximately 4,000 fewer students. Both schools graduate more than sixty percent of their students within six years. Each student body was 23 percent Pell Grant-eligible. DePaul's median SATs at 1085 math and verbal, were the same as those for students at the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle campus, though they are eighty points below Loyola's. Both DePaul and Loyola are religiously affiliated schools that grant doctoral degrees.
I can see the point behind DePaul's decision to drop the test--applicants cross-shop the school against two Chicago schools that attract similar students, many who are first-generation college students. The Chronicle reported that first generation students at DePaul represent nearly forty percent of the student body not. The difference between attending DePaul versus the Chicago campus of U of I is likely to come down to price and the perceived value of the degree.
In a situation where the choice is the urban campus of the state university, not the flagship, and the main campus of the religiously affiliated school--presuming both have the same majors--the religiously affiliated school will be quite competitive. It can fall back on its history within the city and Catholic community more easily than the public school. This happens in New Jersey, where I live, when students choose between Rutgers-Newark and Seton Hall. Either school is accessible by public transportation and both reach out for diversity.
Removing the test, combined with waiving the application fee for low-moderate income students would drive up applications from good local students from the Chicago area who might not otherwise consider DePaul, and thus maintain diversity. The Chronicle reported that ten percent of DePaul's current students come from the Chicago public schools. It is safe to imagine that the university has considerable appeal within Chicago's private and parochial school community.
The flip side is the work required of the admissions officers. DePaul is not only eliminating a test; it is asking students to write four short essays of at least 100 words. They will need to read these essays to judge not only the quality of the writing but also "noncognitive" traits, such as leadership, commitment to service, and ability to meet long-term goals.
However, DePaul should be lauded for making this decision. In the long run it will help them continue to maintain a diverse student body, important in a melting pot like Chicago, while the school eliminates a requirement that some educators consider to be an obstacle to diversity. Hopefully the admissions officers will not read those essays too quickly.
DePaul's decision is significant for both the size of the school--it is one of the largest private universities in the county.Eliminating the SAT requirement would not fundamentally change the composition of their freshman class in terms of grades and test scores.
If you're familiar with DePaul, you may already be from the Chicago area or you might be a college basketball fan.
DePaul, which plays in the Big East, was one of the dominant college basketball programs in the country during the 1940's. Led by George Mikan, the first true center in college and pro basketball history--he was six-ten, with a deadly hook shot--DePaul won the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in 1945, at a time when the NIT was the more prestigious post-season event. Mikan scored 53 points in the title game.
One of the pioneering players in the NBA, Mikan was to pro basketball what Babe Ruth was to Major League Baseball. In seven seasons with the Minneapolis (now Los Angeles) Lakers, Mikan averaged twenty three points per game at a time when only one or two other players would approach twenty. In his first three seasons, he averaged more than 28. There was once a sign posted outside Madison Square Garden: Tonight--George Mikan vs. the Knicks. The Lakers were like the Yankees were in baseball; they won four NBA championships with Mikan at center. Mikan was voted in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959, only three years after he retired.
Ray Meyer, who coached Mikan when he was only 28, remained at DePaul for 42 years. He won more than 700 games, competing in 13 NCAA tournaments and 8 NITs, before he was succeeded by his son, Joe. Detroit Piston fans will remember Mark Aguirre, who starred at DePaul under Meyer, as one of the leaders of their championship teams.
More important, DePaul is not only a large private university, it also has large graduate business and law schools. When I was in college, I read in Mike Royko's Boss, that the ticket to a successful legal career in Richard J. Daley's Chicago was to earn a DePaul law degree.
With respect to academic demographics, DePaul is quite similar to Loyola, also in Chicago, according to CollegeResultsOnline, a database managed by the Education Trust, a non-profit education advocacy organization based in Washington D.C., except for student body size. Loyola has approximately 4,000 fewer students. Both schools graduate more than sixty percent of their students within six years. Each student body was 23 percent Pell Grant-eligible. DePaul's median SATs at 1085 math and verbal, were the same as those for students at the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle campus, though they are eighty points below Loyola's. Both DePaul and Loyola are religiously affiliated schools that grant doctoral degrees.
I can see the point behind DePaul's decision to drop the test--applicants cross-shop the school against two Chicago schools that attract similar students, many who are first-generation college students. The Chronicle reported that first generation students at DePaul represent nearly forty percent of the student body not. The difference between attending DePaul versus the Chicago campus of U of I is likely to come down to price and the perceived value of the degree.
In a situation where the choice is the urban campus of the state university, not the flagship, and the main campus of the religiously affiliated school--presuming both have the same majors--the religiously affiliated school will be quite competitive. It can fall back on its history within the city and Catholic community more easily than the public school. This happens in New Jersey, where I live, when students choose between Rutgers-Newark and Seton Hall. Either school is accessible by public transportation and both reach out for diversity.
Removing the test, combined with waiving the application fee for low-moderate income students would drive up applications from good local students from the Chicago area who might not otherwise consider DePaul, and thus maintain diversity. The Chronicle reported that ten percent of DePaul's current students come from the Chicago public schools. It is safe to imagine that the university has considerable appeal within Chicago's private and parochial school community.
The flip side is the work required of the admissions officers. DePaul is not only eliminating a test; it is asking students to write four short essays of at least 100 words. They will need to read these essays to judge not only the quality of the writing but also "noncognitive" traits, such as leadership, commitment to service, and ability to meet long-term goals.
However, DePaul should be lauded for making this decision. In the long run it will help them continue to maintain a diverse student body, important in a melting pot like Chicago, while the school eliminates a requirement that some educators consider to be an obstacle to diversity. Hopefully the admissions officers will not read those essays too quickly.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Don't you wish your teachers could blog like me?
Today I read on CBS Philly.com that an English teacher at Central Bucks High School, Natalie Munroe has been suspended for posting uncomplimentary rants about her students on her blog. Munroe says that she posted comments that she "would have liked to put on student report cards." Since her suspension the blog has been taken down.
When I blog, I try to be critical, but also fair to both sides of the subjects I cover. For one thing, I want people to read the stories. For another, I'm too nice to slam someone, unless they have committed a criminal or clearly unethical act. If I were a teacher, however, the last thing I would write about is my workplace. If I want to vent I have a handful of close family and friends to listen in private.
I have followed cyber-bullying issues from the standpoint of students. Legal verdicts, including those on free speech, have varied depending on what students have said about a teacher. Calling a teacher an "unfair grader" is far different than calling her something more personally derogatory that has nothing to do with her teaching.
Natalie Munroe's situation is the first I know of where the teacher is being the bully, and I do not know whether her case will be covered by employment law or free speech rights. More important, I would be curious to know the strategy that a union could use to defend her actions.
But I know this much, if my son or daughter were mentioned in an uncomplimentary way on one of her posts, and she had never spoken to me before, I would join with other parents to ask for her resignation. I would be kind--pay her for the rest of the school year not to teach, then send her on her way. The effort to find a new job in any field--employers of all stripes hate malcontents--will be punishment enough.
But I also have to wonder, has omerta, an unwritten code of silence among teachers as to what goes on between school walls, been breached to the point where some good may come out of her vents? As a result of Munroe's rants, parents know more about what goes in on in a high school classroom than they did before.
When I blog, I try to be critical, but also fair to both sides of the subjects I cover. For one thing, I want people to read the stories. For another, I'm too nice to slam someone, unless they have committed a criminal or clearly unethical act. If I were a teacher, however, the last thing I would write about is my workplace. If I want to vent I have a handful of close family and friends to listen in private.
I have followed cyber-bullying issues from the standpoint of students. Legal verdicts, including those on free speech, have varied depending on what students have said about a teacher. Calling a teacher an "unfair grader" is far different than calling her something more personally derogatory that has nothing to do with her teaching.
Natalie Munroe's situation is the first I know of where the teacher is being the bully, and I do not know whether her case will be covered by employment law or free speech rights. More important, I would be curious to know the strategy that a union could use to defend her actions.
But I know this much, if my son or daughter were mentioned in an uncomplimentary way on one of her posts, and she had never spoken to me before, I would join with other parents to ask for her resignation. I would be kind--pay her for the rest of the school year not to teach, then send her on her way. The effort to find a new job in any field--employers of all stripes hate malcontents--will be punishment enough.
But I also have to wonder, has omerta, an unwritten code of silence among teachers as to what goes on between school walls, been breached to the point where some good may come out of her vents? As a result of Munroe's rants, parents know more about what goes in on in a high school classroom than they did before.
Bold college president makes bold move to cut student costs
Thirteen months ago I wrote a post about John McCardell, who had been newly appointed president of Sewanee, also known as the University of the South (TN). In between his appointment and his previous presidency of Middlebury College (VT), McCardell founded a non-profit organization called Choose Responsibly to call for a return to the eighteen year old drinking age.
This week McCardell announced another bold initiative, only this time it applied to his school. Sewanee will cut tuition, fees, room and board by ten percent for the coming school year--it is the first highly selective liberal arts school in the country to implement such a policy. Princeton has previously announced a one percent increase, but that school,while having a undergraduate population of 5,000 students, is a national research university.
A ten percent cut will reduce expenses for Sewanee students from an estimated $46,000 to $42,000. McCardell says the cut will put costs in line with the costs for out-of-state students to attend the University of Georgia or the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Georgia, according to McCardell, charges out-of-state students approximately $38,000.
McCardell says that he expects to see a $3 million loss in tuition revenue, and it is difficult to say whether the cut will lead to a lower discount rate and/or more students who can pay their way. However, this action makes a statement that a school is aware of its market; there may also be an increase in applications as economic conditions improve, should Sewanee manage to hold to the lower charges.
This action might help improve retention and graduation rates. According to College Results Online, Sewanee's 2008 first-year retention rate was 88 percent; by comparison the rates for Washington and Lee (VA), Richmond, Furman and Centre College exceeded 90 percent. Sewanee has graduated 73 percent of its students within four years. This is excellent, approximately the same as it is for the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. However, four-year graduation rates for Washington and Lee (VA), Richmond, Furman and Centre College, as well as Vanderbilt, exceed 80 percent. If lower costs improve retention and graduation rates, then the University may earn income from the students they already have.
The university president added that the loss could be made up by spending more endowment income or through fundraising. According the Chronicle of Higher Education's statistics, Sewanee's endowment was approximately $313 million in 2008, high for a school that has about 1,500 undergraduates. I would have to believe that he could lead a capital campaign that is ambitious enough to cover the potential losses.
John McCardell may have made a bold decision, but it appears to be a very wise one, given his school, arguably one of the five been liberal arts colleges in the South, its setting, regarded as one of the most beautiful in the country (the NFL Atlanta Falcons used to camp there) and the cost consciousness of parents who are considering it. If nothing else, give the man credit for knowing where his students are most likely to come from and trying to understand what it takes to get them to say yes.
This week McCardell announced another bold initiative, only this time it applied to his school. Sewanee will cut tuition, fees, room and board by ten percent for the coming school year--it is the first highly selective liberal arts school in the country to implement such a policy. Princeton has previously announced a one percent increase, but that school,while having a undergraduate population of 5,000 students, is a national research university.
A ten percent cut will reduce expenses for Sewanee students from an estimated $46,000 to $42,000. McCardell says the cut will put costs in line with the costs for out-of-state students to attend the University of Georgia or the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Georgia, according to McCardell, charges out-of-state students approximately $38,000.
McCardell says that he expects to see a $3 million loss in tuition revenue, and it is difficult to say whether the cut will lead to a lower discount rate and/or more students who can pay their way. However, this action makes a statement that a school is aware of its market; there may also be an increase in applications as economic conditions improve, should Sewanee manage to hold to the lower charges.
This action might help improve retention and graduation rates. According to College Results Online, Sewanee's 2008 first-year retention rate was 88 percent; by comparison the rates for Washington and Lee (VA), Richmond, Furman and Centre College exceeded 90 percent. Sewanee has graduated 73 percent of its students within four years. This is excellent, approximately the same as it is for the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. However, four-year graduation rates for Washington and Lee (VA), Richmond, Furman and Centre College, as well as Vanderbilt, exceed 80 percent. If lower costs improve retention and graduation rates, then the University may earn income from the students they already have.
The university president added that the loss could be made up by spending more endowment income or through fundraising. According the Chronicle of Higher Education's statistics, Sewanee's endowment was approximately $313 million in 2008, high for a school that has about 1,500 undergraduates. I would have to believe that he could lead a capital campaign that is ambitious enough to cover the potential losses.
John McCardell may have made a bold decision, but it appears to be a very wise one, given his school, arguably one of the five been liberal arts colleges in the South, its setting, regarded as one of the most beautiful in the country (the NFL Atlanta Falcons used to camp there) and the cost consciousness of parents who are considering it. If nothing else, give the man credit for knowing where his students are most likely to come from and trying to understand what it takes to get them to say yes.
College campuses will not be safer if students carry guns
Today I read in the Chronicle of Higher Education that legislators in nine states, including Florida, Texas, Michigan, and Arizona are attempting to advance laws that will restrict the ability of publicly supported institutions to stop students from carrying guns on campus.
This story cites two U.S. Supreme Court decisions. One, McDonald v. City of Chicago, overturned that city's ban on firearms while another, District of Columbia v. Heller, established that the Second Amendment, referring to the right to bear arms, applies to individuals, not just armed militia groups that "provide for the common defense." In both cases the Court ruled that Second Amendment rights must be enforced by state and local government as well as the federal government.
Campus police chiefs and college professors oppose these laws, not just for their own safety, but also because they know the campus setting. Donning my urban planner's hat for a moment, college campuses are designed to be open places where people can gather either formally for large gatherings or informally for reasons too numerous to mention.
Imagine a "gun battle" in the middle of such settings where weapons are fired beyond close range, even between two people. It is too easy for bystanders to unsuspectingly find themselves in the middle.
This, by the way, is what happened at Kent State in 1970. Ohio National Guard troops brought in by the governor to restore order fired into a crowd of protesting students. Four students were killed, nine were seriously wounded, one permanently paralyzed. Supposedly the troops knew how to use their weapons. I would have to believe that other incidents such as Kent State would be more likely to happen--and be initiated by students--should students be allowed to carry guns.
The National Guard then and now, however, is a modern day militia, the intention of the Second Amendment when our country was more of a republic of independent states--each printed their own currency, as if they were countries--than a confederation of all states. The country had come out of war, but the fear of war remained. That might be one reason why our first president, George Washington, was a war hero.
However, I doubt that the framers of the Constitution--the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, only four years after the original document was ratified--intended for a college campus population, as individuals or a group, to address the common defense as if they were a government unto themselves. I may not be a lawyer, but I do know that the college campuses of the 18th century did not have the large student bodies that they have today.
The Supreme Court may have ruled as they did, but the idea of allowing students to carry guns on expansive campuses where public drunkenness is common and differences of opinion can easily turn into fights among students, is frightening.
This story cites two U.S. Supreme Court decisions. One, McDonald v. City of Chicago, overturned that city's ban on firearms while another, District of Columbia v. Heller, established that the Second Amendment, referring to the right to bear arms, applies to individuals, not just armed militia groups that "provide for the common defense." In both cases the Court ruled that Second Amendment rights must be enforced by state and local government as well as the federal government.
Campus police chiefs and college professors oppose these laws, not just for their own safety, but also because they know the campus setting. Donning my urban planner's hat for a moment, college campuses are designed to be open places where people can gather either formally for large gatherings or informally for reasons too numerous to mention.
Imagine a "gun battle" in the middle of such settings where weapons are fired beyond close range, even between two people. It is too easy for bystanders to unsuspectingly find themselves in the middle.
This, by the way, is what happened at Kent State in 1970. Ohio National Guard troops brought in by the governor to restore order fired into a crowd of protesting students. Four students were killed, nine were seriously wounded, one permanently paralyzed. Supposedly the troops knew how to use their weapons. I would have to believe that other incidents such as Kent State would be more likely to happen--and be initiated by students--should students be allowed to carry guns.
The National Guard then and now, however, is a modern day militia, the intention of the Second Amendment when our country was more of a republic of independent states--each printed their own currency, as if they were countries--than a confederation of all states. The country had come out of war, but the fear of war remained. That might be one reason why our first president, George Washington, was a war hero.
However, I doubt that the framers of the Constitution--the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, only four years after the original document was ratified--intended for a college campus population, as individuals or a group, to address the common defense as if they were a government unto themselves. I may not be a lawyer, but I do know that the college campuses of the 18th century did not have the large student bodies that they have today.
The Supreme Court may have ruled as they did, but the idea of allowing students to carry guns on expansive campuses where public drunkenness is common and differences of opinion can easily turn into fights among students, is frightening.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
When does a public college become too big to fail?
In a previous post I discussed drop-out factories and took on a quick example, going into some depth about one such school, the University of Texas at El Paso. In that post I pointed out that sometimes mixed missions can clash and hurt a school.
In this post, I took a look at New Jersey City University (NJCU), a publicly supported college in my home state. Located in Jersey City, the state's second largest urban center, NJCU has slightly more than 5,000 undergraduates, the second-smallest student population among the state's masters-degree level schools. Only Ramapo College has fewer undergraduates, about 70 less, according to College Results Online. According to the school's Web site, NJCU has an equal number of graduate students. So, there is a community of slightly more than 10,000 students associated with the school.
NJCU stands out among the state's eight publicly supported residential masters-degree level schools in some ways. For one, it promotes itself as a cooperative education university, meaning that students earn credits for employment related to their degree program as well as classroom study. It is also the only school in an urban setting as opposing to having a suburban campus.
But, also according to College Results Online, it has, by far, the largest percentage of Pell Grant recipients among its peer schools. Sixty percent of NJCUs freshmen receive Pell Grants; forty-two percent of the entire student body. More than half of the student body is comprised of under-represented minorities, specifically African-American and Latino students. NJCU is 35 percent Latino; the next closest school, Kean University, is at nineteen percent.
College Results Online does not provide a transfer-in rate, so I do not know if the student body is a majority represented by transfer students who come from community colleges and other schools or if the majority are freshmen or sophomores.
This would be an extremely important piece of information to know about NJCU, because the school's freshman retention rate, 68 percent, is the worst among its peer schools and the transfer-out rate is slightly more than 21 percent. The four-year graduation rate is an extremely poor six percent. Co-op schools often have students pursuing five-year programs, but the five year rate is also extremely poor: twenty six percent. And less than 35 percent of freshmen who entered in 2002 finished in six years. Again, extremely poor.
There are three different ways to look at these numbers.
A conservative way would be to call the school a failure. Close it down and assist the students to find other places to continue their education. This means you have to find places for 10,000 people. Graduate students might find another school, especially if they have a good undergraduate transcript. Freshmen and possibly sophomores might be pushed back into the community colleges. The better students might be scholarship-eligible at other public and private colleges. The students who have the hardest time might find that college is not for them. Closing down NJCU would push students out of other public schools, most likely the community colleges.
So, accessibility is lost unintentionally to students at several schools when a large public university is closed. Not to mention the impacts on faculty and administrators, and the expenses of selling and preparing the campus for another use. Then you must consider alumni. Closing the school affects the perceived value of their degrees in the minds of employers and other educational institutions.
Another way to look at this school is that it can be stronger as a junior-senior co-op school. Students would enter with two years of college credits earned someplace else, then enter NJCU to pursue their core courses in the major as well as co-op. This has risks.
First, NJCU needs to be assured that these entering students can actually do college-level work; the school would not want students who would not need remedial instruction nor would the co-op employers. There would need to be an "intake" session of some sort with each transfer student, so the school can help fill gaps in the student's preparation. The school needs to assure quality to the employers to succeed as a co-op school.
Second, most of the students would need to be commuters. NJCU has a land-locked campus and, with the low graduation rate and high transfer-out rate in a weak economy, it would be difficult for the school to take on more debt to build new housing.
A third way to look at NJCU would be to ask: What would it take to get more students to succeed as freshmen or sophomores?
It's safe to say that if the majority of students were eligible for federal Pell Grants, they were either independent students with low incomes or came from low income households. Chances are that their high school education did not adequately prepare them to do college work.
However, it is in the student's best interests, as well as the school's, to put students in a position to graduate on-schedule. This means a lot of "tough love," in the form of more personalized academic advising as well as college community-building. It might also mean dropping majors and graduate programs with insufficient enrollments, to concentrate advising on a smaller, but more popular set of degree programs.
NJCU is a perfect example where issues of affordability and accessibility clash with degree completion and academic rigor. This is not a school burdened by the high costs, for example, of a research faculty--less than forty percent of the faculty are full-time--or a big-time sports program. NJCU has an urban campus, accessible to public transportation; housing is less important than it is on a suburban campus. I would presume that many non-academic services: parking, cafeteria workers, security and so on, are not provided by university employees.
NJCU is probably as "minimalist" as a public school can realistically be, unless you trim the soft costs, which means faculty and university employees.
Cut back on academic advising and counseling to freshman and sophomores, and you cut costs. But you also run the risk of further driving down the graduation rates. When I looked at these numbers, I wondered if students were not getting enough advice or if they were not getting it in a user-friendly way.
That's a question I would ask if I were a legislator who was about to vote on the school's budget. I would want to decide if they should get more money to advise students better or if the school should replace the people they have at the same level of funding, or less.
However, I would be more curious about the "transfer-in" rate and the appeal of having a co-op junior/senior university as an option for college students. But then, I would need to be sure that those students could get the introductory coursework, including the remedial courses, someplace else, and that the schools that sent students prepared them properly for a rigorous co-op degree.
In either case, I would consider better advising and/or co-op to be more attractive options than closing a school with bad numbers. When a school has ten thousand students, including many economically disadvantaged and/or first generation college students, closing the place down would amount to political suicide, not to mention expensive litigation with the faculty union. NJCU, like many similar schools, has grown to a point where it is too big to fail.
In this post, I took a look at New Jersey City University (NJCU), a publicly supported college in my home state. Located in Jersey City, the state's second largest urban center, NJCU has slightly more than 5,000 undergraduates, the second-smallest student population among the state's masters-degree level schools. Only Ramapo College has fewer undergraduates, about 70 less, according to College Results Online. According to the school's Web site, NJCU has an equal number of graduate students. So, there is a community of slightly more than 10,000 students associated with the school.
NJCU stands out among the state's eight publicly supported residential masters-degree level schools in some ways. For one, it promotes itself as a cooperative education university, meaning that students earn credits for employment related to their degree program as well as classroom study. It is also the only school in an urban setting as opposing to having a suburban campus.
But, also according to College Results Online, it has, by far, the largest percentage of Pell Grant recipients among its peer schools. Sixty percent of NJCUs freshmen receive Pell Grants; forty-two percent of the entire student body. More than half of the student body is comprised of under-represented minorities, specifically African-American and Latino students. NJCU is 35 percent Latino; the next closest school, Kean University, is at nineteen percent.
College Results Online does not provide a transfer-in rate, so I do not know if the student body is a majority represented by transfer students who come from community colleges and other schools or if the majority are freshmen or sophomores.
This would be an extremely important piece of information to know about NJCU, because the school's freshman retention rate, 68 percent, is the worst among its peer schools and the transfer-out rate is slightly more than 21 percent. The four-year graduation rate is an extremely poor six percent. Co-op schools often have students pursuing five-year programs, but the five year rate is also extremely poor: twenty six percent. And less than 35 percent of freshmen who entered in 2002 finished in six years. Again, extremely poor.
There are three different ways to look at these numbers.
A conservative way would be to call the school a failure. Close it down and assist the students to find other places to continue their education. This means you have to find places for 10,000 people. Graduate students might find another school, especially if they have a good undergraduate transcript. Freshmen and possibly sophomores might be pushed back into the community colleges. The better students might be scholarship-eligible at other public and private colleges. The students who have the hardest time might find that college is not for them. Closing down NJCU would push students out of other public schools, most likely the community colleges.
So, accessibility is lost unintentionally to students at several schools when a large public university is closed. Not to mention the impacts on faculty and administrators, and the expenses of selling and preparing the campus for another use. Then you must consider alumni. Closing the school affects the perceived value of their degrees in the minds of employers and other educational institutions.
Another way to look at this school is that it can be stronger as a junior-senior co-op school. Students would enter with two years of college credits earned someplace else, then enter NJCU to pursue their core courses in the major as well as co-op. This has risks.
First, NJCU needs to be assured that these entering students can actually do college-level work; the school would not want students who would not need remedial instruction nor would the co-op employers. There would need to be an "intake" session of some sort with each transfer student, so the school can help fill gaps in the student's preparation. The school needs to assure quality to the employers to succeed as a co-op school.
Second, most of the students would need to be commuters. NJCU has a land-locked campus and, with the low graduation rate and high transfer-out rate in a weak economy, it would be difficult for the school to take on more debt to build new housing.
A third way to look at NJCU would be to ask: What would it take to get more students to succeed as freshmen or sophomores?
It's safe to say that if the majority of students were eligible for federal Pell Grants, they were either independent students with low incomes or came from low income households. Chances are that their high school education did not adequately prepare them to do college work.
However, it is in the student's best interests, as well as the school's, to put students in a position to graduate on-schedule. This means a lot of "tough love," in the form of more personalized academic advising as well as college community-building. It might also mean dropping majors and graduate programs with insufficient enrollments, to concentrate advising on a smaller, but more popular set of degree programs.
NJCU is a perfect example where issues of affordability and accessibility clash with degree completion and academic rigor. This is not a school burdened by the high costs, for example, of a research faculty--less than forty percent of the faculty are full-time--or a big-time sports program. NJCU has an urban campus, accessible to public transportation; housing is less important than it is on a suburban campus. I would presume that many non-academic services: parking, cafeteria workers, security and so on, are not provided by university employees.
NJCU is probably as "minimalist" as a public school can realistically be, unless you trim the soft costs, which means faculty and university employees.
Cut back on academic advising and counseling to freshman and sophomores, and you cut costs. But you also run the risk of further driving down the graduation rates. When I looked at these numbers, I wondered if students were not getting enough advice or if they were not getting it in a user-friendly way.
That's a question I would ask if I were a legislator who was about to vote on the school's budget. I would want to decide if they should get more money to advise students better or if the school should replace the people they have at the same level of funding, or less.
However, I would be more curious about the "transfer-in" rate and the appeal of having a co-op junior/senior university as an option for college students. But then, I would need to be sure that those students could get the introductory coursework, including the remedial courses, someplace else, and that the schools that sent students prepared them properly for a rigorous co-op degree.
In either case, I would consider better advising and/or co-op to be more attractive options than closing a school with bad numbers. When a school has ten thousand students, including many economically disadvantaged and/or first generation college students, closing the place down would amount to political suicide, not to mention expensive litigation with the faculty union. NJCU, like many similar schools, has grown to a point where it is too big to fail.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Prospective business, engineering and design students should look at practical program coming to Philadelphia U.
Today I pulled up an interesting story about Philadelphia University, which is launching a new program called Design, Engineering and Commerce (DEC) this fall.
According to the story, DEC starts with a core set of classes that all students take together; systems thinking, user-centric design, business models and team dynamics. These classes start the students thinking early about customers, value, consumer insights, and then move to systems thinking with an emphasis on financial, social, and political sustainability. Students then concentrate in the core discipline, whether it be business, engineering or design and continue to work in real-life multidisciplinary projects outside of the university.
Developed by president Stephen Spinelli, a former chair of the Babson College entrepreneurship program, DEC is a new and interesting approach to pre-professional education that is well worth watching. Babson, where Spinelli came from, is highly regarded as a "hands-on" business school.
Philadelphia University may be a great place to try such a program. It is a small school, with slightly more than 2,600 undergraduate students. By comparison, Drexel University, a nationally respected co-op school that grants degrees in most of the same majors, has more than 11,000 students. Temple, a publicly supported school that offers courses in science, engineering and architecture enrolls more than twenty three thousand students. A small school can begin an innovative program on a smaller scale, especially if it will involve every student.
According to College Results Online, Temple and Drexel graduate more than sixty percent of their students within six years; this is important because schools that offer cooperative education or design degrees typically require a longer time commitment. Philadelphia University graduates slightly more than 56 percent. Under-represented minorities graduate at the same rate as the full student body here, as well as at Temple.
Until 2008, the last year for which data was available, Philadelphia University has had a transfer-out rate, the percentage students leaving after freshman year, of nearly 35 percent. However, the four-year graduation rate of nearly forty percent is better than Temple or Drexel. The five-year rate of 54% is slightly lower than both schools. Temple and Drexel both have transfer rates above 20 percent.
The transfer-out rate is more serious for a private college than a public school, as a greater share of the private school's total revenues are dependent upon tuition. Students are eligible for Pell Grants and other federal funds, but the schools themselves are not publicly subsidized. DEC might be one reaction to Philadelphia's high transfer-out rate. Time will tell.
Philadelphia charges approximately $4,000 less than Drexel, though the financial aid package is typically $4,000 less as well. Temple, as a public school, charges just over $10,000. Parents would need to speak with the schools and work with the net price calculator schools post online to find out what they might be asked to pay.
Philadelphia stands out in terms of graduating women and business-related majors. They earn more than 72 percent of the degrees. Minority women graduate at a higher rate than the school as a whole. Nearly 40 percent of Philadelphia's students who graduated receive a degree in a business-related subject, compared to 21 and 22 percent for Temple and Drexel.
These three schools are similar with respect to admissions numbers. Philadelphia and Temple freshman have median SATs between 1050 and 1100 (math and verbal) with Philadelphia being the more selective of the two. Drexel students have a median between between 1150 and 1200 though the school admits nearly seventy two percent of the students that apply.
The decision between these three schools would essentially come down to academic program and financial aid. These things being equal with the DEC program in place, I'd rather be at Philadelphia if I wanted to be a business major. There appears to be more emphasis on practical concepts than theory. These days experience is the best teacher for recent graduates. Unless they're attending a highly selective school, a demonstrated commitment to a field, including practicums, internships or co-ops, gets students into the job market.
According to the story, DEC starts with a core set of classes that all students take together; systems thinking, user-centric design, business models and team dynamics. These classes start the students thinking early about customers, value, consumer insights, and then move to systems thinking with an emphasis on financial, social, and political sustainability. Students then concentrate in the core discipline, whether it be business, engineering or design and continue to work in real-life multidisciplinary projects outside of the university.
Developed by president Stephen Spinelli, a former chair of the Babson College entrepreneurship program, DEC is a new and interesting approach to pre-professional education that is well worth watching. Babson, where Spinelli came from, is highly regarded as a "hands-on" business school.
Philadelphia University may be a great place to try such a program. It is a small school, with slightly more than 2,600 undergraduate students. By comparison, Drexel University, a nationally respected co-op school that grants degrees in most of the same majors, has more than 11,000 students. Temple, a publicly supported school that offers courses in science, engineering and architecture enrolls more than twenty three thousand students. A small school can begin an innovative program on a smaller scale, especially if it will involve every student.
According to College Results Online, Temple and Drexel graduate more than sixty percent of their students within six years; this is important because schools that offer cooperative education or design degrees typically require a longer time commitment. Philadelphia University graduates slightly more than 56 percent. Under-represented minorities graduate at the same rate as the full student body here, as well as at Temple.
Until 2008, the last year for which data was available, Philadelphia University has had a transfer-out rate, the percentage students leaving after freshman year, of nearly 35 percent. However, the four-year graduation rate of nearly forty percent is better than Temple or Drexel. The five-year rate of 54% is slightly lower than both schools. Temple and Drexel both have transfer rates above 20 percent.
The transfer-out rate is more serious for a private college than a public school, as a greater share of the private school's total revenues are dependent upon tuition. Students are eligible for Pell Grants and other federal funds, but the schools themselves are not publicly subsidized. DEC might be one reaction to Philadelphia's high transfer-out rate. Time will tell.
Philadelphia charges approximately $4,000 less than Drexel, though the financial aid package is typically $4,000 less as well. Temple, as a public school, charges just over $10,000. Parents would need to speak with the schools and work with the net price calculator schools post online to find out what they might be asked to pay.
Philadelphia stands out in terms of graduating women and business-related majors. They earn more than 72 percent of the degrees. Minority women graduate at a higher rate than the school as a whole. Nearly 40 percent of Philadelphia's students who graduated receive a degree in a business-related subject, compared to 21 and 22 percent for Temple and Drexel.
These three schools are similar with respect to admissions numbers. Philadelphia and Temple freshman have median SATs between 1050 and 1100 (math and verbal) with Philadelphia being the more selective of the two. Drexel students have a median between between 1150 and 1200 though the school admits nearly seventy two percent of the students that apply.
The decision between these three schools would essentially come down to academic program and financial aid. These things being equal with the DEC program in place, I'd rather be at Philadelphia if I wanted to be a business major. There appears to be more emphasis on practical concepts than theory. These days experience is the best teacher for recent graduates. Unless they're attending a highly selective school, a demonstrated commitment to a field, including practicums, internships or co-ops, gets students into the job market.
Book Review--Crash Into Me: A Survivor's Search for Justice by Liz Seccuro
I read this story because I have followed campus security issues for more than twenty years. Several years ago I was staff to a public-private sector downtown security task force in Newark, New Jersey, which also included campus issues. I also addressed campus security in my last novel, Defending College Heights. While I wrote fiction, Liz Seccuro's story is very real.
Raped in an on-campus fraternity house while she was a freshman at the University of Virginia, Seccuro did the best she could to put the incident behind her as she completed her degree, married then divorced and re-married, started a business and began raising a family. Then, twenty-one years after she was raped, her rapist contacted her in a letter asking forgiveness.
Succuro weaves two stories, one about the rape, the other about her adult relationship with the rapist and his subsequent sentencing. The university comes off as an unwitting accomplice in both.
Within days after she was raped, Seccuro went to university officials to report the crime. While she was assisted in reporting the incident to student affairs as well as campus police, she was discouraged from contacting the local police in Charlottesville, where the university is located. She was advised that the crime was under the school's jurisdiction, though the university police did not conduct a thorough investigation, nor did the university administration encourage one.
More than twenty years later, Seccuro learned that the university's alumni relations office had given the rapist her current home address. After reading this book, I later learned that it is completely legal for a university to give out directory information, basically a home listing, to the public. This information is not protected under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, more commonly known as FERPA.
While Seccuro maintained e-mail correspondence with her rapist, William Beebe, she also contacted the Charlottesville police as well as the county prosecutor's office for Albemarle County, the county where the town and university are based. She learned that Virginia had no statute of limitations when it came to prosecuting a rape and that the local police did have jurisdiction over the campus. The county prosecutor's office agreed to take Seccuro's case, and an investigation uncovered the possibility that there had been more than one assailant. However, other fraternity alumni who were asked to testify at trial denied it, though one admitted to mixing a date-rape drug in one of Seccuro's drinks.
The courtroom accounts, while not suspenseful in writing, are interesting to read and the trial ends with Beebe sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment, five hundred hours of community service and two years supervised probation. However, Succuro reported that Beebe was released after five months due to a computer error--he was not classified as a violent criminal--and the fact the regional jail where he was housed was at 150 percent of capacity.
I had to admire Seccuro for going forward with a trial. Beebe's frequent contacts as well as his admission to alcohol addiction, probably helped her make that decision. She also managed to win at trial, despite having less recollection of the incident than she would have, had she gone to the local police while in college. She also spared her alma mater considerable embarrassment for the mishandling of the incident as well as her re-acquaintance with Beebe.
This will be a tough story for any parent to read, especially if they have a daughter in college or immediately bound for college. But it should be read. Students and parents need to be aware of their rights as well as the services that may assist them. Liz Seccuro may not have won as much justice as she would have liked, but she has made it easier for others to win at least as much as she did.
How Rutgers fares against its benchmark schools
Today I read a story in my local Trenton Times about Rutgers University president Richard McCormick and his performance evaluation. President McCormick mentioned that Rutgers has begun to benchmark campus performance, including students, faculty and administrators against nine highly regarded flagship public universities.
The story mentioned some of the schools: the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the University of Washington, where the president previously worked in other senior executive posts, the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Michigan.
I was curious to see where Rutgers fared statistically against these schools and others that might be part of the nine: Penn State, the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Texas-Austin, University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Virginia. This gave ten schools instead of nine, but I am not in a position to argue whether Penn State is a "better" school than Illinois, Texas or Wisconsin.
I used the U.S. News Guide as well as a database, CollegeResults.org which is managed by the Education Trust, a non-profit organization based in Washington D.C. This database uses data collected by the U.S. Department of Education, though the Trust has made the information easier to sort. Both the U.S. News Guide and CollegeResults.org are available to the public. The Trust site is more comprehensive, however, and public access is free.
When compared to these ten schools, Rutgers main campus in New Brunswick, the flagship school, ranks first in terms of the percentage of entering freshman receiving Pell Grants. Twenty eight percent of Rutgers freshman are Pell recipients; only Texas and the California schools exceed twenty percent.
This is good news, as well as bad. The good news is that low income students, especially those from New Jersey, are more aware of Rutgers than the students in other states are aware of their flagship schools.
But I had to wonder how well the Pell Grant, among other financial aid programs, makes up some of the difference in cost. The average Federal grant aid for Rutgers students was the lowest of these ten schools, so many may not be eligible for the full amount. Rutgers had the highest state grant assistance per student as well as the highest state need-based grant assistance of any of these schools. So the university is also more vulnerable to state and federal cuts than its benchmark schools.
Rutgers graduation rates as a university and by race and gender, however, rank at or near the bottom of the list for these eleven schools, though some approach the middle. It is not that Rutgers is a "bad" school--a seventy five percent six-year graduation rate overall for 2008, the last year data is available--is excellent.
If SATs are a valid indicator of student quality, Rutgers attracts students that are similar those who attend Penn State, Wisconsin or Texas. However, the average of 1185 for math and verbal combined is between 80 and 140 points below the other benchmark schools.
Rutgers admits a smaller percentage--56 percent--of applicants than Illinois, Penn State, Washington and Wisconsin. But the schools that appear higher in most published rankings: Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina and the California schools, admit half or less.
If Rutgers tried to become more selective by pursuing students who might leave the state for a private university or a higher-ranked state school, then the average SATs would rise, and probably so would the graduation rates and the number of students who did not need financial aid.
The question would then be: could Rutgers remain as diverse a university as it is today? Or might diversity be more represented through a larger out-of-state population? Virginia and Wisconsin, which are more aggressive at admitting out-of-state students, also have the smallest share of under-represented minorities in their student body and the lowest percentage of Pell Grant recipients of these eleven schools. Are these schools less welcoming to low and moderate income students than their public peers?
Rutgers four-year graduation rate is approximately 49 percent, better than Texas and about equal to Wisconsin. Interestingly enough, Rutgers and Wisconsin had transfer out rates exceeding ten percent while this number was not available for the other schools, excluding North Carolina, where the rate is three percent. The other schools report four-year rates between 51 percent(Washington) and 85 percent (Virginia). Six of these schools are clustered between 60(Penn State) and 73 percent (North Carolina).
While we don't know the transfer-out rates for eight of these schools, it is safe to say that if Rutgers transfer-out rate dropped to that of North Carolina's, the Rutgers four-year graduation rate could approach 60 percent. Rutgers freshman retention rate in 2007, the latest year available, was 91 percent, the same as Texas. North Carolina's is 96 percent. The best retention rate? Virginia, Berkeley and UCLA tie at 97 percent.
Rutgers student body is approximately 18 percent under-represented minorities, only Texas and UCLA are higher. The percentage of African American students is second only to North Carolina. Interestingly enough, all three of those schools charge a lower in-state tuition than Rutgers. North Carolina's is approximately half. The Federal and state grants combined do not bring Rutgers tuition down to North Carolina's rate to serve needier students.
When I look at these numbers, as well as others not discussed here, I can't help but be impressed at how Rutgers fares against most of these schools. I also see that trying to get to "the top" might entail some changes that Rutgers president might prefer not to make--e.g pursuing more top out-of-state students to improve the numbers versus commitments to under-represented minority students who reside in-state.
The three largest concerns for Rutgers that I see from this data are vulnerability to state and federal aid cuts, limits as to how the loss of such aid could be made up by raising tuition on students who don't need aid, and the resources to improve graduation rates, especially among under-represented minority students on an extremely diverse campus. It's easy to see why Richard McCormick wants to raise a billion dollars over the next seven years. Thankfully, he has gotten almost half of that in the first year of a capital campaign.
The story mentioned some of the schools: the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the University of Washington, where the president previously worked in other senior executive posts, the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Michigan.
I was curious to see where Rutgers fared statistically against these schools and others that might be part of the nine: Penn State, the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Texas-Austin, University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Virginia. This gave ten schools instead of nine, but I am not in a position to argue whether Penn State is a "better" school than Illinois, Texas or Wisconsin.
I used the U.S. News Guide as well as a database, CollegeResults.org which is managed by the Education Trust, a non-profit organization based in Washington D.C. This database uses data collected by the U.S. Department of Education, though the Trust has made the information easier to sort. Both the U.S. News Guide and CollegeResults.org are available to the public. The Trust site is more comprehensive, however, and public access is free.
When compared to these ten schools, Rutgers main campus in New Brunswick, the flagship school, ranks first in terms of the percentage of entering freshman receiving Pell Grants. Twenty eight percent of Rutgers freshman are Pell recipients; only Texas and the California schools exceed twenty percent.
This is good news, as well as bad. The good news is that low income students, especially those from New Jersey, are more aware of Rutgers than the students in other states are aware of their flagship schools.
But I had to wonder how well the Pell Grant, among other financial aid programs, makes up some of the difference in cost. The average Federal grant aid for Rutgers students was the lowest of these ten schools, so many may not be eligible for the full amount. Rutgers had the highest state grant assistance per student as well as the highest state need-based grant assistance of any of these schools. So the university is also more vulnerable to state and federal cuts than its benchmark schools.
Rutgers graduation rates as a university and by race and gender, however, rank at or near the bottom of the list for these eleven schools, though some approach the middle. It is not that Rutgers is a "bad" school--a seventy five percent six-year graduation rate overall for 2008, the last year data is available--is excellent.
If SATs are a valid indicator of student quality, Rutgers attracts students that are similar those who attend Penn State, Wisconsin or Texas. However, the average of 1185 for math and verbal combined is between 80 and 140 points below the other benchmark schools.
Rutgers admits a smaller percentage--56 percent--of applicants than Illinois, Penn State, Washington and Wisconsin. But the schools that appear higher in most published rankings: Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina and the California schools, admit half or less.
If Rutgers tried to become more selective by pursuing students who might leave the state for a private university or a higher-ranked state school, then the average SATs would rise, and probably so would the graduation rates and the number of students who did not need financial aid.
The question would then be: could Rutgers remain as diverse a university as it is today? Or might diversity be more represented through a larger out-of-state population? Virginia and Wisconsin, which are more aggressive at admitting out-of-state students, also have the smallest share of under-represented minorities in their student body and the lowest percentage of Pell Grant recipients of these eleven schools. Are these schools less welcoming to low and moderate income students than their public peers?
Rutgers four-year graduation rate is approximately 49 percent, better than Texas and about equal to Wisconsin. Interestingly enough, Rutgers and Wisconsin had transfer out rates exceeding ten percent while this number was not available for the other schools, excluding North Carolina, where the rate is three percent. The other schools report four-year rates between 51 percent(Washington) and 85 percent (Virginia). Six of these schools are clustered between 60(Penn State) and 73 percent (North Carolina).
While we don't know the transfer-out rates for eight of these schools, it is safe to say that if Rutgers transfer-out rate dropped to that of North Carolina's, the Rutgers four-year graduation rate could approach 60 percent. Rutgers freshman retention rate in 2007, the latest year available, was 91 percent, the same as Texas. North Carolina's is 96 percent. The best retention rate? Virginia, Berkeley and UCLA tie at 97 percent.
Rutgers student body is approximately 18 percent under-represented minorities, only Texas and UCLA are higher. The percentage of African American students is second only to North Carolina. Interestingly enough, all three of those schools charge a lower in-state tuition than Rutgers. North Carolina's is approximately half. The Federal and state grants combined do not bring Rutgers tuition down to North Carolina's rate to serve needier students.
When I look at these numbers, as well as others not discussed here, I can't help but be impressed at how Rutgers fares against most of these schools. I also see that trying to get to "the top" might entail some changes that Rutgers president might prefer not to make--e.g pursuing more top out-of-state students to improve the numbers versus commitments to under-represented minority students who reside in-state.
The three largest concerns for Rutgers that I see from this data are vulnerability to state and federal aid cuts, limits as to how the loss of such aid could be made up by raising tuition on students who don't need aid, and the resources to improve graduation rates, especially among under-represented minority students on an extremely diverse campus. It's easy to see why Richard McCormick wants to raise a billion dollars over the next seven years. Thankfully, he has gotten almost half of that in the first year of a capital campaign.
Monday, February 14, 2011
GOP proposal to cut Pell Grants strikes at heart of college affordability
The very first resolution of the 112th Congress includes a cut in the maximum Pell Grant to slightly more than $4,000. President Obama had called for action in another direction, to raise the maximum Pell Grant to over $5,500. When you see a policy recommendations at such opposite polls, you have to wonder where the voters would actually stand if you asked them.
I read as many stories from the conservative side of the aisle as I do from the more moderate and liberal sides. The conservative viewpoint is that more government aid makes colleges more dependent on government as a third party payer. Cut or eliminate government assistance and the former beneficiary of that assistance will lower their prices.
Conservatives also appear to believe that colleges can cut costs to hold down tuition and fees. They can eliminate amenities, programs with few majors, administrators who do not teach or provide services to students. They can outsource non-academic services, such as cafeterias, campus security or dormitory and building management. They can even eliminate the students who would need more hand-holding by eliminating the services meant to help them.
But I've never known of a business, let alone a college, that improved its long term prospects by cutting only soft costs, in this case employees and services. Most sell assets, like buildings, and bank the cash. In the case of colleges they would be more likely to lease them back. The cash would be used to plug up other holes. The payments are unlikely to make up for the loss of public assistance to students.
It's very easy to say we should cut the Pell Grant as well as other programs that make higher education more affordable. The schools, the student and their families could do their part to manage expenses. But then, politicians need to address these questions:
+ Should everyone who can get into college be able to go?
+ Should we accept college drop-out rates as "natural," and possibly use them to determine which schools survive and which do not?
Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinWeb.com and FinAid.com writes that every $100 change in the maximum Pell Grant currently corresponds to about 200,000 recipients. The proposed cut in the maximum Pell Grant would mean that 1.7 million low income students would no longer qualify for the Pell Grant, almost a quarter of current recipients. The remaining recipients would have their Pell Grants cut severely. The number of low income students receiving Bachelor’s degrees each year would be cut by about 61,000.
Accepting his numbers at face value, and Kantrowitz is one of the most respected authorities on financial aid, GOP conservatives have in effect decided that everyone who can get into a four-year school would not be able to go. The sadder part is that many who are already making good progress towards a degree would not be able to stay--and they would owe debts on an incomplete education. If our economy were closer to full employment these students could make up some of the loss by working, but that has not been the case for the past five years. Asking them to make it up by borrowing is unfair as well.
The second question affects the schools as much as the students. Nationally, fewer than one-third of degree-seeking, full-time freshmen--and these are far from the only students who receive Pell Grants--enrolled in public four-year colleges graduate in four years. Only about 55 percent graduate within six.
The conservative viewpoint on public education is often to declare failure: too many public schools are not working out, so let's consolidate them or close them down. These include schools that are more likely to enroll the less prepared students from low-income families. Conservatives might argue that it is fairer to cut the Pell Grant than it is to close these schools. Then again, no politician of any viewpoint wants to be associated with the closing of a college.
But I wonder if it is possible to use the Pell Grant as a means to reward improving schools that are doing a better job to graduate their students, especially those students who need the grant to cover their costs. These schools have already invested in the soft costs, such as tutoring or academic advising, to become more reputable. Why not make rewarding them a higher priority? This way the more motivated students could be directed into the more successful schools, and all schools would be pressed to achieve a higher level of student success.
I read as many stories from the conservative side of the aisle as I do from the more moderate and liberal sides. The conservative viewpoint is that more government aid makes colleges more dependent on government as a third party payer. Cut or eliminate government assistance and the former beneficiary of that assistance will lower their prices.
Conservatives also appear to believe that colleges can cut costs to hold down tuition and fees. They can eliminate amenities, programs with few majors, administrators who do not teach or provide services to students. They can outsource non-academic services, such as cafeterias, campus security or dormitory and building management. They can even eliminate the students who would need more hand-holding by eliminating the services meant to help them.
But I've never known of a business, let alone a college, that improved its long term prospects by cutting only soft costs, in this case employees and services. Most sell assets, like buildings, and bank the cash. In the case of colleges they would be more likely to lease them back. The cash would be used to plug up other holes. The payments are unlikely to make up for the loss of public assistance to students.
It's very easy to say we should cut the Pell Grant as well as other programs that make higher education more affordable. The schools, the student and their families could do their part to manage expenses. But then, politicians need to address these questions:
+ Should everyone who can get into college be able to go?
+ Should we accept college drop-out rates as "natural," and possibly use them to determine which schools survive and which do not?
Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinWeb.com and FinAid.com writes that every $100 change in the maximum Pell Grant currently corresponds to about 200,000 recipients. The proposed cut in the maximum Pell Grant would mean that 1.7 million low income students would no longer qualify for the Pell Grant, almost a quarter of current recipients. The remaining recipients would have their Pell Grants cut severely. The number of low income students receiving Bachelor’s degrees each year would be cut by about 61,000.
Accepting his numbers at face value, and Kantrowitz is one of the most respected authorities on financial aid, GOP conservatives have in effect decided that everyone who can get into a four-year school would not be able to go. The sadder part is that many who are already making good progress towards a degree would not be able to stay--and they would owe debts on an incomplete education. If our economy were closer to full employment these students could make up some of the loss by working, but that has not been the case for the past five years. Asking them to make it up by borrowing is unfair as well.
The second question affects the schools as much as the students. Nationally, fewer than one-third of degree-seeking, full-time freshmen--and these are far from the only students who receive Pell Grants--enrolled in public four-year colleges graduate in four years. Only about 55 percent graduate within six.
The conservative viewpoint on public education is often to declare failure: too many public schools are not working out, so let's consolidate them or close them down. These include schools that are more likely to enroll the less prepared students from low-income families. Conservatives might argue that it is fairer to cut the Pell Grant than it is to close these schools. Then again, no politician of any viewpoint wants to be associated with the closing of a college.
But I wonder if it is possible to use the Pell Grant as a means to reward improving schools that are doing a better job to graduate their students, especially those students who need the grant to cover their costs. These schools have already invested in the soft costs, such as tutoring or academic advising, to become more reputable. Why not make rewarding them a higher priority? This way the more motivated students could be directed into the more successful schools, and all schools would be pressed to achieve a higher level of student success.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Book Review--I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond by Michael Oher
If you recognize the name Michael Oher, you are either a Baltimore Ravens or Ole Miss Rebels fan, or you have had some exposure to the book or the movie The Blind Side. Oher, who is an emerging talent at left tackle in the NFL, states that he wrote this book to answer questions that had been presented to him after the movie, starring Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock, was released. Given how he was portrayed in the movie, Oher did the right thing by telling his true story.
One of twelve children born to a crack addicted mother in Memphis, Oher did not come to Briarcrest Christian as a savant, as he is portrayed in the movie. He was already considered a high school junior in the eyes of a poor-performing public school and he had played football since the eighth grade. At six-three and nearly 300 pounds, Oher also played high school basketball at the public school and for one year at Briarcrest, averaging a double-double--twenty-two points and ten rebounds a game.
The book and movie laud Oher's adopted family, the Touhys, though the author acknowledges three other families that helped him while he was enrolled at Briarcrest; they also offered a place to sleep on occasion. The Touhys did not formally assume guardianship until after Oher had graduated from Briarcrest. Oher also maintained contact with his natural mother while he was in school. The movie left the impression that he had essentially moved away from her.
The movie also provided another misleading piece of information. Miss Sue, as Oher calls his real-life tutor, worked for the Tuohys for free while preparing the man for college. She was then offered a job as an academic counselor at Ole Miss where she tutored not only Oher, but football teammates as well. The movie made it seem like the Touhys had not only paid Miss Sue, played by Kathy Bates, to tutor him, but also to be a surrogate parent once he got to campus.
If anything, the book and movie might have hurt this man at the beginning of his professional career. The book came out before the start of Oher's senior season. Oher states that the book might have led NFL coaches to believe that he was too slow mentally to learn the pro game as well as the proper techniques to play his position. Yet he was a four-year starter in college and he made the Chancellor's List, Old Miss' version of a Dean's List, while completing his degree in criminal justice. Oher added that the scene where S.J, the Tuohy's young son, taught him football by using ketchup bottles and salt shakers, among other things, was made for Hollywood.
But in addition to his refutes of points in the movie, Oher also tells how he was raised by his mother and through the foster care system in Memphis at the time. He talks about family meetings led by his oldest brother to hide everyone from the social worker as well, his temporary assignment to a hospital for treatment for "anger issues," and his shuffles from one family to another while being separated from brothers and sisters. He also adds that the Tennessee foster care system was corrupt and incompetent, though policies have changed since he was taken out of the system. Oher acknowledges that it will be extremely difficult for others raised in similar circumstances to beat the odds, but he lists resources that can help.
If you read the Blind Side or saw the movie, it's wise to also read the story from the man himself. Oher had no bones to pick with anyone in the book, but he does have a promising career to nurture. It was good to know who he really is.
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