Environmental Scan 2013

EDUCATIONAL AND STUDENT TRENDS

• Pre-Dawn Classes. Miami Dade College and a few other institutions have started courses that meet at 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. For some students, this is the time that they have free. 
• Reverse Transfer: Common Sense on Completion. Many students transfer away from community colleges before earning an associate degree, and count as failures toward institutional graduation rates. The growing acceptance of "reverse transfer" may change this pattern. The term applies to several approaches, including the granting of associate degrees by four-year institutions, sometimes retroactively, for previously earned credits, or as part of "pathways" where transfer students finish their associate degree at a four-year college.
• Are Certificates the Future of Higher Education? According to the report Certificates: Gateway to Gainful Employment and College Degrees, certificates have grown from 6 percent to 22 percent of all postsecondary awards since 1980, making them the fastest-growing credential with 1 million awarded last year. Certificates especially benefit those with less academic preparation, and sometimes they can outperform degrees in terms of median salaries for recipients.
• Do College-Completion Rates Really Measure Quality? In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, various higher education leaders comment on the following topics: First, Figure Out Why We Are Failing; We Should Look to Other Indicators to Measure Worth and Value; Student Commitment Is a Major Determinant of Quality; We Have Yet to Use Them Where They Are Needed Most; There's a Serious Distortion for Community Colleges; Many Two-Year Students Are Counted as Failures (by Dr. Eric Reno); and Inputs Have Never Measured Quality.
• Report Urges Public Colleges to Focus on High-Poverty Schools. Public colleges and universities have an obligation to work on improving college readiness, and a special responsibility to focus on areas of concentrated poverty, a task force of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities says in the new report "Serving America’s Future: Increasing College Readiness." It argues that a more aggressive effort to strengthen not only academic preparation, but also personal and social readiness for college is in the institutions' self-interest as well as the national interest. The report calls on its member campuses to begin college readiness work as early as preschool.
• Supporting Immigrant Students at Community Colleges. This Community College Consortium for Immigrant Education report recommends ways for community colleges to increase college access, make college affordable through financial assistance, support college readiness and success, offer alternatives for adult learners, and improve college retention and completion for undocumented students. 
• Does a Lack of Structure Inhibit Students’ Progress at Community Colleges? For many students at community colleges, finding a path to degree completion is the equivalent of navigating a shapeless river on a dark night. While academic preparation and financial supports are critical components of student success, subtle institutional features may also play an important role. This paper discusses how community college students are more likely to persist and succeed in programs that are tightly and consciously structured, with relatively little room for individuals to unintentionally deviate from paths toward completion, and with limited bureaucratic obstacles for students to circumnavigate.
• Community Colleges for the Students They Actually Have. In the U.S., we think of elementary and secondary education as fundamentally different from higher education. Before college, students generally are provided with schedules for prescribed classes. College students, by contrast, are expected to be far more independent, to figure out which classes to take and then do most of their course-related work outside the classroom. For most of the roughly seven million students seeking degrees at community colleges, though, this construct makes little sense. They have often not mastered the building blocks: Up to two-thirds of community-college students need remedial education. Even though they are often the first in their families to go to college, community-college students receive scant support or advice for navigating course choices. And most of them have jobs, leaving less time for homework. The result: Fewer than 40 percent of those who attend full time go on to graduate or transfer within three years. But what if community colleges were organized to achieve success for the students they have, not for students like those who attend four-year residential colleges? 
• Challenge and Change. In the past twenty years, innovation caused by disruptive technology has occurred in various industries: newspapers, book publishing, the photography business, and many more. Higher education too faces unprecedented challenges primarily driven by rapid changes in technology. To meet these challenges and adapt to changes, we need new models. Six challenges lie at the core of the innovative disruption facing higher education: 1. University Model, 2. Structural Model, 3. Funding Model, 4. Cost Model, 5. Business Model, and 6. Success Model. These challenges are driven by seven areas of rapid change, primarily technological change: 1. The Players, 2. The College Models, 3. The Course Models, 4. Data and Learning Analytics, 5. The Cost: Reduced and Free, 6. Measuring Success, and 7. Threats to the Credential.
• State of Higher Education in Texas 2012. This is the address delivered by the Texas Commissioner of Higher Education in October 2012. We are getting better, but we are not getting better fast enough. The commissioner shares achievements on Closing the Gaps and suggests three opportunities for change: (1) It is time for Texas to adopt outcomes-based funding for higher education; (2) Two of the areas in which we need ingenuity and innovation are developmental education and adult basic education; (3) An issue ripe for rethinking is higher education’s role in workforce development. Or you can see a video produced by collegeproductivity.org where participation and success statistics in the nation and Texas are compared. 
• Online Educational Delivery Models: A Descriptive View. Although there has been a long history of distance education, the creation of online education occurred just over a decade and a half ago—a relatively short time in academic terms. Early course delivery via the web had started by 1994, soon followed by a more structured approach using the new category of course management systems. See this Educause Review with a descriptive view of the growing number of approaches enabled by educational technology including educational delivery models. They are categorized not just in terms of modality—ranging from face-to-face to fully online—but also in terms of the method of course design. These two dimensions allow a richer understanding of the new landscape of educational delivery models such as ad hoc online courses and programs, fully online programs, School-as-a-Service, educational partnerships, competency-based education, blended/hybrid courses and the flipped classroom, and MOOCs. 
• Higher Education Must Innovate. According to a recent national poll, a majority of Americans say the U.S. higher education system needs to change in order to remain competitive. Younger Americans strongly prefer innovations—such as a "no frills" option or a cooperative learning model integrating academic study with employment—that help defray the cost of higher education. The poll also found that most Americans believe in the growing value of online degrees. Among respondents between the ages of 18 and 30, 68 percent said an online degree will be just as recognized and accepted among employers as a traditional degree will be in the next five to seven years. 
• Cracks in the Traditional Credit Hour. The foundation that created the credit hour in 1906 now wants to rethink it, with a shift that might help competency-based higher education. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching on Tuesday announced that it would study the Carnegie Unit, which forms the basis of a time-based measurement of student learning. The credit hour calls for one credit per hour of faculty instruction and two hours of homework, on a weekly basis, over a 15-week semester. A virtual gold standard in higher education, the credit hour is deeply ingrained as a measuring stick for academic quality, accreditation and access to federal financial aid. But it is viewed by many as outdated and inadequate as a measure for student learning. Critics say the focus on “seat time” has stymied progress on promising approaches like online programs that are self-paced and competency-based -- where students earn credits for proving what they know, not for how long they spent on course material. 
• Rethinking Grants and Loans. A white paper, part of the Gates Foundation's project on financial aid, calls for overhauling the student aid system to focus on underrepresented students. It calls for an overhaul of the federal financial aid system, including ending subsidized loans, enrolling students in income-based repayment, and directing the savings from the changes to the Pell Grant. 
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• Report: Reclaiming the American Dream. The overall goal of the 21st-Century Initiative by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) is to educate an additional 5 million students with degrees, certificates, or other credentials by 2020. In Phase 1, AACC staff gathered information from across the nation on student access, institutional accountability, budget constraints, big ideas for the future, and what AACC can do for its members. The 21st-Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges represents Phase 2 of the AACC effort. Recognizing that emerging challenges require unprecedented vision, ingenuity, courage, and focus from community colleges, the Commission was asked both to safeguard the fundamental mission of the community college—ensuring that millions of diverse and often underserved students attain a high-quality college education—and to challenge community colleges to imagine a new future for themselves, to ensure the success of our students, our institutions, and our nation. In this investigation, everything was to be put on the table, including the issues of the nation’s prosperity and its global competitiveness, community college student success and completion rates, equity of access and outcomes across student groups, public accountability for institutional performance and student success, and effectiveness and efficiency in preparing students for real jobs paying family-supporting wages. This report is the culmination of that effort.
• How Might a Next Generation Higher Education Work? This Getting Smart post describes the three traits that the next generation of higher education will need to survive:
     1. Affordability: Cost-effective learning experiences that provide a superior ROI.
     2. Employability: Graduates leave with a high level of knowledge and skills and experience applying them in work settings.
     3. Flexibility: The ability to secure tailored supports, adapt to complex schedules/lives, and accelerate particularly for adults that have knowledge and skills and are looking for credentially. 
• The Future of Community Colleges. Many residential university campuses will basically cease to exist over the next few decades replaced by MOOCs and other technology-driven forms of mass learning. Community colleges, too, could outsource many of their courses via MOOCs, but five areas in which they will excel, and which make it unlikely that they will be disappearing anytime soon, are the following: 
     1. Work-force development and training.
     2. Remedial education.
     3. Online education.
     4. Classroom teaching.
     5. Economic value. 
• Nursing Schools Reinventing Recruitment. Nursing schools devise alternate ways to attract faculty amidst the nation’s nursing shortage. Schools are rethinking and redesigning their traditional recruiting and retention strategies. Their solutions are quite varied, ranging from creating e-jobs and dual appointments to sharing existing faculty. 
• Predicting Student Success: Beyond the Traditional Approach. By transitioning from a risk-based model for predicting student enrollment and retention to a success-based model, you can look across the student life cycle to identify not only the factors that impede desired outcomes such as yield and student retention, but also the factors that contribute to those outcomes. Here are articles and a complimentary recorded webcast to help unpack this approach. 
• Learning Spaces: Meeting Expectations for Classroom Teaching and Collaboration. Gone are the days when a basic classroom with a podium and desks was considered an acceptable learning space. Key trends identified in the 2012 Horizon Report, a collaboration between the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative, include the shift in education paradigms to include online learning, hybrid learning, and the collaborative model; a new emphasis in the classroom on more challenge-based and active learning; and a change in the way student projects are structured, driven by the increasingly collaborative work world. Here are examples of how institutions are adapting to shifting trends by creating learning spaces that foster innovative thinking and collaboration—and prepare students for the future. 
• Liberal Arts Losing to 'High-demand' Degrees. San Antonio area universities have moved to prioritize programs emphasizing science and technology, along with professional degrees such as business administration. Students increasingly take humanities courses only to meet general education requirements in pursuit of professional or “high-demand” degrees. 
• A Better Transcript? In an attempt to signal workplace readiness to employers, a two-year college in Missouri issues "job readiness work ethic" scores on students' transcripts, as well as a rating for attendance. Instructors score students in six areas: safety, trust, timeliness, work habits, interpersonal skills, and citizenship. 
• Redefining College-Ready. Long Beach City College and South Texas College have learned that better collaboration with local high schools may be the best way to dramatically reduce the number of students who fall into the quagmire of placement tests and remedial coursework.
• Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance: Critical Factors for Success in the 21st Century. This U.S. Department of Education brief takes a close look at a core set of noncognitive factors—grit, tenacity, and perseverance. The brief takes the position that it is the responsibility of the educational community to design learning environments that promote these factors so that students are prepared to meet 21st-century challenges. 
• Why Rethinking Developmental Education is a Priority. Academic leaders at two-year and four-year institutions offer effective alternative approaches to traditional remedial education. These institutions have seen significant gains in completion and retention rates by accelerating the developmental track and replacing prerequisite coursework with corequisite support.
• Latin America: Universities Try to Attract English-Speaking Students by Offering More Courses in English and Seeking Accreditation in the United States. Latin American universities are taking steps to attract English-speaking students who may have ignored the region previously, by offering more courses in English and seeking accreditation in the United States. Universities from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego are part of an increased push to make campuses more inviting for students from the northern hemisphere. But the region needs to do a better job looking out for its own or Latin America risks losing economic ground if the multinationals setting up shop in Latin America look for better-educated work forces elsewhere.
• Rise of Customized Learning. Western Governors U. and others continue to expand competency-based education amid excitement (and confusion) about President Obama's praise of the approach.
•  Succession Planning. A year ago, the American Council on Education’s regular survey of college and university presidents issued a warning in the form of demographics. Fifty-eight percent of college and university presidents were 61 years old or older, according to the survey, a finding that presaged dramatic turnover in the composition of the upper ranks of higher education leadership. Examples abound. A large part of the council’s annual conference taking place this week is looking at who will fill vacancies as they arise and how current administrators and institutional governing boards will ensure that the next generation of leaders have the aptitudes necessary to tackle the litany of challenges that await them in the top campus jobs. 
• Employment Mismatch. Half of employers surveyed by The Chronicle of Higher Education and American Public Media's Marketplace said they had trouble finding recent graduates qualified to fill positions at their company. Nearly a third gave colleges just fair to poor marks for producing successful employees. And they feel that bachelor's-degree holders lack basic workplace proficiencies, like adaptability, communication skills, and the ability to solve complex problems.
• Colleges Ask Government to Clarify Rules for Credit Based on Competency. Forty years after Regents College became the first in the nation to award degrees based on proof of prior learning, competency-based education, as its model became known, may finally be on the verge of federal approval. Within days, the U.S. Department of Education is expected to approve Southern New Hampshire University's request to award federal student aid based not on credit hours, but on a series of measured ‘competencies.’ Several other programs are seeking recognition from regional accreditors, a prerequisite to federal approval. Yet many college leaders and accreditors say the rules governing competency-based learning remain unclear, and they fault the Education Department for sending mixed messages about its willingness to move beyond seat time in allocating aid. They say the uncertainty is stifling innovation and discouraging more colleges from experimenting with new measures of student learning. (The department declined a request for comment.) In an effort to clarify the rules, a group of influential foundations is planning a spring meeting on the future of competency-based programs. The goal, organizers say, is to create a ‘safe space’ where accreditors, state regulators, department officials, and colleges can figure out ways to promote the programs, while protecting taxpayer dollars from fraud.
•  The Disruption Higher Education Does Not See Coming. No, not MOOCs. Badges. As they mature beyond where they are currently, badges have the potential to disrupt formal education in a way that none of the technology innovations we have seen in the last couple of decades have.
• Community College Pathways: 2011-2012 Descriptive Report. Between 60 to 70 percent of incoming community college students typically must take at least one developmental mathematics course before they can enroll in college-credit courses. However, 80 percent of the students who place into developmental mathematics do not successfully complete any college-level course within three years. Many students spend long periods of time repeating courses and most simply leave college without a credential. As a consequence, millions of people each year are not able to progress toward their career and life goals. Equally important, these students lack command of the mathematics that matters for living in an increasingly quantitative age and to be critically engaged citizens. The Carnegie Foundation formed a network of community colleges, professional associations, and educational researchers to develop and implement the Community College Pathways Program. The program is organized around two structured pathways, known as Statway™ and Quantway™. Both aim to simplify students’ path through their development mathematics sequence. Rather than a seeming random walk through a maze of possible course options, these pathways reduce the number of courses required while improving the content and pedagogy for developmental mathematics. 
• Reassessing the Costs and Benefits of Developmental Education. Half of all undergraduates take at least one remedial course, but less than half complete the remedial course sequence, let alone go on to complete a degree. This article from our recent monthly edition offers an opportunity to examine—and rethink—the costs of developmental education. 
• Bigfoot, Goldilocks, and Moonshots: A Report from the Frontiers of Personalized Learning. More than four years ago, a report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and Public Agenda noted: ‘In the view of many college and university presidents, the three main factors in higher education -- cost, quality, and access -- exist in what we call an iron triangle. These factors are linked in an unbreakable reciprocal relationship, such that any change in one will inevitably impact the others. Unfortunately, that ‘iron triangle’ remains strong, encapsulating a challenge that continues to face higher education today. Fortunately, the resolve and creativity of higher education innovators are producing a set of solutions that have the potential to break the ‘iron triangle.’ These solutions are not theoretical; they are reaching hundreds of thousands of students today. The detailed results are still emerging, but the initial results suggest we may be able to deliver high-quality education at an affordable price without sacrificing access.