Graduation Cap on Cash
“If we don’t have climbing walls and sushi bars in our universities, does that make us un-American?”
So asked a panelist in a half-joking comment Thursday about the gravely misplaced priorities of higher education institutions. Five speakers, including Robert Shireman, the deputy undersecretary of Education for the federal administration, met at a discussion hosted by the Education Sector and Washington Monthly at George Washington University. In light of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) that is currently before congress, the panelists offered up specific strategies to improve the system with the goal of increasing affordability, graduation rates, and overall quality of education.
The speakers shed light on a number of problems impeding educational success in America. If the administration wants to achieve its goal of making America the country with the highest proportion of graduates by 2020, then several aspects of the higher education system are in need of a drastic overhaul.
The cost of college is currently rising faster than that of healthcare, but the administration knows that restrictive measures like cost caps could be counterproductive, especially since cost is not the only illness befalling our institutions of higher education. Therefore, experts advocate a combination of moderate, widespread initiatives with thoughtful analysis and application. The panelists’ suggestions Thursday included: a readjustment of college spending priorities, new techniques to measure educational quality (as opposed to subjective “prestige”), supporting more diverse and innovative higher education options for less traditional students, and improving loan and financial aid systems.
In terms of reprioritizing the spending of precious monetary resources, President Paul LeBlanc of Southern New Hampshire University bemoaned colleges’ focus on installing glitzy accoutrements like climbing walls, state-of-the-art athletic facilities, and hotel-like dorm rooms instead of improving education. Such fancy perks increase enrollment, but take money away from teaching quality and actual student retention efforts, while simultaneously driving up college costs. Additionally, several institutions waste precious money by hiring as many professors with specialized PhD’s as possible, even to teach to entry-level courses, just so that they can improve their “status,” which could increase student “demand.”
As Paul Glastris, editor of progressive publication Washington Monthly, pointed out, this obsession with enrollment as opposed to completion is highly profitable for institutions, but not for students. Actual graduation rates are extraordinarily lower than enrollment rates. High enrollment and fancy institutional aesthetics result in high ratings in traditional publications such as U.S. News, but they are not a true measure of educational quality. For prospective students trying to make informed decisions about their college choices, this is extremely detrimental.
Glastris advocates a revamped ratings system that would take into account such aspects as: graduation rates of financially disadvantaged students, research spending, faculty awards, and values imparted to students as implied by participation in post-graduate service. Although he knows that these are not the only measures of quality, Glastris hopes that this month’s annual college issue of Washington Monthly, complete with their own college rankings, will help shift the way higher education institutions are compared. A transformation of the criteria used to judge colleges is the only way to create an actual incentive for institutions to focus on innovative educational techniques rather than meaningless prestige boosters.
A shift in priorities is also necessary if we want to improve graduation rates, which is a prerequisite for improving the education levels of Americans and creating economic growth and job innovation. However, for a huge portion of the student population, financial restrictions and insufficient primary and secondary education systems have made attending traditional higher institutions nearly impossible. To these students, says Carey, we owe perhaps the most educational reform. According to him, it is vital that we expand degree and certification options so that nontraditional students can still become qualified for successful career paths.
Deputy Undersecretary Shireman agreed, advocating the embrace of community colleges, 1- and 3-year programs, apprenticeships, online education, and trade schools for students who cannot afford or are not prepared to go to larger institutional colleges. In fact, in July President Obama introduced a community college improvement effort, allocating $12 billion to help the institutions that need it the most. However, students know that is also highly necessary for the administration to provide better regulation of for-profit trade schools and online universities, in order to ensure quality teaching and fee transparency. This kind of attention to underserved students could revolutionize the number and caliber of American college graduates.
Finally, to improve higher education, we need massive reforms of the financial aid system. Shireman said that the administration already made some minor but important changes to FAFSA to make it more user-friendly. He also highlighted a crucial part of the SAFRA bill, advocating an expansion of Perkins loan dollars and a change in the way they are awarded: the plan is to base their distribution not on the financial needs of an institutions (which can be manipulated), but on the number of graduating Pell grantees, which shows true financial need in the institution as well as its commitment to retaining students.
Several panelists present agreed that 529 college saving plans, which subject themselves to the whims of the financial markets, are too unpredictable and, as Carey said, “a huge waste of scarce resources.” He added that the plans provide no incentives for colleges to reduce costs and are disproportionately awarded to affluent students. A better use of federal resources would be increasing Pell grants for community college students.
Thursday’s speakers on higher education reform were chock-full of innovation-centered and productivity-improving ideas for revamping our broken higher education system. Now, the institutions—and Congress—must follow suit.
By Carly Groff