The think tank drumbeat is becoming the basis for the new music in higher education.
There are two key items that sustain colleges. These have been true for decades. The first is federal money; the second is the accreditation that justifies the federal money. While accreditation is mentioned in this posting, most of this writing will focus on financial pressures. It's a long post even with this general omission.
To start, lets consider an important group to higher education success: trustees. The ACTA (American Council of Trustees & Alumni) has gotten involved, dancing to the drumbeat. They began assigning “grades” to colleges and universities based on their history and government course requirements.
That’s right. College and University trustees are becoming politically active...and very specific about their activity. The brings the drumbeat much closer to campus. Colleges are being publicly judged by groups of trustees over their history and government courses. Harvard gets a D, while Princeton and Yale each get a C. Two-thirds of the institutions received a grade of C or lower. The Washington Times headline read “Colleges’ lax educational standards putting students at a ‘competitive disadvantage,’ report finds.” The ACTA then encourages trustees to take more aggressive--er, assertive-- governance roles on campuses. Public school teachers can speak to the idea of school board members trying to become de facto school administrators. Here’s a group that advocates for this approach in higher education. With a president sometimes only four votes from unemployment, trustees have the power to do these things.
It is situational when a think tank has some sort of idea or “strategic plan” on this. It becomes more serious when the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is developing its own world-wide test for higher education the AHELO (Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes). It’s designed to “assess what students in higher education know and can do upon graduation.” Of course, it would be low-stakes and voluntary.
...of course, it would function as perfunctory.
...of course, it will dictate how classes are taught and who gets to teach them.
I know this. I saw these things happen in public schools.
It’s situational, then it’s serious, then it’s disturbing. In a previous post, I mentioned the Lumina Foundation’s “plan” to have 60% of Americans with college degrees. Who is planning to do that, you ask? Well, Texas hears the drumbeat:
Lumina gets an idea; Texas gets a policy.
Think tanks are expanding their messaging to include the “inner-city college student” as the new victim of the education system. It’s significant to the point that Dr. Matthew Lynch is writing an opinion piece about it (and the AHELO) for Diverse. While his skepticism of such testing is real, the article has an ominous title: Is Standardized Testing for Colleges a Necessary Evil?
In fact, there is a “best practices” movement forming for poor and minority students. Shining examples of success with such groups is being highlighted in the press now, consistent with all those romantic, school-based Hollywood movies and think tank support pieces. The EAB has even created its own “clearinghouse” of these best practices, jumping ahead of the DoEd’s What Works Clearinghouse, a staple of NCLB.
The Department of Education hears the drums and has a solution to this. Its title is the Gainful Employment Rule, and it involves the federal government pulling data from the Social Security Administration to determine whether college degrees are "worth it" for students, based on their earnings after college.
In the opening Fact Sheet, gainful employment seems to depend on attending a public institution and studying the correct field. In January (unless stopped by the new administration), the Department of Education will release its calculated "debt-to-earnings metrics" and hold colleges accountable for these. With the Hechinger Report holding that these data indicate 42% of the programs fail, the new accountability system could cause massive pain for institutions.
To further leverage federal purse power, a joint agency guidance letter (draft)—from the Departments of Education, Housing & Urban Development, Agriculture, Treasury, Health & Human Services, and Labor—has come to the attention of higher education. This letter delineates the requirements of poor student academic programs in terms of the public benefits they need to survive their college years. Snippets of policy wording include " career-oriented program" and “eligible career pathway.”
It seems that the poor kids need to focus more on careers. Psychology, and education (!), and fine arts are majors only for kids rich enough to pay. Meanwhile, this author has (rhetorical) questions regarding the commitment to poor students:
More and more corporate interests are moving to the drumbeat, and their impact is similar to that of think tanks. The hold to the belief that “business practices” would benefit higher education, and they leverage their funding to make institutions do all sorts of tricks. It’s referred to as privatization. This privatization of higher education is documented in a book titled, The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them by Christopher Newfield. In a discussion of the book, Dr. Newfield may sum the approach to this best:
We just started prioritizing private revenue streams, and energy and brains and additional positions were created in order to go after that other stuff. The Regents were pitched fundraising statistics and contracts and grants, gross statistics—always with the gross numbers, never with net. Undergraduates and academic graduates (sic) students became more of an afterthought at the senior management level. They were kind of the revenue source, in terms of tuition and general funds per capita, but then, after that, they were not at the center of policy. We really lost our focus.
Apparently, your tax dollars are being wasted by…by…OK, we’ll start with for-profit colleges—that need to be held “accountable.” Did you catch that word? Yep. Right there. We need some accountability from these colleges and universities. After all, these are our tax dollars. It led President Obama to speak of “bang for the buck” when discussing college costs.
The federal government really doesn’t have to “leverage” anything in higher education. Students pay the tuition, and most need some sort of federal help to make those payments. Once the Department of Education cuts off loans and grants, colleges whither. This is true of for-profit colleges; it holds true for almost any higher education institution.
The federal government has cracked down on for-profit schools. Those that receive federal student loan monies and don’t meet targets of employment, wages, and loan repayment get hit. Two larger examples of this, Corinthians Colleges and ITT Technical Institute, have closed in the last six months.
It’s sooooo easy! All you have to do is cut federal funding (student loans, Pell grants, research funding) and the colleges will just—go away. One quick way to do that is by killing off the accrediting body that lends legitimacy (and funding) to the fly-by-night, for-profit colleges that are your first target. Recently, the DoEd has cut off recognition to the ACIS, the accrediting body of most for-profit institutions. ACIS has appealed, and a new administration has brought renewed optimism in the for-profit ranks.
But with that move, many of the for-profit schools suddenly lack legitimacy. Thus, there is no direct route to getting the federal money necessary to keep going.
BOOM! You’ve killed off hundreds of schools.
Now it’s up to some other accreditor to pick them up. They won’t. After all, their own status is in jeopardy if they do accept these schools. Some of these make sense. Corinthian and ITT were problematic. Career Point College probably needed to go, as well. On the other hand, the grand-daddy of for-profit learning--The University of Phoenix--has programs that fail to meet the Gainful Employment Standard. But it begs the question as to where this will stop. Is every for-profit college bad? Here's a study indicating otherwise. How long will the DoEd keep regional accrediting bodies around…and why?
The same metrics that are being used to kill for-profit institutions are being used to make others uncomfortable. We are learning that for-profit colleges are not the only institutions having trouble meeting this new set of standards. When you consider that 40% of U.S. institutions have 1000 or fewer students, these metrics will be crucial for survival for half of today’s institutions. Three liberal arts institutions have closed this past spring, joining for-profit entities. Self-appointed expert (SAE) Jeff Selingo urges small colleges to merge and calls for fewer, larger institutions like Canada. After all, they'll probably score higher on that new international "just for fun" AHELO test I mentioned earlier.
This is an initial analysis. My cause for concern is based on the following ideas:
- The same types of players are involved--often the same exact players!
- Poor and minority students are being used as examples for liberals, while tax stewardship is being used to justify this movement to conservatives.
- Many of the same structures are being put into place by federal and state governments.
- The federal government is leveraging financial resources to force states and institutions to standardize practices.
- Schools are closing based on all of these forces.
- There is direct pressure on institutions to narrow their course offerings and degree programs (K-12 calls this curriculum).
No Child Left Behind failed. The beat was catchy, but it didn't have much else. This same approach, if applied to higher education, will fail. The damage to public schools is ongoing. However, the potential damage to higher education could be structural damage that lessens the effect of higher education in America--permanently. Eventually, there's no drum left to beat!
This is bad...
