Red Balloon Resources

December 1, 2010 Half of All First-Time Students Earn Credentials Within 6 Years By Beckie Supiano Of students who entered higher education in 2003-4, about half had earned degrees or certificates by June 2009, says a report from the U.S. Department of Education. As for the rest, 15 percent were still enrolled, and 36 percent had left higher education. The "first look" report, "Persistence and Attainment of 2003-04 Beginning Postsecondary Students: After 6 Years," looks at a nationally representative sample of students who entered college for the first time in 2003-4. The report examines how they fared at their initial institutions, and also whether they earned academic credentials during that time period. By the end of the six-year period, 9 percent of the students earned certificates, 9 percent associate degrees, and 31 percent bachelor's degrees. The numbers are similar to those of the last cohort the department followed, which began college in 1995-6. Among students who began at public two-year colleges, 9 percent earned certificates, 14 percent associate degrees, and 12 percent bachelor's degrees. Among those who began at four-year colleges, 2 percent received certificates, 5 percent associate degrees, and 58 percent bachelor's degrees."

"November 28, 2010 New Social Software Tries to Make Studying Feel Like Facebook Brittany Robertson, a junior at Purdue U., uses Mixable, note-and-coursework-sharing software that works with Facebook, because it easily lets her shift from socializing to studying. By Marc Parry and Jeffrey R. Young Students live on Facebook. So study tools that act like social networks should be student magnets-and maybe even have an academic benefit. At least that's the idea behind a new crop of Web services sprouting up across higher education. Colleges, entrepreneurs, and publishers, all drawn by the buzz of social media, are competing to market software that makes sharing class notes or collaborating on calculus problems as simple as updating your Facebook status. "Our mission is to make the world one big study group," says Phil Hill, chief executive of OpenStudy, a social-learning site that started as a project of Emory University and Georgia Tech. It opened to the public in September. Many of the social-learning sites are, like OpenStudy, for-profit companies-or at least they aspire to be once their services take off. And some of their business plans rely on a controversial practice: paying students for their notes. The big question facing all of these sites-a group that includes Mixable, from Purdue University, and GradeGuru, from McGraw-Hill-is whether students are really interested in social learning online. Another quandary: If students profit from selling their notes, are they infringing on a college's or a professor's copyright? And while the sites are not part of the seamy world of exam or term-paper vendors, what happens if some users post answers to tests? One service has already failed to mix Facebook with studies. In 2008 a company called Inigral closed its Facebook "Courses" application, which had allowed students to view who was in their classes, start discussions, and get notified of assignments. "We found that Facebook was not a popular place to e

"Fix Nonprofit Higher Ed First October 11, 2010, 2:47 pm By Marc Bousquet Jesus asked his followers to address the whacking huge piece of lumber in their own eyes before performing optical surgery on others. And I can't think of a better case study of His wisdom than good old U.S. higher education, where the 5,000 nonprofits-many of them pushing what they perceive as Christian values-are engaging in high hypocrisy about for-profit education vendors. Sure, the for-profits are just as bad as they say. They fail to graduate students and the students they graduate are often un-, under- and mis-educated. The students go into debt to pay outrageous tuition for the attention of under-qualified faculty, and then fail to find the employment for which they were putatively prepared. And from all of this under-regulated misery and failure, the shareholders are racking up massive capital accumulation. The problem is that the for-profits did not invent any of this. All of these tactics-what I've called the tuition gold rush-were pioneered by the nonprofit sector. 1) We nonprofits have been teaching students with underqualified faculty, graduate students, and even undergraduates for the past 40 years (all while braying inanely about an "oversupply" of persons with doctorates). 2) We charge outrageous tuition for degrees which will not lead to employment, while putting students to work at super-exploitative wage discounts. 3) By overcharging students and underpaying faculty, we have been accumulating capital-not in shareholders' pockets, but capital nonetheless, in buildings and grounds, endowments, in tech infrastructure. We also spend down a lot of the dollars that an enterprise institution captures as profit and sends along to its shareholders. Sometimes those dollars are spent on valid public non-education goods. Just as often, though, they're blown by the million on administrator initiatives like big-time sports, social engineering, business ventu

"October 11, 2010 New Initiative Will Advance the Best Uses of Technology to Improve College Readiness and Completion Multi-year "challenge" grant competition will identify and fund most promising innovations EDUCAUSE Marge Gammon Phone: +1.303.816.7431 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Phone: +1.206.709.3400 Email: media@gatesfoundation.org SEATTLE -- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced the Next Generation Learning Challenges, a collaborative, multi-year initiative, which aims to help dramatically improve college readiness and college completion in the United States through the use of technology. The program will provide grants to organizations and innovators to expand promising technology tools to more students, teachers, and schools. It is led by nonprofit EDUCAUSE, which works to advance higher education through the use of information technology. Next Generation Learning Challenges released the first of a series of RFPs today to solicit funding proposals for technology applications that can improve postsecondary education. This round of funding will total up to $20 million, including grants that range from $250,000 to $750,000. Applicants with top-rated proposals will receive funds to expand their programs and demonstrate effectiveness in serving larger numbers of students. Proposals are due November 19, 2010; winners are expected to be announced by March 31, 2011. "American education has been the best in the world, but we're falling below our own high standards of excellence for high school and college attainment," said Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "We're living in a tremendous age of innovation. We should harness new technologies and innovation to help all students get the education they need to succeed." Next Generation Learning Challenges invites proposals from technologists and institutions within the education community, but also innovators and entrepreneurs outside the traditional educa

"Fixing Higher Ed August 24, 2010 By Henry F. Fradella The press and the blogosphere have devoted significant coverage recently to a report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce that predicted that the United States is on "collision course with the future." The report estimated that within a mere eight years, the nation will suffer a shortfall of at least 3 million workers with college degrees and 4.7 million workers with postsecondary certificates. The authors of the report concluded that to meet the challenges of a global economy in which 59 to 63 percent of domestic jobs require education beyond the high-school level, America's colleges and universities "need to increase the number of degrees they confer by 10 percent annually, a tall order." Although numerous commentators have responded to the report by echoing its call for increased access to higher education, it seems to me that few have focused on a key term in the report's call to "develop reforms that result in both cost-efficient and high quality postsecondary education." Producing millions more baccalaureate-educated workers will do nothing to address the competitiveness of the U.S. workforce if those degrees are not high quality ones. Sadly, it is pretty clear that far too many college degrees aren't worth the paper on which they are printed. In 2006, the Spellings Commission reported disturbing data that more than 60 percent of college graduates were not proficient in prose, document, and quantitative literacy. In other words, significantly more than half of college degree holders in the United States lack the "critical thinking, writing and problem-solving skills needed in today's workplaces." Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, cited these findings in his recent Huffington Post essay, "The Failure of American Higher Education." He shared stories about recent college graduates, many from prestigious universitie

"Ranking the Rankings August 23, 2010, 9:01 am By Richard Kahlenberg If it's back to school, it must be time for the publication of college rankings. In recent days, U.S. News & World Report released its much-discussed rankings of U.S. colleges and universities, and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University declared its ranking of world universities. As my Innovations Blog colleague Richard Vedder noted recently, Forbes has its own rankings to compete with U.S. News, and Vedder (who helped Forbes come up with its methodology) argues that Forbes's is better-that is, ranks higher. My good friend Ben Wildavsky, a former education editor at U.S. News, discusses the proliferation of rankings in his fascinating new book, The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World. Wildavsky devotes a lengthy chapter to global rankings and compares and contrasts the two main international rankings-the Shanghai rankings, which look primarily at science research (counting factors such as the number of alumni and faculty who have Nobel Prizes and citations in science journals) with those of the Times Higher Education Supplement, which heavily weights academic peer evaluations. Despite their fundamental differences, Wildavsky notes, in 2008, the top 10 in the two lists had seven overlapping institutions. My own favorite in the rankings game is The Washington Monthly, which today released the 2010 rankings of "What Can Colleges Do for the Country." While other guides "help students and parents decide how to spend their tuition dollars wisely," the Monthly says its goal is "to tell citizens and policy makers which colleges [are] spending their tax dollars wisely." The Monthly ranks colleges and universities based on whether they promote social mobility; research, and service. As I've noted elsewhere, one of the intriguing findings of the Monthly's social mobility ranking is that public universities systems where affirmative action by race has bee

August 22, 2010 A Reset for Higher Education By Joni E. Finney Many of us have seen trouble coming for a long, long, time. Did we really believe that endowment growth, state support, and tuition dollars could or would provide an unchecked revenue stream, tempered only by short downturns in the economy, followed by fairly quick recoveries? Did we really believe that we could expand administrative structures and shortchange instruction, but still maintain quality institutions? Did we think that poor completion rates and the achievement gaps between whites and minority groups could be solved only with more money? Did we honestly believe that expensive amenities and increased financial aid for upper-middle-class and wealthy students could be sustained? Of course not. To understand what needs to be done now-a "reset" in higher education-we need to first understand the changes pressuring our enterprise: deficits, demographics, and demand. States' structural deficits, or the gap that occurs when states fail to tax new types of economic activity, have been documented for years. A previously good economy permitted states to postpone those problems, but now, state leaders must revise their tax structures to generate more revenue. The most optimistic economic projections say the recession may end in 2013. Even then, states will be hard-pressed to return to the status quo in terms of appropriations. IN THE RIGHT COLUMN: Charts and Graphics on Finance BROWSE THE ALMANAC: More Statistics and State-by-State Profiles Many in higher education lament states' "disinvestment." The problem is much more complex. States have been reliable partners in financing higher education. While enrollments grew, state support also grew, by 24 percent from 2005 to 2008, followed by a decline of 1.7 percent from 2008 to 2010. At the same time, the federal government spent $6.6-billion in 2009-10 under the stimulus bill for states, an amount that increases to $23-billion once federal

Schools may collaborate more on degrees By Janese Silvey Columbia Daily Tribune Tuesday, October 5, 2010 A statewide charge for public colleges to review degree offerings is just a large-scale version of what institutions already do, a University of Missouri System administrator said. The Missouri Department of Higher Education is asking public colleges and universities to submit reports this month showing which degree programs are only graduating a handful of students annually, shining a spotlight on areas where schools could collaborate and be more efficient. There are dozens of examples of where Missouri colleges and universities have already teamed up, said Steve Graham, vice president of academic affairs for the UM System. MU partners with Missouri State University to provide a master's degree in library and information science, for instance, and with Missouri Southern State University to offer a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. "In doctoral programs that are small, it makes a lot of sense to collaborate," MU Provost Brian Foster said. "Certainly we're interested in doing that." Talk of the degree program review is already generating new ideas, Graham said. An association of chief academic officers from public colleges and universities, for instance, is considering how to redistribute faculty and programs and come up with new ways to provide common, high-demand courses."

"For-profit schools reel as rules affect enrollment By Tali Arbel and Janna Herron AP Business Writers / October 14, 2010 NEW YORK-The nation's largest for-profit college says it will take a big hit to enrollment -- and its bottom line -- as it tightens admission practices. The move comes as the government ramps up regulation of an industry which critics say preys on lower-income students and leaves them with hefty debt loads and meager job prospects. The number of lower-income students enrolled at for-profit colleges has surged in the past few years. Big advertising budgets drew those trying to bolster their resumes as a hedge against high unemployment. But critics claim the schools are not helping students find better jobs and say enrollment counselors sign up many who are unprepared for higher education. When they drop out, they are still stuck paying back their student loans. Defaults on student loans have been rising, sticking taxpayers with the bills. So the government has proposed regulations that could limit schools' access to federal financial aid if graduates' debt levels are too high or too few students repay loans. Amid intense scrutiny of the industry, Apollo Group Inc. said Wednesday it will provide new students with a free three-week trial program to see if they are ready for its University of Phoenix curriculums -- weeding out those at risk of leaving school before earning degrees. And it will no longer pay its counselors bonuses based on how many students they enroll."

Is College Worth the Investment? An analysis of Return on Investment (ROI)

"Average College Debt Rose to $24,000 in 2009 By TAMAR LEWIN Published: October 21, 2010 College seniors who graduated in 2009 had an average of $24,000 in student loan debt, up 6 percent from 2008, according to an annual report from the Project on Student Debt. Related Comment Post a Comment in The Choice Blog The increase is similar to those of the past four years, the report said, despite the recession, probably because members of the class of 2009 took out most of their debt before the economic downturn began. "This consistent growth in debt over the last few years really adds up," said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, the research and advocacy group that operates the debt project. "It's important to remember that the experts all agree that if you're going to borrow, you should take out federal loans first, because federal student loans come with far more repayment options and borrower protections than other types of loans." "

"If and When Money Matters: The Relationships among Educational Expenditures, Student Engagement, and Students' Learning Outcomes Issue/Topic: Finance--Does Money Matter?; Postsecondary Finance--Efficiency/Performance-Based Funding Author(s): Pike, Gary; Kuh, George; Smart, John; Ethington, Corinna; McCormick, Alexander Organization(s): University of Memphis; Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis; University of Indiana Publication: Research in Higher Education Published On: 9/18/2010 Background: Past research on expenditures and college outcomes has been characterized by weak and contradictory findings. Surprising little is known about whether and how "money matters" to desired outcomes of college. It seems reasonable to expect that combined expenditures for instruction, academic support, student services, and institution support would be positively and directly related to student engagement, but indirectly related to student learning. Purpose: To examine the relationships among educational expenditures, student engagement and learning outcomes for first-year students and seniors. Findings/Results: * Expenditures were significantly and positively related to...first-year students' self-reported cognitive outcomes (in areas such as general education, writing and speaking effectively, quantitative analysis, and critical thinking). * Expenditures were not significantly related to first-year students' non-cognitive development (as measured by responses to questions concerning self-understanding, working with others, developing ethical standards, and civic/community engagement). * For a wider range of learning objectives (e.g., academic challenge, collaborative learning, educational enrichment), the relationship between expenditures and outcomes was indirect and mediated by student engagement variables. * Between-institution differences were very small compared to the differences among students within institutions. * All of the enga

"Higher ed plan envisions big changes to Utah campuses By Brian Maffly The Salt Lake Tribune Published Nov 15, 2010 02:12PM Ten years from now the senior year of high school could serve as a freshman year in college. Need-based aid might be more widely available. Attendance could be required at certain "gateway" college courses, currently plagued with failure rates approaching 40 percent. And taxing districts might support two-year instruction. Those are among ideas the state Board of Regents is floating in its HighEd 2020 Plan, assembled in recent months in response to Gov. Gary Herbert's instructions to better align higher education with Utah's economic needs. The foremost goal is to increase the portion of the state's adult population with college degrees from 39 percent to at least 55 percent, and another 11 percent with some kind of post-secondary certification. "That's not a goal driven by an educational need. That's a goal driven by a business need. The best research in the country says we are going to need the eighth-most educated work force by 2020," Regents Chairman David Jordan said. "If we are going to be prepared for the knowledge-based economy of the future, we need to increase the output of higher education. We have to attract both more students to the system and have to increase our completion percentage." Some 66 percent of jobs will soon require some type of post-secondary certification, according to a study by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce."

Deloitte survey...HS students think they are ready for college; their teachers don't think so

"Report Finds Low Graduation Rates at For-Profit Colleges By TAMAR LEWIN Published: November 23, 2010 A new report on graduation rates at for-profit colleges by a nonprofit research and advocacy group charges that such colleges deliver "little more than crippling debt," citing federal data that suggests only 9 percent of the first-time, full-time bachelor's degree students at the University of Phoenix, the nation's largest for-profit college, graduate within six years. The report, "Subprime Opportunity," by the Education Trust, found that in 2008, only 22 percent of the first-time, full-time bachelor's degree students at for-profit colleges over all graduate within six years, compared with 55 percent at public institutions and 65 percent at private nonprofit colleges. Among Phoenix's online students, only 5 percent graduated within six years, and at the campuses in Cleveland and Wichita, Kan., only 4 percent graduated within six years. "For-profits proudly claim to be models of access in higher education because they willingly open their doors to disadvantaged, underprepared students." said José L. Cruz, a vice president for the trust. "But we must ask the question, 'Access to what?' " Since the first-time, full-time students tracked in the federal statistics are the most likely to graduate, the report said, these figures may actually overstate the graduation rates. "

"Students finding cheaper ways to get college degrees By Christopher Magan, Staff Writer Updated 8:49 PM Sunday, November 28, 2010 Ohio students pursuing alternative paths to obtaining degrees saved millions of dollars last year while helping colleges and universities across the state increase enrollment 3.9 percent. A study by the Ohio Board of Regents found that the number of transfer students and online enrollments significantly increased last year, with a 21 percent growth in transfers between state schools and a 25 percent increase in "distance learning" - students attending classes online or outside the traditional classroom. More than half of new students enrolled last year in Ohio - a total of 263,116 - attend community colleges and branch campuses. By transferring credits from these less expensive institutions to four-year universities, Ohio students and their families saved $20 million last year, or an average of more than $550 per student. Eric Fingerhut, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, said committing to more low-cost college pathways is key to the state's strategic plan. Most local colleges saw gains in one or both types of students. "

"Reframing College Completion October 28, 2010 The bigger and broader the objective, the more diffused the responsibility for achieving it can be. For instance, with a mammoth undertaking like the college completion goal that President Obama and like-minded foundations and associations have laid out for the United States over the next 10-15 years, saying that "the country" needs to increase its college-going rate to 60 percent is so general that it makes both everyone and no one responsible for doing the heavy lifting. To combat that vagueness, policy makers and politicians have tended to break down the job into discrete units, with a focus on states (where various sectors of public higher education can work together, with the guidance of governors and chancellors) and individual colleges (which can be held accountable for their own performance and improvement). But in a pair of reports to be released today, the postsecondary education program at the Center for American Progress -- which takes pride in reframing existing policy discussions -- points out that both of those approaches have inherent problems. Focusing on the states creates difficulties in those metropolitan areas where multiple states intersect, putting up unnecessary barriers (in the form of financial aid, tuition and credit transfer policies) that inhibit the flow of students. And viewing higher education completion through the prism of individual institutions' productivity -- judging them on how many graduates they produce -- ignores the rapidly increasing numbers of students who attend multiple colleges. "[A]n institution's graduation rate is not what we truly care about," three of the center's staff members write. "What matters more is whether a student completes a degree anywhere in the system -- regardless of that student's pattern of mobility." In the two papers, the center offers alternatives -- to complement, not replace, the existing approaches. In "Easy Come, EZ-GO," three research

"The For-Profit LMS Market November 1, 2010 Blackboard historically has been synonymous with learning management technology. While the company in recent years has lost some clients in that market to competitors, it still provides the learning management platform for more than half of nonprofit institutions, according to the latest data from the Campus Computing Project. But in the growing for-profit market for learning management, Blackboard is not king. That crown belongs to eCollege, the learning-management provider owned by the media conglomerate Pearson. A peon in the nonprofit world (it owns less than 2 percent market share, according to the Campus Computing Project), eCollege cornered the for-profit market early on by offering a product tailored to meet the unique needs of that type of institution, says Richard Garrett, managing director of the higher ed consulting firm Eduventures. The online learning platforms offered by eCollege and Blackboard "were evolved with different goals in mind," says Garrett. The eCollege platform "was built with top-down enterprises in mind," he says, whereas Blackboard's product was designed to "enable individual faculty to experiment with online, or to use it at an individual course level as a supplement to the classroom" - more in line with the governance structure of the traditional college, where professors have more autonomy."

"New Job With an Old Friend November 2, 2010 While collecting a $115,000 paycheck from Arkansas State University, the former president of the state system hopes to strengthen relations between the university and a controversial online education company that now employs him, according to documents released Monday. Leslie Wyatt, who resigned as system head in July and now has faculty status, works as a consultant for Academic Partnerships, LLC, formerly known as Higher Ed Holdings, university documents state. Additionally, he serves as president and chairman of the American University System, a nonprofit association affiliated with the company, according to a cached version of the organization's website. Amid mounting concern over potential conflicts of interest, the nonprofit group removed the only mention of Wyatt's name on the site. Wyatt's work with Academic Partnerships has given additional fodder to critics, who have questioned how the company secured a lucrative contract without the input of any non-administrative faculty. As with the University of Toledo, where faculty rancor over Higher Ed Holdings derailed a deal in the works, some at Arkansas have questioned whether academic quality suffers when a university partners with a company known for providing inexpensive degrees on a massive scale. "

"Hirings Rocket at For-Profits November 4, 2010 Surging enrollments at for-profit colleges have driven increases in staffing at those institutions, according to federal data released Wednesday. Between 2008 and 2009, the for-profit sector posted double-digit percentage gains in the numbers of total employees, full- and part-time faculty, and executive staff, the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics' "Employees in Postsecondary Institutions" annual survey revealed. Growth in the sector was such that for every two hires made in higher education during the past year, one was at a for-profit college. Meanwhile, employment in the overall higher education sector edged up 2 percent between 2008 and 2009. To a large extent, this growth trend reflects the fact that there are far fewer for-profit colleges and staff members to begin with, and any fluctuations are likely to appear large when expressed as a percentage. The number of employees at public institutions remains approximately 10 times that of the for-profit institutions. On the other hand, the trend also reflects soaring enrollments at the colleges, which experienced 21 percent growth between 2007 and 2008, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Strained state budgets and weak private endowments also were reflected in colleges' hiring patterns during the past year, as compared to the one before. Colleges across all sectors were far more likely to add part-time faculty than full-time professors or administrators. Hiring of part-time instructional staff, typically adjuncts, increased 7 percent between 2008 and 2009, while hiring of full-time instructors and administrators grew by 1 percent each. Nearly 6 out of every 10 employees added during the past year were part-time instructors."