Tag: lack

  • Policy Proposals Lack Clarity About How to Evaluate Graduates’ Additional Degrees

    Policy Proposals Lack Clarity About How to Evaluate Graduates’ Additional Degrees

    Title: Accounting for Additional Credentials in Postsecondary Earnings Data

    Authors: Jason Delisle, Jason Cohn, and Bryan Cook

    Source: The Urban Institute

    As policymakers across both parties consider how to evaluate postsecondary outcomes and earnings data, the authors of a new brief from the Urban Institute pose a major question: How should students who earn multiple credentials be included in data collection for the college that awarded their first degree?

    For example, should the earnings of a master’s degree recipient be included in the data for the institution where they earned their bachelor’s degree? Additionally, students who finish an associate degree at a community college are likely to earn higher wages when they complete a bachelor’s degree at another institution. Thus, multiple perspectives need to be considered to help both policymakers and institutions understand, interpret, and treat additional degrees earned.

    Additional key findings include:

    Earnings Data and Accountability Policies

    Many legislative proposals would expand the use of earnings data to provide further accountability and federal aid restrictions. For example, the House Republicans’ College Cost Reduction Act, proposed in 2024, would put institutions at risk of losing funding if they have low student loan repayment rates. The brief’s authors state that the bill does not indicate if students who earn additional credentials should be included in the cohort of students where they completed their first credential.

    The recently implemented gainful employment rule from the Biden administration is explicit in its inclusion of those who earn additional credentials. Under the rule, students who earn an additional degree are included in both calculations for their recent degree and the program that awarded their first credential.

    How Much Do Additional Credential Affect Earnings Data?

    Determining how much additional credentials affect wages and earnings for different programs is difficult. The first earnings measurement—the first year after students leave school—is usually too early to include additional income information from a second credential.

    Although the entire data picture is lacking, a contrast between first- and fifth-year earnings suggests that the number of students earning additional degrees may be very high for some programs. As an example, students who earn associate degrees in liberal arts and general studies often have some of their quickest increases in earnings during these first five years. A potential explanation is because students are then completing a bachelor’s degree program at a four-year institution.

    Policy Implications: How Should Earnings Data Approach Subsequent Credentials?

    In general, it seems that many policymakers have not focused on this complicated question of students who earn additional degrees. However, policy and data professionals may benefit from excluding students who earn additional credentials to more closely measure programs’ return on investment. This can be especially helpful when examining the costs of bachelor’s programs and their subsequent earnings benchmarks, by excluding additional earnings premiums generated from master’s programs.

    Additionally, excluding students who earn additional credentials may be particularly valuable to students in making consumer and financial aid decisions if the payoff from a degree is extremely different depending on whether students pursue an additional credential.

    However, some programs are intended to prepare students for an additional degree, and excluding data for students who earn another degree would mean excluding most graduates and paint a misleading picture.

    To read the full report from the Urban Institute, click here.

    —Austin Freeman

    If you have any questions or comments about this blog post, please contact us.

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  • Too many communities lack broad-access colleges

    Too many communities lack broad-access colleges

    Most American college students attend broad-access institutions, or public colleges and universities that admit at least 80 percent of applicants. Yet millions of people live in communities without one of these institutions nearby—and millions more live in areas with only one option, according to a new report from the Institute for College Access and Success.

    The report, released today, shows stark disparities in higher ed access based on students’ geography and how some broad-access institutions are single-handedly serving whole regions. It also highlights communities with nearby colleges located across state lines, an understudied college-access issue, higher ed leaders say.

    Researchers analyzed different “commuting zones,” or clusters of counties workers commute between, to see which communities have broad-access institutions within a reasonable commuting distance.

    Nicholas Hillman, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and co-author of the report, believes it’s critical to understand students’ geographical contexts.

    He said conversations about higher ed access often revolve around “informational problems”—whether students know about different college options and understand the college admissions process. But his previous research shows most students, even if well-informed, choose to stay close to home for college. That’s why he wanted to take a deeper look at where residents do or don’t have broad-access institutions within reach.

    “Maybe some of the problems in college access and opportunity are that there aren’t colleges nearby, or that there are not appropriate transportation infrastructures in place for students to access colleges … or that there are cost-prohibitive options nearby,” said Hillman, who also directs the university’s Student Success Through Applied Research Lab. When studying college access through a geographic lens, “you see problems differently. You might come up with a very different set of policy solutions.”

    He also sees the report as a “love letter” to broad-access institutions, especially those that are the only ones in their communities.

    “They’re doing the lion’s share of the work,” Hillman said. “They’re the blue-collar colleges out there, doing the heavy lifting in higher education, serving the most students and doing so oftentimes with the least amount of financial resources and under some of the most pressure.”

    The Findings

    To identify broad-access institutions, the report drew on data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, with the caveat that IPEDS doesn’t account for all branch campuses.

    And then researchers used data from Pennsylvania State University’s Labor-sheds for Regional Analysis tool to measure commuting zones around the colleges. Finally, the report looked at how nearby these institutions were in “large-population commuting zones,” like urban or metropolitan areas, and “small-population commuting zones,” less populous areas, like rural communities.

    The report found that more than 831,000 people living in more populous commuting zones don’t have a local broad-access institution, and another 9.7 million had only one of these colleges nearby. That means about one in 16 people don’t have a broad-access institution nearby or just one, even in the country’s largest local labor markets.

    The issue was even more stark in less populous or rural local labor economies, where 2.8 million people don’t have a single broad-access institution in their area. Another 5.9 million live in areas with only one such institution. Meanwhile, among students who go to college in these less populous areas, 70 percent attend broad-access institutions, meaning these colleges “play an outsized role in creating opportunities and meeting local educational needs” in these communities, the report says.

    Riley Acton, an assistant professor of economics at Miami University in Ohio, said it’s important to differentiate between college access issues in the two types of regions, as the report did, because “what it means to have access, to have something nearby, can be really different in rural and urban environments.” In a rural area, a college might be miles away but easy to travel to by car, while in an urban area, a college could be close by but hard to reach via public transportation, she said, so the report opens up a conversation about those distinctions.

    Hillman added that a granular look at the data might surprise people. For example, some large metropolitan areas, like Chicago, are known for prominent private universities but have relatively few broad-access institutions for residents.

    “Local markets are just very different, depending on where you live, and I think that it’s important to put that out there, just to help remind ourselves that there’s no typical place or experience or market that every student experiences,” Hillman said.

    The report also highlights that some regions have broad-access institutions nearby but they’re across state borders, meaning they may not provide in-state tuition or could be harder to reach. There are 63 small-population commuting zones that cross state borders, which collectively have 77 broad-access institutions and serve about 190,000 students. The report also found 65 large-population zones that cross state lines with a total of 249 broad-access institutions enrolling roughly 1.3 million students.

    Acton said broad-access institutions that draw students from multiple states are an “understudied angle” in understanding students’ geographical contexts and what barriers could be getting in the way of their going to college.

    The Policy Implications

    To expand students’ access to these colleges, the report recommends that states offer nearby out-of-state students tuition discounts and that local leaders explore ways to improve transportation infrastructure, among other policy suggestions.

    Hillman emphasized that it’s also important to ensure broad-access institutions that are the only ones in their communities are well resourced. He suggested these colleges have a special federal or state designation that comes with extra financial support.

    “Sometimes a college is … serving a great need and is really an anchor for that community,” he said.

    Particularly in rural areas, broad-access institutions often do so much more for their communities than confer degrees, said Cecilia Orphan, associate professor of higher education at the University of Denver and founding co-director of the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges. In some cases, these campuses provide local internet access and serve as major employers, among other services. Western Carolina University, for example, is home to its community’s power plant and has police officers that serve its surrounding area.

    “It’s very tempting for policymakers to simply look at enrollment numbers … and to ask themselves whether or not that institution is needed,” Orphan said. “But if you think about the broader services that institution likely provides a local community, closing it could be catastrophic.”

    Acton noted that limited access to broad-access institutions can especially hurt some of the most vulnerable students.

    She previously conducted research with a team of economists focused on how community college proximity affected Texas high school students’ college-going decisions. They found that Black, Hispanic and lower-income students without a community college nearby were less likely to pursue higher ed, while white, Asian and upper-income students were more likely to travel to go to college.

    She agrees higher ed decision-makers need to think carefully about what a college means to particular communities when they make policy choices.

    “Where do we open new colleges? Where do we close colleges? Where do we merge colleges?” she said. If an institution closes, “what are the other options for the people in this area? Are the people who are in this area ones who would be able to travel and go to something further away? … Those are conversations for state policymakers and institutional leaders to be having.”

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  • Biology syllabi lack learner-centered principles

    Biology syllabi lack learner-centered principles

    A course syllabus serves as a road map for navigating the upcoming term and content that will be covered, but researchers believe it could support students’ self-directed learning as well.

    A November study published in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching, authored by a team of faculty from Auburn University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, shows few introductory biology syllabi engage students in effective study habits or encourage help-seeking behaviors, instead favoring content.

    The research highlights opportunities to address the hidden curriculum of higher education and support success for historically marginalized students.

    What’s the need: Some college students lack effective study habits, and these gaps are often a piece of larger equity concerns for marginalized groups, highlighting limited opportunities or resources for underprivileged communities.

    Introductory science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses, in particular, often serve as gatekeepers, limiting which students can pursue these degree programs and resulting in less diverse STEM degree attainment.

    Today’s college students also demonstrate less college readiness in their academic skills, due in part to remote instruction as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Often, colleges or universities will create co-curricular interventions such as workshops to teach these skills or introduce best practices in a first-year seminar course. While these can be effective, institutions may lack the resources or time to deliver the interventions, which researchers say underscores a need for alternative strategies that reach students.

    Researchers theorized that embedding within the syllabus explicit instruction to promote three skills—study behaviors, metacognitive evaluation or academic help-seeking—could impact student success.

    Methodology: Researchers evaluated 115 introductory biology syllabi from 94 unique institutions, including 48 percent research-intensive institutions, 29 percent minority-serving institutions, 72 percent publics and 61 percent with enrollment over 10,000 students.

    A Deeper Look at STEM Syllabi

    A Worcester Polytechnic Institute study found instructors could help create a more inclusive learning environment in STEM courses through tailoring their syllabus to feature elements like materials from diverse scholars and accessibility statements. Read more here.

    One engineering professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst redesigned her syllabus as a zine, or miniature magazine, to promote student engagement and build community in the classroom.

    Syllabi were categorized by having the presence of study behaviors, academic help-seeking and metacognition suggestions; the type of suggestions of those three factors; and the quality of these recommendations (effective or ineffective).

    Further syllabus analysis covered four factors to gauge how learner-centered they were, including having clear and appropriate learning goals and objectives, aligned and define assessment activities, a logically sequenced course schedule, and a positive and organized learning environment. Each syllabus was awarded between zero and 48 points, with higher scores indicating they were more learner-centered.

    The findings: Among the 115 syllabi evaluated, only 14 percent earned a score of at least 31 to be considered learner-centered. Around three in 10 syllabi were considered “content-centered,” earning a score of 16 or less. Researchers theorized faculty may lack time or interest when creating their own syllabi, instead relying on templates from the institution or previously generated documents.

    Design by Ashley Mowreader

    Only 3.5 percent of syllabi showed evidence of reducing opportunity gaps in STEM courses, which researchers defined as de-emphasizing course rules, encouraging the use of external resources for continued learning outside the classroom and emphasizing the role of students in their own learning.

    “Most of the syllabi in our sample provided learning resources but focused primarily on course policies and did not address students as engaged learners,” according to the study.

    A majority of syllabi did offer suggestions for study behaviors, metacognition or approaches for academic help-seeking (61 percent), although the greatest share of these only addressed help-seeking (45 percent). When the syllabus did share advice to seek help, many just provided a list of resources, and fewer encouraged students to utilize them.

    “Only 17.9 percent of syllabi provided a listing of academic help-seeking resources, encouragement to use those resources, and an explanation on how to use those resources,” researchers wrote, with the explanation piece critical for addressing equity gaps and the hidden curriculum of higher education.

    Of the syllabi that provided recommendations for students’ study behaviors, a significant number gave students unhelpful advice or shared practices that are not affirmed with research.

    “We found that most biology syllabi endorsed effective study strategies such as self-testing and spacing,” researchers wrote. “However, we also found that syllabi recommended strategies that have been described as ineffective for long-term learning (e.g., re-reading textbooks and re-writing notes).”

    Twenty-nine percent of syllabi recommended only effective, evidence-based study habits. A greater share (42 percent) offered both effective and ineffective techniques, and 24 percent only offered ineffective behaviors.

    Just because the syllabus was lacking details on how to study or practice metacognition doesn’t mean it was absent from the class entirely, researchers noted, as instructors may discuss these topics in class or provide additional resources with this information. This presents an opportunity for instructors to make themselves more aware of evidence-based practices to close equity gaps and bring the syllabus into better alignment with their pedagogy, according to the study.

    Do you have an academic intervention that might help others improve student success? Tell us about it.

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