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"A One Year Associate Degree:  Will it Improve Graduation Rates and Lower Costs"

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"A One Year Associate Degree:  Will it Improve Graduation Rates and Lower Costs"

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Like many high-school seniors, Nicole Arthur was concerned about how she would be able to pay for the full cost of college. So when her guidance counselor handed her a stack of scholarship applications, one packet caught her eye: an associate-degree program that covered the cost of books, fees, and tuition. It would even give her a weekly stipend.

One of the best parts? She could finish her degree in one year.

A number of four-year colleges, such as Hartwick College and Southern New Hampshire University, are already experimenting with three-year bachelor's-degree programs, and Texas Tech University recently announced a plan to offer a medical degree that students can complete in three years rather than the usual four. Now, Indiana's community-college system appears to be the first in the nation to try an expedited path to an associate degree, one that would move students through in about one-third of the time it now takes an average community-college student to earn a two-year degree.

Ms. Arthur will be in the inaugural class of the accelerated associate program this fall at the Ivy Tech Community College campus in her hometown, Fort Wayne, Ind. This is one of two campuses in the system, along with the Indianapolis campus, that plans to offer the pilot program over the next three years. She will take classes with a cohort of about a dozen students studying health-care support, committing to be on campus from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., five days a week.

The project is backed by a $2.3-million grant from the Lumina Foundation for Education and a $270,000 grant from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, an agency that coordinates college programs and policy. The program, which focuses on enrolling low-income students, seeks to improve degree-completion rates for community-college students. About 25 percent of students who enter two-year institutions and hope to earn an associate degree actually graduate with one.

"We're trying to dramatically increase the number of students who are succeeding in college," says Teresa S. Lubbers, Indiana commissioner for higher education. "We need it for Indiana's economy, and we need it to improve the lives of Hoosiers."

Learning in Cohorts

Completing a two-year degree in one year is an ambitious proposition, and the program's developers have focused on creating a model that will enroll only students who have a good chance of succeeding.

Paula J. Birt, director of the program, says many high-school students were interested in the opportunity, but Ivy Tech worked with guidance counselors to identify only students who were college-ready, as determined by test scores, grades, and attendance and discipline records. A number of high-school graduates were offered a conditional acceptance, provided that they completed a summer remediation plan.

The program, which will begin in August, will consist of three groups of 12 to 20 students: one at Ivy Tech's Fort Wayne campus studying health-care support, and two at the Indianapolis campus, one in general studies and the other in computer-information systems.

Students will be expected to be on the campus during business hours, Monday through Friday, taking classes four of the days, with a fifth day for flexible programming, such as field trips or additional class time. Each cohort of students will take four classes at a time in eight-week segments, and classes will typically be taught in three-hour blocks.

"We're not rewriting the curriculum," Ms. Birt says. "We're simply redesigning it to deliver it in a different way."

The Lumina grant allows each campus to have a part-time academic-support staff member, to meet with students and help them set up tutoring. The program also calls for extensive collaboration among faculty members, who will have common planning time to coordinate their classes.

Linda K. Romines, who is program chair for health-care support at Fort Wayne, will teach a course in medical terminology during the first term of the accelerated associate program. She plans to coordinate with other professors, integrating material from other classes also being taught to the accelerated program's students, such as anatomy and physiology.

Ms. Romines believes the program is set up to not only help students graduate earlier but also improve how they synthesize information, even in a condensed time frame.

"If we didn't say it was going to be more challenging, that wouldn't be an honest approach to it," she says. "But I'm a really optimistic person, and I'm hoping for a 100-percent success rate."

Improving Completion

The program has a lofty goal of improving poor completion rates at community colleges that often stem, among low-income students, from a lack of family financial resources.

To be eligible for Ivy Tech's accelerated program, students must receive free or reduced-price lunches in high school through a federal program. Students who are picked for the program will receive financial aid, typically including Pell Grants, and will be given a small weekly stipend to help with food and transportation costs.

"We're targeting students who are bright kids but for socioeconomic reasons do not see themselves being successful in college," Ms. Birt says.

Program leaders say the key to determining whether the project is a success will be students' completion rates. President Obama has set a goal for community colleges nationwide to graduate five million more students by 2020.

At Ivy Tech, about 15 percent of students who entered in 2003 graduated with a degree by the end of the 2008-9 academic year, and about 3 percent both earned a degree and transferred to a four-year college. About 16 percent of students transferred to four-year institutions without first earning a degree.

The program's backers say time is the enemy of college completion, as many students get discouraged, or personal and career commitments get in the way. They hope the program's structure and shorter time frame will prevent students from losing focus on their education, allowing them to see the finish line.

"We're very aware of the fact that when it takes longer for our students to complete, it's less likely that they will complete at all," says Ms. Lubbers, the state higher-education commissioner.

The people behind the project also hope some students will use the associate degree as only a starting point for their college education and go on to a four-year institution.

Ms. Arthur, the student in Fort Wayne, says she thought about attending a four-year college, but the financial aid tied to the one-year degree program made it the most affordable option. Her father passed away when she was 10, and she and her mother, who is self-employed, receive federal assistance.

Ms. Arthur was able to defer a state scholarship for low- and moderate-income students, which will cover her tuition at a four-year institution after she completes the Ivy Tech program. She hopes the associate degree will improve her job prospects, and she wants to start working in the health-care-support field while she completes a bachelor's degree.

Interest in accelerated-degree programs has been on the rise in recent years, in part, because of the recession, which has spurred colleges to look for cheaper ways for students to earn degrees and faster ways to move them through to graduation. Getting students out the door more quickly could be particularly helpful to community colleges, many of which have struggled to accommodate surging enrollments in a down economy.

George D. Kuh, director of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University at Bloomington, is concerned about the expansion of accelerated-degree programs.

He likes some aspects of Ivy Tech's new program. Putting students in a cohort is an effective learning practice, he says, and selecting college-ready students could lead to the Ivy Tech program's success.

But Mr. Kuh is worried that colleges are pushing students to learn too much, too fast.

"We can set up circumstances like that and push people through," he says. "That still leaves us with the question of whether they are going to be competent."

Reproducing the Program

Mr. Kuh also questions whether the program could be reproduced on a large-enough scale to improve completion rates nationally. Other colleges may not have the resources to develop similar pilot programs, and large numbers of students need remedial courses and would be unprepared to succeed on the accelerated path, he says.

But at least one state has been able to offer certificate programs that are similar to the accelerated-degree option Ivy Tech wants to try. Tennessee's technology centers have been cited by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a potential model for community colleges to improve completion rates. Jamie P. Merisotis, president and chief executive of the Lumina Foundation, says the Tennessee centers helped Ivy Tech and Lumina think about how to structure the accelerated-degree program.

At Tennessee's technology centers, students complete certificate programs while studying in cohort groups and taking classes from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., five days a week. The programs' students receive financial aid through a state grant program, financed by a lottery, and many are eligible for Pell Grants. Remedial education is integrated into the regular curriculum of the programs.

The institutions have a 75-percent completion rate, according to James D. King, vice chancellor for the technology centers. Mr. King says community colleges could build similar programs if they started thinking "outside the box."

"The model that we have is truly student-focused," he says. "We're graduating students on time."

Supporters of the Ivy Tech program are optimistic that the program could be expanded, both in Indiana and elsewhere. If the Ivy Tech program succeeds, Ms. Birt hopes companies and community organizations would help back similar programs.

Mr. Merisotis says he would like to see this type of program expanded to unemployed populations to help retrain workers in a short time. The $2-billion set aside for community colleges in the student-loan bill President Obama signed last month could be used to create those kinds of opportunities, he says.

Accelerated programs are sustainable, Mr. Merisotis says, and would allow colleges to more easily accommodate enrollment surges by moving more students through quickly. Money for student stipends could become part of state aid programs, he says.

"Accelerated programs," he says, "have the capacity to be a substantial part of what community colleges do."

CAPTION(S):

With an 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule, five days a week, Nicole Arthur can earn an associate degree in health-care support in one year, starting this fall, at Ivy Tech Community College.

By Andrea Fuller

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"A College Degree is Not a Smart Investment for Everyone

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"A College Degree is Not a Smart Investment for Everyone

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Article Commentary

Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill, "Should Everyone Go to College?" Center on Children and Families at Brookings Institution, CCF Brief, no. 50, May 2013, pp. 1-8. Brookings.edu. Copyright © 2013 The Brookings Institution. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission.

Stephanie Owen is a senior research assistant and Isabel Sawhill is codirector of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution.

Although some students experience an earnings premium from obtaining a college degree, this benefit depends on a number of factors, such as school selection, financial aid, field of study, career choice, and completion of the degree. Improvements should be made to ensure that college is a smart investment for all students.

One way to estimate the value of education is to look at the increase in earnings associated with an additional year of schooling. However, correlation is not causation, and getting at the true causal effect of education on earnings is not so easy. The main problem is one of selection: if the smartest, most motivated people are both more likely to go to college and more likely to be financially successful, then the observed difference in earnings by years of education doesn't measure the true effect of college.

Measuring the Earnings Premium

Researchers have attempted to get around this problem of causality by employing a number of clever techniques, including, for example, comparing identical twins with different levels of education. The best studies suggest that the return to an additional year of school is around 10 percent. If we apply this 10 percent rate to the median earnings of about $30,000 for a 25- to 34-year-old high school graduate working full time in 2010, this implies that a year of collegeincreases earnings by $3,000, and four years increases them by $12,000. Notice that this amount is less than the raw differences in earnings between high school graduates and bachelor's degree holders of $15,000, but it is in the same ballpark. Similarly, the raw difference between high school graduates and associate's degree holders is about $7,000, but a return of 10% would predict the causal effect of those additional two years to be $6,000.

There are other factors to consider. The cost of college matters as well: the more someone has to pay to attend, the lower the net benefit of attending. Furthermore, we have to factor in the opportunity cost of college, measured as the foregone earnings a student gives up when he or she leaves or delays entering the workforce in order to attend school. Using average earnings for 18- and 19-year-olds and 20- and 21-year-olds with high school degrees (including those working part-time or not at all), Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney of Brookings' Hamilton Project calculate an opportunity cost of $54,000 for a four-year degree.

A 17- or 18-year-old deciding whether and where to go to college should carefully consider his or her own likely path of education and career before committing a considerable amount of time and money to that degree.

In this brief, we take a rather narrow view of the value of a college degree, focusing on the earnings premium. However, there are many non-monetary benefits of schooling which are harder to measure but no less important. Research suggests that additional education improves overall wellbeing by affecting things like job satisfaction, health, marriage, parenting, trust, and social interaction. Additionally, there are social benefits to education, such as reduced crime rates and higher political participation. We also do not want to dismiss personal preferences, and we acknowledge that many people derive value from their careers in ways that have nothing to do with money. While beyond the scope of this piece, we do want to point out that these noneconomic factors can change the cost-benefit calculus.

As noted above, the gap in annual earnings between young high school graduates and bachelor's degree holders working full time is $15,000. What's more, the earnings premium associated with a college degree grows over a lifetime. Hamilton Project research shows that 23- to 25-year-olds with bachelor's degrees make $12,000 more than high school graduates but by age 50, the gap has grown to $46,500. When we look at lifetime earnings—the sum of earnings over a career—the total premium is $570,000 for a bachelor's degree and $170,000 for an associate's degree. Compared to the average up-front cost of four years of college (tuitionplus opportunity cost) of $102,000, the Hamilton Project is not alone in arguing that investing in college provides "a tremendous return."

It is always possible to quibble over specific calculations, but it is hard to deny that, on average, the benefits of a college degree far outweigh the costs. The key phrase here is "on average." The purpose of this brief is to highlight the reasons why, for a given individual, the benefits may not outweigh the costs. We emphasize that a 17- or 18-year-old deciding whether and where to go to college should carefully consider his or her own likely path of education and career before committing a considerable amount of time and money to that degree. With tuitions rising faster than family incomes, the typical college student is now more dependent than in the past on loans, creating serious risks for the individual student and perhaps for the system as a whole, should widespread defaults occur in the future. Federal student loans now total close to $1 trillion, larger than credit card debt or auto loans and second only to mortgage debt on household balance sheets.

Variation in the Return to Education

It is easy to imagine hundreds of dimensions on which college degrees and their payoffs could differ. Ideally, we'd like to be able to look into a crystal ball and know which individual school will give the highest net benefit for a given student with her unique strengths, weaknesses, and interests. Of course, we are not able to do this. What we can do is lay out several key dimensions that seem to significantly affect the return to a college degree. These include school type, school selectivity level, school cost and financial aid, college major, later occupation, and perhaps most importantly, the probability of completing a degree.

Mark Schneider of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) used longitudinal data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond survey to calculate lifetime earnings for bachelor's earners by type of institution attended, then compared them to the lifetime earnings of high school graduates. The difference (after accounting for tuition costs and discounting to a present value) is the value of a bachelor's degree. For every type of school (categorized by whether the school was a public institution or a nonprofit private institution and by its selectivity) this value is positive, but it varies widely. People who attended the most selective private schools have a lifetime earnings premium of over $620,000 (in 2012 dollars). For those who attended a minimally selective or open admission private school, the premium is only a third of that. Schneider performed a similar exercise with campus-level data on collegegraduates (compiled by the online salary information company PayScale), calculating the return on investment (ROI) of a bachelor's degree. These calculations suggest that public schools tend to have higher ROIs than private schools, and more selective schools offer higher returns than less selective ones. Even within a school type and selectivity category, the variation is striking. For example, the average ROI for a competitive public school in 2010 is 9 percent, but the highest rate within this category is 12 percent while the lowest is 6 percent.

The lifetime earnings of an education or arts major working in the service sector are actually lower than the average lifetime earnings of a high school graduate.

Another important element in estimating the ROI on a college education is financial aid, which can change the expected return dramatically. For example, Vassar College is one of the most expensive schools on the 2012 list and has a relatively low annual ROI of 6%. But when you factor in its generous aid packages (nearly 60% of students receive aid, and the average amount is over $30,000), Vassar's annual ROI increases 50%, to a return of 9%.

One of the most important takeaways from the PayScale data is that not every bachelor's degree is a smart investment. After attempting to account for in-state vs. out-of-state tuition, financial aid, graduation rates, years taken to graduate, wage inflation, and selection, nearly two hundred schools on the 2012 list have negative ROIs. Students may want to think twice about attending the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia or Jackson State University in Mississippi. The problem is compounded if the students most likely to attend these less selective schools come from disadvantaged families.

Variation by Field of Study and Career

Even within a school, the choices a student makes about his or her field of study and later career can have a large impact on what he or she gets out of her degree. It is no coincidence that the three schools with the highest 30-year ROIs on the 2012 PayScale list—Harvey Mudd [College], Caltech [California Institute of Technology], and MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology]—specialize in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering, and math. Recent analysis by the Census Bureau also shows that the lifetime earnings of workers with bachelor's degrees vary widely by college major and occupation. The highest paid major is engineering, followed by computers and math. The lowest paid major, with barely half the lifetime earnings of engineering majors, is education, followed by the arts and psychology. The highest-earning occupation category is architecture and engineering, with computers, math, and management in second place. The lowest-earning occupation for college graduates is service. According to Census's calculations, the lifetime earnings of an education or arts major working in the service sector are actually lower than the average lifetime earnings of a high school graduate.

When we dig even deeper, we see that just as not all college degrees are equal, neither are all high school diplomas. Anthony Carnevale and his colleagues at the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce use similar methodology to the Census calculations but disaggregate even further, estimating median lifetime earnings for all education levels by occupation. They find that 14 percent of people with a high school diploma make at least as much as those with a bachelor's degree, and 17 percent of people with a bachelor's degree make more than those with a professional degree. The authors argue that much of this finding is explained by occupation. In every occupation category, more educated workers earn more.

But, for example, someone working in a STEM job with only a high school diploma can expect to make more over a lifetime than someone with a bachelor's degree working in education, community service and arts, sales and office work, health support, blue collar jobs, or personal services....

In fact, choice of major can also affect whether a college graduate can find a job at all. Another recent report from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce breaks down unemployment rates by major for both recent (age 22-26) and experienced (age 30-54) collegegraduates in 2009-2010. People who majored in education or health have very low unemployment—even though education is one of the lowest-paying majors. Architecture graduates have particularly high unemployment, which may simply reflect the decline of the construction industry during the Great Recession. Arts majors don't fare too well, either. The expected earnings (median full-time earnings times the probability of being employed) of a young college graduate with a theater degree are about $6,000 more than the expected earnings of a young high school graduate. For a young person with a mechanical engineering degree, the expected earnings of the college graduate is a staggering $35,000 more than that of a typical high school graduate.

Variation in Graduation Rates

Comparisons of the return to college by highest degree attained include only people who actually complete college. Students who fail to obtain a degree incur some or all of the costs of a bachelor's degree without the ultimate payoff. This has major implications for inequalities of income and wealth, as the students least likely to graduate—lower-income students—are also the most likely to take on debt to finance their education.

It is a mistake to unilaterally tell young Americans that going to college—any college—is the best decision they can make.

Fewer than 60 percent of students who enter four-year schools finish within six years, and for low-income students it's even worse. Again, the variation in this measure is huge. Just within Washington, D.C., for example, six-year graduation rates range from a near-universal 93 percent at Georgetown University to a dismal 19 percent at the University of D.C. Of course, these are very different institutions, and we might expect high-achieving students at an elite school like Georgetown to have higher completion rates than at a less competitive school like UDC. In fact, Frederick Hess and his colleagues at AEI [American Enterprise Institute] have documented that the relationship between selectivity and completion is positive, echoing other work that suggests that students are more likely to succeed in and graduate from college when they attend more selective schools. At the most selective schools, 88 percent of students graduate within six years; at non-competitive schools, only 35 percent do. Furthermore, the range of completion rates is negatively correlated with school ranking, meaning the least selective schools have the widest range. For example, one non-competitive school, Arkansas Baptist College, graduates 100 percent of its students, while only 8 percent of students at Southern University at New Orleans finish. Not every student can get into Harvard, where the likelihood of graduating is 97 percent, but students can choose to attend a school with a better track record within their ability level.

Unfortunately, recent evidence by Caroline Hoxby of Stanford and Christopher Avery of Harvard shows that most high-achieving low-income students never even apply to the selective schools that they are qualified to attend—and at which they would be eligible for generous financial aid. There is clearly room for policies that do a better job of matching students to schools.

The Need for Information

All of this suggests that it is a mistake to unilaterally tell young Americans that going to college—any college—is the best decision they can make. If they choose wisely and attend a school with generous financial aid and high expected earnings, and if they don't just enroll but graduate, they can greatly improve their lifetime prospects. The information needed to make a wise decision, however, can be difficult to find and hard to interpret.

One solution is simply to make the type of information discussed above more readily available. A study by Andrew Kelly and Mark Schneider of AEI found that when parents were asked to choose between two similar public universities in their state, giving them information on the schools' graduation rates caused them to prefer the higher-performing school.

The PayScale college rankings are a step in the right direction, giving potential students and their parents information with which to make better decisions. Similarly, the [Barack] Obama Administration's new College Scorecard is being developed to increase transparency in the college application process. As it operates now, a prospective student can type in a college's name and learn its average net price, graduation rate, loan default rate, and median borrowed amount. The Department of Education is working to add information about the earnings of a given school's graduates. There is also a multi-dimensional search feature that allows users to find schools by location, size, and degrees and majors offered. The Student Right to Know Before You Go Act, sponsored by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), also aims to expand the data available on the costs and benefits of individual schools, as well as programs and majors within schools.

Research suggests that grants and loans increase enrollment but that aid must be tied to performance in order to affect persistence.

The College Scorecard is an admirable effort to help students and parents navigate the complicated process of choosing a college. However, it may not go far enough in improving transparency and helping students make the best possible decisions. A recent report by the Center for American Progress (CAP) showed a draft of the Scorecard to a focus group of college-bound high school students and found, among other things, that they are frequently confused about the term "net price" and give little weight to six-year graduation rates because they expect to graduate in four. It appears that the White House has responded to some of these critiques, for example showing median amount borrowed and default rates rather than the confusing "student loan repayment." Nevertheless, more information for students and their parents is needed.

The Need for Improvements

There is also room for improvement in the financial aid system, which can seem overwhelmingly complex for families not familiar with the process. Studies have shown that students frequently underestimate how much aid they are eligible for, and don't claim the tax incentives that would save them money. Since 2009, the Administration has worked to simplify the FAFSA [Free Application for Federal Student Aid], the form that families must fill out to receive federal aid—but more could be done to guide low-income families through the process.

In the longer run, colleges need to do more to ensure that their students graduate, particularly the lower-income students who struggle most with persistence and completion. Research suggests that grants and loans increase enrollment but that aid must be tied to performance in order to affect persistence. Currently, we spend over $100 billion on Pell Grants and federal loans, despite a complete lack of evidence that this money leads to higher graduation rates. Good research on programs like Georgia's HOPE scholarships or West Virginia's PROMISE scholarships suggest that attaching strings to grant aid can improve college persistence and completion.

Finally, we want to emphasize that the personal characteristics and skills of each individual are equally important. It may be that for a student with poor grades who is on the fence about enrolling in a four-year program, the most bang-for-the-buck will come from a vocationally-oriented associate's degree or career-specific technical training. Indeed, there are many well-paid job openings going unfilled because employers can't find workers with the right skills—skills that young potential workers could learn from training programs, apprenticeships, a vocational certificate, or an associate's degree. Policymakers should encourage these alternatives at the high school as well as the postsecondary level, with a focus on high-demand occupations and high-growth sectors. There has long been resistance to vocational education in American high schools, for fear that "tracking" students reinforces socioeconomic (and racial) stratification and impedes mobility. But if the default for many lower-achieving students was a career-focused training path rather than a path that involves dropping out of traditional college, their job prospects would probably improve. For example, Career Academies are high schools organized around an occupational or industry focus, and have partnerships with local employers and colleges. They have been shown by gold standard research to increase men's wages, hours worked, and employment stability after high school, particularly for those at high risk of dropping out.

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"Failure to Launch:  College Completion Challenges not to be Overlooked"

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"Failure to Launch:  College Completion Challenges not to be Overlooked"

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THE RECENTLY CONCLUDED holiday break wasn't much fun for those very bright but struggling freshmen students who got their first taste ever of academic failure.

These students were often tops in their high school classes and had high SAT scores. They're now working hard but can't seem to get any traction. They may struggle to wake up in time for class, leave long-term assignments until it's too late, and neglect to complete work without the kinds of reminders and cues their parents used to provide. Unlike in high school, where performance is closely tracked and notice is quickly taken, it may not be until the end of the semester that the final reckoning comes due--failing grades and academic probation or suspension.

These are not isolated cases. There is a large, growing group of bright kids whose brains aren't wired right for a demanding college routine. Strategies and supports that worked while living at home are not adequate to the new demands that college places on the executive functions of the brain.

CHALLENGES AND SUPPORTS

According to current theories of the brain, executive functions are located in areas of the frontal lobe and serve as a kind of orchestra conductor, regulating other areas that control planning, goal-setting, language production, and motor activity. They operate beyond the control of will and motivation, although the behavior that results when they fail to operate effectively is often judged in moral terms.

Researchers believe executive function capabilities vary widely. Many also believe that, in about 10 percent of cases, the difficulties are severe enough to be classified as Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, a learning difference increasingly seen as lying in the self-regulation systems of the brain. But even those without an AD/HD diagnosis can and do have significant challenges, especially in a demanding academic environment.

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Executive functions are challenged in any significant life transition. While research is not yet conclusive, many believe first-generation college students, or those from different cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds, experience the same kind of executive function challenges that students with AD/HD face in college. Unfortunately, colleges have not yet learned how to deal with the mismatch between the ways some students' executive systems have developed and successful management of college coursework.

Even the best college support systems are often inadequate, and the number of students who slip through the cracks is very high. Even students who manage to muddle through by using support systems and getting extra help from instructors may still not develop the kinds of executive strategies essential to success in the workplace.

Prescription medications can have positive effects, but many students report that meds also carry a cost. I would rather see more colleges address the problem by working directly with students to develop self-management and academic strategies. It works beautifully here at Landmark College (Vt.), where students learn to develop strategies to use their strengths and overcome their challenges.

Every year, about half of the students who come here have failed at other postsecondary institutions, including some of the most selective colleges in the country. Their stories are nearly always the same: good grades in high school, good SATs, and a failure to launch when it came to the new demands of college work. By learning to master "executive functioning skills," these same students can go on to achieve academically and take their place in the world feeling a sense of pride in their accomplishment.

Ours is a special mission, but any institution can emulate what we do with sufficient resources. The stimulus money being used to increase college access for low-income students is certainly money well spent. But the question of college completion is equally important. Perhaps some stimulus money should be used to improve results on that score. Until we address the causes that lead to one out of two students dropping out before receiving a degree, opening higher education's doors wider may be an empty victory.

MacLean Gander is a professor of English at Landmark College, Putney, Vt., which serves students with learning disorders, with a primary focus on executive function challenge.

Gander, MacLean

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"The Dropout Rate of Community College is Problematic

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"The Dropout Rate of Community College is Problematic

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Full Text:

Article Commentary

Bob Rath, Kathryn Rock, and Ashley Laferriere, "Pathways Through College: Strategies for Improving Community College Student Success," April 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Our Piece of the Pie. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission.

Bob Rath is president and chief executive officer of Our Piece of the Pie (OPP), a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to helping urban youth. Kathryn Rock is an external affairs specialist at OPP. Ashley Laferriere is a grant writer at Providence Public Schools and a former consultant at OPP.

Dropout rates among community college students are extremely high—less than 30 percent enrolled full-time earn their associate's degree in three years. The road to obtaining their degrees or credentials is more difficult for numerous reasons. Many students are academically unprepared, unable to meet the rigors of college-level coursework. Another problem is remedial education; almost half of community college students are required to take remedial courses, where their time, money, and efforts earn no credits. Also, inadequate financial aid forces them to attend college part-time and work to cover their expenses. Other barriers to graduation facing community college students are a lack of nonacademic skills and support needed to navigate the path through school and the competing obligations of jobs, family, and commuting.

"In the coming years, jobs requiring at least an associate degree are projected to grow twice as fast as jobs requiring no college experience. We will not fill those jobs—or keep those jobs on our shores—without the training offered by community colleges."—President Barack Obama

The United States economy is expected to grow by 14.4 million jobs between 2008 and 2018, with 97% of these new positions, and 63% of all occupations, requiring a postsecondary credential of some type. With these demands in mind, the US is currently on track to face a shortage of nearly 5 million workers to fill positions that require postsecondary credentials by 2018. Policymakers, educators, nonprofit organizations, and postsecondary institutions, must rise to meet President Obama's challenge of graduating an additional 8.2 million postsecondary students by 2020. We must come together to ensure that college students receive the support and guidance they need so they can succeed in obtaining a postsecondary credential. These graduates will fill tomorrow's high-demand positions and thrive as the workforce of the future.

While job growth for all workers is expected to average 10%, job growth for those with an associate's degree is expected to grow at nearly double that rate, at almost 19%. Job growth for associate's degree holders is expected to even surpass new job growth for bachelor's degrees. Not only will associate's degrees be in high demand, but jobs requiring associate's degrees will offer competitive wages. As recently as 2006, nearly 1 in 6 jobs paying above average wages, and experiencing above average growth, required an associate's degree. In fact, the average expected lifetime earnings for an individual with an associate's degree is approximately $1.6 million, nearly $400,000 more than the expected earnings of a high school graduate.

Between 2003 and 2008, states across the country gave over $1.4 billion, and the Federal government gave over $1.5 billion, to college students who ultimately left school after just 1 year.

The workforce demands of the future cannot be met by our current postsecondary education system. To produce the number of graduates necessary to meet the rising demand, community colleges must play a central role and graduate a greater number of students. Because community colleges typically cost less to attend than 4-year institutions, have open enrollment policies, and offer more flexibility than 4-year programs, they offer a feasible path to graduation for many students who may not otherwise pursue a degree.

The Community College Dropout Crisis

Reducing the high school dropout rate is a national priority. Youth development organizations, states, and school districts are working tirelessly to develop strategies to help struggling students succeed. Unfortunately, the same emphasis, support, and assistance are not offered to another group of struggling young people: community college students. Too often, student supports stop at high school graduation and community college students are overlooked, despite the fact that dropout rates among this population are extremely high and the economic and social benefits of completion are extensive.

According to Complete College America, less than 30% of students who enroll full-time in community college complete an associate's degree in three years. Completion rates are especially low for minority, low-income, and older students. Just 7.5% of African American students, 11.1% of Hispanic students, 11.8% of low-income students, and 14.4% of students over the age of 25, enrolled full-time, complete a 2-year associate's degree in 3 years. Part-time students complete at even lower rates, with just over 2% of African American students, 2.6% of Hispanic students, and 4.3% of low-income students completing an associate's degree in 3 years.

In Connecticut, the situation is equally dire. According to a 2009 report by the P-20 Council, just 7% to 24% of community college students (depending on the institution) graduate within 3 years of entering school. This means that between 76% and 93% of students are paying 3 years of community college tuition without receiving a diploma as a result of their investment. This wasted tuition money not only affects personal finances, but state and federal funds as well, since many community college students receive student loans to cover tuition costs. In fact, between 2003 and 2008, states across the country gave over $1.4 billion, and the Federal government gave over $1.5 billion, to college students who ultimately left school after just 1 year. Total state expenditures for first year college dropouts in Connecticut topped $62 million between 2003 and 2008.... Funds expended can include a combination of personal, state, and federal dollars.

This is not to say that community colleges do not serve an essential purpose, or that investing state and federal funds in these programs is a waste. Graduates of community college produce significant social benefits over non-graduates including, lower unemployment rates, increased tax revenue, and reduced crime rates. In addition, community college provides an affordable, accessible postsecondary option, where young people can acquire the credentials they need to meet labor market demands. As it is estimated that by 2018, jobs requiring an associate's degree will grow at a rate faster than those requiring any other academic credential, improving community college student success rates will not only increase the likelihood of individual student achievement, but save students and taxpayers a significant amount of money in the process....

Graduating from college is difficult; careful study, concentration, and long-term commitment are required to obtain a degree. Because of this, many students struggle to complete their credential. For community college students, the road is often more difficult. Many enter college unprepared or under-prepared for the academic rigor of college level work. Others are shuttled into remedial courses, which often serve as a roadblock to credit-bearing classes and college completion. Still others become lost in the maze of majors, lectures, and high cost. Whether students experience all or just some of these problems, the reasons that many community college students fail to complete their degree must be carefully examined so high-quality solutions can be found to help students succeed.

Over 67% of African American students, 58% of Hispanic students, and 64% of low-income students pursuing a 2-year degree require remediation.

Inadequate Academic Preparation

While more students are attending college than ever before (attendance rates have increased from 49% in 1972 to 69% in 2005) many students are arriving at college without the academic foundation necessary to excel. Weak curricula, unclear standards, and a lack of alignment between high school and college coursework leaves students stranded in college without the academic foundation they need. This is particularly the case under the new Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and math. These new standards are more rigorous, intended to better prepare students to succeed in postsecondary education. However, schools are struggling to ensure that all students are truly mastering these skills before graduating.

This sets students up for failure, with time and money wasted taking remedial courses to fill gaps in the knowledge they should have acquired while still enrolled in high school. In fact, inadequate academic preparation is a cost that must be paid twice, with taxpayers paying first for students to learn academic material while in high school and again once students are enrolled in college. Student's lack of academic preparation and the need for remediation comes at an estimated national cost of $3.6 billion. Avoiding this path, and improving a student's chances of college success, should start long before students begin college level work. Acquiring a strong academic foundation prior to college is central to a student's successful admission to college and to the likelihood that they will not require remediation once they are enrolled.

Inadequate academic preparation also contributes to one of the most prohibitive factors in a student's ability to complete an associate's degree—the amount of time that they must remain enrolled in college. According to Complete College America, the longer a student is enrolled in school, the less likely they are to finish their degree. Many students cannot afford to attend school full-time, because 75% are working, raising children, commuting to school, or juggling some combination of these three obligations. In addition to personal obligations lengthening their enrollment, students find themselves inadequately prepared for college and, as a result, are forced to take non-credit bearing remedial courses. The combination of outside obligations and inadequate academic preparation is often too much, causing students to drop out.

Remedial Education

Increased time in school is prohibitive—so much so that it has been shown that the longer it takes a student to complete developmental or remedial education requirements, the less likely they are to remain in school. This is extremely alarming when considered in light of the large number of students required to take remedial courses each year. Complete College America reports that almost 50% of students entering 2-year colleges are required to take remedial classes. This number is even higher for minority and low-income students. In fact, over 67% of African American students, 58% of Hispanic students, and 64% of low-income students pursuing a 2-year degree require remediation.

Despite being noncredit-bearing, remedial courses cost students the same amount as credit bearing classes. Nationally, approximately $3 billion is spent annually on remedial courses, and the cost is constantly growing. According to The College Board, the average tuition at public, two-year colleges increased by just 5% from 1992-2002. Yet, in the following decade (2002-2012), the average tuition at public, two-year colleges increased by 45%. These rising costs are especially disconcerting for remedial students who do not receive credit for their coursework. Students placed in remedial classes can spend thousands of dollars on their education and have no credits to show for their time, money, and hard work.

Remedial education is detrimental not only to students who are required to take these courses, but to state and national economies. Because students who take remedial courses are less likely to complete school the added economic contributions of these potential college graduates are lost. When students enter, but do not complete college, they lose future earning potential, and governments lose future tax revenue.

Student Financial Aid

While academic preparation for college is essential, adequate preparation does not always translate into successful enrollment and completion of school. In fact, after accounting for differences in academic achievement, a significant gap persists between the percentage of low-income students and high-income students that attend college. Research indicates that low-income high school graduates in the top academic quartile attend college at the same rate as high-income graduates in the bottom achievement quartile. A key factor in this difference is the cost of a college degree and the financial aid available to make college affordable. The bottom line is that college is expensive, prohibitively so for many community college students, especially for students that are low-income.

According to The College Board, the average annual tuition at a public, two-year college, in the 2010 to 2011 school year, was $2,713. This does not include other costs incurred by students such as food, housing, books, and transportation. When these expenses are considered, it is estimated that the average budget required by a community college student is $15,000 per year. This amounts to a significant expense, especially for the many low-income students who often depend on community college to access higher education, and in light of recent changes to Pell Grant funding.

In 2011, the number of semesters in which student could receive a Pell Grant award was shortened from 18 semesters to 12 semesters. This change was implemented in 2012 and, according to the Association of Community College Trustees, is expected to impact 63,000 Pell Grant recipients. This modification is especially detrimental for the community college student population, since Pell Grants typically cover a higher proportion of a community college students' tuition than other college students. In addition, many community college students take longer to complete their degrees than students at 4-year colleges. In fact, 40% of students are only able to attend school part time. This extends the amount of time it takes for students to achieve their degree and the amount of time they require the assistance of a Pell Grant. Now, with fewer semesters of Pell eligibility, these students must receive better supports to ensure that they can get through a degree program.

Many students [who lack non-academic skills] are impacted at the very start of the college process, even before they enroll, when they must take concrete steps to explore college and financial aid options.

While this is an issue facing students who apply for Pell grants, many students and families are not even aware of the financial aid that is available. They often overestimate the cost of college and do not know about financial aid options. This problem is particularly prevalent among low-income students and families who are also often deterred by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). As a result, many students fail to complete the FAFSA, miss important filing deadlines, and lose out on aid that could help them afford college. This forces them to take on work obligations, oftentimes lengthening their time in school, or deterring them from enrolling entirely. Whether due to inadequate financial aid information, rapidly rising costs, or a financial aid system that is complex and confusing, student financial aid plays a key factor in why students leave, or fail to enter, college.

Lack of Non-Academic Skills

To achieve success in college, students need more than just academic skills. They must adapt to new expectations, learning styles, professors, and surroundings. They must learn to collaborate with new students, and satisfy college course and graduation requirements. For many community college students, these new responsibilities can be overwhelming. This is because many students lack the essential non-academic skills necessary to tackle college challenges. In fact, even students that are deemed academically college-ready, through test scores or the completion of developmental coursework, often fail to complete their degree. Clearly, academic preparation influences college success, but it is certainly not the only success factor.

Professors and peers expect community college students to meet certain non-academic behavioral standards, such as navigating complex bureaucratic requirements, utilizing good study habits and time management strategies, and engaging in new kinds of social relationships. These standards are often left unspoken and unwritten, leaving students that lack these non-academic skills, unsure or unaware of expectations. The lack of clarity regarding non-academic skills is particularly detrimental to first-generation and older college students, who make up a large portion of the community college student population. Because non-academic preparation and support for college often depends on parents, teachers, guidance counselors, and other supportive adults with college knowledge and insight on how to succeed, students without access to these adult guides are often left behind. For many first-generation and low-income community college students, support for non-academic skills is simply not available.

A lack of non-academic preparation and support can undermine college student success at any point. Many students are impacted at the very start of the college process, even before they enroll, when they must take concrete steps to explore college and financial aid options. Other students make it to college, but receive negative feedback, poor grades, and experience discomfort on campus, causing them to ultimately drop out. While many community colleges have some type of orientation program in place to combat potential confusion, explain college policies, and highlight support resources, just 38% of colleges report instituting mandatory orientation programs. In fact, after three weeks of college, approximately 19% of entering students are still unaware of their school's orientation program. Skipping orientation can be especially detrimental to students lacking non-academic skills, as orientation provides a valuable opportunity for them to understand how their school works and begin forming new relationships.

Competing Obligations

Many community college students face significant obligations outside of the classroom that make it difficult to persist in school and concentrate on completing their degree. Work and family life demands are perhaps the most influential among the challenges that community college students face. Because many students have jobs, children, and a commute to school, they are more likely than their 4-year college peers to have poor academic outcomes and, ultimately, drop out. It is critical that students feel connected to their school, and supported by their environment in order to combat these competing obligations and persist in the face of obstacles that threaten to derail their success.

Community college students work a substantial number of hours to support themselves, their education, and their family. According to a study conducted for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, working and going to school simultaneously is the number one reason students provided when asked why they left school. In fact, 60% of community college students work 20 hours a week, and 25% work 35 hours a week. The stress of going to college while working is often too much, causing students to drop out before completing their degree.

Many students work while enrolled in school because of the high cost of postsecondary education. While college costs have risen over 400% in the past 25 years, median family income has only increased 150%—not enough to keep pace. This leaves many families unable to contribute to their children's education, forcing students to work while enrolled in school and resulting in poor outcomes. In fact, research has found that 6 out of 10 students who leave school had to pay for college themselves, and could not rely on support from their families.

Students leave school for a variety of reasons. Whether due to inadequate academic preparation, insufficient financial aid, underdeveloped non-academic skills, or competing life obligations, young people need help to reach their postsecondary goals. With the problems identified, we can begin to develop sound strategies and supportive solutions to improve student success.

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"More Focus on Occupational Certificates"

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"More Focus on Occupational Certificates"

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Brian Bosworth's "Expanding Certificate Programs" (Issues, Fall 2011) shines light on an important and often neglected area of labor market preparation. According to the Survey on Income and Program Participation (SIPP), fully 18% of workers have a certificate from a business, vocational, trade, or technical postsecondary program, and a third of these people also have a two - or four-year degree. Of the 20% of associate degree graduates with a certificate, 65% got their certificate first, 7% got it at the same time they got their degree, and 28% got their certificate after getting their associate degree.

As Bosworth shows, certificates are particularly useful for hard-to-serve populations, such as minorities, low-income adults, and young people who didn't do well in high school. The advantages of these programs include being shorter, offering more-focused learning, and being flexibly scheduled. The programs can also adapt more quickly to changing market demand for specific skills and fields.

Like any education/training program, there is variation on economic returns depending on the field of study. We feel that there needs to be constant monitoring of earnings of graduates to ensure that students have the best information to align their interests and talents with occupations that are growing and that pay well. Another crucial factor is placement. In our analysis of SIPP data, certificate holders who are in occupations related to their training earn 35% more than those not working in their field.

Bosworth's presentation of strategies for success gives clear guidelines on how to structure programs to maximize student completion and transition to successful labor market outcomes. There is a lot of talk about the need for more postsecondary educational attainment. All too frequently, people view this as increasing our rate of bachelor's degree graduates. Although this is a reasonable goal, four-year degrees are not for everyone. The subbaccalaureate programs that result in two-year degrees and/or certificates are an important option for many students and need to be promoted just as much as bachelors programs.

ANTHONY P. CARNEVALE

STEPHEN J. ROSE

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

Washington, DC

cewgeorgetown@georgetown.edu

Brian Bosworth's excellent article is an important contribution to the growing conversation about college completion and the labor market value of postsecondary credentials. He correctly points out that we have failed to recognize the value of certificate programs, particularly in high-value career fields with strong wages, which allow students to gain the credential and enter the workforce in a shorter period of time. This is a timely article as many states grapple with increasing the number of individuals holding some type of postsecondary credential.

Bosworth correctly argues that a certificate with good labor market value is the only ticket for certain populations to a good job and opportunity for a quality life. In Tennessee, as in many states, students come to institutions of higher education underprepared for collegiate work and also often have demands on their lives that prohibit full-time attendance in pursuit of the degree. Many adult students are unable to commit to four to six years of collegiate work in order to complete the degree.

A recent study by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce underlines the urgency for Tennessee. Between 2008 and 2018, new jobs in Tennessee requiring postsecondary education and training will grow by 194,000, while jobs for high-school graduates and dropouts will grow by 145,000. Between 2008 and 2018, Tennessee will create 967,000 job vacancies representing both new jobs and openings due to retirement; 516,000 of these job vacancies will be for those with postsecondary credentials. Fifty-four percent of all jobs in Tennessee (1.8 million) will require some postsecondary training beyond high school in 2018. The need for Tennesseans with postsecondary credentials is great. Certificates offer a tremendous opportunity.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

But, as Bosworth states, not just any certificate will suffice, and certainly not only those delivered in the traditional structure. He argues that how we deliver such certificate programming has an even greater chance of ensuring completion for those adults who are busy with life and have many demands on their time and resources. His recommendations of the use of block scheduling, embedded student support and remediation, and cohort-based models are a major step forward in understanding successful structures for the types of students in our postsecondary institutions today.

His call for action to make this happen at all levels is important. In Tennessee, recent legislation requires the use of block-scheduled, cohort programs in our community colleges as a means to increase the number of those credentialed to obtain employment. We are taking this a step further and focusing some of our work on increasing the number of certificates of a year or longer that are delivered via this strategy. We believe that the data over the next couple of years will support the success of this effort. Of course, students already are telling us that this approach provides the only way that they could ever attend college. That speaks volumes to my mind.

PAULA MYRICK SHORT

Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Tennessee Board of Regents

Nashville, Tennessee

Paula.Short@tbr.edu

Certificates that demonstrate significant occupation-related competencies and that are valued in the labor market are clearly an underdeveloped aspect of the college completion strategy. As Brian Bosworth points out, postsecondary certificate programs that are a year or longer in duration generally have good labor market payoff, and these longer-term certificates may be an important route to better employment and earnings for many Americans, particularly working adults and low-income and minority youth. Greater attention should certainly be paid by policymakers and opinion leaders to occupational certificates that can be completed fairly efficiently and that respond effectively to local employer needs.

But, as Bosworth notes, several pitfalls must be avoided. First, the goal cannot simply be more certificates: If states generate more short-term certificates requiring less than a year of training, few completers are likely to see any earnings gains. And the trends are troubling. According to the American Association of Community Colleges, in the past 20 years, community college awards of certificates of less than a year's duration rose by 459%, while awards of certificates of a year or more rose 121%.

Needless to say, if minority and low-income students disproportionately choose or are steered to certificates with less economic payoff, the result may be more completers but little economic value for the graduates or society. Again, the trends give reason for concern. From 1990 through 2010, the percentage increase in short-term credentials earned by minority community college students was almost more than two times that of whites for blacks (770% compared to 440%) and three times for Hispanics (1337% versus 440%).

One important policy implication is that states need to track certificate students more carefully, so they have a better idea of who is enrolling in and earning what certificates, and so the labor market outcomes for recipients of different occupational certificates are well documented,

Bosworth ends his article with recommendations for how community colleges can implement evidence-based career programs. The federal government's commitment of $2 billion in Trade Adjustment Assistance Commu-nitgy College Training Grants can give these programs a big boost.

RICHARD KAZIS

Senior Vice President

Jobs for the Future

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"Community College a Research Puzzle; Few Studies can Inform Obama's $12 Billion Initiative"

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"Community College a Research Puzzle; Few Studies can Inform Obama's $12 Billion Initiative"

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Full Text:

When President Barack Obama unveiled his plans this summer for a $12 billion federal investment in the nation&#x2019;s community colleges, he said he wanted the initiative to yield an additional 5 million community college graduates by 2020.

Research suggests that reaching that goal may be a tall order.

Community colleges have abysmal graduation rates: Only one in 10 students who started community college in 2002 had earned an associate&#x2019;s degree three years later, according to a recent paper from the Washington-based Brookings Institution. Six years after they start school, other studies show, half of community college students have earned an associate&#x2019;s degree or a certificate or transferred to a four-year college.

Further, studies have only just begun to shed light on where the barriers are for students and how colleges can help students overcome them.

&#x201C;In the K-12 space, people are often frustrated by the state of data, the caliber of scholarship, and the weak presence of reform agents,&#x201D; said Frederick M. Hess, the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. &#x201C;They&#x2019;re actually living in nirvana compared to the higher educationspaces.&#x201D;

While Mr. Hess suggests that the Obama administration may be throwing money down a black hole with its American Graduation Initiative, other scholars say that assessment only points out the urgent need for more attention to community colleges.

Founded 50 years ago in response to President Harry Truman&#x2019;s call for a national network of community colleges to expand learning opportunities for veterans retuning from World War II, community colleges now represent the largest part of the nation&#x2019;s higher education system, collectively enrolling 11 million students, or 40 percent to 45 percent of all college undergraduates.

The publicly funded institutions serve different purposes. They can be stepping stones to four-year degrees for first-time college students looking to transfer to a four-year college or a source of occupational and technical training for older adults seeking associate&#x2019;s degrees or certificates. They also offer noncredit courses in areas ranging from computer skills to English-language instruction.

Because of their low tuition rates and open-enrollment policies, community colleges offer the only chance of earning a college degree for many low-income students, first-generation immigrants, minority students, and laid-off workers. That&#x2019;s important in the larger economic scheme, experts say, because studies show that students, especially women, with even one year of postsecondary study earn 15 percent to 20 percent more than students whose educational careers ended at high school.

Long Neglected?

But researchers and federal policymakers have long neglected community colleges, focusing instead on improving K-12 education, said Thomas Bailey, the director of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University.

&#x201C;Up until 10 years ago, people thought our higher education system was the best in the world,&#x201D; he said. But as recent studies have begun to show the United States falling behind some other developed nations in producing college graduates, he added, &#x201C;people have begun to realize that, yes, while we have a lot of students coming from around the world to attend our Ivy League and flagship schools, our typical institutions don&#x2019;t seem to be doing so well.&#x201D;

That realization has prompted a number of national foundations,including the Lumina Foundation, of Indianapolis, the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, in Stanford, Calif., to invest millions of dollars over the past five years in new initiatives and new research aimed at improving community colleges.

Those studies show that a major hurdle to a college degree for many students are the remedial--now called developmental--classes that students take to bring their academic skills up to the college level. Mr. Bailey said 60 percent of community college students enroll in at least one such class. The percentage of students who are actually referred to developmental classes is even higher, Mr. Bailey said.

According to his calculations, 44 percent of students took one to three such classes, and 14 percent took three or more.

Yet just a small fraction of those students pass the developmental courses, for which they do not receive credit, and go on to take the classes that count toward a degree or certificate. In a recent paper published by his center, Mr. Bailey estimates that only 44 percent of students referred to developmental reading classes, and 31 percent of those who tested into remedial math, complete their recommended developmental-course sequence within three years.

&#x201C;When you&#x2019;re told that you&#x2019;re not reading and writing at college level, it&#x2019;s a really difficult first start at college,&#x201D; said Rachel Singer, the director of academic affairs at the 16,000-student Kingsborough Community College in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, which has been working hard to boost its student-retention rates.

Finding What Works

But only a handful of studies--a &#x201C;meager harvest,&#x201D; in the words of one researcher--point to promising strategies for helping students past that crucial hurdle.

&#x201C;We truly don&#x2019;t know how to improve students&#x2019; success right now,&#x201D;said Sara Y. Goldrick-Rab, an assistant professor of educational policy studies and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was one of four co-authors of the Brookings white paper that helped lay the groundwork for President Obama&#x2019;s initiative. Both the paper and the president&#x2019;s program call for more research on effective strategies for student remediation.

Kingsborough College, however, has had some success by creating integrated &#x201C;learning communities,&#x201D; groups of 25 students who take three classes together: a remedial course, a college-level course, and a study-skills class. The instructors also work together to create integrated assignments, and one doubles as a case manager or mentor for the students.

A two-year, random-assignment study of the program by MDRC, a research group in New York, found that learning-community students were more likely than peers in traditional classes to persist in school, take more courses, and pass the developmental English tests they needed to graduate.

In Washington state, community college educators also seem to be making headway with a program known as I-BEST, for Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training, in which a basic-skills instructor and a college-level vocational instructor team up to teach the same class.

&#x201C;They try to literally bring the developmental instruction right into the subject area that students want to learn, whether that&#x2019;s nursing or some other career,&#x201D; said Tom Brock, the director of the young-adults and postsecondary education policy area at MDRC. &#x201C;So you&#x2019;ll learn about anatomy and you&#x2019;ll learn about writing in the context of what&#x2019;s needed in a medical office.&#x201D;

In an analysis of two years of data on 31,000 basic-skills students in Washington state&#x2019;s public vocational and community colleges, Teachers College researchers found that I-BEST students were 23 percentage points more likely to earn at least one college credit than counterparts who were not in the program, and 40 percentage points likelier to earn a vocational certificate.

Limited Successes

Experts say other schools are experimenting with &#x201C;summer bridge&#x201D; programs to help community college students get up to speed before they set foot on campus, dual-enrollment programs that allow high school students to get a leg up on college-level study, drop-in &#x201C;academic success&#x201D; centers where students can get individual tutoring, and early-warning systems that allow high school students to take college-placement exams so that they can be alerted to weaker skill areas.

Some states, such as Florida, are also working to better align community college and four-year college systems to make it easier for students to transfer credits toward a four-year degree.

&#x201C;My impression has been that work on remedial education has had some successes--but also somewhat limited successes--and has been particularly less effective with younger students,&#x201D; said James E. Rosenbaum, a professor of education and social policy at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill.

His research suggests that community colleges might be better off taking a cue from private two-year colleges, such as DeVry University or ITT Technical Institute, which on average have graduation rates that are 20 percentage points higher than those for community colleges.

&#x201C;Community colleges are big on choice exploration, delaying decisions about your major, and getting a lot of diversity in your first studies,&#x201D; Mr. Rosenbaum said. &#x201C;Private two-year colleges help students make a decision quickly at the outset and then have a very set curriculum. You don&#x2019;t make mistakes. You don&#x2019;t waste time, and it doesn&#x2019;t take you longer to get a degree.&#x201D;

The best private postsecondary schools, he said, also cut out vacation time, schedule classes in ways that are more compatible with maintaining a regular work or child-care schedule, and mandate student-counseling sessions.

Carol Lincoln, the national director of Achieving the Dream, an improvement initiative involving 102 colleges and universities, said another lesson some of the community colleges have learned is that they can retain more students by providing emergency financial aid.

&#x201C;Even though many students have Pell Grants, when the car breaks down or they have child-care problems, money becomes an issue,&#x201D; she said.

A major focus of the Chapel Hill, N.C.-based Achieving the Dream, which was launched with seed money from the Lumina Foundation in 2003, has been to encourage community colleges to collect and analyze data on their students so that they can craft improvement strategies tailored to their own communities.

Gathering better data--a first step for any kind of research effort--is a key plank in the Obama initiative. The president&#x2019;s proposal also calls for establishing a new research center, providing grants for innovation, setting aside $2.5 billion to spur facility-modernization efforts, and creating an online skills laboratory for students.

&#x201C;This is not a sector that needs to be motivated,&#x201D; said the University of Wisconsin&#x2019;s Ms. Goldrick-Rab. &#x201C;Community colleges are so understaffed and underresourced that I think the major fear is that they are going to be asked to do more and not given the resources to do it.&#x201D;

Debra Viadero

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"The Student Debt Crisis at State Community Colleges"

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"The Student Debt Crisis at State Community Colleges"

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Community colleges charge lower tuition than just about anywhere else. They’re open to everyone. They offer the kind of technical training employers want. And they can serve as an affordable steppingstone to a four-year degree.

As President Barack Obama said in the fall: “They’re at the heart of the American Dream.”

But while plenty of community college students graduate with a degree that leads to a better job, or to a four-year college, many community college students drop out. And a growing number of students are taking on debt they cannot repay.

States have focused more on reducing the debt students accumulate at four-year colleges than at community colleges. But some of the steps they’re taking could help community college students, as well.

Most states are now partly funding public colleges and universities based on whether students graduate on time. And some states are tackling community college costs by creating scholarships that eliminate tuition, as Obama has proposed.

In 2000, 15 percent of all first-time college students seeking degrees at a public two-year college borrowed. Twelve years later, 27 percent did. At Michigan’s Macomb Community College, where Obama spoke, just 6 percent of students take out federal loans. But of those students, who typically owe $5,170 at graduation, 18 percent default on their loans.

Working-class people poured into state community colleges and expensive for-profittrade schools when the economy soured. Although for-profit colleges tend to charge higher tuition, research shows that in recent years typical for-profit and two-year college borrowers have similarly high default rates.

Thirty-eight percent of two-year college students who started to repay their loans in 2009 defaulted within five years, as did 47 percent of for-profit college students, said a September study led by Adam Looney, an economist at the Treasury Department. Just 10 percent of students who attended selective four-year colleges defaulted over the same period. The vast majority of two-year colleges are community colleges, the study noted.

Default rates are now falling, along with enrollment at community and for-profit colleges. But Looney’s study warns that many borrowers who attend the institutions will continue to struggle in the student loan market.

Not Just a Four-Year Problem

Many community college students start out with the odds against them. They tend to be older, live in poorer communities and have little family wealth to support them — 36 percent have family incomes of under $20,000, according to the Community College Research Center at Columbia University.

Still, community college students historically haven’t had to borrow to finance their education. Tuition usually runs a few thousand dollars a year — from $1,400 in California to $7,500 in Vermont. Low-income students who qualify for the maximum federal Pell Grant — $5,815 this year — usually find that their grant covers tuition.

Yet increasingly, community college students are borrowing. In Virginia, one of the few states to publish detailed student debt information, the share of community college students graduating with debt has more than doubled over the past decade.

In 2014-15, when community college tuition was $4,080, 37 percent of Virginia graduates who earned a two-year degree that prepared them to transfer to a four-year college had debt, up from 15 percent a decade ago. Among graduates who earned a two-year occupational degree, 41 percent had debt.

(Virginia’s community college system says the state debt figures are too high, but that may be because the state is calculating debt differently. The state looks at debt owed at the point of graduation, which may include debt from other institutions.)

“They’re borrowing for things just beyond the cost of tuition and fees. They’re borrowing to live,” said Tod Massa, who oversees the state’s postsecondary education data.

Many community college students need to borrow to pay for textbooks, transportation, food and rent, even if they’re working while they go to school. The total cost of attending a Virginia community college rose from $9,410 a year to $15,083 over the past decade for full-time students who live with their parents, according to state data. Students who live on their own pay more.

More Virginia community colleges include federal student loans in financial aid packages now than in past years, which also could be pushing up student debt.

Small Loans, High Default Rates

Policymakers tend to focus on stories of scary-high debt, such as a graduate student who owes six figures. But students who owe much less are more likely to default.

“The typical loan in default is around $5,000. That’s total, that’s not per year, that’s all that someone borrowed,” said Susan Dynarski, a University of Michigan professor of public policy, education and economics.

At Old Dominion University in southeast Virginia, for example, the average graduate with federal debt leaves school owing $23,900, according to federal statistics. Seven percent of graduates default on their federal loans within three years. But at nearby Tidewater Community College, where the average graduate with debt leaves owing $10,250, twice as many graduates default.

Student loans can create a snowballing crisis for borrowers. Debt that cannot be repaid can lead to default, fees from loan servicers, a damaged credit score, and eventually the garnishment of wages or government benefits. In some states, people can lose their professional licenses or driver’s licenses as a result of defaulted student loans.

A lot of factors determine someone’s ability to repay their loans, including what kind of job they’re able to get after graduation — which can depend on their major and the local economy — and whether they graduate at all.

The small size of loans in default suggests that many borrowers dropped out, Dynarski said. And students who drop out don’t get to enjoy the financial payoff of a higher credential.

At colleges that serve more lower-income, minority and first-generation students, such as community colleges, graduation rates are typically lower. About 38 percentof students who entered public two-year colleges in 2009 graduated, or transferred and completed a four-year degree, compared to 61 percent of students who started at a four-year college, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Completion, Affordability and Managing Debt

States are taking a few steps to hold down college costs and put pressure on all colleges to make sure students graduate. As of fiscal 2015, 26 states were spending part of their education funding to reward outcomes such as graduation rates. And 10 more were moving in that direction, according to HCM Strategists, a consulting firm.

Many states, including Virginia, increased funding for all higher education institutions this year and asked colleges to hold down tuition. Tennessee, Oregon and Minnesota have created scholarship programs that make two-year colleges tuition-free for students who meet certain requirements.

Some researchers and advocates say tuition-free programs don’t go far enough because paying for living expenses — not tuition — is the biggest financial problem most community college students have.

To tackle that, Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of educational policy studies and sociology at the University of Wisconsin, said states could increase grant aid or follow Minnesota’s example and extend work-study opportunities.

States also have started to take some steps to help borrowers who are struggling with existing student loan debt.

Virginia state Del. Marcus Simon, a Democrat, said his colleagues in the Legislature have long considered student debt to be a federal issue. But he thinks the state can help. This year, he put forward bills that would allow students to refinance their loans through a state authority, require student loan servicers to get a license and create an office to inform and assist borrowers.

“We want to create a system where there’s some regulation, there’s some oversight, and there’s just some basic information that you have to get about your loan,” Simon said.

Refinancing likely wouldn’t be an option for borrowers who are behind on their loans, or have damaged credit. But all borrowers could benefit from more information and assistance.

Some borrowers don’t know the difference between a grant and a loan, let alone that some federal programs will reduce their monthly payments to nothing while their incomes are low. The fact that people with low earnings are defaulting shows that not enough of them have enrolled in those programs, Dynarski of the University of Michigan said.

Last year, Indiana began requiring all institutions that enroll students who receive state financial aid to provide students with an annual estimate of their total loan debt and future monthly repayments. A new Nebraska law requires all publicly funded postsecondary educational institutions in the state to provide that information to students.

Colleges, which are penalized by the federal government for high default rates, are trying to help students graduate and keep them from falling behind on payments.

To keep students on the path to graduation, Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), the largest two-year college in Virginia, has redesigned remedial math classes and hired counselors to work with freshmen to help them find a major and schedule courses. The school also has contracted with a company that sends delinquent borrowers automated phone calls and another that counsels them over the phone.

Some colleges warn students not to take out too much money for living expenses, and some will deny loans.

“We see a significant number of students who are coming to us with existing loan debt,” said Joan Zanders, head of financial aid and support services at NOVA. If a borrower owes $70,000 from prior education, say at a for-profit college, “it makes no sense whatsoever for them to dig a deeper hole for themselves to get a certificate.”

NOVA officials say there’s a link between financial education and academic success. When students can budget their financial aid money and pay their bills, they’re more likely to stay in school. So NOVA’s required orientation course now includes a unit on how to stick to a budget, manage credit cards and understand student loans.

Like community colleges across Virginia, NOVA saw a spike in borrowing during the recession. Now, Zanders said, “it’s actually going down.” She said she thinks this is partly due to the improving economy and partly due to better outreach.

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"Why Businesses Should Send Employees Back to School"

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"Why Businesses Should Send Employees Back to School"

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BY LISA EVANS2 MINUTE READ

The idea that education ends when you get your degree is being tossed out the window by some companies who recognize that education should continue after you’re in the workforce. More businesses are offering their employees opportunities to enhance their skills and knowledge while on the job.

Sending employees back to school is a win-win for both employees and employers. Companies get a better skilled workforce and a pool of employees that can work their way up in the company, and employees get credentials that might help them climb the career ladder.

For example, earlier this year, Anthem, one of the largest health insurance companies in the U.S, announced a company-wide program in which it will pay for all employees who work at least 20 hours a week and have at least six months at the company to get a bachelor’s degree from Southern New Hampshire University, which runs an online program called College for America. Anthem is now the third-largest U.S. company to invest in their employees’ education. Starbucks teamed up with Arizona State University’s online program and is covering four years of tuition for its employees, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles rolled out its own college tuition program for dealership employees through Strayer University.

“Our employees were asking for additional training and development, and not just related to technical skills but also related to other broader skills that can help them grow within the organization,” says Jose Tomas, executive vice president and chief human resources officer of Anthem. Since many of Anthem’s employees lacked college degrees, the program filled the gap and provided them with the opportunity to continue to grow within the organization, especially to reach particular goals that required a formal education. Better-educated employees provide Anthem with a broader pool to draw from for skilled positions. “We do have a strong philosophy of promoting from within,” says Tomas. “This has given our associates the ability to continue to grow by pursuing a formal education, which provides advancement opportunities for them.”

Tuition-reimbursement programs are nothing new, but companies are now realizing the benefits of teaming up with universities offering programs that are specific to enforcing the skill set they’re looking for in their employees.

Other companies, such as AOL, have created their own education programs. AOL University is an online tool employees can use to access anything from business skills to leadership, tech training, and people skills. “Our philosophy around learning is that we want to empower our employees,” says Marieta Mendoza, head of human resources for AOL Canada. “We’re looking to create a spark to help AOL employees become self-empowered careerists.” AOL University allows employees to take control of their own learning, and how they move within the organization. Employees who strive to become managers can take courses in the managers’ masters curriculum. AOL Canada employees are taking advantage of the learning opportunities. In the first half of 2015, the company offered 155 sessions and saw over 3,200 participants, which is over half of the entire AOL global population.

The flexible program recognizes that employees learn in different ways and at different speeds. Employees can study from home where they’re most comfortable. By providing employees with the opportunity to learn and advance their career, Mendoza says the company is creating a culture of engaged employees who don’t necessarily feel the need to leave the company to pursue their next opportunities. This results not only in greater retention rates, but a more well-rounded, smarter workforce.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Evans is a freelance writer from Toronto who covers topics related to mental and physical health. She strives to help readers make small changes to their daily habits that have a profound and lasting impact on their productivity and overall job satisfaction.