For-Profits vs Community Colleges -- The Debate Continues...

Are students attending for-profit institutions getting their money's worth, especially compared to attending community college? I've tackled this one before. Now, another study commissioned by a for-profit has appeared, claiming to fill gaps in our knowledge.

Since I only have a powerpoint presentation of the findings to review, and my opinion is pretty-well expressed in other media coverage, I'll just hit a few notes I've not yet seen mentioned elsewhere.

1. The authors want to claim that the for-profit sector is outpacing community colleges' capacity for enrollment expansion. To back this up, they compare recent enrollment growth in the two sectors. But they fail to mention the very different levels of overall enrollment --community colleges enrolled approximately 1.2 million more students in 2009 than were enrolled in 2007-- in comparison there were 1.4 million students total in for-profit institutions in 2007. Growth is affected by the starting point, and obviously capacity is too. It's harder to expand capacity when one's already nearing capacity. Moreover, this kind of assertion ignores the fact that the expansion of community college enrollment depends on the availability of public resources-- in comparison, the for-profit sector does not, and is correspondingly more nimble. But whether that's a "good" thing is far from clear.

2. The authors also purport that for-profit students realize greater wage gains from their investment. But they neglect the fact that community college students begin with higher earnings--and experience nearly the same dollar gains (over $7000). It is arguably more difficult to stimulate an increase in earnings for those who are better-off to start with compared to someone who starts at minimum wage (e.g. to bring someone from $21K to $28K, compared to $15K to $22K).

3. The study also indicates that for-profit students do not appear to know less about debt than other students. Given that they take on more loans, from a wider range of sources, "not knowing less" is insufficient-- if anything, the burden's on the for-profits to do a better than average job since their grads incur more than average debt.

All that said, I applaud the for-profits for their willingness to consider hard facts and data. I'd like to see them provide longitudinal student-unit record data to independent researchers so we can begin to sort out some of the bigger, lingering questions about student learning and the like. Maybe that's in the future.

The Power Elite

Cross-posted from Brainstorm

It’s hard to get to know the rich. Gaining insight into how they think, act, behave is much harder to do, since in general they maintain the highest levels of privacy.

This is a well-known fact in social science research, and it leads to a preponderance of studies examining poor folks rather than rich ones. Why do we (think we) know so much more about the “truly disadvantaged,” the "unmarried mothers with children," the "children of the slum"? Quite simply, because they let the public (and researchers) in. Open to questions, sometimes flattered by or at least welcoming the attention, in need of the monetary incentives offered, and often lacking the presumption that inquiry will lead to destruction—for how could things get any worse?

In contrast, it’s rare to find a rich ethnography of the elite. Sure, there are a handful—but they are notable for the researcher’s ability to “study up”—to get those higher in the power structure to consent to questions.

So, why be surprised that Elyse Ashburn reports in today’s Chronicle, the private universities won’t let the sunshine in? Of course they won’t. That’s part of maintaining their elite aura, the mysterious glow that attracts students and families and leads them to believe that for the right sum, magical postsecondary dust will imbue them with super-human earning power.

This is precisely how inequality is maintained, and the elite of any kind will work to make it happen. The only way to change the situation is to begin to dismantle the entire apparatus, one that allows different rules for different schools and different kids, based on their funding mechanisms. Will that ever happen? I doubt it. For the rich, too much is at stake.

UPDATE: Budget Balancing For Dummies

The Wisconsin State Journal has the update on this recent blog post ("Budget Balancing For Dummies").

Almost all state workers will have to take furloughs, regardless of whether their paychecks come from the state, federal grants, or private sources, under versions of the budget passed by both the state Assembly and Senate.

Some state workers paid with federal grants, particularly university researchers, argued they shouldn’t have to take the 16 unpaid days off as mandated by Gov. Doyle over the next two years because it wouldn’t save the state money.

An amendment proposed by Rep. Kelda Helen Roys, D-Madison, that would have shielded some of those employees from taking furloughs never made it into the Assembly's budget.

No one proposed a similar amendment in the Senate, making it unlikely that it will be inserted in conference committee, which reconciles the budgets passed by the two houses.

Seems to me that this brain-dead policy choice is completely counter to economic stimulation. By unnecessarily reducing workers' paychecks through a policy that saves the state of Wisconsin $0, how much will the state lose in income tax revenue, retail sales taxes, and the like as a result of this policy aimed solely at 'feel good' public relations?

Also, treating non-state-funded university faculty and staff in this way sorta flies in the face of the retention fund aimed at keeping high-demand faculty in Wisconsin. At best, it's going to create a run on this fund - by slapping UW faculty and staff with the furlough, plus the rescinded salary increases over the next two years. That's money out of the state's pocket.

What was it that Forrest Gump said?

My Take on Taylor

Right now the blogosphere has run amok with talk of Mark Taylor's New York Times op-ed ("End the University as We Know It"), calling for the end of the university as we know it. Of course, with an op-ed like that, many will hate him. So I figured, why not highlight what's good here--and worth considering? In truth, Taylor hits a few high notes I'd like to simply echo. Such as....

1. There is far too little intra-departmental collaboration, and this may well point to the need for new models. I love the idea of cross-disciplinary organizational schemes with faculty gathered around common problems rather than traditional disciplines. But the "problem" areas have got to be more specific than simply "education" or "journalism" or "public policy." Not enough. I'm surprised Taylor didn't recognize that we already have a faculty focused on the problem of "law"-- duh.....

2. Grad students need to know how to get non-academic jobs, and know that life exists (and can be quite good) outside academia.

3. Colleges and universities need to start acting like teammates, especially those within public systems. Yes, SYSTEMS. Share resources, share students, share faculty--share. Can you tell I have a two-year-old?

The only one I strongly oppose--abolishing tenure. Not for the reasons you might think--truth be told, I'm not really focused on long-term job security. I think bright creative people tend to find jobs, somewhere (and of course I'd like to think I meet those criteria). But we need tenure, or something like it, because now is not the time to throw academic freedom into the wind. Trust me.