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A Call to
Reform Undergraduate Education
By Colleen Flaherty
November 30, 2017
Major study by American Academy of Arts and Sciences seeks change in
curriculum and assessment, commitment to funding public higher
education, new ideas about the faculty role, and more.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
What was once a challenge of quantity in American undergraduate
education is increasingly a challenge of educational quality. In other
words, getting as many students as possible to attend college means
little if they’re not learning what they need to and -- crucially -- if
they don’t graduate. That’s the recurring message of a new report, “The
Future of Undergraduate Education, The Future of America,” from the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
More than a challenge, the report says, delivering on educational
quality and completion is a must -- not only for institutions but the
country. The U.S. is more diverse and technology based than ever, and
workers can expect to change careers multiple times, it says, perhaps
eventually transitioning to jobs that don’t yet exist. College-educated
Americans also enjoy a higher quality of life than their high
school-educated peers across a variety of measures and are more able to
pay off college debt.
Simply put, the report says, “The completion of a few college courses
is not a sufficient education in the 21st century.”
How to achieve educational quality? The report proposes a collective,
national approach. Specifically, the report urges a three-part
“national strategy” ensuring that students have high-quality learning
experiences, that institutions increase their overall completion rates
and reduce inequities among student groups, and that college costs are
controlled.
The academy is optimistic about the power of technology in helping
achieve educational quality. But advances such as predictive analytics
for student success have yet to enter the academic mainstream, the
report says, and there is no time to waste waiting for them to do so.
The academy estimates some of the report’s goals will take decades to
realize, even with immediate action.
A Case for Public Investment in Higher Ed
Again, the report doesn’t suggest that institutions go it alone. In
terms of funding, it pushes for greater public investment in higher
education.
The commission behind the report asked Moody’s Analytics to help it
understand the scope of investments required to change course, and the
consulting firm determined that an “ambitious yet achievable”
improvement in college completion rates would require substantial
investments over a decade or more. But that would also translate to
“significant improvement” in U.S. economic productivity over the long
term, Moody’s found.
One model, based on a 20-year projection, for example, forecasts an
annual growth in the gross domestic product that is nearly 10 percent
higher than it would be without substantial public investment in
postsecondary education -- an increase large enough to recover the
initial investments and continue to grow the economy, according to the
report.
“While the analysis focuses on the economic side of this development,
there is every reason to believe that an investment in students would
yield other, less easily quantified returns as well,” the commission
wrote, “including gains such as greater intercultural understanding,
increased civic participation leading to a stronger democracy and more
rewarding lives for graduates.”
Just as the nation “must reinvest in its physical infrastructure --
roads, bridges, railways and so on -- as a stimulus for communication
and commerce of all kinds,” the report reads, “the U.S. should commit
to a comparable reinvestment in our existing educational
infrastructure, including undergraduate education, in order to realize
the productive potential of all Americans.”
Focus on Teaching
As for ensuring quality, the commission says that too little attention
is currently paid to the undergraduate educational experience itself
“and, in particular, to the challenge of ensuring that the 17 million
diverse college students in many types of programs are learning and
mastering knowledge, skills and dispositions that will help them
succeed in the 21st-century U.S.”
All college graduates need their programs of study to impart a
“forward-looking” combination of academic knowledge and practical
skills in preparation for both economic success and civic engagement.
Echoing arguments made by many educators of late, the commission
asserts that the long-standing debate over the value of a liberal arts
education versus a more “applied” program is a “false choice.”
Institutions must adjust their curricula accordingly, the report says,
and students “need to see the ability to work and learn with others,
and to disagree and debate respectfully, as a skill essential for a
high quality of life and a future of economic success and effective
democratic citizenship.”
Still, the commission notes that advancing a broad learning agenda and
more attention to instruction will remain difficult until it’s easier
to measure what (and if) students are actually learning. “Redressing
this lack of good data is a high priority,” the report says.
“Students learn in many different settings, including through peer
interactions, co- and extracurricular activities, and self-motivated
exploration,” the commission wrote. “Ultimately, though, making
undergraduate learning stronger and more rigorous will depend upon how
undergraduate education invests in the teaching skills of its faculty
and the kind of institutional and systemic commitment that is made.”
University systems and individual campuses, academic departments and
disciplinary associations all have roles to play in advancing teaching,
according to the academy. Master’s and doctoral programs should
integrate “meaningful and explicit” teacher training opportunities, for
example. Disciplinary associations should lead research and
professional development efforts exploring the relationship between
teaching practices and student learning.
Institutions, meanwhile, must make a “systemic commitment” to the
improvement of college teaching -- something the commission says will
most likely require ongoing review of faculty teaching practices,
analyzing the faculty incentive system, bettering mentoring and faculty
supports, and including teaching quality as a key part of tenure and
other personnel decisions. In a nod to shared governance, the report
notes that much of that work “must take place in collaboration with
academic departments.”
Faculty members need training on how to teach diverse groups of
students and help them “grapple with difference,” the report says. It
also addresses a major structural issue that is often ignored in
discussions about educational quality: professors teaching off the
tenure track. The commission says that quality necessarily means
providing these professors “with stable professional working
environments and careers … Good teaching need not require tenure-track
faculty in every case, but it does require that faculty be supported
and rewarded for doing their work well.”
The trend toward adjunct professors in undergraduate teaching will
persist “as long as colleges are under pressure to keep costs down and
universities continue to produce more Ph.D.s in some fields than are
likely to find tenure-track employment,” the report says. As
institutions continue to hire teaching-focused instructors, they should
aim to make positions longer term and full-time.
Such positions “should respect professional norms of academic freedom
and provide a voice in university governance and the opportunity to
build successful professional lives with reasonable benefits and job
security,” the commission wrote.
As for the curriculum, the report says that undergraduate learners need
“meaningful opportunities to develop and integrate knowledge and skills
in the classroom and through cocurricular experiences such as co-op
programs and internships, research, international study, or service
that can help them improve their economic prospects, effectively
navigate their personal and public worlds, and continue to learn
throughout their lifetimes.”
Even in short-duration certificate programs, technical and academic
knowledge “should be augmented by curricular redesign that strengthens
practical skills such as communication, problem solving and teamwork,”
the report says. It also endorses further experimentation with
strategies for teaching and supporting students in online, hybrid and
technology-supported environments. Further, federal and state
governments should invest in a research and development strategy for
better understanding instructional design and delivery and for
assessing learning.
Completion, Completion, Completion
The commission envisions a future that depends on most Americans
getting a high-quality undergraduate education. To improve completion
rates, the report calls on college and university leaders to make the
issue a top priority -- even making resource allocation decisions
through that “lens.” Data collection should enable institution-specific
insights through nuanced analyses and enable effective student
interventions, and students should have the opportunities to make
“meaningful, personal connections” with faculty and staff.
Special attention should be paid to understanding and assisting
students from groups with the lowest competition rates, the report
says, noting that summer bridge programs, accelerated remediation and
the provision of emergency funds are examples of proven strategies. The
commission also advocates expanded experimentation with and research on
guided-pathways designs.
“Design elements include clear guidelines for students to earn
credentials and to further their education or career employment, mapped
so course sequences and postcompletion choices are transparent,” the
report says, along with faster and better on-ramps to college-level
learning for underprepared students; strong, ongoing guidance and
mentoring on academic and career decision making; and
technology-assisted advising.
Student transfer also should be better understood and assisted at the
national level, the commission says, since one-third of college
students change institutions at least once, and about half of public
university graduates began their studies in community colleges.
Employer partnerships with colleges and universities also “play an
important part in improving college completion rates and helping
students understand the relevance of their education to future
employment, develop important workplace skills and explore potential
career pathways,” the commission notes. It also encourages federal and
state government leadership to enact “comprehensive and coordinated
strategies” to make college completion a top national and state
priority, such as by using discretionary funds for grants that
encourage evidence-based approaches to improving completion.
Pushing for more transparency about completion rates, the report also
asks the federal government to build a student unit record data system
-- removing identifying information -- on institutional, state and
national trends on college outcomes. Colleges and universities,
meanwhile, should provide all college-going students and their families
“with easy access to accurate and relevant information to inform their
college choices, including the actual costs of the academic program to
student and family, the likelihood of completing the program, and the
prospects for employment or further education after graduation.”
Less Debt, More Affordability
The commission underscores that increasing quality cannot mean making
college more expensive. It says that increasing the rates at which
students succeed is likely “the best antidote to unmanageable student
debt.”
Beyond that, the commission says that the current financial aid system
is “far more complex and confusing than it needs to be, and too much
public money is being wasted.” The federal government should take
further steps to simplify -- or even eliminate -- the process of
applying via the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, relying more
on financial information already available from the Internal Revenue
Service to determine eligibility, it says. And the Pell Grant system
should provide grants that support students completing 30 credits at
any time throughout the course of a calendar year.
Other recommendations include designing a single income-driven
repayment plan in which students are automatically enrolled and loan
payments are collected through the income tax system at a sensible
rate. The committee also endorses experimenting with alternative
financing, such as income-sharing agreements that allow college
students to borrow from colleges or investors. Under such agreements,
the lender then receives a percentage of the student’s after-graduation
income.
Putting pressure on institutions with low graduation rates, the
committee also suggests “institutional risk sharing,” by which
institutions whose students are chronically unable to repay their loans
reimburse the government a fraction of the unpaid balance. That’s
providing such institutions continue to honor their access missions,
however, according to the report.
The committee also advocates tracking student progress across
institutions and linking continued aid to “satisfactory academic
progress across multiple institutions.”
In what’s likely to be perceived as a particularly controversial
suggestion, the committee suggests revising eligibility rules so as not
to finance students attending “low-performing institutions that have
extremely low graduation rates.”
The report further recommends developing incentives for states to
sustain or increase funding for public higher education. States must
continue to take the lead on funding higher education, the committee
wrote, but as fiscal pressures on state-run colleges and universities
are “likely to be unrelenting,” it is “essential that both government
decision makers and leaders on campus focus on directing resources to
the highest priorities.”
Such priorities include directing scarce resources to students they’ll
most impact, the most disadvantaged. The committee also suggests that
policy makers work with institutions toward aligning funding and
program completion.
In an introduction to the report, Jonathan Fanton, president of the
American Academy, quoted its conclusion: “Progress is not guaranteed,
and good things will happen only with sustained effort, but if we can
sustain focus on the work, combining patience with urgency, we can,
through undergraduate education, make great advances as individuals and
as a nation.”
Expectations for Change
The American Academy will release its report this morning. It was
written by the Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education over
a two-year period, during which it consulted a wide range of experts
and organizations. The commission itself included college and
foundation presidents, academics, and financial and other experts. In
the run-up to this final report, the commission published papers
including “The Complex Universe of Alternative Postsecondary
Credentials and Pathways,” “Undergraduate Financial Aid in the U.S.,”
“Policies and Practices to Support Undergraduate Teaching Improvement,”
and “The Economic Impact of Increasing College Completion.”
The commission has previewed its work for small groups ahead of the
today’s release. Those who have seen the report in advance include
Laura Auricchio, professor of art history and vice provost for
curriculum and learning at the New School. Auricchio said Wednesday
that “The Future of Undergraduate Education” highlights data that point
to the need to “reframe some of the terms of the national conversation
about higher education, and also to rethink the ways institutions and
students alike respond to the very real obstacles that often impede
student success.”
Regarding student debt, for example, she said, the report notes that
public discourse tends to focus on the most extreme anecdotes --
students who graduate with massive loans to repay -- when the students
most likely to default are those who take out relatively small loans
but never earn a degree.
Michael McPherson, the report’s co-chair and past president of both
Macalester College and the Spencer Foundation, told Inside Higher Ed
that improving higher education is “essential to the nation’s future.”
That said, he described the commission’s report as distinctive in that
it defines undergraduate education broadly, to include community
colleges and for-profit institutions, and puts students “front and
center.”
In focusing on quality, he said, “we were of course interested in the
problem of poor program completion, because the evidence is that
students benefit greatly from completing a degree or certificate.” But
the committee was also interested in what students learned, and in
particular “whether their education went beyond imparting near-term job
skills and also helped develop their capacities for critical thinking,
problem solving and communication,” McPherson added.
Underscoring the committee’s rejection of the liberal-versus-practical
education debate, McPherson said, “The fact is that an education that
aims only to enable you to get a job will quickly become obsolete, so
these broader skills of reasoning and communication should find a place
in all of education.”
Underscoring, too, the report’s focus on instruction, McPherson said
college teaching should be “restored to a position of greater respect
and attention.” Non-tenure-track faculty members “are here to stay, and
those teachers need to be valued, respected and given the opportunity
for professional growth.” He added, “We think this message applies very
widely -- from the research university to the community college and
everywhere in between.” (Even liberal arts colleges don’t always meet
that standard, McPherson noted.)
As for the report’s major recommendations on college affordability,
McPherson said the committee doesn’t expect an “infusion of funds from
governments or elsewhere that will reverse recent funding trends.” But
it wants to least to see the declines in per-student funding halted, he
said. And colleges can also do much to make graduation more likely and
college more affordable of their students.
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