It seems a shame, that colleges and universities will have to spend more money on compliance issues (reporting issues)

Most of the colleges and universities that I am aware of are already strapped for administrative and support people. So, we are adding another burden of “proof” here.

I would like to know what responsibility do our students have in getting an education? Post secondary education should not be like high school. Students choose to go, they are not yet mandated to go to college. So, these students are adults, and as adults make adult decisions. Once they make these decisions they need to “live” with them. Far to often in the education world, we let students “change” their decisions, because the student did not understand what they were doing, etc. These are the same students who borrow thousands and thousands of dollars, some needlessly, with just a signature. So, how can the colleges and universities “police” everything?

I like to say that students have choices: they can choose to succeed or choose to fail.

I know that sounds simple, but I think the responsiblity for a students education has to rest on the student. If we take all responsiblity away from the student, the system will fail. One of the outcomes from this national database could be mandated outcomes (graduaton) by the Federal Government, much like the mandated high school outcomes. Outcomes are a great idea, but again college is not high school. Our students are adults and as adults they make decsions, and therefore should be held accountable for those decisions.

But by all means, lets put all the information in a databased to track all the students...oh by the way, what happens when the student just guits showing up? He/She doesnt say anything, they just walk away. And at grading time their instructor, not wanting to be a “bad person” gives them an incomplete, which indicates that the student is “still” working on the course work. 24 weeks later the grade turns to an “F” now the student has completed the course. How does one account for that kind of data?

The rate of attrition has not improved significantly in the last 25 years, so by tracking more data, spending more money, we will see changes in this rate?

Lets hope the benefit will out weigh the cost.

Jim, at 12:00 pm EDT on March 20, 2007

“How many students graduate within six years? Why? Why not?”

The first question is already answered; go to the NCES’s “COOL” (College Opportunities OnLine) website and you can look up the retention and graduation rates for any college that you wish. (Or use the IPEDS Peer Analysis system to download data from more than one school at a time.)

The questions of why or why not will not be answered by this mammoth unit record database. It will simply tell us who is graduating and who is not — but not why or why not. A lot of expense, for not very much information.

The answers to those why or why not questions can only be obtained with in-depth research into individual students’ experiences. That would be a worthwhile enterprise, but it would be silly to involve every single student in the country in it. Instead, the research should be done in the same way that most social science research is conducted: by looking at a SAMPLE of college students.

A longitudinal data set of say 100,000 students would be much larger than most any other social science data set — and would still be orders of magnitude less costly than the massive unit record data set. And it could actually be used to attempt to answer those important why or why not questions, which the unit record dataset will not be able to answer.

Instead of massive unit record databases or “huge IPEDS", the Ed Dept should be contemplating a “huge BPS” or “huge NELS", i.e. an upgraded version of the longitudinal education databases.

MKT, at 5:46 am EDT on March 21, 2007

re: AND ... SO?

Leonard Washington:

“Alrighty — then what is the answer, for a *specific* college? And guesstimates why high/low? Or — why not higher?”

The answers for specific colleges ARE in the COOL system. I would not expect a database to include “guestimates".

That said the existing data could be analyzed to look for common factors (for example GPA and test scores of the entering class probably correlates with retention).

About all a national system will do is assist in individual student tracking (e.g. what is the typical six year graduation rate for particular classes of students).

Strange as it may seem to some of our critics our university (and probably most others) are very concerned with improving our rentention and graduation rates.

Rob Rittenhouse, CS Faculty at McMurry University, at 12:16 pm EDT on March 21, 2007

re: Still unanswered

I see, you wanted to know about some particular school.

Some possible explanations (guesstimates if you like) for the data you cite — all from the IPEDS database:

McMurry has a less academically qualified student body than the other schools you cited.

McMurry’s student body is also not particularly prosperous — note the dramatic differences in percent of students receiving financial aid at McMurry vs. the other two schools.

McMurry is not a particular rich school and cannot afford to be as generous in financial aid as we would like to be (note the distribution of financial aid between grants and scholarships vs loans for the three schools).

Demographics make a difference too — McMurry has a larger proportion of Black and Hispanic students than the other schools.

All these factors probably contribute to the differences in retention rate.

McMurry, U Mass Amherst and Minnesota Twin Cities are very different schools with very different student bodies. Try comparing McMurry to similar schools and I think it will look better. Otherwise try comparing any of the above to Harvard (now that’s depressing).

Rob Rittenhouse, McMurry University, at 5:45 am EDT on March 22, 2007

MKT ” A lot of expense, for not very much information."I agree those mammoth data bases are expensive and tell use virtually nothing about the most important “why” questions.

HST, at 5:00 pm EDT on March 22, 2007

Causality

” .. McMurry’s student body is also not particularly prosperous .. McMurry is not a particular rich school ..”

Quoting Leonard Washington:"I have never seen any proof-positive that being less than middle-class brings about a 100% result of lower educational performance.”

Nor did I suggest that being less than middle class results in lower educational performance. It does mean that the student has a lesser ability to pay for an education. This is a particular problem for Hispanics who (reportedly) are reluctant to take out loans.

I might also point out that not everyone who leaves a school without graduating flunks out. I don’t know the figures for our school (I’m not in enrollment management) but I do know that more students leave voluntarily than are kicked out. Many transfer to other institutions. Others decide that a college education is not really for them (no matter what their parents insisted on). Some run into unanticipated personal or financial problems (lot easier to have money problems when there isn’t much to bein with).

Do we purposely admit students that are not 100% likely to succeed? Yes we do and so do most other schools. Only diploma mills and extremely selective rich schools do otherwise. Would you limit college education to those with near 4.0 GPAs in HS, 2400 SAT scores and parents easily able to meet the costs? Close all the schools outside the Ivy League — nobody else achieves these goals or 90% plus graduation rates.

Enrollment management and financial aid policies in an institution such as ours are a balancing act between enrolling only those students most likely to succeed, giving weaker students “a chance” and admitting enough students to stay in business.

Universities work very hard to retain admitted students. We spend a great deal on remedial courses and academic support. The help is there IF the student is willing to make the effort. Unfortunately there’s no SAT test that measures this.

As for caveat emptor — none of the data we’ve discussed here is any great secret. The COOL data is public (even if Spellings had trouble finding it), US News, Princeton Review and all the other college rating services are readily available. Students should know the odds when they sign up.

Rob Rittenhouse, McMurry University, at 6:25 am EDT on March 24, 2007