A Better Higher Education Data, Essay Example

How do we change the metric of education from valuing job and graduate school placement of graduates and alumni salaries to something that reflects the mission of education institutions?

There are any number of reasons why someone chooses to go to college; this value in education from students and alumni, however, is not reflected in metrics used to measure success of graduates. These metrics include rating job security from graduates (usually with only their first job), and rating alumni salaries. These metrics, are not relevant to the value of higher education. There needs to be long-term metrics for success rate established in order to discover the efficacy of higher education. This metric for success can have a myriad of variables such as workplace engagement, salubrious life-style (e.g. involvement in community, physical wellbeing, etc.), and alumni attachment (call to arms as it were for alumni to be able to contribute back to the college community through funding or sponsorship). Gallup research has shown that of college graduates from the 2013 pool, only 29% of people can apply these variables in their lives (“Great Jobs Great Lives,” 2014, p. 2-4). The point of this research is life improvement.

Under the hope for life improvement, college professors from varying degrees (two-year, four-year, graduate, private, public, etc.) came together to create new metrics that wouldn’t standardized higher education value, this what they came up with: “repayment and default rates on student loans, student progression and completion, cost per degree, employment outcomes for graduates, student learning outcomes” (HCM, 2011, p. 3). The value of higher education can then be discovered to be measured by whether or not upon graduating, a student is able to get and retain a job that allows them to repay their student debt; how students can or should be able to “show progress toward and completion of a certificate or degree, including critical momentum points” (HCM, 2011, p. 3); the cost of a college producing a degree (here the professors brought in costs to pay teachers, faculty, and general college cost); if a student is able to not only retain a job but to advance in the job and earn more; and finally “telling how effectively an institution delivers and assesses the learning required for a given credential and facilitates comparisons of various institutions’ credential quality” (p. 3). Redefining higher education metrics to these standards or policy means that a re-evaluation of student standards and the “outcomes produced by these colleges” (p. 3) provided a better standard of living.

The policy makers suggested that these metrics be applied to all universities and colleges in order for the metrics to provide something holistic for these schools, metrics that could be applied to four-year, two-year, private, public schools, do not adhere to a particular school’s mission statement as they are self-contained, “used to the fullest extent possible, data already being collected, but not necessarily analyzed in the most beneficial ways, to minimize reporting burden and costs to institutions” (p. 3), and could inform policymakers of such changing metrics and their use.

For a long time, graduation rates were the measure by which a school was ranked on its merit. This metric, however, does nothing for post-graduation concerns such as job security (or the other variables listed on page one); something that a metric should take into consideration since the sole purpose of acquiring a college degree is to get a job. This ranking is published by the U.S. News and World Report. This report ranks “schools based on peer assessments and reported data related to retention, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, graduation rates, and alumni giving. Although reputation receives the greatest weight (25 percent) in the rankings, reputational variance is relatively small, diminishing its value as a way to differentiate among institutions” (Cohen and Ibrahim, 2008, para. 2). This same report states that graduation rate “is the ‘high-stakes’ measures of success for American public higher education” (para. 3).

Not only are new metrics of measurement needed but, as Gallup suggests, a new national dialogue on education is needed. Gallup-Purdue’s Index gives certain aspects of this needed dialogue. The effects of such metrics would change the future landscape of education. Such metric changes would be beneficial not only to students but also to graduates and their families. The change in metrics would allow students and potential students a better view of what their degree could do for them as well as what the cost of that degree would be in terms of repaying it. Currently, the American public is under the false impression that a college degree changes the outcome of a student’s future; this false impression however creates a false hope in a future that is unattainable. Higher education should have the power to change someone’s future; “A national dialogue on improving the college experience should focus on ways to provide students with more emotional support, and with more opportunities for deep learning experiences and real-life applications of classroom learning. By taking action, colleges, educators, students, and their families can move the needle so more college graduates experience that great job and great life” (Great Job Great Lives, 2014, p. 19). With this dialogue, and with the new standards of metrics beginning to be put into place, students may yet understand what higher education is worth, and how that value translates to them personally.

References

“A Better Higher Education Data and Information Framework for Informing Policy: The Voluntary Institutional Metrics Project.” HCM Strategies (2011): n. pag. Print.

Cohen, Howard, and Nabil Ibrahim. “May-June 2008.” Change Magazine. N.p., May-June 2008. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.

“Great Jobs Great Lives.” 2014 Gallup-Purdue Index Report 8.4 (2014). Print.