August 2007 Lawlor Focus

Assessment and Transparency—The Role of Meaningful Measures

Last year's report from the U.S. Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education intensified a debate that is still raging within the higher ed community: How can students and families obtain accurate insights about each school that will allow them to make fair comparisons? With the government's push for colleges and universities to measure their outcomes in a standardized manner for such a purpose, concerns about assessment and transparency have risen to the fore. Here's a quick wrap-up of current developments in the drive to provide comparative measures:

• The administrators of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) are asking permission of its participating colleges and universities to report their results to USA Today to be published online. If implemented, the database would reveal the institutions' benchmark scores in level of academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, enriching educational experiences, and supportive campus environments. However, the scores will not be used to rank the schools in numerical order.
• The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities has initiated a "University & College Accountability Network" project to provide data regarding what and how much their students learn, tuition costs and financial aid, and student life. Meanwhile, the Association of American Universities has committed to collecting and providing information about graduation rates, time required to complete a degree, cost estimators, and the careers that graduates pursue.
• In the public college realm, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges have partnered to draft a "Voluntary System of Accountability" that would utilize standardized measures of student learning outcomes and also report data on graduation and retention rates, financial aid, and tuition/fees.
• While the U.S. House of Representative has yet to take up renewal of the Higher Education Act, the recently passed Senate version has omitted the Department of Education's proposal that would require colleges and universities to utilize specific indicators of student learning outcomes.
• The leaders of 61 colleges and universities have signed the Education Conservancy's "Beyond Rankings" letter, pledging to refrain from filling out U.S. News & World Report's reputational survey and to avoid referencing the rankings as an indicator of an institution's quality. The Education Conservancy is also hosting a forum next month aimed at devising alternatives to the rankings systems used by college guidebooks.

Source: Country Insurance & Financial Services

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Colleges and universities are faced with a delicate balancing act in the marketplace right now. Students and parents are seeking reliable and accurate data about the set of schools they are considering, especially in light of the significant financial investment they are being asked to make. Much of the data that has been used by families and has been framing public perceptions is more hearsay than fact, yet colleges cannot afford to ignore consumers' desire to compare schools they are considering. Students and parents crave data that will allow them to feel informed regarding the relative worth of colleges and universities, and they will go to such unofficial sources as ratemyprofessors.com and College OTR (On The Record) blogs seeking it. Therefore, it helps if you do all you can to publicize your measures of quality based on any type of primary market research your institution has conducted.

For example, if you participate in NSSE, consider following Elon University's example and prominently display the survey report on your web site. As Dan Anderson, director of university relations, explains, "Transparency is part of Elon's institutional culture. We want students and parents to have access to as much information as they need to make good choices, and the NSSE report is especially rich in data that families find useful beyond the typical fare of college guides." Elon was among the first colleges to recognize the NSSE data as a marketing opportunity and has highlighted its research results since NSSE first began conducting research.

Also consider publicizing any institutional research findings with current students or alumni that reveal levels of satisfaction. And if you do point to U.S. News & World Report rankings, take the opportunity to provide caveats that raise questions about the validity of simplifying the educational process in such a manner, and point out which data categories are not very useful—that way, you can turn a negative movement into an informative movement.

In the news

The Wall Street Journal reports that credit analysts at Standard & Poor's are beginning to question the relevance of an increase in the number of applications to a college or university in determining its credit-worthiness. Demand, as measured by the number of students who apply, has traditionally been part of their rating equation, but "S&P is now warning that an explosion of the number of applications each prospective student submits may be distorting this gauge, making colleges seem stronger than they really are." As a result, the analysts expect to look more carefully at measures like yield rates, graduation rates and the grades/scores of applicants in rating an institution's debt issues.

Did you know?

Among Americans who expect to be responsible for paying for their children's college education, there's an even split: 43 percent believe saving for college is more important, while another 43 percent think saving for their own retirement takes precedence. Meanwhile, 40 percent feel they do not have enough knowledge to make good financial decisions about saving for college.

Source: Country Insurance & Financial Services