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Education Dive
5
ideas for change in higher ed from SXSW EDU
Improving career services, being strategic about online growth and
getting to know the full student can help institutions stay relevant.
Hallie Busta
March 11, 2019
Pushback against rising tuition, the stress of shrinking state funding
and the possibilities afforded by advances in technology have higher ed
leaders beginning to challenge some basic assumptions about their
field. That process tends to be slow, however, and often makes for
hubbub at trade conferences long before its effects can be seen.
But eventually the wheels get traction, and those given time with the
mic do more than ideate possible solutions to well-documented problems.
(Though one can argue that's an important step, too.) That was the case
throughout this year's SXSW EDU, where higher ed leaders shared small
but significant moves they are making toward broader change.
Education Dive was present last week in chillier-than-usual Austin,
Texas, to learn about the tactics colleges, consortia and other
industry groups are using to address some of the concerns around the
accessibility and relevance of higher education in the 21st century.
Connect curriculum to jobs
With the economy hovering near full employment, employers can't be as
picky as they could during and after the recession about the skill
levels of the workers they hire. That's left them desiring better
training and working on their own and with higher ed to get it.
Strada Education Network and Gallup found, according to research
presented during one panel, that while only one-third of business
leaders "strongly agree" college graduates are ready for the workforce,
nine in 10 chief academic officers think their institutions are
adequately preparing students.
With a growing focus on performance-based state funding and student
outcomes, colleges want to be sure their graduates can find gainful
employment. That's raising calls for colleges to bolster their career
services offerings and more directly connect curriculum to skills
required in related professions.
One example comes from Western Governors University, which works with
employers to determine what hard and soft skills are needed among
people employed in specific fields. The nonprofit online college, which
uses a competency-based education model, then works with faculty to
layer curriculum atop that map, said its provost and chief academic
officer, Marni Baker Stein.
Knowing what skills are needed, and why, Western Governors can also
segment offerings for its primarily adult learners. "If they have to
leave us for a time and then come back and finish the degree later, we
want to make sure they have something of value to take with them," she
said.
Expand online strategically
Higher ed is getting more serious about serving adult learners, and one
way is by adding online offerings. Doing so also creates a wider base
over which an institution can spread costs for on-campus programs.
That's an important consideration as the market becomes more sensitive
to tuition increases.
"Any school giving an online program has sort of infinite capacity
there," said John Katzman, founder of online program manager Noodle
Partners and, before that, 2U. Although startup costs to bring a single
classroom course online is "pretty steep" at around $75,000 plus about
100 hours of an instructor's time, he said, it "has tremendous benefit
both in terms of quality and capacity."
Adult learners are squarely at the center of this strategy, as efforts
underway by the State University of New York and the University of
Massachusetts System indicate, but they can only generate so much
demand.
"Growth is good, but growth is also limited," said Paul Friga, special
advisor to the provost for online education at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. He suggested the practice of using data to
identify issues with current students and keep them from dropping as a
way to lower both the institutions' replacement rate and therefore
reduce costs.
Know your students' needs
It can be easy to reduce the image of college students to
18-to-22-year-olds on leafy campuses, attending classes full-time with
a work-study job that pays for nights out. But higher ed leaders know
better, or at least they should. About one-fifth of today's full-time
students also work full-time, according to a report from Georgetown
University's Center on Education and the Workforce. Meanwhile, the
center notes, one-third of employed students are at least age 30, and
about one-fifth of students who work also have children.
Those demographics have led to calls for colleges to offer more
flexibility to meet students' range of responsibilities.
"What students bring onto campus and to their educational experience
transcends what higher ed is and can do," said Julie Peller, executive
director at Higher Learning Advocates. "We often think about students
as a student, and that's it. … That student today is juggling
transportation issues, parenting and childcare issues ... and their
work schedule along with their classes."
What's more, college students are disqualified from some key social
services, said Peller, and may not realize they are eligible for
others. A report released earlier this year from the U.S. Government
Accountability Office found one in three college students lacks
adequate access to food and 1.8 million students who could qualify for
SNAP don't participate.
Issues affecting low-income students can snowball, said James Kvaal,
president of The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS). Not
being able to pay for gas for their car can cause a student to miss
work, losing their job and the income to afford housing, he gave as one
example.
"We need to keep in mind when we say a student can work part-time, that
student is (often) in the same low-wage workforce that suffers all
kinds of instability and job quality problems," he said, adding that
students may also have expenses financial aid doesn't consider, such as
costs associated with supporting a family.
In a recent policy paper, TICAS noted that such unmet need could cause
students to work longer hours and take a lighter course load, "both of
which compromise their graduation prospects."
Dig into data
Another way to improve students' potential outcomes is to keep a closer
eye on them by using data to predict whether they might need additional
support.
Georgia State University was an early leader in using predictive
analytics to improve student outcomes. The university's senior vice
president for student success, Timothy Renick, explained during a panel
on the topic that it tracks around 800 risk factors each day that could
cause a student to drop out. For example, WiFi and LMS log-ins on
campus as a proxy for class attendance. "We look at individual
patterns, and if there's a drop-off, we use that as an early alert," he
said.
The analytics also let administrators know about one-third of students
who take the university's introductory accounting course struggle early
in the semester.
"Because we have the understanding, it has changed the way we approach
the issue in some substantive ways," Renick said, adding that the
information is shared with accounting faculty as well. "It has also
required us to be creative in creating new supports for students. If a
student comes in three weeks into the semester struggling with
accounting, you can't send them to the math lab." Instead, the
university has developed a peer tutor program through which students
who have previously succeeded in a class help those who are struggling.
The University of Texas at Austin implemented its predictive analytics
around the same time with the goal of increasing its four-year
graduation rate to 70%, said Carolyn Connerat, associate vice provost
for enrollment management. It effectively accomplished that goal in
2018, due in part to its diligent tracking of students based on factors
that historical data determined would cause them to not graduate within
four years.
"(For) the students who were less likely to graduate in four years, we
made sure every single one of them had a support program, a community,
a success program that ... would help them to be able to succeed," she
said.
To figure out what behaviors and scenarios to track, UT Austin used its
trove of admissions data. "That's going to be the question for
everyone: What data do you have that you can get your hands on so you
can then figure out what are those questions you want to ask?" Connerat
said.
She recommends a starting point in looking at incoming freshmen and the
move from the first to the second semester and from freshman to
sophomore year. Faculty may be inconsistently reporting grades and
other performance indicators, she said. Working with the registrar's
office, however, can help track students' progress toward a degree.
"Predictive analytics is just a tool," she said. "What are you going to
do with it is the key and being able to figure out ... how are you
going to use this to really to help your students."
Get buy-in on mission
"You could've heard a pin drop," said Patrick Awuah Jr. (top image),
president of Ashesi University about the moment he told faculty members
he suspected students were frequently cheating. When Awuah, a SXSW EDU
keynote speaker, opened Ashesi in Ghana in 2002, relatively few people
there went to college, he said. That meant what was happening at those
institutions was very important to the future of the country, which
itself was experiencing a crisis of leadership.
Ashesi's mission "to educate a new generation of ethical,
entrepreneurial leaders in Africa" ran counter to the notion of
cheating.
So he called out the students and invited them into a conversation
about what kind of society they wanted for Africa, Ghana and their own
campus. "I don't want to be the keeper of this mission," he told them.
"You must be the keepers of this mission." Perhaps most compellingly,
he told the institution's major donors about the students' behavior.
"That transparency … motivated us, compelled us to really act," he said.
In response, students created an honor system through which they agreed
not to tolerate unethical behavior on their campus.
More than half of the global population growth through 2050 is expected
to occur on the African continent. And addressing the corresponding
demand for education will not be the job of only one institution, he
said.
"We are responsible for educating leaders who are ethical, who care,
who are compassionate and who have the capability to solve problems,
and who have the expectation that problems will be solved and who have
the curiosity and foresight to identify opportunities and innovate," he
said.
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