National Disaster

The best summary of the very serious results of the report, Measuring Up 2008 is in Inside Higher Ed. More on this report soon:

The states performed best on preparation and completion, worst on affordability (49 F’s) and learning (all incompletes). Highlights are below:

Preparation: 6 A’s (Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont), 18 B’s, 21 C’s, 5 D’s, and no F’s. Thirty-four states showed improvement or stayed the same on the number of 18- to 24-year-olds with a high school credential, but the high school graduation rates of black and Hispanic students in many states lagged badly (82 percent of black young adults in Illinois had a high school credential compared to 95 percent of their white peers; 56 percent of Hispanic 18-24-year olds in North Carolina had a high school degree, compared to 92 percent of whites.)
Participation: 2 A’s (Arizona and Iowa), 8 B’s, 22 C’s, 15 D’s, and three F’s (Alaska, Louisiana, and Nevada). Forty-three states improved or stayed the same on the number of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in college, but a majority of states showed decreases in the number of 25- to 49-year-olds in college-level education or training.

On this and other measures, the gaps by racial and socioeconomic status are significant.

Affordability: 49 F’s and one C grade, for California. “The whole country has gone south on affordability,” said Callan. He called the picture a “national disaster” as tuition continues to outpace family income, increasing the burden of paying for college particularly for low- and middle-income families. The states are graded on families’ ability to pay (percentage of income needed to cover the students’ costs minus financial aid) at different types of institutions, the states’ emphasis on need-based aid (their own investment in such aid as a percentage of the federal investment in their states’ students) and lower-cost colleges, and students’ reliance on loans. Two states improved or stayed the same on the percentage of family income needed to pay for a four-year public college, while 48 states fell on that measure.
Completion: 11 A’s ( Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming), 20 B’s, 16 C’s, one D and two F’s (Alaska and Nevada). All but those two states improved in the number of college degree completions per 100 students, but the caveats here, in the eyes of the Measuring Up crew, are that the rates remain low, especially as measured against those in other countries. “The United States’ world leadership in college access has eroded steadily,” he wrote in an analysis of the report. “In college completion, which has never been a strength of American higher education, the U.S. ranks 15th among 29 countries compared.” While older Americans still fare well in international comparisons of degree holders, “the U.S. population has slipped to 10th in the percentage [of 25- to 34-year-olds] who have an associate degree or higher. This relative erosion of our national ‘educational capital’ reflects the lack of significant improvement in the rates of college participation and completion in recent years.”

Learning: Here’s what the report had to say on this front: “All states receive an ‘incomplete’ in learning because there are not sufficient data to allow meaningful state-by-state comparisons,” a point made in by Ewell in an Inside Higher Ed essay last month.

An undercurrent of the report is the significant gap that exists between the haves and the have-nots on college access and affordability. “It has always been an ethical and moral problem that we undereducate minorities and low-income students,” Callan said in an interview. “But for the first time, we are going to pay an economic price as well” if more of those Americans are not made ready to enter the work force and contribute to society.

But let me repeat the ticking time bomb, as expressed by the Chronicle story:

Other countries are surpassing the United States, whose educational strength lies in its older residents, on measures of participation and degree completion, the report says. The United States ranks second, behind Canada, in the proportion of its adults ages 35 to 64 who hold at least an associate degree, according to the report. . . . But among adults ages 25 to 34, the United States ranks 10th.

10th is based on averages. If you look at the high-growth sectors of the younger US population, particularly Latinos, we are doing even worse.

Higher ed should get to the top of the infrastructure priority list, basically right now.