Protecting Tax Dollars in Tennessee

April 23, 2012 in Taxpayers

Tennessee taxpayers are shelling out a ton of money for community colleges that fail to hold onto students past a single year. According to the American Institutes of Research, one in five community college students across the nation don’t return for a second year, and Tennessee is no exception.

Here’s what the researchers say:

“[I]n every year we studied, about one fifth of full-time students who began their studies at a community college did not return for a second year. These students have paid tuition, borrowed money, and changed their lives in pursuit of a degree they will likely never earn. And taxpayers have invested a significant (and growing) number of tax dollars in the form of state appropriations and grant funding as these students pursue a credential but drop out during the first lap.”

Looking at Tennessee alone, the state government paid $9 million of your tax money during the 2009-2010 academic year (the most recent year with statistics available) to community colleges purely to educate students who didn’t come back for a second year.  And that’s just the state’s share. The federal government chipped in another $3.6 million of your tax money for a total of $12.6 million in one year.

And that happens every year. Over the past five years, the total is $67,000,000 in taxpayer money. For Tennessee alone.

How do we get community colleges to improve their graduation rates so they’re not wasting all this taxpayer cash? U.S. News & World Report has some tips, and not surprisingly, it’s the same stuff career colleges are already doing.

The top tips include 1) focusing on a specific career outcome and 2) meet early and often with an advisor to keep you focused and progressing towards that  specific goal.

You’ll remember that the National Governors Association already urged state-run community colleges to follow the success of career colleges at keeping students in school through graduation. These tips from U.S. News & World Report appear to come from the exact same playbook. We can only hope the State of Tennessee decides to follow it! It’s be great news for us taxpayers.

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Simple Math: Tennesseans with a College Degree

February 13, 2012 in Jobs

We recently talked about the governor’s nifty new online “dashboard” with statistics on Tennessee’s economic and educational progress as a state. As you might expect, the one stats we’re most concerned about here at Educate Tennessee is the percentage of Tennesseans who have completed college (associate’s degree or higher).

In Tennessee, 33.4% of the state’s population has completed college. That’s significantly below the national average of 38%, which is pretty flimsy anyway.

Why is that number so important?

“In 2009, the median of the earnings for young adults with a bachelor’s degree was $45,000, while the median was $21,000 for those without a high school diploma or its equivalent, $30,000 for those with a high school diploma or its equivalent, and $36,000 for those with an associate’s degree,” according to the U.S. Department of Education.

In other words, it makes a big difference in income levels and quality of life.

And looking ahead, “In just ten years, more than 60% of all new jobs will require a college education,” according to Rice University’s Center for College Readiness.

That’s 60% of jobs compared to the 33.4% of Tennesseans with a degree. We’re barely halfway there, and the clock is ticking.

If you ever wondered why we created Educate Tennessee and why we think career colleges are such an important part of our state’s higher education system, these simple statistics are a big part of the answer.

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Grading Tennessee

February 10, 2012 in State Government

If you’re a huge fan of statistics (and who isn’t?), then Governor Bill Haslam is about to make your day. He’s just launched a new online “dashboard” that rates Tennessee in a number of vital statistical areas so you can chart the progress being made year to year by our state and his administration.

Here are the stats from the education section:

3rd Grade Reading: 43.9%

7th Grade Math: 35.9%

ACT College and Career Readiness Benchmark: 15% (note: among top 10 worst in nation)

High School Grad Rate: 85.5%

College-Going Rate: 56.9%

Associate’s Degree or Higher: 33.4%

Kudos to the governor for making these stats easily available and easy to read—especially since some of the numbers are fairly pitiful. It’s a big step on the path of accountability for the state government, and it’ll be interesting to see how they change from year to year.

Suggestions for the future: include the national average for comparison, and including the previous year’s numbers would be nice as well.

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Just the Facts

February 2, 2012 in Graduation Rates

While President Obama is on the campaign trail talking about college affordability, the Coalition for Educational Success would like to remind him (and everybody else) of a few simple facts:

According to the latest U.S. Department of Education data, career colleges enroll 20% of full-time, first-time degree/certificate-seeking students; boast a higher graduation rate than community colleges (58% versus 20%); and have more students enrolled in high-growth fields (44%) than public institutions (18%) and private, not-for-profit institutions (13%).

The Coalition’s latest press release is just chock full of important facts like that. For example, just how big is the bill that taxpayers have to pay per community college graduate, and how does that compare to the taxpayer share of a career college graduate? Read the release to find out.

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“We Told You So”

January 30, 2012 in U.S. Department of Education

It’s not often you see “We Told You So” in the headline of a press release, but the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) couldn’t resist.

The subject of their righteous indignation is yet another government blunder. The U.S. Department of Education has finally gotten around to admitting that it’s claim that disparities related to racial/ethnic differences among college students are only responsible for 1% of the difference in student loan defaults between career college students and other college students is totally bogus.

In their own words: “we used the wrong data to calculate the percent of total variance in institutions’ repayment rates that may be explained by race/ethnicity. Our intent was to use the data that included all minority students per institution. However, we mistakenly used the data for a subset of minority students per institution.”

And this wasn’t a tiny math error. The Department of Education now admits the true number is 20 times what it originally reported. Remember, these are the numbers the Department used to justify its Gainful Employment rule, which the NBCC warned would severely hurt minority students and block them from access to college.

So you can see why an I told you so was in order.

(And, of course, this isn’t the first government agency caught red-handed with a bogus report and forced to revise its “facts” months later.)

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Where’s the Senate Investigation of Law Schools?

January 25, 2012 in Level Playing Field

Kudos to Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville, which is being held up as a model for other law schools to follow when it comes to job placement and transparency. Other law schools… well, not so much. From coast to coast, graduates are complaining that they got misled into piles of student debt with no real job prospects.

Reports keep rolling in. But don’t hold your breath for a Senate investigation. Don’t look for the White House to start capping student loans for law school students. They’re not interested in subjecting other schools to the same scrutiny or regulations as career colleges. That’s not how a witch hunt works.

Instead, they turn a deaf ear to complaints in other sectors of higher education. They forget all about protecting those students. Otherwise, we’d see the same rules and standards applied across the board—from community colleges all the way up to law schools.

It’s too bad, really. A level playing field would be a good thing.

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Ready to Serve the Community

January 19, 2012 in Community Involvement

North Central Institute in Clarksville has been officially approved as a shelter site by the American Red Cross, meaning the campus can be used by the community in case of a natural or manmade disaster should homes be damaged or destroyed in the area.

What’s more, the NCI staff has completed disaster training with the Red Cross to ensure they know what to do in case of an emergency such as a tornado on campus or nearby. It’s just another way the school is a great neighbor and benefit to the people of Clarksville.

Located next to Fort Campbell, North Central Institute operates a 30,000 sq. ft. facility and specializes in training young men and women for careers in aviation maintenance.

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Worth a Thousand Words

January 11, 2012 in Student Success

Congratulations to IADT student Gay Mayes for being selected in today’s “Daily Dozen” by National Geographic magazine!

The Daily Dozen is a regular online feature in which reader photos are selected by the magazine to appear on its website. Gay’s photograph is of her son running through a flock of seagulls on the beach.

To view the photos, go here.

To rate the photos, go here.

This amazing accomplishment is a credit to Gay’s instructors and the entire Nashville campus. Kudos to all involved!

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How Did We Get Here?

January 6, 2012 in Student Choice

“The earliest for-profit schools, dating to the 1820s, were mom-and-pop institutions that offered practical training for local industries as apprenticeships were fading out,” says Emily Badger in a fascinating new article at Miller-McClune.com. Back then, traditional colleges were teaching things like Greek and Latin—stuff an educated gentleman might be expected to know at the time, but not very practical when seeking a blue-collar job.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Today, we still find students who want a straightforward, job-focused education turning to for-profit colleges. In fact, as Badger discovers, there’s not really any other practical way to get the job done.

It’s recommended reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of career colleges, how the industry developed from the 1820s to today, and why they’re “absolutely necessary” going forward.

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Fear of a Level Playing Field

January 2, 2012 in Level Playing Field

When competition is fierce, businesses tend to lower their prices to get an edge. That’s not what’s happening at state-run schools or at private, not-for-profit colleges. Instead, tuition continues to skyrocket, doubling the rate of inflation for the past three decade. (And 2011 is no exception.)

Why isn’t competition driving down costs? Daniel L. Bennett of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity took a look at the problem and shared his findings—and potential solutions—with Forbes.

Problems number one and two, according to Bennett, are that students make their decisions based on the prestige of the school rather than the value of the education. In other words, students don’t act according to their traditional economic rules because they’re not pursuing value and schools aren’t interested in providing it. Instead, schools are:

…doing things that enhance their reputation and cost loads of money, such as building lavish facilities, fostering national competitive athletics teams, and emphasizing research over teaching.

So what does Bennett recommend?

In order to harness the power of markets to generate lower prices for college education, we need to transition form reputation-based competition to value-based competition… In turn, instutions would then face pressure to allocate resources to areas that improve educational value.

More specifically, Bennett wants public and private, not-for-profit institutions to provide straightforward information about their value to their students, including graduation rates and more. You know, the same stuff that career colleges are already required to do. I believe that’s called a level playing field.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a level playing field is good economic policy, in higher education or anywhere. It leads to lower prices and better informed consumers. So why doesn’t everyone play by the same rules? What’s the matter—afraid of a little competition?

(PS: Take a look at tuition increases in 2011 among career colleges, not-for-profit schools, and state colleges and universities. Economic forces at work.)

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