"The heart of the proposals is a controversial plan to rate colleges based on measures of access, affordability, and student outcomes, and to allocate aid based on those ratings. Under the plan, students attending higher-rated institutions could obtain larger Pell Grants and more-affordable loans." - Kelly Field
The articles headlining today's Chronicle of Higher Education were a great incentive to start fulfilling a additional goal I have for this blog - to stay abreast of and reflect on trending issues in the field of higher education. Connecting some of these issues to practice may be difficult, but I will do my best. On such posts, I will start with a summarizing quote, then provide links to the information on which I am commenting, and finally provide some commentary, ideally sparking some of your own thoughts that you should please post as comments!
The article I read today from the Chronicle can be found here. It is very informative article providing some of the reviews various people in the government and the field of education have given on President Obama's new plan for higher ed. The "Fact Sheet" that the White House has published can be found here. As the quote above states, the President's stated goal is to put federal aid where the "best" outcomes are being produced, and to make college more affordable for students.
Overall, I can see where most of the worries given in the article are coming from - most were ones that I had while reading the fact sheet. How do we prevent colleges from "stacking the deck," as it were? How do we ensure that schools producing excellent graduates in lower-paying fields do not get hurt? What kind of ratings system exists or could ever exist that is actually a level playing field?
At the same time, the plan makes sense to me. I am definitely biased, coming from a small, public, academically-focused school. I also look forward to reading more about this plan as the questions above are addressed. Two additional concerns that I have, though, are the potential for a "snowball effect" and the rating biases against certain schools. By a "snowball effect," I mean the idea that certain schools will not receive as high of ratings, will receive less aid accordingly, will not be as able to increase their ratings as a result, and then the cycle repeats. Is this fair? I do not know. It does not feel right to me, but at the same time it seems to be a goal of this plan.
Similarly, I am unsure about not only how ratings will be developed, but also how they will be interpreted. What will a low rating say to a potential student, other than what it used to say in US News & World Report? At least one additional label that such a school will receive is now "You will not receive as much federal aid here." The plan for the ratings (so far) seems to be primarily based on academics and graduate earnings and performance, while as a Student Affairs professional I am confident in saying that is not all a student's campus experience is about. Colleges do so much more to develop students than teach them statistics and psychology. A student should still look at the full student experience when choosing school. And while such social development outcomes are not as measurable, I hope that the DOE's future metric will somehow account for them.
Article & Quote Citation: Field, K. (2013). Obama plan to tie student aid to college ratings draws mixed reviews. The chronicle of higher education. Retrieved from: http://chronicle.com/article/Obama-Proposes-Tying-Federal/141229/
Other Source: Office of the Press Secretary. (2013). Fact sheet on the president's plan to make college more affordable. Retrieved from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/22/fact-sheet-president-s-plan-make-college-more-affordable-better-bargain-
Photo By: Me (view of Atlantic Ocean from Table Mountain in Cape Town)
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