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Their flexible methods of delivering instruction — and an enormous amount of advertising spending — are enabling for- profit schools to build their enrollment levels with students who otherwise might have chosen the traditional, nonprofit colleges that have called Northeast Ohio home for decades.
Access, accountability and an "output" based approach to higher education are the pillars of our model at the Academy of Art University, but just because this model is working for us doesn't mean it will work everywhere. Elements of this model can and should be considered by education leaders as part of a new approach to higher education. Our country desperately needs the system to be changed to fit the new 21st Century world we are living in. Our nation's economic future depends on it. The American Dream is riding on it.
To that end, several states – including Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Texas and Washington state – are or are proposing to base a portion of funding on degree completion, rather than enrollment. And to make diplomas a little easier to get, 17 states last week formed a pact to ensure that course credits can be transferred from one university to another when students transfer.
The poll was conducted online by Knowledge Networks for Harvard University's Institute of Politics from January 29 to February 22. It examined the opinions and political ideologies of more than 3,000 adults ages 18 to 29, including college students.
Over all, 60 percent of those surveyed said they are concerned about meeting their current bills and obligations. About 45 percent of four-year college students said they are concerned about their ability to remain in college because of the strained economy, while almost two-thirds of community-college students said so.
Further, the data in the report show that within universities, Bologna implementation has moved to a more comprehensive approach. Asked whether Bologna degree standards were in place for all departments, 77 percent reported yes, up from 55 percent just three years ago.
In both surveys and additional research done by the association with site visits, European academics reported that the significance of the shifts was not restricted to how long it takes to earn a given degree. Rather, they said that the “harmonization” efforts, in which the various countries have tried to be sure that degrees in the same field mean roughly the same thing, have led to all kinds of curricular changes.
Leaders of a Florida community college are planning to create an independent university offering baccalaureate and graduate degrees, arguing that existing four-year institutions in the region are not helping enough of the two-year institution's low-income and minority graduates continue their educations.
House Bill 1210, which is up for debate this week in the Senate, outlines 20 course unit requirements for the so-called career track curriculum. Students who choose to go that route still would have to earn four units of English and at least three in math and three in science.
"We're not trying to dummy down the curriculum," said House Education Committee Chairman Cecil Brown, D-Jackson. "The whole (educational) system is focused on trying to move kids in a path to get a four-year degree in college, but a number of kids don't want to do that."
The Obama administration wants research data to drive more of its higher-education policy decisions. But it may take a while for the Education Department's analysis of data to pay clear dividends, say Paul Basken and Sara Hebel.
Colleges should be accountable if their students fail to graduate, Ms. Pennington said, speaking at a plenary session. "Once we cash a student's tuition check, we must accept responsibility for their success."
For colleges to succeed at graduating more students, institutions will have to embrace "transformational change," and if they do, they may get some help from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.