President Obama’s ideas on how to overhaul the American higher education system, which he shared at the University of Buffalo yesterday, are solid steps in the right direction, except for one. According to the New York Times, his ideas are to:
- Disburse financial aid to schools over the course of a whole semester rather than up front, remitting full payment only if the student finishes the semester, thereby incentivizing schools to ensure students don’t drop out;
- Encourage innovation in the structure of higher education, for example by awarding credits based on competency rather than seat time, by integrating MOOCs into the curriculum, or by creating a three-year bachelor degree;
- Create system to rank schools based on affordability and student outcomes, among other measures; and
- Give more financial aid to schools that score well on this rating system, and less to schools that score badly.
Most of these ideas are long overdue updates to our system. Disbursing federal aid to schools in installments during the semester makes a lot of sense. A university will be much more likely to care about whether or not a student flunks out if it stands to lose a significant chunk of money on every student who doesn’t finish the semester. The President’s exhortation for universities to turn to MOOCs, award credits for competency, and move away from the assembly line model of education is music to my ears, as you can imagine from my previous posts.
Finally, ranking schools by affordability, student educational outcomes, and measures such as the percentage of low-income students enrolled promises to empower students and families in a new way, and hold colleges accountable for keeping costs under control. For too long, fancy athletic centers, high-rise dorms, and prestigious names have blinded students and parents from seeing what truly matters: how well students at that school learn. This ranking system is a step towards rectifying that problem.
The last idea, of giving more financial aid to schools that score well on the ranking system, and less to schools that don’t, could cause a real problem.
On its face, the idea makes sense. If a college is charging $40,000 per year in tuition, but its students graduate with academic attainment equal to or less than their peers at institutions costing $8,000 per year, taxpayers should not be footing a big part of that $40k bill. It is much more cost effective - and the same or better, educationally - to send the student to the $8k school.
Let’s take another example: public community colleges, where non-completion rates are very high, and students are more likely to have to work while studying and face challenges at home. Some community colleges may not score well on this new rating system, because a higher percentage of students drop out, perhaps because they have to work, have problems at home, or transer to another school. Because of its low score, the school will receive less aid per student than schools whose students don’t have a lot of the same socio-economic challenges. Upon receiving less money, the school will have no choice but to jack up tuition, on the very students who can afford it least.
The Obama Administration and Congress must be cautious in how they implement the President’s ideas. The rating system must control for the phenomenon just described, otherwise Obama’s higher education reforms will make the same mistake as No Child Left Behind. NCLB doesn’t allow for local circumstances to play a part in the assessment of schools. If a new higher education reform fails to do so too, we will see just as much stagnation and just as many students left behind as we do in primary and secondary education.
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