Despite signs that rural students complete high school at higher rates, fewer enrolled finish their degrees than their urban and suburban counterparts. Some of the biggest reasons for this are the lack of colleges in rural areas (which have become dubbed “education deserts”), the lack of understanding of the application process and the few technological resources available to rural students to learn new trades.

However, advancements made by the Biden administration and other higher education leaders point to the country’s revitalization in rural student recruitment. Students equipped with today’s digital skillsets can perpetuate innovation in the communities they left behind for college.

“Kids could take that money and go back to their communities in rural areas and spend that there. The spending that happens in rural communities affects everyone so I think there’s a lot of power there,” said Chris Sanders, director of the Rural Technology Fund, according to The Hill. “I think kids from rural areas in tech jobs stand to make a lot of people’s lives better.”

More from UB: President moves: Some are homegrown, others served public departments

Federal programs closing the “digital divide”

The USDA announced last week that it is awarding more than $700 million in broadband funding across 19 states to bolster rural connectivity and development across the country.

“High-speed internet is a key to prosperity for people who live and work in rural communities,” Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in a statement. “We can ensure that rural communities have access to the internet connectivity needed to continue to expand the economy from the bottom up and middle out and to make sure rural America remains a place of opportunity to live, work, and raise a family.”

Additionally, Under Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Federal Communications Commission has slashed household internet bills, discounted computer purchases, and partnered with internet service providers to service high-speed internet plans under the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). To boost Americans’ enrollment in ACP, the Department of Education partnered with over 300 organizations last week to raise Americans’ awareness of the administration’s commitment to democratizing high-speed internet connection.

“Access to high-speed internet is no longer a luxury—it is a necessity to fully participate in today’s society. Still, many students and families go without high-speed internet because of the cost, while others are forced to cut back on other essentials to pay their monthly internet bill,” read the press release.

The Small Town and Rural College Network

Sixteen of some of the country’s most prestigious colleges and universities have joined a program dedicated to realizing the potential of small-town and rural students’ education opportunities. Fueled by a $20 million philanthropic investment, the Small Town and Rural Students (STARS) College Network oversees and facilitates institutions’ different efforts to offer personalized programming and mentoring for these disadvantaged students. For example, Columbia University is establishing a fly-in program for STARS-eligible students to access the campus quickly. Financial aid will also be provided.

Other notable schools in this program are CalTech, MIT, Northwestern, University of Chicago, Yale and Vanderbilt.

The Rural Technology Fund

The Rural Technology Fund’s (RTF) official mission is to “help rural students recognize opportunities in technology careers, facilitate pathways to work in the computer industry, and provide equitable access to technology for students with disabilities.”

The organization recognizes that rural students are at a disproportionate disadvantage when entering careers in technology due to the lack of resources. To combat this, RTF has given out over $50,000 worth of scholarships and reached more than 170,000 students in more than 800 schools with educational opportunities in technology. Its goal is 250,000 students.

“Rural people are industrious and resilient and resourceful. And so I’m incredibly optimistic because I think that rural people have had to get things done in all kinds of ways and I think that will continue,” Azano said.

The post How college leaders aim to increase rural students’ share of 4-year degrees appeared first on University Business.

While the Supreme Court is readying to strike down affirmative action nationally, universities that have leveraged race-based admissions are concerned about how Black and Hispanic enrollment might fare. State and student demographic data collected by Data Commons and Data USA from 2012 to 2020 shows that while Black and Hispanic populations have substantially grown throughout California, Washington, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, Arizona, New Hampshire and Oklahoma, the student body of those states’ flagship universities has not reflected that increase whatsoever.

For example, the Hispanic population has increased by 26% in states where affirmative action has already been banned. However, the average increase in the Hispanic student body across their flagship universities is only 4%.

Similarly, while these states’ overall Black population has increased by 14%, Black student enrollment has only increased by less than a percentage point on average at flagship universities.

Minority students weighing whether to enroll at a major university may be worried about finding others who share their cultural experience. Ultimately, those schools can lose out.

“Why would I go to U of M?” said Odia Kaba, a class of 2022 student who chose to remain at Eastern Michigan University to finish her studies, according to AP News. “I’m just going to be stuck with people that don’t look like me, can’t relate to me, and with no way to escape it.”

This article covers the first eight states to have banned affirmative action since their states’ Supreme Court denied its practice in or before 2012. On the other hand, Idaho struck down race-based admissions in 2020, so its long-term trends have not matured enough to analyze.

Percent demographic changes from 2012 to 2020: State vs. State’s flagship university

California

State population

• Black: unchanged (2.25 million in 2020)
• Hispanic: 10% increase (15.4 million)

University of California Berkeley

• Black: unchanged
  • 3% of the student body in 2020
• Hispanic: 5% increase
  • 17% of the student body in 2020

Washington

State population

• Black: 22% increase (290k in 2020)
• Hispanic: 29% increase (972k)

University of Washington – Seattle

• Black: unchanged
  • 3% of the student body in 2020
• Hispanic: 3% increase
  • 9% of the student body in 2020

Florida

State population

• Black: 12% increase (3.38 million in 2020)
• Hispanic: 29% increase (5.47 million)

University of Florida

• Black: 1% decrease
  • 6% of the student body in 2020
• Hispanic: 6% increase
  • 21% of the student body in 2020

Michigan

State population

• Black: 2% decrease (1.36 million in 2020)
• Hispanic: 19% increase (521k)

University of Michigan – Ann Arbor

• Black: 1% increase
  • 5% of the student body in 2020
• Hispanic: 3% increase
  • 7% of the student body in 2020

Nebraska

State population

• Black: 12% increase (91.9k in 2020)
• Hispanic: 29% increase (215k)

University of Nebraska – Lincoln

• Black: 1% increase
  • 3% of the student body in 2020
• Hispanic: 3% increase
  • 7% of the student body in 2020

Arizona

State population

• Black: 24% increase (325k in 2020)
• Hispanic: 19% increase (2.26 million)

University of Arizona

• Black: 1% increase
  • 4% of the student body in 2020
• Hispanic: 6% increase
  • 27% of the student body in 2020

New Hampshire

State population

• Black: 37% increase (21k in 2020)
• Hispanic: 41% increase (52.8k million)

University of New Hampshire

• Black: unchanged
  • 1% of the student body in 2020
• Hispanic: 1% increase
  • 4% of the student body in 2020

Oklahoma

State population

• Black: 6% increase (288k million in 2020)
• Hispanic: 30% increase (431k)

University of Oklahoma

• Black: 1% decrease
  • 5% of the student body in 2020
• Hispanic: 4% increase
  • 11% of the student body in 2020

The post Minority enrollment at these flagship universities underwhelms compared to state population gains appeared first on University Business.

However, Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen states believe that the office responsible for curating a rich, multi-dimensional campus is “fomenting radical and toxic divisions”: the office of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Conservative think tanks Manhattan Institute and Goldwater Institute have helped shape GOP lawmakers’ rationale against DEI. Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at Manhattan Institute, helped shape Florida Gov. Ron Desantis’ catalyzing piece of legislation against Critical Race Theory. He has since advised DeSantis through his dismantling of DEI across Florida’s state institutions.

As the ire grows against DEI and Critical Race Theory, which lawmakers usually associate with DEI for its capacity to “indoctrinate” students, opposing leaders have found different strategies to end its programming in higher education.

Most recently, Wisconsin lawmakers and the University of Arkansas are one legislative body and school leader to target DEI programs.

More from UB: Nearly 2,000 colleges aren’t requiring SAT or ACT scores for fall 2023

School strategies to end DEI

DEI office closure

On Wednesday, Chancellor Charles Robinson announced in an email that the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, would dissolve the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Staff members will be reassigned to different departments related to student success, student affairs, human resources and others with no layoffs planned.

Faculty Senate Chair Stephen Caldwell believes the campus is in a “post-DEI environment” that doesn’t require the values of DEI to be structured in a single office. Similarly, Robinson maintains the school has affirmed that equal opportunity, access and belonging are critical to our land-grant mission and university values,” according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The move most likely stems from Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ executive order that “prohibits indoctrination and critical race theory in schools.”

Similarly, the private institution New College of Florida abolished its Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence and fired its top officer.

State strategies

Prohibit public institutions from using state, federal dollars on DEI initiatives

This strategy is the most popular DEI lawmakers use against DEI and may be the most effective. This strategy prohibits public colleges and universities from funding its programming whatsoever, suffocating it in the process. At least six states have proposed this legislation, with varying results.

• Arizona
  • Lost in the House after passing in the Senate.
•  Florida
  • Signed into law by Ron DeSantis
• Iowa
  • House bill referred to education committee as of May 4
• Kansas
  • Referred to appropriations committee as of March 23
• Oklahoma
  • Senate bill read on May 18
• Utah
  • Failed to pass

Order the closure of DEI offices

Texas became the second state behind Florida to dismantle DEI at the state level successfully. However, Gov. Greg Abbott’s signed bill forthrightly refuses public institutions from establishing or maintaining a DEI office instead of targeting their financial appropriations.

Nebraska is the only other state to try this method. However, lawmakers soon molded it into a study researching the benefits of DEI programs in higher education.

Slash schools’ DEI budget

Wisconsin’s top Republicans are looking to cut the University of Wisconsin system’s DEI budget by more than $32 million, according to CBS 58. They devised this specific cut after reviewing a public records request listing all DEI staff positions. With UW’s system spending $16 million a year on DEI, the state’s 2023-25 biennium budget will effectively kill all funding and appropriate it elsewhere.

​​”The university has gone from being an institute of higher education to an institute of indoctrination,” Senator Robin Vos said, according to The Center Square. “If they want to increase their funding, they have to show they can prioritize things to grow the economy, not grow the racial divide.”

The proposed state budget cut would affect 13 universities across the UW system.

The post 4 ways states and schools choose to dismantle DEI offices appeared first on University Business.

The latest tally by FairTest, a group seeking to dismantle the misuses and flaws of standardized testing, reveals that more than 1,900 U.S. colleges and universities aren’t requiring SAT or ACT scores for fall 2023 admissions. More than 200 colleges have made this decision since the fall of 2020. The current statistic represents 83% of four-year institutions.

At least 78% of higher education institutions have already extended these policies through the fall of 2024 in anticipation of the pending U.S. Supreme Court decision surrounding affirmative action.

“Admissions offices increasingly recognize that test requirements, given their negative disparate impact on Black and Latinx applicants, are ‘race-conscious’ factors, which can create unfair barriers to access higher education,” FairTest Executive Harry Feder said in a statement. “They also know that standardized exams are, at best, weak predictors of academic success and largely unrelated to college-ready skills and knowledge.

“If the Supreme Court bars affirmative action, we expect that very few schools will continue to require the ACT or SAT. And it is likely that many more graduate programs will eliminate requirements for exams such as the GRE, GMAT, LSAT and GMAT.”

Colleges began removing GRE requirements as early as 2019, like Yale, which cited its potential to “skew” an applicant pool. Similarly, The New York Times reported that Boston University’s Black and Hispanic student demographic grew when it removed its GRE requirement and did not experience any loss in student performance.

Coincidentally, Educational Testing Service (ETS) recently announced its decision to cut the GRE in half to improve the test takers’ experience and reduce anxiety and fatigue. ETS did not mention how the pending decision on affirmative action or colleges’ concern with student equity molded the revamped GRE. However, Alberto Acereda, the associate vice president for global higher education at ETS, argued how important quantitative metrics are to streamline a changing admissions process and its contribution to student diversity.

“For institutions, the shorter GRE will continue to empower admissions professionals with critical data on a candidate’s graduate-level skills, as the only truly objective measure in a holistic admissions process,” said Acereda in an email. “The shorter GRE General Test will also help programs and schools choose diverse candidates who have the foundational skills needed to enrich their programs and have a successful graduate, business or law school experience.”

Conversely, FairTest Public Education Director Bob Schaeffer believes institutions’ transitions to test-optional policies are a race-neutral solution to enhancing campus diversity.

“Though not a full substitute for affirmative action, they are important tools in a robust set of holistic missions strategies to improve access for under-represented applicants.”

More from UB: How this college’s conservative takeover has led to lawsuits and accreditation troubles

Per the data, there’s no sign of these strategies slowing down. Here’s an in-depth tally provided by FairTest that reflects the growing number of four-year institutions adopting test-optional policies since the start of the pandemic:

• 1,075 ACT/SAT-optional schools pre-pandemic (March 15, 2020)
• 1,700 schools did not require scores for the fall of 2020
• 1,775 schools did not require scores for the fall of 2021
• 1,825 schools did not require scores for the fall of 2022
• 1,904 schools don’t require scores for the fall of 2023

The long-awaited Supreme Court decision may very well be “the death knell” for standardized admissions tests, said Schaeffer.

The post Nearly 2,000 colleges aren’t requiring SAT or ACT scores for fall 2023 appeared first on University Business.

Legislatures in Indiana and Texas are remodeling their financial allocation to colleges and universities based on an outcomes-based formula rather than blanket recommendations based on enrollment as each state grapples with higher education’s most prevailing trends: student workforce preparation and faltering enrollment.

“The current model is one that’s based upon contact hours, heavily influenced by enrollment and type of courses offered,” says Ray Martinez III, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Community Colleges (TACC), according to Diverse. “What do we need to do as a matter of state policy to ensure that students have the support they need, the scaffolding to ensure they can complete a post-secondary credential?”

More from UB: Ghosts of Mississippi: Since last June, 7 presidents have stepped down in the state

Texas tackles workforce demands at the community college level

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott approved legislation on Monday to increase its community college biennium funding by nearly 25% for $2.2 billion, according to Dallas Innovates. Aside from the increase in funding, the legislation also marks a bold new direction for which colleges will earn the lion’s share. Texas will now fund its community colleges based on upward student transfer rates, high school dual degree completion, and whether they’re awarding “credentials of value.” Credentials of value include badges, certificates and degrees that “position graduates for well-paying jobs” in high-demand fields.

Texas’ former community college state funding formula relied almost entirely on contact hours, according to the Texas Commission on Community College Finance (TxCCCF), which strongly recommended the outcomes-based changes to the state. TxCCCF found that 2021 was Texas’ worst year for community college enrollment, which is particularly damaging for the state considering that the sector makes up more than 40% of its post-secondary student enrollment.

By repositioning the state’s 50 community colleges to deliver credentials of values while promoting college affordability, TxCCCF and Texas legislatures believe they are in a prime placement to recoup state enrollment by churning out workforce-ready individuals.

“A highly educated and skilled workforce is critical for Texas to remain the most attractive state to do business, and community colleges are ground zero for students to access the necessary skills and training for in-demand careers,” said Sen. Brandon Creighton, according to the Austin American-Statesman. “This new funding framework will only encourage more successful programs for Texas to train the workforce of the future.”

Indiana wants to bring students back

With only 48% of Indiana’s citizens being credential or degree earners, Gov. Eric Holcomb wants to increase the rate of Hoosiers with postsecondary education to 60% by 2025. With public college tuition and fees decreasing 4% over the past five years and the state recuperating from one of its lowest enrollment rates in recent history, Indiana’s 2023 legislative session seeks to bump state college funding by $130 million in the next biennium budget.

With a revamped budget comes an updated budget strategy. On top of the base funding each college and university will receive, they will also be eligible for additional funding based on five metrics: quality and career relevance, completion, college-going rate, quantity of adult students and graduation retention rates.

For example, colleges that score 80% of their forecasted goal on one of those five metrics will receive 80% of the additional funding they were promised. That additional funding earned in the first year of the biennium would be guaranteed in year two. It then has the potential to build from there.

Equity concerns with outcomes-based funding

While more states become outcome-oriented when deciding which colleges and universities to fund, some professionals believe doing so can hurt minority-serving institutions.

Institutions that serve students and color and those from lower-income households are already under-resourced. If they can’t deliver on state metrics, their situation will never improve, creating a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” wrote Dr. Kalya C. Elliott, interim director of Education Trust and co-author of the report cautioning against outcomes-based funding.

The post Why these 2 states are changing their higher ed funding model appeared first on University Business.

These are some key takeaways EAB gathered in their latest meta-report that creates a comprehensive picture of higher education’s future college cohort: “Gen P.” It draws from conversations with over 20,000 high school students, counselors, parents, EAB partners and college enrollment teams.

“Gen P” students have been molded by a world event that few can compare to, and thus they are unique in their college preferences. EAB aims to identify who they are so higher ed leaders can identify their needs—and win their selection.

More from UB: Digital credentials: Higher education’s new frontier

1. Gen P wants higher ed to be vocal about mental health offerings

In the 2021-22 academic year, 87% of public schools reported that the pandemic negatively impacted students’ socioemotional development, according to the CDC. Similarly, EAB reports that depression and anxiety have steadily increased in that period, partially due to their uptick in social media use and online interactivity. The issue has gotten so bad the U.S. Surgeon General believes social media deserves a warning label as youth mental health has become “the defining public health issue of our time.”

With the declining quality of youth mental health coalescing with their poorly matured socio-emotional development, 22% of students in 2023 opt out of college because they are “not mentally ready,” according to EAB. That’s an 8% rise compared to 2021. Moreover, the rates of first-generation and low-income students reporting this are higher.

2. Less confident about college success

EAB reports that 73% of counselors believe the pandemic weakened their students’ academic preparation at least moderately. Their concerns aren’t unfounded: Average assessment scores between 2020 and 2022 have dropped by 5%, the largest ever recorded by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Students’ academic troubles interweave with their stunted social and mental development, making them feel as if they might not belong if they pursued a route in higher education. Consequently, 26% of students are worried about successfully pursuing a degree, which is one of the leading issues for turning a cold shoulder to college.

3. Holding higher ed in lower regard

From 2017 to 2022, freshman enrollment has decreased across three major sectors of higher education: public 4-year (2.9%), public 2-year (22%) and private 4-year (1.8%). While enrollment seems to have either increased or steadied in 2022, the 5-year decline is driven by a massive drop in 2020.

Despite leveling off last year, high school student sentiment for high education has become undeniably worse. Specifically, a fifth of students (20%) now agree “college isn’t worth the cost.” In 2019, less than a tenth agreed with that statement (8%).

And although higher ed’s reputation has taken a massive hit since the pandemic, its enrollment has long since declined. A separate report EAB conducted between 2016 and 2020 found that the rate of college-going high school graduates declined by 10%.

Among the top four reasons students are deciding against college, three have to do with the bottom line: cost.

Top factors students are deterred from attending college

• Cost concerns/debt (70%)
• Costs outweighing earning potential (34%)
• Academic readiness (33%)
• Cost of living (31%)

Gen P is only willing to enroll in higher education if it provides quantitative financial outcomes. This may explain why enrollment in liberal arts colleges has sharply declined over the same period as general enrollment in higher ed has.

4. Hunger for in-person events

The rate of prospective students attending campus visits has bounced back to 2019 levels, and while college fair attendance hasn’t entirely recuperated, they have increased. Similarly, in-person events have increased by 38% in 2022, while virtual event show rates have decreased by 58%.

The most popular recruitment event preferred by students were medium-sized, on-campus events with 50-100 attendees.

While virtual events have decreased significantly, EAB believes colleges should keep hybrid events for low-income students who do not have the time or money to attend events in person.

5. Digital engagement demand

A college’s website can make or break students’ esteem for an institution. For example, nine out of ten prospects make a point of visiting the website of a college they’re considering. Among them, 89% agree that “A well-designed website will improve” their opinion of a college, and 81% agree that “a poorly designed website will negatively affect” their opinion of a college.

While nearly three-quarters of students reported engaging with colleges via social media in 2023, an 11% bump over two years, students still prefer email as their main communication channel.

6. Students’ search behavior is shifting

Students are beginning their college search way later than four years ago. While the rate of students starting their college search their spring sophomore year was 67% in 2019, it was down 40% in 2023. However, EAB is unconvinced that this is a long-term trend, as the pandemic could have disrupted their priorities.

One long-term trend regarding students’ college selection process is that they visit colleges later. EAB posits that one possible reason is that students are waiting to know whether they were accepted and if their financial aid package is worthy enough to consider attending.

Similarly, Black and Hispanic/Latinx students are more likely than any other race/ethnicity to apply to an institution for being test optional. This is likely due to professional organizations purporting that standardized tests contain inherent biases against these demographics.

Trends exacerbated by the pandemic

Most of Gen P’s traits did not arise in a vacuum. EAB believes that some of their most significant characteristics result from long-developing trends that the pandemic helped push to the forefront. Among them are:

• Mental health concerns
• Academic achievement
• Equity gaps
• Student value of higher ed

The post Know who you enroll: the 6 traits of the upcoming college student appeared first on University Business.

It’s a question that Noah Geisel, the micro-credential program manager at the University of Colorado Boulder, asks employers, admissions counselors and all other professionals trying to find the most qualified human among the swaths of faceless applicants—the hay. Currently, too many industry stakeholders are too dependent on the pitchfork, according to Geisel.

“It’s a crummy tool,” he quips. Pitchforks stab chunks of hay and toss it around to search for the needle, adding to the chaos and confounding the seeker. One would be better off using a high-powered magnet to attract the needle to them rather than attempting to cut the hay out of the way.

Digital credentials and the machine-readable devices that can authenticate them, Geisel believes, are precisely that tool.

He joins a budding cohort of higher education professionals, industry leaders and state legislators who recognize its revelatory potential to foster the next chapter of academic equity, workforce access and attractive program offerings in higher ed.

What exactly are digital credentials, and what are they good for?

Micro-credentials, alternative credentials, stackable credentials—the list goes on, creating a jargon soup many leaders are hesitant to touch.

“It is confusing. Academic microcredentials, nonacademic microcredentials. There are still many moving parts,” said one higher education leader, according to EDUCASUE’s QuickPoll survey on micro-credential trends.

What’s important is how digital credentials umbrella all these programs to provide admissions counselors and employers a nuanced, insightful snapshot of an applicant’s specific skillsets. Geisel says it best: A micro-credential is to a digital credential, what a degree is to a diploma. And combining a diploma and digital credentials creates a textured picture.

“Digital credentials can contextualize formal recognition of achievement, skills, competencies and experiences. A diploma just has a name on it. If a diploma is issued with digital credential technology, we can contextualize it to turn it in from this flat piece of paper to this 360-degree, high-definition narrative,” says Geisel. “It takes on a storytelling capacity to better communicate who this person is as a learner and achiever.”

The key to developing a meaningful digital credential is that it communicates a specific value, much like a currency does. If it’s not specific, then it’s frivolous.

“On one hand, it can be so granular as to lose meaningfulness, but on the other end, where you aren’t specific, you can also lose meaning,” says Geisel. “What if we issued a badge on DEI?” Geisel says. “At best, the most reliable signal there is a hiring manager knows you’re interested in it, you know? It’s such a broad thing to have a credential called DEI because it’s lacking in granularity.”

While a DEI credential may be too broad, Geisel adds, one highlighting the specific competencies learned within the DEI curriculum is on the right track. Here’s a good example for one: sustainability planning for business. That’s a credential Geisel is currently issuing at CU Boulder.

For beginners in the digital credential space, the most important aspect to focus on is not its taxonomy. It should be on whether it is effectively communicating something of concrete value and contextualizing the person behind the credential.

Digital credentials’ great potential

Certificates and special non-degree credentials were the only programs to experience positive enrollment rates across every sector of higher education this past spring semester, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Private for-profit and 2-year institutions were the only sectors of higher education to increase enrollment, and it’s a direct result of their impressive non-degree enrollment rates.

In the workforce, a February report found that 95% of employers said a résumé listing micro-credentials benefited the candidate because it demonstrates a willingness for skill development (76%).

“Everybody’s talking about micro-credentials, even those campuses that a year or two ago were saying they weren’t. They’re changing their tune,” says Kristi Wold-McCormick, assistant vice provost and University Registrar at CU Boulder and president-elect of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO). “The ‘why’ is a big question when we talk to different campuses.”

Wold-McCormick finds that institutions are incentivized by their potential to broaden their reach, diversify revenue streams, and competitive pressure from other institutions beginning their programs. Legislatures, too, are driving the movement, as they’re interested in seeing how schools can turn some of these learning opportunities into stackable credentials.

“How can some of these micro-credentials be stacked into certificates, and how can certificates be stacked into degrees?” says Wold-McCormick. “It’s incremental learning, which I think appeals to populations that haven’t historically had a path to traditional education.”

Wold-McCormick and other academic leaders are realizing that micro-credentials can tap a new range of students that have traditionally been boxed out of higher education. While online learning has been the predominant medium for the working class to attain a degree, nearly half have not completed their last program of study. Similarly, Black and Hispanic adults interested in pursuing higher education but are not enrolled are significantly more responsible for caring for a child or family member than white adults.

“They can be used to help get people into higher education streams that traditionally don’t have that access by giving them opportunities to take a course or two in smaller credentials,” says Wold-McCormick. “It can then give them that roadmap on how to use these credentials to inform larger credentials and keep that interest going once they’ve gotten a taste for it.”

Despite the direct interest from students and employers in micro-credentials, most colleges and universities are behind the eight ball. Only 9% of institutions have a mature micro-credential program, according to EDUCAUSE. Another 32% say they have a program that is not yet mature.

Standardizing together

As colleges and universities develop their programs, Wold-McCormick cautions higher education stakeholders of the dangers of developing digital credentials in silos.

“What we don’t want are different types of guidance and standardizations and reports coming out from all these different associations that might not be aligned,” she says. “What we need to do as a higher ed community is get on the same page regarding definitions and standards.”

And as passionate as Geisel is about digital credentials’ ability to open the doors for new student demographics, he urges stakeholders to be intentional, vigilant even, to ensure those voices are in the room developing it as well.

“There’s so much power in deciding what counts because we are also deciding at that moment what doesn’t make the cut,” Geisel says. “When we’re looking around the room and realizing that for all of our talk and intentions and passion for serving learners who do not look like the learners who have historically been served well by our institutions. If we’re not seeing those people represented in the room, I think that’s a huge opportunity for us to pump the brakes.”

The post Digital credentials: Higher education’s new frontier appeared first on University Business.

This year’s high school graduating class was in ninth grade when the pandemic struck. Some might say 2023-24’s incoming college freshmen haven’t had a traditional educational experience in four years.

“These kids have never had a normal year,” one counselor at Platte County High School in Platte City, Missouri, told USA Today.

And because of those experiences, perspectives on what life looks like after high school has changed dramatically, according to a new report released Wednesday by the American School Counselor Association.

“The pandemic was a defining aspect of their high school journey, leading to many circumstances that made these students’ high school years different from those of other graduating classes,” the report reads. “What are they thinking about their college and career choices? How did the pandemic affect their thoughts about these choices?”

In an effort to answer these questions, the ACT surveyed more than 1,500 students from the graduating class of 2023. The research uncovered five ways the pandemic altered their postsecondary trajectory, namely their future career choices. For instance, more than 10% of students contemplated whether or not to attend college at all.

According to the data, students said the pandemic affected their thoughts on:

• Future career: 31%.
• Program of study or major: 27%.
• Which school to attend: 26%.
• Type of school to attend: 17%.
• Whether or not to attend college: 12%.

Several students shared their thoughts as to why they felt these feelings. For instance, one student said, “I also decided that community colleges are more suitable for me as they are not as expensive as universities.”

More from UB: How to ‘democratize education’: Stanford’s free online course gains 30,000 students in 3 years

Another student said COVID made them second-guess their decision to go to college because of how much it negatively impacted their academics.

“Before the pandemic, I always looked towards college and furthering my academics but once the pandemic hit it altered the way I looked at college,” they said. “It made me struggle in my high school years and made me doubt whether or not college was the best choice down the road.”

To that end, students were asked to identify the top challenges surrounding their thoughts toward college and their careers. Unsurprisingly, financial barriers top the list.

Students’ top challenges post-graduation:

• Greater financial difficulties: 37%
• Changing academic circumstances: 26%
• Doubt about college: 26%
• Heightened career influences: 23%
• Ranging mental health issues: 21%
• Education or career undecidedness: 18%

As the data suggests, these students’ postsecondary decisions may never be considered what’s been described as the traditional norm. Yet, colleges and universities must adapt to meet their needs. That said, here are four recommendations the researchers offer higher education institutions that want to make the class of 2023’s transition to college as seamless as possible:

• Connect with families who need scholarship assistance, work-study options and financial aid.
• Use reliable assessments and information to determine incoming students’ preparedness. Use that data and decide whether to offer short courses, tutoring, summer bridge programs and other options designed to support unfinished learning.
• Make mental health resources readily available to students.
• Encourage students to take advantage of opportunities that reflect their thoughts and feelings toward their life goals. Offer first-year experience courses, career planning programs and early internships.

The post 5 reasons fewer students may be going to college this year appeared first on University Business.

However, one member of Ohio’s American Association of University Professors chapter referred to quantifying students’ future earnings potential as “problematic,” according to the Dayton Daily News. The University of Cincinnati professor testified that he supports greater financial transparency, but his concerns do hearken back to the turbulence many proponents of greater cost transparency in higher education have faced.

Why are sweeping measures for transparency challenging to gain support for?

Unhelpful information

Data submitted by colleges is rarely strong enough to help parents and students make effective decisions. When former President Donald Trump called for similar initiatives to make higher education more transparent, many of the data colleges posted were found to be misleading or inaccurate. College Scorecard cannot track current student data and must rely on information from student loan borrowers due to a 2008 Congressional decision. Aside from being the partial truth, colleges’ self-submitted data is not usually refined for the average parent or student and often becomes too technical to use appropriately.

“The information we need to provide has to be accurate, has to be verifiable, has to be comparable. It has to be visible to students, and it has to be usable,” said Debbie Cochrane, executive vice president of the Institute for College Access & Success, according to The Hechinger Report. “Misleading information is not helpful. Perfectly valid information that can’t be found is also not helpful.”

Aside from the college information being impractical, some colleges have a track record of submitting bad information. Columbia and Temple University have been caught submitting erroneous data to U.S. News and World Report to pad their rankings.

Lack of use

Initiatives that do try to track critical measures for prospective students don’t seem to gain much traffic. One report in 2016 found that College Scorecard underperformed among users. Similarly, two state-driven initiatives have also achieved meek results. One partnership between the University of Texas and the U.S. Census Bureau to provide better earnings data did not gain popularity two years after its launch. And Virginia’s wide-ranging database is left mostly unused.

“I think some fraction of students use the data,” said Tod Massa, policy analytics director at the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, according to The Hechinger Report. But “how many high school students are actually going to think to go to a state agency website to research colleges and universities?”

How have recent bills similar to Ohio’s fared?

At the federal level, three U.S. Senators are reviving the College Transparency Act after it stalled out last year. If approved, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) would be responsible for securing student data and generating postgraduation outcomes reports with the help of federal agencies. Creating a user-friendly website that parents and students can easily navigate is also top of mind. Additionally, the College Transparency Act would lift the 2008 Congress ban that hindered College Scorecard’s data accuracy.

At the state level, the Colorado General Assembly has recently passed a bill appropriating $3 million to the department of higher education to create a public-facing data system that allows prospective students to compare and contrast “postsecondary success measures and workforce success measures” among different institutions. Another eight states have enacted some form of collection and distribution of college data, according to The Hechinger Report. Among them are Arkansas, Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

However, one proposed bill in New York stalled out last year and has yet to be reintroduced.

The post Ohio is the latest state to try making college costs, ROI clearer—is it worth it? appeared first on University Business.

Despite recent efforts to raise state funding for higher education and consolidate public universities, its public university system and state-related institutions are desperate for more financing to curb Pennsylvania’s rapidly declining student enrollment and intimidating college costs.

Since fall 2017, enrollment at Pennsylvania’s four-year public institutions has declined by 12.4%, which is dramatically worse than the nation’s overall 3% decrease in that sector, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. While the Northeast region has experienced a dramatic decline in enrollment across every sector in that same period, Pennsylvania’s decline still outpaced the region’s average, 12.3% compared to 11.3%.

Aside from the demographic changes affecting the entire country, Pennsylvania’s public college system is catching fewer students per year due to its burdensome college costs. State funding per student ranks second worst nationwide, averaging $6,100 compared to the national average of $10,200, according to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Among the American Association of Universities’ public institution members, Pennsylvania State University and Pittsburgh University claimed the top spots for the costliest colleges to attend.

More from UB: More than half of all elite president appointments in the last 2 years were women

Two state systems, both in need

Allocating state funding for Pennsylvania’s public institutions is split among two different public college systems: the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) and the Commonwealth System of Higher Education. The latter comprises the state’s most revered state-related colleges: Lincoln University, the Pennsylvania State University, Temple University, and the University of Pittsburgh.

While the governor’s proposed $40 million, 7.1% increase across all four institutions in the Commonwealth System exceeds Pitt’s request (6%), it’s far below what Temple (16%), Lincoln (25%), and Penn State (48%) asked for, according to Spotlight PA. Lincoln specified their requested funds would be used for tuition and fee support, while Penn State stated it’d be used for student aid. Consequently, no state-related university leader committed to a tuition freeze if allotted Shapiro’s budget. The biggest losers among Pennsylvania’s state-related institutions are families from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.

“And if you don’t have that kind of financial aid, particularly in a state with relatively high public college tuition like Pennsylvania, low- and moderate-income families just get priced out,” said Will Doyle said, a professor of public policy and higher education at Vanderbilt University, according to Spotlight PA. He also co-authored a report that ranked Pennsylvania among the country’s least affordable states for higher education in 2016.

PASSHE seems also to have gotten the short end of the stick, despite having consolidated six universities into two last year to cut costs. Chancellor of PASSHE Daniel Greenstein asked for a 3.8% increase in state funding to help freeze tuition for a fifth year; however, the governor proposed only a 2% bump in funding. If the state cannot meet Greenstein’s requests, the system looks at hiking tuition up 4.5%, which will barely cover PASSHE’s existing costs. And as faculty are currently negotiating new contracts, that percentage may need to rise. If allocation for PASSHE doesn’t increase whatsoever, universities could be looking at a 7.5% tuition increase, which would be “horrific” for future enrollment trends in the state, according to one PASSHE university president.

Consequently, university officials and state leaders are tangled on what to do. “We firmly believe PASSHE universities cannot raise tuition and then expect to also receive increased state support,” Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, and Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Scott Martin said in a statement, according to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “We are committed to working together to adequately address the financial concerns of our higher education institutions.”

Long-term problems

The state of Pennsylvania has long been a culprit in reducing funding to its higher education system. Since 1980, public funding for the state’s institutions has decreased by 42%. So, despite last year’s 15% budget increase for PASSHE, the state university system still needs more funding to protect students from shouldering extra costs.

University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Patrick Gallagher also blames the state’s lack of cohesion in addressing the state’s higher education.

“Pennsylvania’s approach can hardly be called a system. Some residents live near a wealth of state-supported schools, all with a different funding relationship to the commonwealth and all competing for the same, limited number of students, said Gallagher, according to The University of Pittsburgh. “Other residents live in areas where their window into a state-supported college campus is limited to a 60-second commercial break during football season.”

The post Can higher education in Pennsylvania be saved? appeared first on University Business.