President Obama and the U.S. Department of Education’s plan to measure colleges based on quantitative metrics received mixed reviews from students and higher education administrators Thursday at the open forum on college value and affordability at the University.
The federal government’s plan to develop a college rating system is based on three metrics: access, affordability and outcomes.
Access is defined as the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants; affordability is made up of the average costs of tuition, the number of scholarships granted and the average amount of loan debt; and outcomes is defined by graduation and transfer rates, graduate earnings and advanced degrees of graduates.
Administrators from specialized universities, such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities or religiously affiliated universities, are worried that the rating system will not be able measure students as a whole. This oversight, they fear, could cause a drop in school value and funding, making affordability out of reach for many students.
Rosalind Fuse-Hall, president of a women’s HBCU, Bennet College, said these metrics are making students expendable because it does not take into account the socioeconomic background of the student as well as whether a student has access to information to make informed decisions about colleges.
“The rating system does not account for social, economic, academic and racial diversity of an institution,” said John Berry, vice president for institutional advancement at Florida Memorial University. “The system may forget the institutional value to students.”
LSU President F. King Alexander said the college rating system is important because determining the value of an institution can determine the amount of aid a university receives which in turn increases affordability.
Alexander said one of the most important metrics is outcomes, but he stressed the importance of students knowing as much information as possible when deciding the best university for them.
“Parents and students need to be aware of all the aid available at the federal and state level,” Alexander said. “There has never been more aid available than now. Parents and students can see the effects [on college affordability] now if they look at the value of the school on the college scorecard. But getting the information to students is a step the University can take to ensure students understand college affordability.”
While there is a positive view on the rating system, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at North Carolina Central University Bernice Johnson suggested that the Department of Education look at the competency of a student moving toward degree completion rather than basing measures on number of credit hours.
“Take a comprehensive look at what students need to do for the degree they are pursuing. It will increase graduation rates which is a part of outcomes,” Johnson said. “The proposal to incentivize universities with a rating system is an appropriate tactic. Higher education is the greatest asset and investment of any state.”
Deputy Under Secretary of the Department of Education Jamienne Studley said there are many factors that need to be part of choosing a college education.
“Only some metrics can fit into the rating system, but it is still useful to create a rating,” Studley said. “We are not trying to put everything that matters in the system but we are simply trying to design a system that does something useful.”
The Department of Education will compile all the testimonials from all four forums as well as data from the federal government to incorporate into the final system.
Studley said the Department of Education will test the rating system through trial runs and tease the main themes gathered from the forums while the system is in development.
“Hopefully a system can exist where students can create their own weights,” Studley said. “Students will be able to facilitate building their own metric system.”
“Hopefully a system can exists where students can create their own weights. Students will be able to facilitate building their own metric system.”