Obama wants to propose new college rating system. Okay?

[downtown]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Thursday will unveil a sweeping new plan for rating colleges based in part on affordability, with the goal of eventually linking those ratings to federal financial aid awards.

The new rating system, which the president wants implemented before the 2015 school year, would evaluate colleges on a series of measures, including average tuition and student loan debt, graduation rates, and the average earning of graduates. Obama is also seeking legislation to link the new rating system to the way federal financial aid is awarded, with students attending highly-rated schools receiving larger grants and more affordable student loans.

Obama will unveil the proposals Thursday as he opens a two-day bus tour through New York and Pennsylvania. The tour underscores the White House’s desire to stay focused on domestic issues, even as foreign policy crises in Egypt and Syria vie for his attention.

Throughout the summer, the White House has been seeking to keep the president’s public agenda centered on middle-class economic issues as a way to rally public support for his positions ahead of looming fiscal battles with congressional Republicans. And Obama, in an email to supporters this week, said a big part of middle-class security includes fundamentally rethinking how to pay for higher education.

“Just tinkering around the edges won’t be enough,” Obama said. “We’ve got to shake up the current system.”

According to Obama administration estimates, average tuition costs at four-year public colleges have more than tripled over the last three decades. The average student loan borrower also graduates with over $26,000 in debt.

The president will also propose legislation to give colleges a “bonus” based on the number of students they graduate who received Pell Grants. The goal is to encourage colleges to enroll and graduate low- and moderate-income students.

The administration will also seek to require colleges with high dropout rates to disburse student aid over the course of the semester as students face expenses, rather than in a lump sum. The aim is to prevent wasting grant money by ensuring that students who drop out do not receive funds for time they are not in school.

Obama is also renewing his call for a $1 billion college “Race to the Top” competition that would reward states that make significant changes in higher education policies while also containing tuition costs.

Full article can be found here:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/obama-college-rating-system.php

My thoughts:

1) LOL at asking for a Billion dollars for a college race to the top. Total pipe dream, and given that the jury is still out on the K12 RTTP, AND that the feds don't have jurisdiction over a lot of higher ed, I can't see that working out well.

2) We already have college ranking systems via affordability. How would a new federal system change things?

3) I do like the idea of further giving incentives to pick up Pell Grant students. That's a solid way to improve diversity without explicit AA, and gives students of lesser means more options. If the federal aid is tied *heavily* to gradation rates, also providing a carrot for Pell Granters could help them from being discriminated against a little.

4) Tying federal aid to affordability seems like a noble goal, but also seems waaay complicated and difficult to actually implement.

5) Overall, I think this is exactly the sort of tinkering around the edges that we don't need for this problem, but given the realities of Congress, even tinkering may be ambitious.

What do you think?

 

[sophie]

Hmm, yeah, I don't know with this one. I don't like the idea of tying grants for funding to graduation rates. I feel like that more incentivizes Universities to graduate everybody than it does to actually improve quality or evaluation. Also yeah, the government doesn't have all the much control over a lot of the Universities in this country, I mean, in California it's not Pell grants that are the grand prize for prospective students, it's the CAL grants.

I think the more important question is: how will for-profit universities factor into this new funding system, especially when the majority of them have absurdly high graduation rates?

 

[Wrymouth3]

What do you think?

Not really much to say about this besides the fact that it's a continued insult to those students who attend public state universities in order to receive a quality education that they would get at Ivy League school, or whatever elite private institution they would attend as undergraduates.

 

[bhsup]

More f'ing federal interference with State education. Wonderful. Who decides what it means for a State to 'race to the top' and just exactly what 'significant changes' mean? Feds? Great.... Yeah, because the Department of Education has been a beacon of light and the quality of education has gotten better since the feds created that worthless POS.

 

[BvBPL]

Seems:

a.) A tab bit complex.

b.) A bit odd to say that one school is cheaper so they will give more money to that school than another.

 

[Antilogic]

What do you think?

I'm somewhere around these two posts:

5) Overall, I think this is exactly the sort of tinkering around the edges that we don't need for this problem, but given the realities of Congress, even tinkering may be ambitious.

Hmm, yeah, I don't know with this one...

 

[downtown]

Hmm, yeah, I don't know with this one. I don't like the idea of tying grants for funding to graduation rates. I feel like that more incentivizes Universities to graduate everybody than it does to actually improve quality or evaluation. Also yeah, the government doesn't have all the much control over a lot of the Universities in this country, I mean, in California it's not Pell grants that are the grand prize for prospective students, it's the CAL grants.

I think the more important question is: how will for-profit universities factor into this new funding system, especially when the majority of them have absurdly high graduation rates?

I'd be more worried that a school would have an incentive to not take on a poor kid. Money and academic readiness are the two main reasons people drop out of college, and if you risk getting dinged for taking any kind of risk, this might end up hurting poorer kids more than helping.

I dunno about for profit brick and mortar schools, but U Phoenix and the like have TERRIBLE graduation rates, like, below 25%.

Not really much to say about this besides the fact that it's a continued insult to those students who attend public state universities in order to receive a quality education that they would get at Ivy League school, or whatever elite private institution they would attend as undergraduates.

Can you explain what you mean here?

More f'ing federal interference with State education. Wonderful. Who decides what it means for a State to 'race to the top' and just exactly what 'significant changes' mean? Feds? Great.... Yeah, because the Department of Education has been a beacon of light and the quality of education has gotten better since the feds created that worthless POS.

The states decide. Involvement in the first RttT was totally optional

 

[Wrymouth3]

Can you explain what you mean here?

Yeah sure. What I mean is that full-time and some part-time college professors in general at most universities really could care less about undergraduates as compared to personal research for work and graduate students. The undergraduate education you would receive at say Brown compared to like, Youngstown State, is quite honestly not that much different, or even better in some cases. I've been told graduate schools and where people go for graduate school does indeed matter in comparison. I'm not saying it's the same quality at every level, obviously a for-profit school is not going to measure up to any four-year or community college. The Obama plan is generally insulting to those students who really would have a hard time getting into these elite institutions. For example, by showering public research universities with money, other public universities would essentially be thrown out into the dark. I'm sorry if i'm being unclear here, but my main point is that you shouldn't tie in vital finances with something like graduation rates or other types of general fluff.

 

[sophie]

I dunno about for profit brick and mortar schools, but U Phoenix and the like have TERRIBLE graduation rates, like, below 25%.

Huh. My understanding was that because schools like UoP were incentivized to graduate everyone, the professors tended to be pressured into passing absolutely everybody and consequently the graduation rate tended to be very high.

 

[downtown]

Huh. My understanding was that because schools like UoP were incentivized to graduate everyone, the professors tended to be pressured into passing absolutely everybody and consequently the graduation rate tended to be very high.

Doesn't look like thats the case, although I bet it is for some traditional universities. U Phoenix admitted last year to having a grad rate of 18%. They accept everybody, and since most of tuition is paid with FAFSA money, it's essentially guaranteed. If the guy drops out because he isn't close to academically prepared, U Phoenix still gets paid.

The problem isn't exactly that places like U Phoenix have terrible coursework, it's that they make zero attempt to make sure people pass, or can do said work. That leads to an explosion in student debt.

 

[downtown]

In case any of you guys are curious, here are examples of institutions that would "benefit" from the proposed rating system. None of these schools are what most folks here would commonly refer to as "good schools", but maybe that's the problem? Our idea of what a good school is might be totally bunk...

http://www.businessinsider.com/colleges-that-will-benefit-form-obamas-education-plan-2013-8

 

[Ajidica]

I'm not really up to date on education policy, but does this plan address what has caused college costs to balloon in the last few decades and does it take any steps to get that ballooning under control?

 

[Zelig]

How would they be doing so well with such awful graduation rates when it's worth 2/3 of the grade?

 

[Mise]

I like the sound of it but without knowing more about your education system I couldn't give a decent appraisal. I think the idea of ratings and rankings are great ways of informing the public, and as you alluded to, changing people's minds about what the supposedly "good" universities are.

basically more info = good

 

[nc-1701]

Is a higher graduation rate necessarily better? Isn't that just a function of being easy and only accepting well qualified students? I mean some schools (Georgia Tech for example) take pride in having low graduation rates, as this indicates their program is harder. We definitely don't need worse grade inflation than we already have.

 

[downtown]

How would they be doing so well with such awful graduation rates when it's worth 2/3 of the grade?

I'm not sure if these are 4 year or 6 year graduation rates. I don't think a 50%ish 4 year graduation rate is very unusual.

Is a higher graduation rate necessarily better? Isn't that just a function of being easy and only accepting well qualified students? I mean some schools (Georgia Tech for example) take pride in having low graduation rates, as this indicates their program is harder. We definitely don't need worse grade inflation than we already have.

I think there are two schools of thought on this.

There are plenty of schools with very rigorous curriculum that decide to trade higher acceptance rates for lower graduation rates. This is not uncommon for arts or music schools, and the thinking is that the school would rather take a chance on somebody who may not have had the chance to demonstrate high potential in HS. One could argue that this line of thinking provides poorer kids (or otherwise marginalized) with a better shot at higher end education.

Others believe that schools should be more strategic in who they admit, and then dedicate resources to make sure those kids graduate. The President is probably of this thinking, since a kid who drops out after 2 years gets almost none of the benefits of higher education (no credential, decreased earning potential) BUT probably is now saddled with expensive debt, leading into the student loan crisis. Emphasizing this COULD create incentives to pass kids who shouldn't be passed, or to take away opportunities from poor students.

 

[Zelig]

Is a higher graduation rate necessarily better? Isn't that just a function of being easy and only accepting well qualified students? I mean some schools (Georgia Tech for example) take pride in having low graduation rates, as this indicates their program is harder. We definitely don't need worse grade inflation than we already have.

That makes sense, but doesn't really seem to be the case - top schools seems to be around the 90% graduation mark, and schools like UPhoenix are below 25%.

I'm not sure if these are 4 year or 6 year graduation rates. I don't think a 50%ish 4 year graduation rate is very unusual.

Yeah, but I don't understand how that works with graduation rates being work 2/3 of the score - if some place has tuition that's 2x as high and 80% vs 40% graduation rates, they should come out way ahead, yet almost every entry on the BI list has a rate below 50%.

 

[madviking]

In case any of you guys are curious, here are examples of institutions that would "benefit" from the proposed rating system. None of these schools are what most folks here would commonly refer to as "good schools", but maybe that's the problem? Our idea of what a good school is might be totally bunk...

http://www.businessinsider.com/colleges-that-will-benefit-form-obamas-education-plan-2013-8

It seems at least a few of those schools look like HBCUs... is that coincidence or what?

(just wondering)

 

[civ_king]

It seems at least a few of those schools look like HBCUs... is that coincidence or what?

(just wondering)

This could hurt Obama politically.

 

[galdre]

What a great solution. Cut money to schools, and then when they raise tuition cut the money that goes to the students (who already don't get enough).

I did a little experiment a short time ago. I looked at the state uni I graduated from and added up how much it would cost to go there full-time right now if I lived on campus. Then I looked at the max financial aid you can get and the max loans you can get (without having getting private loans, which usually need a co-signer). I cam up $36k short for a 4-year degree.

The problem with higher education is that it's not properly funded. Why exactly does Obama think tuition is going up?

EDIT: I apologize, you only come up $32,816 short.

Max pell grant: $5645/yr
Max federal loans: $45,000 (it varies based on year, but this would be total for 4 years)
Cost of attending the CA state uni I went to: $25,099/yr (using their estimates for living expenses, which seem pretty low to me)