Selectivity and Brand as a Proxy for Quality in Higher Ed

?? Good day!?Here are excerpts from my bi-weekly newsletter, Next.?Sign up here.

? WAITING:?The U.S. Supreme Court issued opinions yesterday, but none in the two cases of interest to higher ed:?race-conscious admissions and student-loan forgiveness.

As SCOTUSblog reported "the?justices will return to the bench to release opinions on Thursday. The chief justice did not include the additional language indicating that Thursday will be the last day before the summer recess." So hang on, we might get decisions Friday—or maybe we'll go into the Fourth of July week.?

Last Friday,?Exclusion U.?premiered on various streaming services.*

The documentary, which I saw during a screening in Washington, D.C. a few weeks ago, has at times an over-zealous point of view on the Ivy League. I get it: there is a lot of hate for elite institutions of all kinds right now. While the documentary gets most of it right—that Ivy League institutions get a ton of public dollars but don’t always serve the public interest—the narrative, at times, conflates government support for students with dollars for federal research as essentially the same pot of money going to these gilded campuses.

Where the documentary sticks the landing is that the Ivies?love?that they are selective—and getting more so.?They don’t care that people call them “the highly rejectives.”?They see their exclusivity as a feature and not a bug.

As the documentary points out, being more selective means that the Ivy League enrolls a paltry number of low-income students on federal Pell Grants,?which typically go to families making less than $40,000 a year.?An analysis that I did in 2021 with my friends at Open Campus?found that?there are three campuses in the University of California system—Irvine, San Diego, and Davis—that?each?enroll more Pell students than the?entire Ivy League.?As the movie notes, since 1980, the total number of undergraduates at U.S. colleges has swollen by 62%, while?the enrollment of the Ivy League has barely budged.

Exclusion U.?get it right on this point and several others including:

• The admissions bump that athletes and legacies get at the Ivies compared to low-income and first-generation students.
• The unfair work requirements that low-income students are forced to endure to pay toward their education at these campuses sitting on tens of billions of dollars in endowments (although Yale, which is featured in the documentary, has?since changed its policies?on the expected financial contribution from students).
• The divide on campus between students whose parents didn’t to college and must navigate that fact with their classmates and with the institutional bureaucracy (what the hell is a "bursar").
• The impact on college towns like New Haven when most of the land and buildings in the city are not taxed because they belong to the “non-profit” Yale University.

Where I think the movie goes off script?is when it talks about all the dollars these wealthy institutions get from federal coffers (or by not paying taxes). It includes federal research dollars in its analysis without being clear that the money is specifically awarded for research grants and shouldn’t been seen as fungible dollars that necessarily benefit students. Indeed, research costs colleges money in the faculty they need to attract and other expenses not fully covered by overhead dollars.

The documentary also spends the last 30 minutes or so featuring colleges that are expanding enrollment, but it still focuses on more selective institutions like Rice and Purdue. (While the latter does have an acceptance rate above 60%, that’s not the case for its most competitive STEM programs).

I was interviewed for?Exclusion U.?in the fall of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic.

My big hope is that those who see the film will realize that we should stop giving colleges that?enroll so few students and occupy such a tiny space of American higher ed?so much of our attention.

Of course, since I was interviewed for the film, the Ivies and other selective colleges have only become more selective as applications to those institutions jumped by more than 30% the last few years.

Parents see selectivity and brand as a proxy for quality in a world where opportunity seems increasingly scarce for their kids and the college search is a jumble of choices.?They want more options—colleges that are easier to get into and offer generous discounts—but they don’t always know where to look or which schools to take a chance on.

As a dad of triplets once told me: “All the talk is about top tier schools. Even when the discussion is not focused on Harvard, it’s about Bates. For most families, those are still top tier schools.”

Finding those colleges beyond the top of the rankings is a challenge.?For a project I hope to soon tell you more about, I’d like to know HOW you have found “hidden gems.” Drop me a note to tell me more.

I like the approach?Money?magazine takes in its latest list:?instead of a number rank, colleges get somewhere between two-and-a-half and five stars. After all, there are small differences between colleges ranked 15th and 30th or 60th and 80th in?U.S. News,?and rather than get hung up on these modest differences, I hope that the?Money?ratings give consumers ideas on a range of colleges rather than one perfect fit. What’s more,?I’ve long liked?Money’s rankings?for focusing on graduates’ outcomes rather than institutional input measures like faculty with terminal degrees.

?? Check out the?Money?list. While you’re at it, also?check out the?New York Times?attempt?at a rankings tool, which focuses on what students are looking for in a college. And watch?Exclusion U.?when you get a chance. *although the film’s?website?says the movie is streaming on Amazon Prime, it’s not there yet. The movie’s producers say it will be soon.

—WELOME TO THE SUMMER INTERNS.?You’ll be seeing bylines in the coming weeks and months from Gracie Gallagher and Olivia Roark , who will be working on?Next?as well as several other projects with me.

• Gracie is a reporting intern. She is a recent graduate of my alma mater, Ithaca College, with a degree in writing and?theatre.?She’s from New Jersey. In July, she’ll be in Denver attending the publishing institute at the University of Denver.
• Olivia is a data intern. She is a rising junior at Rice University, studying social policy analysis and cognitive sciences with a minor in Spanish. She’s from Maryland.

Good News, Bad News on Student Experience

With most American students still trying to make up for what they lost during the pandemic,?only 1 in 3 undergraduates at four-year colleges say their high-school education?made them feel “very” or “extremely prepared” for their campus coursework.

• The finding comes from a national survey of more than 2,700 undergraduates and graduate students at two-year and four-year colleges about their student experience conducted by Qualtrics and College Pulse

What’s happening:?Overall, the survey finds students are engaged in the undergraduate experience?if?they’re connected with peers and feel like their voices are heard in giving feedback to the institution.

• 65% agree that their institution is a good fit and even more (72%) are highly confident they will complete their degree at their current institution.
• Despite worries over college costs, a majority of students (55%) say their education is worth what they’re paying. Students paying for tuition with loans are the least likely to say it’s worth what they’re paying.
• 68% of students say their education is preparing them for the job they want after graduation. When students see the direct connection between education and the job afterwards, they are much more likely to say that their education is worth the cost (70% vs 25%).

Deeper dive:?Among those students who said they were prepared for the academic rigor of college, they cited activities in high school, slightly more than coursework, as what got them ready:

What’s happening:?The student journey begins with admissions and orientation—and while colleges spend time and money to recruit students—they seem to “lean out” once students are in, according to the survey. Fewer than a quarter of students said they felt very or extremely prepared for college after orientation.

• That may be changing. Increasingly, “institutions are having personalized interactions during the orientation process by sending out pre-arrival surveys and/or assessments that give students the ability to provide information,”?Josh Sine, vice president of higher ed strategy at Qualtrics, told me during the "Next Office Hour" last week. “Those surveys and assessments connect?directly to their profile, which generates a learning track during onboarding that allows students to kick off in a way that is tailored towards their specific needs.”

?? Efforts to improve the student experience are front-and-center at many institutions?that are?trying to increase enrollment and retention. During the "Next Office Hour," we heard several suggestions to solicit feedback and engage faculty in the student experience, among them:

• National University , a nonprofit online institution, mines transcripts from student helpline calls to get a “flavor for the questions students are asking,” said Sarah Ball, the university’s associate vice president of user and student experience. The themes change during the student journey, she said, “since you’re not the same person as you were when you’re filling out the application as you are in your 10th class. So your expectations shift as a result.” Butler University ?has students complete an interest form about what they like and then uses the results to match up students with similar interests, said?Bridget Yuhas, co-executive director of the?Institute for Well-Being?at the university. Last year, campus officials suggested students who had similar interests meet up; this year, “we need to do more to help those students who are more anxious about social connections and organize the initial group gathering activity.”The University of Utah ?has created several faculty initiatives to better connect professors with student success efforts. “Higher ed as a whole has avoided conversations with faculty about the critical role they play in student success,” said?Thomas Chase Hagood, senior associate vice president for academic affairs and dean of undergraduate studies at the University of Utah.

?? Explore the?survey results on the student experience with an interactive dashboard?(registration with Qualtrics required).

???Watch an on-demand recording of the “Next Office Hour”?about the survey and what it means (sponsored by Qualtrics; separate registration required).

ChatGPT and How We Learn

Generative AI tools?have taken higher ed by storm since last fall—and much of the focus has been on the role AI plays in teaching and learning on college campuses.

A big part of the debate is the source of intelligence.?Roy Pea, the 2022 Harold W.?McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education winner and a Stanford University professor, argues?that intelligence is not an individual trait but “distributed across the people, material, and digital tools available in socio-technical systems.”

• Everyday examples range from measuring tapes and calculators to Siri and Alexa.

How it works:?Distributed intelligence is configured in social activity. Think of people in action––a car mechanic repairing a transmission, a doctor in the operating room. Pea explained during a?recent webinar that intelligence is accomplished rather than possessed and comes to life in action.

We need this concept,?Pea said, to celebrate what we as humans can accomplish in our activities and to inform how designers conceptualize the socio-technical activity systems where artifacts will be put to human uses.

• How we use distributed intelligence is dictated by our norms and values, which are always changing. Consider the trajectory of solving a mathematical problem. The use of calculators in the classroom was once a heavily debated topic; now they are required during exams.

This is where ChaptGPT comes in.?Pea explained that the AI tool should be used to advance an individual’s creative ability, much like a writing partner. But there are vital differences between humans and AI that must be understood. Humans have person-specific knowledge and experience. AI tools are expert statisticians but do not understand anything they create.

The implications for education:?Pea said we should strive toward intentional distributed intelligence in education, where learners are inventors of distributed intelligence as a tool, not as a replacement for substance.

• If ChatGPT is incorporated into classroom learning through interactive activity, students will be much more prepared to adapt to the ever-changing world around them. “The tools that are themselves problematic may also be helpful in unraveling the problematicity,” Pea said. ––Gracie Gallagher?

Until next time, Cheers — Jeff?

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