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Photos and Videos
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Concepts that should be acknowledged or demonstrated (hyperlinks for textual media etc.)
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Comparative and Rhetorical Analysis:
Reflection on the Inquiry Project
Describe writing process
Address every point given, but do no write it in a Q and A format
Describe process of adapting the essay to another genre
Explain how the genre and mode chosen emphasize the argument
Inquiry Project:
Convert the paper to a website to better reach the audience
Make a petition out of the paper
Dean Genre
Inquiry the next step
Apply the contribution paper to a different genre or different mode. Like a movie adaptation of a book some things will get cut and some will be added. Must capture the essence of the original contribution.
Abstract
Traditional models that are used to describe the success of post-secondary institutions often rely on four-year graduation rates to ascribe academic success or diagnose problems at a college or university. However, often the studies used to build these models are flawed and not in agreement. These studies often fail to take into account the changing, non-traditional course that many 21st century students are taking with their education. Here, several studies are cited to illustrate the inconsistencies between such studies and examine the weaknesses when using graduation rates as the main metric in the evaluation of education. Then a new method is proposed to evaluate the value of an education at a university or college in the United States. Finally, the implementation of such a system is discussed and the potential problems and benefits of the new system are highlighted. Using more broad data such as employment rates, matriculation into graduate or trade school programs, and transfer rates, universities will be able to make a better judgment on the value of the education offered. By compiling these data across majors as well, the universities will be able to offer current and future students an excellent tool to decide which educational path most suits their needs.
into graduate or trade school programs, and transfer rates, universities will be able to make a better judgment on the value of the education offered. By compiling these data across majors as well, the universities will be able to offer current and future students an excellent tool to decide which educational path most suits their needs.
Keywords: graduation rate, statistical model, post-secondary education, college, university
Traditional descriptive statistics regarding college graduation rates paint contrasting pictures of success. Often one study will cite falling graduation rates as evidence that postsecondary education is in decline while another study will show increased success among postsecondary students. Because the traditional model of college education is changing – more students are choosing to follow different paths and enter the workforce before graduation – the use of student graduation rate as a marker for the success of an institution may be outdated. In this era of near limitless access to information, could there be a more useful way to measure the effectiveness of an educational institution? What happens to the students who do leave the university before graduation? Are they entering the workforce or transferring to another school? If the titans of the new economy are increasingly placing a premium on creativity, experience, and ingenuity over simply completing a prescribed four-year formula, what does that say about the worth of the traditional college or university as the purveyor of education? Perhaps there can be a way to measure the value of the education offered by colleges and universities that takes into account other metrics, such as post-graduation employment, alternate educational paths, and matriculation into graduate programs. If universities combine resources and data to create a new model for measuring the value of education that combines these factors, then this would enable the student in the 21st century to make better decisions about their educational path. This would also enable the college or university to determine more accurately its success in educating students.
The traditional model of post-secondary education typically involves a student graduating from high school and enrolling into a two-year associate degree, trade-school certificate, or four-year bachelor’s program at a college or university. However, this model is becoming more and more uncommon. In many cases, students are leaving their undergraduate universities never to return. Crow and Silver make the argument that the loss of students is due to policy faults on the behalf of the United States educational system overall. They note that while federally sponsored programs have served to offer unprecedented access to higher education to all segments of the American public, this has done little to increase graduation rates. If anything, they argue that the standardization of education in the United States serves to hinder creativity necessary in the new global economy. They cite low incidence of United States students earning graduate degrees as compared to their Chineese and Indian counterparts and argue that these higher degrees are necessary for the science, technology, engineering and mathematics jobs that constitute the fastest growing segment of the 21st century economy (Crow & Silver, 2008). In their research on the effects of interrupted enrollment, DesJardins, Ahlburg and McCall view increasing dropout rates as evidence of a decline in postsecondary education. Their statistical models paint a bleak picture where students from underrepresented racial, socioeconomic, and educational groups are 20-30 percent more likely to drop out of school and four times less likely to return after dropout (DesJardins, Ahlburg, & McCall, 2006).
Studies on graduation rates are not always in agreement, which does not help in determining the value of an undergraduate degree. Many of these studies are, in fact, misconstrued. The findings of DesJardins, Ahlburg, and McCall contrast with the results of Matheson’s study of populations of student athletes, especially with regard to race. Matheson shows significantly higher graduation rates among minority athletes; the graduation rate of African Americans on football teams is 48 percent, 13 points above their non-athletic peers. This can also be seen again with basketball teams, where 54.3 percent of the players are African American and the graduation rate is 42 percent. Both the percentage of players who are members of an underrepresented minority and the graduation rates of these players are again much higher than the college average (Matheson, 2007).
These differences in the aforementioned examples could possibly be the result of flaws in one or all of these studies. When looking at the population of athletes, it must be noted that the NCAA holds colleges accountable for any differences between student athlete graduation rates and the graduation rate of the general student body, thus providing an incentive to keep this particular population of students engaged through graduation (LaForge, 2011). Additionally, Desjardins, Ahlburg, and McCall explicitly state that their sample includes only data sets from a single institution, the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities (DesJardins et al., 2006). This means that students who leave this university for whatever reason and later choose to attend a different institution are not included in these statistics. Crow and Silver also implicitly ascribe the lagging behind Chinese and Indian students in educational tracks as a failure of the United States’ education system, but show no data on employment, post-dropout success, or re-enrollment (Crow & Silver, 2008). It is obvious many statistical studies are not consistent with one another. They do not take into account all of the factors affecting the graduation rates that they are reviewing. Much of these data contrast and do not paint an accurate picture of success.
Perhaps a viewpoint from outside the education system might shed some light on how to determine the value of that undergraduate education. In a recent interview with the New York Times, Google hiring manager Laszlo Bock stated that many people working for Google do not have a degree. Bock gives five categories that he would look at if Google were hiring. He states that he looks for cognitive abilities, one’s ability to process things quickly. He values leadership, although not traditional leadership. Instead he seeks out emerging leadership, which is the ability to both lead a group and recognize when to let someone else do the leading. Another trait Bock searches for is humility, for without humility no one will learn from their mistakes. The individual must also be adaptable to various situations. Finally, Bock looks for expertise, or alternatively, the ability to quickly become an expert, not the previous experience gained in doing a repetitive task. Regarding the traditional undergraduate education, he states, “Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about — and pays off on — what you can do with what you know (and it doesn’t care how you learned it)” (Friedman, 2014).
If the undergraduate degree is not as highly valued by someone like Laszlo Bock, then how should the university or college measure the value of such a degree? Should the declining graduation rate be seen as a problem to be solved or a symptom of an education system in need of revision? The answer may be to use other data in conjunction with graduation rates. By developing a new large-scale statistical model that seeks to include successes that do not necessarily conform to the traditional four-year prescription, colleges and universities may find that the declining graduation rates are indicators of the changing definition of educational success, not indicative of a problem.
A better way to measure the success of a college or university might be to look more closely at the student population. If students measure the value of their degrees by incomes earned after graduation, then perhaps the university should examine the value of degrees in this light as well. In a recent report published by Georgetown University, the economic value of 171 undergraduate majors was determined using income of degree earners. While undergraduate degree earners on average make a whopping 84 percent more over a lifetime than non-degree earners, some of those degrees were clearly more lucrative than others (Carnevale, Strohl, & Melton, 2011). However, financial success is not always the measure of educational success, as is observed in examining the salaries of teachers with education degrees. The goal of the college or university is not to make its students wealthy; rather, the goal of most universities is to educate and fortify society with stronger critical thinkers and increased knowledge. Thus perhaps the university might determine its success in educating students by examining the employment statistics of alumni after leaving the institution, regardless of whether a degree was earned. In fact, several metrics should be evaluated to determine the true value of that university’s impact on the student. What are students doing after leaving the university? Universities should examine employment rate among its alumni and, more specifically, employment within a chosen field of study. In addition, the institutions should determine continuing education of its alumni. Do students drop out and enter the workforce, or do they attend trade schools or transfer to other institutions? Do they move into professional school or pursue graduate programs? How do these statistics vary from major to major? In answering these questions, schools will be able to paint a more useful picture of the value of the education imparted.
Determining the rate of students entering the workforce after leaving the university is often a difficult proposition. With traditional polling methods or interviews, non-responders might skew these results. However, there may be an easy solution to this problem. The United States Department of Labor obtains data on all citizens’ work and employment status. Unemployment reports or numbers of individuals seeking employment are metrics that are published monthly. This data is tracked by social security numbers of individuals. Students enrolled in colleges in the United States are also tracked by social security numbers. If these data were able to be combined, then a vast pool of metrics would immediately enable universities to correlate success in education with employment. Relationships might be observed between their graduates of certain majors and high levels of employment in the student’s field of choice, whereas the opposite might be seen for other majors. Were this type of data collection possible, the university may be able to see that students who are dropping out of computer science programs, for example, may still be finding employment within the computer science field, therefore not necessarily negatively impacting the value of the school’s education.
A similar solution might be implemented to examine continuing education of alumni. If the data on enrollment of alumni in trade, graduate, or professional programs were collected and shared between institutions, then universities could potentially use that data in evaluating the value of their educational programs. If a college were able to see that a certain percentage of dropouts from a particular major successfully transferred to trade school or professional school, then that may indicate some educational benefit of being in that major. Similarly, the university may be able to say that a certain percentage of its students in a philosophy major, for example, moved on to graduate school. This shows more gradations in value than mere graduation rate.
There are some obvious difficulties in implementing such a system of measurement. This would require a massive effort to share, correlate, and extrapolate these data. First, universities would need to be required to share information about the student body with other universities and possibly with the Department of Labor. In light of the recent outcry regarding government collection of metadata, this seems like a very significant objection. Universities have a duty to protect student information, and many schools view these statistics as proprietary. The correlation and extrapolation of these data present another problem, in that such a massive statistical probe would probably require creation of new departments and allocation of huge chunks of resources just to get that clear picture of what happens to students after leaving the university. The financial burden and the reluctance to share information represent large hurdles in making these measurement systems a reality.
The difficulty in sharing this information is understandable but may be overcome using anonymous group statistics. The generation of these numbers need not impose on any one person’s privacy if collected and tabulated in bulk rather than by individual. The oversight of this procedure by the Department of Labor or the Department of Education would help insure protection of identities. In addition, the regular auditing by impartial third parties would help assuage fears of privacy loss. These measures should alleviate any difficulty in the information sharing process.
The benefit to schools and to enrolled students would likely far outweigh the costs of implementation of such programs. Imagine if students are armed with these facts before deciding to attend their higher institution of choice. Perhaps a student who is interested in pursuing a dance major, for example, is able to view graduation rates at each of her potential future schools. She is also able to see employment rates, employment rates in the dance field, transfer rates, and percentages of students who move on to a higher degree before she makes her decision on a college. Another example is that of the undeclared student who is torn between two majors. Armed with this knowledge of where degrees are taking graduates, she is able to decide on a major based on what she deems most valuable.
If these more broad metrics were used instead of graduation rate as a measure of educational success, universities might not see declining graduation rate as such a significant problem. In implementing such a system and disseminating information freely, universities will be able to more accurately determine the value of their undergraduate education, and students will be able to find more value in their educational process as well. In fact, such an implementation might even lead to an increase in the graduation rate if students are more active in determining what major and what degree is most valuable prior to enrollment.
Traditional descriptive statistics regarding college graduation rates paint contrasting pictures of success. Often one study will cite falling graduation rates as evidence that postsecondary education is in decline while another will show increased success among postsecondary students. Since the traditional model of college education is changing and more students are choosing to follow different paths and enter the workforce before graduation, then perhaps the use of student graduation rate as a marker for the success of an institution may be outdated. In this era of near limitless access to information should there be a new mode for measurement of the value of undergraduate education? If the titans of the new economy are placing a premium on creativity, experience, and ingenuity over a massively debt-inducing four-year commitment then what does that say about the worth of the institution as the purveyor of education? Perhaps there can be a way to measure the value of the education offered by colleges and universities that takes into account other metrics such as employment after school, alternate educational paths, and matriculation into graduate programs.
The traditional model of post-secondary education typically includes a student’s entrance after high school into a two-year associate degree or trade-school certificate or four-year bachelor’s program at a college or university. However, this model is becoming more and more uncommon. In many cases, students are leaving their undergraduate universities never to return. Crow and Silver make the argument that the loss of students is due to policy faults on the behalf of the US educational system overall. They cite low incidence of US students earning graduate degrees compared to their Chineese and Indian counterparts, and argue that these higher degrees are necessary for the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics jobs that constitute the fastest growing segment of the 21st century economy (Crow and Silver). DesJardins, Ahlsburg and McCall also seem to view increasing dropout rates as a declining trend in postsecondary education in their research on the effects of interrupted enrollment .Their statistical models paint a bleak picture where students of racial, socioeconomic, and educational minorities are 20-30 percent more likely to drop out of school and four times less likely to return after dropout (DesJardins, Ahlburg and McCall).
Such studies are not always in agreement. The findings of DesJardins, Ahlburg, and McCall are in contrast with other studies examining populations of student athletes, especially with regard to race. Matheson shows significantly higher graduation rates among minority athletes: the graduation rate of African Americans on football teams is 48 percent, 13 points above their non-athletic peers. This trend can be seen again with basketball teams where 54.3 percent of the players are African American and the graduation rate is 42 percent, both of these numbers are again much higher than the college average (Matheson).
Perhaps there are some flaws in all of these studies then. When looking at the population of athletes, the NCAA has taken measures that hold colleges accountable for any differences between student athlete graduation rates and the graduation rate of the general student body, thus providing an incentive to keep this population of students engaged through graduation (LaForge). Desjardins, Ahlburg, and McCall, for example, explicitly state that their sample includes only data sets from a single institution, the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities (DesJardins, Ahlburg and McCall). This means that students who leave this university for whatever reason and later choose to attend a different institution are not included in these statistics. Crow and Silver implicitly ascribe the lagging behind Chinese and Indian students in educational tracks as a failure of the United States’ education system, but show no data on employment, post-dropout success, or re-enrollment (Crow and Silver).
Perhaps a viewpoint from outside the education system might shed some light on how to determine the value of that undergraduate education. In a recent interview with the New York Times, Google hiring manager Laszlo Bock stated that many people working for Google do not have higher education. Bock gives five categories that he would look at if, for example, Google were hiring. He relates that he looks for cognitive abilities, or one’s ability to process things quickly. He values leadership, not traditional leadership, but emerging leadership, or the ability to both lead a group and recognize when to let someone else do the leading. Another meaningful character trait to have is humility, for without humility no one will learn from their mistakes. The individual must be adaptable to various situations. Finally, the last thing Bock looks for is expertise, or rather, the ability to quickly become an expert. Regarding the traditional undergraduate education, he states, “Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about — and pays off on — what you can do with what you know (and it doesn’t care how you learned it)” (Friedman).
If the undergraduate degree is not as highly valued by someone like Laszlo Bock, how should the university or college value such a degree? Should the declining graduation rate be seen as a problem to be solved or a symptom of an education system in need of revision? Perhaps the answer is to use other data in conjunction with the decrease in graduation rate.
A better way to measure the success of a college or university might be to look more closely at the student population. If students measure the value of their degree by the income earned after graduation, then perhaps the university should examine the value of degrees in this light as well. In a recent report published by Georgetown University, the economic value of 171 undergraduate majors was determined using income of degree earners. While undergraduate degree earners on average make a whopping 84 percent more over a lifetime than non-degree earners, some of those degrees were clearly more lucrative than others (Carnevale, Strohl and Melton). However, financial success is not always the measure of educational success, as is observed in examining the salaries of teachers with education degrees. The goal of the college or university is not to make its students wealthy; rather, the goal of most universities is to educate and fortify society with stronger critical thinkers and increased knowledge. Thus, perhaps in determining the value of education, the university might determine its success in educating its students by examining the futures of its alumni after leaving the institution, whether a degree was earned or not. Therefore, there are several metrics that should be evaluated to determine the true value of that university’s impact on the student. What are students doing after leaving the university? Universities should examine employment rate among its alumni and even deeper, employment in a chosen field of study. In addition, the institutions should determine continuing education of its alumni. Do students drop out and enter the workforce or do they attend trade schools or transfer to other institutions? Do degree earners go on to careers in their fields? Do they move into professional school, or do they pursue graduate programs? How do these statistics vary from major to major? In answering these questions, schools will be able to paint a more vivid picture of the value of the education imparted.
On the surface, determining the rate of students entering the workforce after leaving the university is a difficult proposition. If this were implemented through traditional polling methods or interviews, non-responders without contact with their institution might skew these results in one direction or another or for a particular major. However, there may be an easy solution to this problem as well. The United States Department of Labor obtains data on all citizens’ work and employment status. Unemployment reports or numbers of individuals seeking employment are metrics that are published monthly. This data is tracked by social security numbers of individuals. Students enrolled in colleges in the US are also tracked by social security numbers. If these data were able to be combined, then a vast pool of metrics would immediately enable universities to correlate success in education with employment. Perhaps relationships might be observed between their graduates of certain majors and high levels of employment in the student’s field of choice. Perhaps the opposite might be seen for other majors, where there may be a disproportionate amount of unemployed job seekers. In this way, the university may be able to see that students like those previously mentioned by Lazlo Bock who are dropping out of computer science programs, for example, may not necessarily be negatively impacting the value of the school’s education.
A similar solution might be implemented to examine continuing education of alumni. If the data on enrollment of individuals were collected and shared between institutions, then the value of the education at that specific university might be better determined. If, for example, a college were able to see that a certain percentage of dropouts from this major successfully transferred to trade school or professional school, then that may indicate some educational benefit of being in that major. Or, for example, the university may be able to say that a certain percentage of its students in a philosophy major moved on to graduate school. This shows more gradations in value than mere graduation rate.
There are some obvious difficulties in implementing such a system of measurement. This would require a massive effort to share, correlate, and extrapolate these data. First, universities would need to be required to share information about the student body with other universities and possibly with the Department of Labor. In light of the recent outcry regarding government collection of metadata, this seems like a very poignant objection. Many universities see it their duty to protect student information, and these schools would view these statistics as proprietary. The correlation and extrapolation of these data present another problem, in that such a massive statistical probe would probably require creation of new departments and allocation of huge chunks of resources just to get that clear picture of what happens to students after leaving the university. The financial burden and the reluctance to share information represent large hurdles in making these measurement systems a reality.
The difficulty in sharing this information is understandable but may be overcome using anonymous group statistics. The generation of these numbers need not impose on any one person’s privacy if collected and tabulated in bulk rather than by individual. The oversight of this procedure by the Department of Labor or the Department of Education would help insure protection of identities. In addition, the regular auditing by impartial third parties would help assuage fears of privacy loss. These measures should alleviate any difficulty in the information sharing process.
The benefit to schools and to enrolled students would probably far outweigh the costs of implementation of such programs. Imagine if students are armed with these facts before deciding to attend their higher institution of choice. Perhaps a student who is interested in pursuing a dance major, for example, is able to see at each of her potential future schools not just graduation rate, but employment rate, employment rate in the dance field, transfer rate, and percentage of students who move on to a higher degree before she makes her decision on a college. Or take for example the undeclared student who is torn between two majors. Armed with this wealth of knowledge from her advisor, she is able to decide on a major based on what she deems most valuable.
If these metrics were used instead of graduation rate as a measure of educational success, universities might not see declining graduation rate as a problem. In implementing such a system and disseminating information freely, universities will be able to more accurately determine the value of their undergraduate education, and students will be able to find more value in their educational process as well. In fact, such an implementation might even lead to an increase in the graduation rate if students are more active in determining what major and what degree is most valuable prior to enrollment.
Johns’ Discourse Communities
Doing research for the inquiry project seemed much more in depth than any research I had done before it. I was using peer-reviewed articles from the library instead of the usual Wikipedia page. This alone made me feel much more scholarly and gave me a sense that I knew what I was doing. I cranked out the research the I needed for my paper and wrote about how it was important to the topic. I cited the sources and made sure it made sense. After all I had done I was satisfied that this paper was different than any other I had written not just because of the sources but because of the fact that I had included a contribution to the topic. I had not just done a research paper, I had furthered the conversation of the topic. I was content with the work and talked about it with my group, we all agreed that our three papers combined would make a good strong contribution paper. We combined the pieces content that we were far ahead of the other groups with much more material than we needed. The paper was turned in and I was certain we would get praise for having done such a good contribution paper with just the right amount of research and discussion.
When I got the teachers feedback I was expecting a few comments on structure and the flow. It turned out our paper was far from being what it needed to be, there was too much research and facts and not enough discussion about these facts. From my point of view, being used to research papers and having never done a contribution paper, we had a lot of conversation. In reality I was looking at it much differently than I needed to be. I thought a few sentences of conversation and contribution would be more than enough to convey the point we were trying to make. This small amount of writing turned out to be much too little for the reader to understand our views. I need to change my paradigm of research into one of contribution. I am too used to taking research and spitting out a paper without analyzing it and forming a new view point of the topic.
Reflection
Ben Coon 