New England Board of Higher Education » college credit

Public Radio Program Explores Why So Many Americans Drop Out of College

John O. Harney — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:31:44 +0000

More people are going to college than ever before. But in the U.S., about half of the people who start don't finish, leaving about 37 million Americans with some college credit but no degrees, according to "Some College, No Degree," a new documentary from American Radioworks.

The first in a three-part series exploring how higher education is changing, "Some College, No Degree," relates the experiences of real students and dropouts and draws on the insights of experts such as Georgetown University economist Anthony Carnevale and Complete College America founder Stan Jones.

The other two programs, "Don't Lecture Me: Rethinking the Way College Students Learn" and "Who Needs an English Major? The Future of Liberal Arts Education" are also available on the American RadioWorks website.

DC Shuttle: Duncan Hints at NCLB Alternative, Distance Learning Boosted and Other Higher Ed News from Washington

John O. Harney — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:20:51 +0000

On June 11, Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced that if Congress is unable to pass a comprehensive overhaul of the 2001 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education law before the beginning of the 2011-12 school year, he would grant states waivers for the law's most burdensome requirements if they agreed to implement a set of reforms. While he has not fully developed the alternative plan, Secretary Duncan said that the reforms would most likely follow the lines of the department's Race to the Top initiative. The program awards grants to states adopting specific methods for turning around failing schools, implementing new curriculum standards and collecting student- and teacher-performance data. Secretary Duncan said that the waivers were only intended as a failsafe measure to prevent schools across the country from losing federal funding, as NCLB's most strict benchmarks will come due in 2012. Some education reform advocates think that offering an alternative will take the pressure off of legislators to push a compromise through before the fall. House Education and Workforce Committee Chair John Kline (R-MN) said that he was concerned that trading waivers for prescribed reforms continues Secretary Duncan's strategy of exchanging funding for policy changes. "I don't think that is the appropriate role for the secretary," Congressman Kline said. Ranking Member George Miller (D-CA) said he worried that states might agree to the changes necessary to receive a waiver but then fail to implement any real changes. The Obama administration and Senate HELP Chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) have both stressed their commitment to a full overhaul of NCLB, but consensus on which changes need to be made had proven difficult to achieve, despite bipartisan agreement that the current law needs to be reformed. Secretary Duncan said that although the waivers were a last-resort contingency plan, he felt compelled to offer an alternative to depending on an NCLB overhaul. "Providing regulatory-flexibility will give Congress time to work together around a set of reforms while giving states, districts and schools the freedom to advance reform by adopting high standards," he said.

On Wednesday, the House Education and Workforce Committee voted 27-11 to approve legislation (H.R. 2117) repealing two college regulations which are scheduled to take effect on July 1. A recent bundle of new regulations from the Department of Education includes rules requiring online and distance learning programs to be authorized by every state in which they operate, and establishing a federal definition for a college credit hour. The bill would repeal both of these regulations, which Committee Chair John Kline (R-MN) said constitutes "too much federal overreach into postsecondary education." Supporters of the repeal measure said that the state authorization requirement would prevent colleges from offering online and distance courses in certain areas, and that a federal credit hour standard could discriminate against non-traditional learning programs. Committee Ranking Member George Miller (D-CA) argued that the Education Department's new rules were necessary to ensure that federal student financial aid was being used wisely and protected against waste and abuse.

From the New England Council's Weekly Washington Report Higher Education Update, June 20, 2011. NEBHE is a member of the Council and will publish this column each week.

Founded in 1925, the New England Council is a nonpartisan alliance of businesses, academic and health institutions, and public and private organizations throughout New England formed to promote economic growth and a high quality of life in the New England region. The Council's mission is to identify and support federal public policies and articulate the voice of its membership regionally and nationally on important issues facing New England. For more information, please visit www.newenglandcouncil.com.

A New AP Style: The College Board Looks at Ways to Revamp Advanced Placement

NEBHE Admin — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 20:05:43 +0000

The College Board's Advanced Placement (AP) exams, often preceded by AP courses, have a reputation for spitting out an overwhelming amount of information, but that is about to change. The nonprofit, which also administers the SATs, says it will revamp the biology and U.S. history tests to give students the opportunity to learn the materials, rather than cram for the exam.

The College Board has AP exams in 30 subjects, with 1.8 million students taking 3.2 million tests. While the program is recognized for giving students the opportunity to get an early start on more challenging, university-level work, some exams require too much study—material that, in turn, deters students from learning "big concepts." The biology and U.S. history exams are two of AP's biggest culprits with their ever-expanding laundry list of "ought-to-knows."

The new focus of the AP exams in these two subject areas will allow more time for the "big picture," the College Board says, and eliminate the need to squeeze in extraneous information that generally isn't absorbed.

High scores on an AP exam can get students college credit. Compared to college courses, whose prices range from the hundreds or even thousands of dollars, the $87 AP exam is a worthwhile investment for any high school student looking save some money and/or get the most out of their college years. For some, entering college with AP credit can leave room for extracurricular courses, an earlier graduation date or a double major.

But as students are burdened by the challenges of advanced coursework earlier and earlier, and colleges come to expect AP scores on transcripts, some educators have had enough. Indeed, AP courses and exams emerge among the key villains in the film "Race to Nowhere." The documentary argues the "push to achieve has created a generation of high-strung students constrained in a one-size-fits-all’ system."

The new focus of AP tests will change lesson plans and study techniques for hundreds of thousands of educators and students in New England over the next couple of years. In fact, in 2008, nearly 80,000 New England students took more than 135,000 AP exams, with the both biology and U.S. history being among the five most popular exams. And since 2004, the number of exam-takers in New England has increased by 31%. Click here for a PDF of facts and figures about AP exams in New England.