New England Board of Higher Education » Courtney Wilk

Wentworth Aims to Engineer Prestige with New Emphasis on Need-Based Aid

John O. Harney — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:09:57 +0000

Higher education is no stranger to the quest for prestige. With the increasing pervasiveness of college and university rankings from publications such as U.S. News and World Report, the public has instant access to what is heralded as the best of the best, be it the best college, the best engineering program, and yes, even the best party school.

Higher education institutions work hard to increase their position within these rankings, knowing that higher-ranked schools attract more applicants. Over the course of the years, one way that institutions have attempted to move up the proverbial rankings ladder is by offering merit aid to students. This can be in the form of scholarships or grants given to students with high test scores, good GPAs, or unique talents in the classroom or the gym. By offering financial aid incentives to these students, colleges and universities help attract highly meritorious students, and in turn, increase their cachet.

However, the rise of merit aid has depleted need-based aid aid budgets. This means that money is taken away from low-income, financially needy students and re-allocated to more meritorious, often higher-income students. One such institution that has engaged in this practice is Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. As Wentworth’s vice president of finance told Inside Higher Ed: “Historically, the bulk of the aid provided by Wentworth … has been merit-based … all students who apply are automatically considered for academic achievement scholarships.”

Yet, Wentworth Institution of Technology has been forced to change its aid practices. When the institution did not meet its goal of enrolling 1,000 freshmen last fall, Wentworth’s President Zorica Pantic, issued a survey to all admitted students who did not accept Wentworth’s offer in an attempt to illuminate the reason for the declining enrollment. The results were largely financial: Many students noted that they did not enroll because they could not afford the cost of attendance.

While Wentworth’s list price (that is, the cost of attendance before taking into account any type of financial aid, either merit or need-based) for tuition and room and board is below neighboring private institutions at $34,000, the price is still significantly higher than public institutions. This discrepancy has clearly taken a toll on Wentworth’s enrollments; as Inside Higher Ed reports, “the gap between students who were admitted and students who enrolled had been growing for three years, since the recession began.”

With this, the institution has decided to expand its financial aid budget from $20.4 million to $23.7 million, and according to Jamie Kelly, director of public affairs and institutional advancement at Wentworth, “the expansion will be paid for from a surplus in the operating budget that came about when the school adjusted enrollment projections—and, accordingly, its budget—after the freshman shortfall first became apparent.” The majority of this increase will go to need-based aid. Currently, 1,000 students receive such aid; Wentworth hopes to double this number by 2012.

With the recession officially behind us, it will be interesting to see if Wentworth stays committed to its new need-based financial aid policy, or if returning levels of enrollment will be coupled with a switch back to merit-based aid in order to secure its position in the rankings game.

Not Off That Easy: Government Responds to University Inaction on Sexual Assaults

Christine Cassis — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 14:56:52 +0000

Yale is no stranger to Title IX controversies. In 1976, Women’s Crew accused the university of unequally funding its athletic team. One year later, a Title IX suit was brought against the university after four female undergraduates and one male assistant professor alleged that quid pro quo sexual harassment by male professors prohibited women from receiving access to the same quality education as men. As a response, Yale created the Grievance Board for Student Complaints of Sexual Harassment; before this watershed case, no official body on Yale’s campus dealt with such issues.

While the creation of the Grievance Board might have superficially scaled back sexual harassment on campus, events in the past decade have illuminated the problem again. In 2005, Yale fraternity members stole T-shirts from the Clothesline Project, a program started on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, which serves as “a vehicle for women affected by violence to express their emotions by decorating a shirt.” Three years later, Zeta Psi fraternity members were photographed outside the campus Women’s Center holding a sign with a misogynistic epithet.

Then in October 2010, during a Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity initiation, members shouted a harassing chant that encouraged rape behavior in front of an all female dormitory. On March 15, a formal Title IX complaint was filed against the university on the grounds that such behavior creates a hostile environment for female students. And on March 31, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights announced it would be investigating Yale’s handling of sexual harassment and sexual assault cases.

Yale has a history of being tight-lipped about sexual harassment and sexual assault allegations that arise on its prestigious New Haven, Conn. campus. Criticized for handling such claims “quietly and internally [with a] tendency to shy away from disciplining the perpetrators,” Yale failed to suspend or expel the DKE fraternity men who participated in the misogynistic chants, stating that because the victims failed to move forward with charges, the university would take no further action.

Not surprisingly, this decision on the part of the university was not acceptable to many, thus the pending suit against Yale brought by 16 complainants. The underlying motivation for the suit is not any particular monetary compensation, but rather change on the campus. The plaintiffs hope to “fundamentally overhaul” how Yale deals with sexual harassment and sexual assault allegations, ensuring that perpetrators are properly penalized for such atrocious acts. As the Yale Herald asked: If students are expelled for plagiarism, shouldn’t students also be promptly removed for harassment, assault, or rape?

Right This Way Please … Early Admissions Debate Rages On

John O. Harney — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:44:38 +0000

In September 2006, Harvard made the decision to end early admissions. Early admissions takes on two forms: early action and early decision. What Harvard had in place was non-binding early action, meaning that a student applies before the regular deadline—in early November—and has until admissions decisions come back from other schools before deciding where to attend.

Early decision, on the other hand, is a binding option, where the process is the same as early action with one caveat—a person commits to attending the school if accepted. This means making a final decision on a school before receiving financial aid packages, and as John O. Harney argued in The New England Journal of Higher Education (then known as Connection): “no poor kid can make that kind of gamble.”

Indeed, the discussion surrounding both early action and early decision practices is not without controversy. Some argue that such practices give yet another college admissions advantage to students already imbued with social and cultural capital, that is, students who attend well-resourced high schools, have parents who attended college and so on. Applying early increases one’s likelihood of admissions, yet the typical college applicant may not even be cognizant of the option. In low-income communities with understaffed and underfunded high schools, college counselors have large caseloads and struggle to get through explaining the basic admissions and financial aid process to students, let alone the inner workings of early admissions.

It is not only overworked high school college counselors who say early admissions gives more affluent students another leg up in the application process; as a 2006 New York Times article quoted Harvard Dean of Admissions Bill Fitzsimmons: “There is no question about it: early admissions advantages the advantaged … It’s truly tilted.”

Tufts University President Lawrence S. Bacow wrote an article for Connection in 2006 stating that early admissions is an enrollment management tool used to fill slots with applicants most likely to matriculate, thereby increasing “yield percentage,” a number often considered when evaluating the quality of a school. Yet spaces are filled more often than not with full-pay students who do not apply for financial aid, and are thus less economically, geographically, racially and ethnically diverse than the regular applicant pool. Bacow noted that early admission disadvantages students, putting pressure on individuals to make premature decisions about schools due to the appeal of easier admissions and an earlier decision. Tufts continues to have an early decision (but no early action) option.

Of course, early admissions has its backers too. Washington Post education columnist Jay Matthews in a 2006 article commented that early admissions relieves student anxiety by getting the college application process over with before winter break and helps fill campuses with students who actually want to be there, consequently contributing positively to the overall ethos of the campus. He adds that instead of hurting low-income students from poorly resourced high schools, early admissions can actually help such students by encouraging them to stay on track and preventing college counselors from providing yet “one more excuse to let junior year slide by with little effort to help those students.”

But apparently Fitzsimmons and Harvard are singing that tune as well. Just yesterday, the Harvard Crimson announced that Harvard would bring back early action. According to the article, trends over the past few years have indicated that many talented students are choosing schools with early admissions programs. Michael D. Smith, dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said these students include “some of the best-prepared low-income and underrepresented minority students.”

As often, when Harvard makes a move, others are quick to follow. When Harvard eliminated early action in 2006, Princeton and the University of Virginia announced their respective eliminations shortly after. Not surprisingly, the Crimson reported that on the same day as Harvard’s announcement to re-instate early action, Princeton followed suit.

It’s a good bet that other top-ranked schools also restore their early admissions programs over the next few weeks. And it will be interesting to see whether Harvard’s class of 2016 will have more or fewer lower-income and minority students, compared with the regular decision cohorts
that came before them.

How College Students Spend Their Time: Sleep First, Class Later

John O. Harney — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 12:06:43 +0000

Findings presented in the latest issue of Postsecondary Education Opportunity put a new twist on the adage “the harder you work, the luckier you get.” In fact, it may be true that the older you are, the harder you work.

The latest issue of the data-rich newsletter published monthly by higher education analyst Thomas G. Mortenson and his colleagues explores “Time Use of Full-Time College Students Ages 18 to 24 Years 2003 to 2009." Using data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), the report finds 24-year olds spend and average of 3.6 hours per day during school months going to class and doing homework, compared with just 2.8 hours per day for 18-year old students. While older students spend more time then their younger counterparts in class and doing homework, the overall average for 18-24-year-olds is 3.3 hours, which begs the question for some: What are students doing at college?

According to ATUS results, full-time college students ages 18 to 24 spend the majority of their hours sleeping (9 hours per day), followed by 3.9 hours for education and 3.9 hours for leisure activities/sports. The “education” category encompasses class time, as well as outside time devoted to research and homework. Leisure activities include arts and entertainment, social events and relaxing. On average, 18-to-24-year-olds spend just one hour per day “eating and drinking,” and 0.8 hours per day “grooming,” including washing and dressing.

Results also varied by gender and race/ethnicity.

While men spend an average of 80 minutes more per day on leisure activities/sports than women do, women spend an average of 3.4 hours on education compared to 3.1 hours for men.

With respect to race and ethnicity, Asians averaged 4.7 hours per day on educational activities, the highest of the categories, followed by 3.4 hours for Hispanics, 3.2 hours for white students, and 3 hours for black students. When “educational activities” are dissected, according to the article, it appears that white students spend the least amount of time in the classroom, averaging about 1.6 hours per day.

The ATUS results have several implications: For one, they generate questions surrounding the purpose of the university. With the rise in distance learning, some argue that students who take courses online do not receive the same educational benefit as those students who physically attend classes. And as the numbers show, with students spending more time sleeping and engaged in social, athletic or leisure activities than in class and doing homework, distance learners may be missing out on “real” college life.

For a wealth of education data, subscribe to Postsecondary Education Opportunity.

Student Debit Card Programs: Friend or Foe?

John O. Harney — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 21:30:44 +0000

The rising cost of tuition, the loan burden, the diminished grant availability—these usually come to mind when the subject is paying for college. Surprisingly, though, many students are actually entitled to thousands of dollars in refunds, usually paid when students borrow more then they need to, or when late federal aid arrives supplementing already paid tuition fees.

The distribution of these “refund checks” can be both timely and costly, especially for two-year colleges lacking the resources of their four-year counterparts. St. Louis Community College officials know firsthand how chaotic refund dispersal can be. So frenzied in fact that Carla Chance, vice chancellor for finance and business services, called the refunds process “Pell Hell” in an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

To curb the confusion, St. Louis Community College has teamed up with Higher One Holdings, a debit card program that issues students MasterCard debit cards with their refunds loaded. At some schools, the card is used as a student’s official ID, making the use of the program unavoidable.

Community colleges using Higher One’s program claim that about $200,000 is saved every year, as checks no longer have to be printed and less staff is needed for the disbursement process. They also claim that this is easier for students, especially those who do not have checking accounts.

But consumer protection agencies have different feelings. Ed Mierzwinski, who heads the consumer protection division of U.S. PIRG, notes that the card’s high fees—including a $2.50 charge to use other companies' ATMs and up to $19 per month for any funds that have been inactive for nine months— does not have the student's best interest in mind.

Perhaps it would be a non-issue if students had a choice. Yet with students forced to access Higher One’s website to decide how to receive funds, as Mierzwinski contends, “it’s obviously weighted towards opting in.”

Recent Posts: The New Indentured Educated Class; Pushing Plastic (pdf)

Swimming in Debt, Hebrew College Relocates

John O. Harney — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:33:38 +0000

Hebrew College of Newton, Mass., announced it will be move its operation to Andover Newton Theological School in 2011 or 2012, contingent on the sale of its current building.

The college is facing debt of more than $32 million.

Hebrew College offers undergraduate degrees and several master’s degrees and certificates in Jewish Studies and Jewish Education.

Hebrew recently teamed up with Northeastern University to provide interested students with a doctoral program option.

The Newton campus was built less than a decade ago by world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie, and according to the Boston Globe, planned to become a “preeminent Jewish cultural center and academic powerhouse.” Yet the economic downturn, and consequently insurmountable debt has plagued the college and made the goal impossible. The college’s president, Rabbi Daniel L. Lehmann, is hopeful that the building sale will “reposition the college to continue operating—and growing—albeit in rented quarters.”

Rabbi Lehmann is optimistic that the new location will afford the opportunity to continue interfaith collaborations, a salient goal for both Hebrew College and Andover Newton Theological School.

While previous Hebrew College leaders had hoped that Boston’s considerable Jewish population combined with its rich academic culture would provide the ideal setting for a distinguished Hebrew College, financial constraints have inhibited this objective.

For-Profit Colleges: Futile Degrees or Fruitful Employment?

John O. Harney — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 20:09:11 +0000

For-profit colleges such as the University of Phoenix and Kaplan University offer an alternative to traditional two-year and four-year non-profit institutions by focusing, if their rhetoric is to be believed, on learning “relevant material you can apply immediately to your workplace.” With the rise in unemployment and the difficulties college grads are experiencing securing jobs, for-profit colleges are able to leverage their practical approach to attract both traditional college-aged students as well as adult learners. Yet for-profits have their critics.

For-profit colleges offer the following reasons when claiming they are the most viable option for postsecondary learning:

Productive and timely career training programs that especially target low-income and minority students historically underrepresented in postsecondary education. As the University of Phoenix website states, “roughly 30% of the University’s 443,000 students are African-American and about 11% are Hispanic, compared to the national enrollment averages of 12% and 10%.”

Lower student-to-adviser ratios compared with community colleges, as well as higher rates of persistence and graduation. As Arthur Keiser told tampabay.com, his for-profit Keiser University produced a “graduation rate for 2009 [of] 72 percent, well above community colleges and many state universities.”

A distance learning option, that is, the ability to earn a degree online. As the University of Phoenix website states, distance learning allows one to create a “schedule that fits your life.” This is seen as a necessary option for adult learners with jobs, families and other obligations.

Still, many argue that such proprietary colleges do little in the way of offering meaningful degrees and instead saddle students with debt. Worse, students often do not realize what they are getting themselves into and end up defaulting on loans at higher rates than their peers. New York Times op-ed contributor Jeremy Dehn notes: “It’s disturbingly easy to get accepted [to for-profit colleges], receive thousands of dollars in loans and then flunk out with crippling debt and no degree to show for it.” Misleading marketing tactics and deceptive for-profit advisers are often to blame for such negative outcomes.

As a response, in July 2010, the U.S. Department of Education implemented the “gainful employment rule.” This means that federal loan money is rescinded to for-profit schools that fail to provide students with degrees that secure good career prospects. Just last week, the Obama administration released new regulations with respect to student aid in hopes of “protecting students from aggressive or misleading recruiting practices.” Additionally, such rules are aimed at increasing students’ knowledge about the financial aid process. Disseminating aid information in easily understood ways is an effort to decrease the amount of student loan debt carried.

However, some note that for-profit colleges provide access to postsecondary education for nontraditional students such as adult learners and career-changers by providing flexible hours and certificate programs. MyCareerCounts.org has started a campaign to “put the brakes” on the gainful employment rule, stating that such a proposal could “limit access to much needed career training for hundreds of thousands of students.”

And just recently, the New England Board of Higher Education at its “Reinventing the University” conference proposed that perhaps its usual audience of nonprofit and public educators could learn something useful from their for-profit counterparts. Representatives Rob Lytle of the Parthenon Group, Peter P. Smith of Kaplan, and John R. McKernan Jr. of Education Management Corp. were adamant about how their mission should not stand in opposition to nonprofit colleges, but rather, should be seen as two different means to achieve the same ends.

Yet with loan defaults disproportionately high for students enrolled in proprietary colleges—and the increasing number of graduates fr0m these institutions who are unable to find “substantial employment”—this is a hard argument to make, even for the most skillful marketers and recruiters.

Colleges Consider Freezing Charges

John O. Harney — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:50:17 +0000

Do you feel a chill? Recently, the trustees of the Connecticut State University System decided not to raise tuition and fees. This decision marks the first time in a decade that tuition and fees have not increased within the four-school system.

“It would be awesome. It is kind of expensive enough now,” says Sara Perran, a student at Central Connecticut State University.

Connecticut is not alone. In Rhode Island, Judge Frank Caprio, chair of the Board of Governors for Higher Education, recommended a freeze on tuitions at the three state institutions for the academic year beginning in fall 2011. Maine’s seven community colleges have frozen tuition for six of the last 11 years.

New England has a notorious history of raising student charges to offset relatively low state funding. Yet, the CSUS decision reflects a different sentiment. As chair Karl J. Krapek said in a statement to CTnow.com, “we recognize the economic challenges facing many of our students and their families and will remain steadfast in our commitment to providing affordable, accessible, high-quality education.”

However, keeping tuition costs down for students has consequences for faculty and staff. Case and point: CSUS plans a salary freeze for close to 200 nonunion workers as well as layoffs for both maintenance workers and faculty in an attempt to replenish monies no longer provided through increases in tuition.

While the CSUS has made its commitment to affordability and access clear in its vote to not increase fees during the current recession, theory and practice may be hard to reconcile. In a state running a deficit of more than $3 billion, the tuition freeze could be reconsidered at a moment’s notice. As Krapek noted to the CTmirror.com, "If we get a brutal cut in the state budget ... we may have to revisit this, but for now I think it's the right thing to do.” Clearly, students like Sara Perran agree.

Community Colleges Grappling with Rising Enrollments, Sinking Budgets; White House Takes Notice

John O. Harney — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 20:24:53 +0000

In this recession, one market is thriving—community colleges. Just last week, the White House held the first-ever national summit for community colleges. President Obama proposed that by 2020, an additional 5 million adults will hold community college degrees and certificates and announced millions of dollars in privately funded grants. [Participate in our Forum on the president's goal for community colleges.]

With the unemployment rate hovering around 9%, many New Englanders have turned to community college for vocational training in hopes of re-entering the job market. The Connecticut Department of Higher Education reports that almost 127,200 students will be enrolled in postsecondary education this fall, and according to theday.com, community college students account for almost 58,300 of this number.

In neighboring Rhode Island, the Community College of Rhode Island reports 17,775 students are taking classes this semester at CCRI’s four main campuses. The only time enrollment was higher than the present figure was in 1992, when tuition was waived for senior citizens and the unemployed.

Yet, the high enrollments may be jeopardizing community colleges' mission of access. More students mean more resources, which many publicly funded schools cannot provide. As fosters.com reports, in Maine, 4,000 students were denied their first choice academic program. New Hampshire, too, has to say "no" to many students, especially those seeking to enroll in more popular programs such as nursing. With budget cuts in full force, community colleges are finding it increasingly difficulty to meet the population’s growing demands.

It’s not just career-changers who are seeking out community colleges. Larissa Ruiz Baia, associate vice president of Enrollment Management at Manchester Community College in New Hampshire, notes "we are seeing a high number of traditional-age students coming to us in large part because of affordability, who might not have considered a community college in the past." With more college seniors now considering community college, enrollments have nowhere to go but up.