“...the person you marry.”

I have to say, writers and bloggers have been getting a lot of mileage out of Susan Patton; I previously wrote two articles about her original article in the Daily Princetonian, Elite Family Planning and Anything But Egalitarian. Since then she has gained a lot of attention and made TV appearances while experts and people with too many opinions have attacked or defended her. In her most recent article, Valentine’s Straight Talk at the Wall Street Journal, she gives out advice much in the same vein as her original article.

To start off, I will look at two quotes focusing on the male gender.

“Those men who are as well-educated as you are often interested in younger, less challenging women.”

“Once you're living off campus and in the real world, you'll be stunned by how smart the men are not.”

I am not sure what to say about this, but I guess as a man not only am I not that smart, but I am only interested in younger, less challenging women. (Although my wife is younger than me, she challenges me everyday.) Right off the bat these two quotes are negative and do not give the article a positive tone.

“Could you marry a man who isn't your intellectual or professional equal?...When the conversation turns to Jean Cocteau or Henrik Ibsen, the Bayeux Tapestry or Noam Chomsky, you won't find that glazed look that comes over his face at all appealing.”

I have a glazed look over my face. I am not familiar with Cocteau or Isben and I have three graduate degrees but they are in music and business, not literature. I would hesitate giving advice about conversation topics with potential mates based on your personal interests; what happens if the conversation turned to Heinrich Schutz, Anton Bruckner, the 1873 Winchester, and Muddy Waters. Would you have a glazed look on your face?

My other problem with this statement is she uses the term equal. Using the term equal is a slippery slope and although she used the terms intellectual and professional, everything about her persona and her writings are associated with Princeton. When talking about Princeton and the Ivy League, I feel for anyone who has to find their equal because 99% of the country is not (I used the percentage!).

“And if you start to earn more than he does? Forget about it. Very few men have egos that can endure what they will see as a form of emasculation.”

I know there are manly men who want to provide everything for their families, but when it comes to the people I know, the family budget rules. If my wife made more than me, and she did for several years, I would and was happy as a clam. I guess if you were a power couple and each made a quarter mil$$on each, egos might get it in way (two-way street).

“An extraordinary education is the greatest gift you can give yourself.”

I agree that education, in whatever form, is a gift. Depending on who you are, where you are from, and your abilities and resources, what that education looks like will vary. Since Mrs. Patton uses the term extraordinary when describing education I can only assume she means Ivy and Ivy equivalents. I am, who I am because of my extraordinary educational experience. But be wary of making statements about the extraordinary because the concept of equality comes back and I seriously doubt learning outcomes at Princeton are that much better than at other extraordinary institutions around the country. (There is no way to compare learning outcomes because assessment data does not exist between institutions, but we can compare how successful alumni are and when doing this, Princeton would win hands-down!)

The one quote that I really like and needs just a little tweak:

“Despite all of the focus on professional advancement, for most of you the cornerstone of your future happiness will be the man you marry.”

First, I would change this to “the person you marry.” I agree that much of your happiness depends on the person you marry or decide to spend your life with. This does not mean that you cannot be happy alone, you can, but her message, and I would agree with her that people who want a partner, that person is key to your and their happiness. The problem is that she gets bogged down; equals, intellectually brilliant conversations, corporate stardom, emasculation, how much money he makes, grandmotherly messages, et cetera.

Maybe it is because I went to school in the provinces that most of her message gets lost on me but my only advice for men and women in college looking for love is focus on yourself, focus on your chosen partner, and love each other no matter the job, the intellectual prowess, and/or the abundance/lack of money (and don’t screw it up by having an affair, being overly lazy, or being addicted to drugs).

Insular Academic Requirements

Everyone loves the big time especially in higher education. Big time sports, famous professors, inspiring presidents, and world renown experts. Every week there are countless examples of this or that professor being a guest on NPR, CNN, Fox, or the like. This has created a demand in higher education to have experts ready and willing to share their knowledge by writing books, articles, presenting at conferences and if you make the big time, sharing your vast knowledge on television and radio. But this has also created a huge, bloated pink elephant; even though most colleges and universities are in the business of educating young adults, undergraduate education, the requirements for employment that professors must attain prepares them to teach graduate students and conduct non-classroom research.

Consider the following:

Higher education in the United States is still the envy of the world so why am I questioning these insular requirements? Why change?

First of all I am not questioning higher education education at elite institutions; colleges and universities with endowments that range from hundreds of millions to billions and have an endowment per student of $50,000 or more can keep on doing what they want (for many, $50k is low). To give some context on super-large endowments, a recent article listed endowments at over 800 institutions for 2011-2012 and the first 71 had endowments over one-billion dollars and the first 145 had endowments over $500 million.

I am questioning the hundreds and hundreds of institutions that were created and still educate undergraduates as their core mission, are publically funded, and in my opinion, have lost their educational focus in the desire to compete nationally and internationally. I also question institutions that are so large they stifle competition because of the de facto monopoly they create in their locality (example; Arizona State University).

To look at this higher education perplexity I will look at the three major universities in Arizona; The University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University, and Arizona State University. These three institutions have a combined enrollment of around 137, 400 (feel free to look at Wikipedia); of this, around 19% are graduate students (UA has the highest percentage, NAU the least, with ASU in the middle).

Because 19% of the student population are graduate students, an equivalent percentage of the full-time teaching staff, because of the needs of the students, should focus on graduate studies; write books, publish countless articles, present at conferences, and conduct lots of non-classroom research to enhance their notoriety and that of the institution. In addition these institutions should have non-teaching, professional researchers to conduct and assist with important research that occurs. These staff members should not be part of the teaching staff because they are not participating in the education of adult students.

With graduate education taken care of that leaves 81% of the full-time teaching staff to focus on undergraduate education. Do 81% of the professors at UA, NAU, and ASU focus on what (young) adult learners need to develop as students, academics, and citizens? Do 81% of the professors focus on providing engaging learning environments for students to be challenged and individualize each student’s education?  I doubt it. I am sure that all of the full-time teaching staff, I am not talking about adjuncts, all have the same requirements; curriculum vitaes that are fit to teach graduate education with the threat of publish or perish always looming over them.

Da Capo; so why am I bringing this up if colleges and universities in the US are still the envy of the world? I ask because in the last ten-years so much has changed in higher education that state and private institutions cannot continue to operate like they have without changing and this includes undergraduate education.

Undergraduate education dominates most institutions, especially public. Because of the pressure to improve student learning outcomes especially for students under-25, why not have have different requirements for faculty members who teach graduate students and different requirements for those who teach undergraduate students? Why do should people who teach undergraduates have to write books, articles, and publish or perish just to have a job where the most important thing they do, according to the mission of their institutions, is to educate young adults and prepare them to be responsible citizens?

I bring this all up because for whatever reason my own career has always focused on undergraduate education and there is a big difference between professors who excel at churning out PhD’s and those who can help entry-level students improve their college level writing. If institutions, especially public ones do not start changing the way they educated under-25’s then the government will step in and start changing things for them.

Acceptance Rates Revisited

As I start working on my Spring Research Project about budgets in higher education and I look over the National Association of Colleges and Business Officers table of 2012 endowments I am amazed how everyday I encounter colleges I have never heard of. These colleges are usually small private colleges or faith-based institutions that have modest to hefty endowments and on paper look great. Each time I discover one of these gems I go to Wikipedia and find out the basics; where the school is located, what its educational focus is, basic history, who is is named after, et cetera. After discovering interesting tidbits about each there is one common section that most of these small colleges share with the largest of research institutions; acceptance rates.

I bring up acceptance rates because in May 2013 I wrote a short article about acceptance rates and the pressure parents feel to get their kids into ‘good’ schools. There is no better place to compare college acceptance rates and other information than the source for everything higher education, US News and World Report College Rankings. These rankings, in my opinion, are lackluster and simplistic, but millions look to US News and World Report for advice on where to send their kids to college. US News and World Report also greatly influences colleges and universities even though many of them publically state otherwise (there have been a variety of controversies about the lists). As I was looking around two lists stood out to me:

- Top 100-Highest Acceptance Rates;

- Top 100-Lowest Acceptance Rates.

These two lists to me, are the most intriguing of all the lists. The other lists are standard; top elite schools; top public schools; top liberal arts schools; and other lists like A+ Schools for B Students that all contain the usual characters. Concerning the Top 100-Lowest Acceptance Rates, this list is populated by all the usual suspects that provide experts to NPR, CNN, Fox News, and like on a daily basis. These schools have tuition that is usually above $30 to $40k a year and are only for the brightest from the around the nation (and world) and/or the ones that can afford the sticker price.

What really is interesting is the list of the 100-Highest Acceptance Rates. From the opening paragraph US News gives you a little insight into the list, “While some colleges and universities pride themselves on selectivity, others welcome most, if not all, of their college applicants.” The acceptance rates on this list range from 100% to 91.5% and to start off my investigation I will look at three schools on the list; University of Texas-El Paso, Evergreen State College, and the University of Kansas,

First is the University of Texas-El Paso. I am fond of UTEP because I grew up in El Paso and took 9 credits there one summer during my undergrad. UTEP is a solid school that is located a stone’s throw from Juarez, serves a relatively poor city, and is mainly a commuter school. They have a healthy endowment, around $151 million but a six-year graduation rate of 35.5%. 54% of UTEP students receive Pell Grants and UTEP is rare amongst large state schools in that the vast majority of students who attend are hispanic (81%).

So is UTEP a ‘lesser’ school by being on the Top 100-Highest Acceptance Rates list? No. UTEP has challenges that schools on the Top 100-Lowest Acceptance Rates list do not have to deal with. First of all the median household income in El Paso is around $40k, which is $9k less than the rest of Texas ($13k less than the US). Next, UTEP serves a high per percentage of commuters (34% are part-time) which like community colleges, complicates graduation rates because students do not live on campus and often have other obligations such as work and/or family.

Next is Evergreen State College. When I was 16 I wanted to go to Evergreen because of the way faculty ‘grade’ student assignments but through many years of self-reflection I realized that I would not have been ready as a teenager for a place like Evergreen or St. John’s in Santa Fe, another school I would have liked to have gone for my undergrad. Evergreen is the definition of a Liberal Arts institution without the benefit of the hefty endowments of other Liberal Arts institutions such as the Claremont Colleges, Wesleyan University, or St. Olaf College (there are few truly public Liberal Arts institutions). Their six-year graduation rate is 51.8% which is not bad considering they accepted 98.4% of applicants.

Is Evergreen a lesser school by being on the Top 100-Highest Acceptance Rates list? No. The way in which student assessment is conducted at Evergreen makes it a truly unique place for higher education and the fact that they accept pretty much everyone who applies probably means that only students who know what Evergreen is about and know what they are getting into apply. This also might account for the mediocre six-year graduation rate; students that are unable to thrive at Evergreen probably transfer to a more traditional school.

And finally the University of Kansas. Besides having a great basketball team I visited the campus once in undergrad because of a music festival; beautiful campus in the middle of endless fields. Kansas has a large endowment of around $1.5 billion and a six-year graduation rate between 61% (2004) and 64% (2006) which is amazing considering they accept around 93% of applicants.

Is Kansas a lesser school by being on the Top 100-Highest Acceptance Rates list? No. Kansas has a median household income near the US average and is almost $11k more than in El Paso. Also, Kansas and the University of Kansas serves a demographic that is largely homogeneous; this means there is a diversity at the university but is also means that the school has an easier time of serving the needs of their students because they are all the ‘same’.

The interesting thing about higher education is those in those in higher education are hesitant to compare institutions no matter big or small, elite or community college. Even the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis Cutting Tool, published by the US Department of Education has a warning label reminding people how impossible it is to compare institutions.

“Please note that valid comparisons of athletics data are possible only with study and analysis of the conditions affecting each institution.”

Yet we have the US News and World Report that compares and ranks schools every year and two lists, 100-Highest and 100-Lowest Acceptance Rates that imply quality (or lack of). There is quality at every institution let it be the University of Texas-El Paso with its 98.3% acceptance rate or Harvard with its 6.1% acceptance rate. We all know there is quality at Harvard while at UTEP for some it  takes a little faith, a little digging, and an understanding of the institution and the city to ‘see’ the quality that is and has always been there.

Valentine’s Poem

So many years since, we

Found each other across the room;

Who would have known that love would bloom,

Accordant we would be.

Our newest adventure,

Is a blond, green-eyed lil’ cherub;

Who is sweet like honey syrup,

And is our true treasure.

As we both forward look,

Together hand, in hand, in hand;

We do not know where we will stand,

As the years slowly cook.

We will always be a family,

Filled with love and hope, so amply. 

The Tennessee Promise

An interesting promise was made the other day during the 2014 State of the State address in Tennessee. Governor Bill Haslam announced his Tennessee Promise; below are two excerpts:

“We will promise that he or she can attend two years of community college or a college of applied technology absolutely free.”

“Tennessee will be the only state in the country to offer our high school graduates two years of community college with no tuition or fees along with the support of dedicated mentors.

This promise is bold. I am not a political person so I am going on generalities and stereotypes, but for a republican governor to promise two years of free community college education to the youth of his state is amazing and optimistic.

I will refrain from commenting as others did at The Chronicle, and Inside Higher Ed, but there are a lot of things that are promised in State of the States and during the State of the Union; a promise is merely future state optimism.

With that said, I understand why governor Haslam wants to have a more educated workforce. Tennessee, for the most part, lags the US and the states in the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) when it comes to higher education attainment. According to the Higher Education Profile & Trends for 2012 published by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, Tennessee lags in the following two categories: educational attainment for associate’s, bachelor’s, and graduate degrees; and per capita personal income. These are two big important categories and it is easy to understand why Governor Haslam, coming out of the Great Recession, would want to close these gaps and work to try to exceed the national averages.

Also in the Higher Education Profile & Trends, Tennessee exceeds the national standard and the SREB when it comes to public high school graduation rate. Along with the high school graduate rate, the vast majority of Tennessee high school graduates that go to college go to a school in Tennessee. Of undergraduate enrollment for students under-25, most go to a public 2-year (by a substantial margin), followed by public 4-year, for-profit, and then non-profit.

Finally there is an excellent comparison of funding. During the 1999-2000 academic year, 68.2% of public 2-year funding came from state appropriations while in 2011-2012 that figure was 39.9%. During the 1999-2000 academic year, 58.2% of public 4-year funding came from state appropriations while in 2011-2012 that figure was 32.1%.

In addition to the stats provided by the Higher Education Profile & Trends, the governor’s office published a fact sheet about the Tennessee Promise. Eligible institutions are Tennessee’s 27 colleges of applied technology, the 13 community colleges, and in-state independent or four-year public university offering an associate’s degree (no for-profit or out of state extension campuses).

Student eligibility requirements for the Tennessee Promise include (I did not include all of them):

- Student needs to apply senior year of high school;

- Student must start college directly after high school graduation (mostly);

- 12 credit hours per semester;

- Stay in school every semester;

- GPA of 2.0;

- 8 hours of community service.

If any of these eligibility requirements are not met, eligibility is lost.

This means that if you have a highly motivated student who goes to a community college or a place Like Tennessee State right after high school and takes 15 credit hours for four semesters and meet all the requirements to get an associates, the Tennessee Promise will pay for their schooling.

If you have a lightly motivated student who goes to community college right after high school and fails or drops a class (assuming they drop under 12 credits), does not attend every semester, drops below a GPA of 2.0, or forgets about the community service requirement then eligibility is lost.

These requirements are good because it means the state does not have to foot the bill for students who are not going to succeed and will only cover those who are ready and willing for college. Does this leave out a lot of students? Yes. It leaves out those lightly motivated students who might take four to six years to complete an associate's and it leaves out adult students who are already in college or others who want to go back to college.

With all of this said, I know a lot of commentators are skeptical, it is easy to be skeptical, but the reality is that not every student is going to go to public 4-year institution and be illuminated through a liberal art education. Not every student is going to become a philosopher, a scientist or a mathematician. Not every student is going to be a business phenom and launch the next great thing at age 22 and not every student is going to have a transformational experience in college.

Personally, some of the best teaching I have ever seen in all my years of higher education has been at community colleges; you do not always get the best educational experience when a research professor teaches lower division college level writing (for example). Some students just want to go to college and get a degree that will get them a job. The Tennessee Promise is a way for the state of Tennessee to invest in highly motivated students and help them graduate with no debt (mostly no debt), be successful, and have a their associate’s by age 20.