Acceptance Rates

In a previous article, I talked about my son going off to college in 2031. Even though this seems a lifetime away, I am constantly researching the costs associated with higher education. Recently, the New York Times had two interesting pieces about the process of getting into college; a personal reflection by one of their bloggers and a list of college acceptance rates.

Starting with the personal reflection; this blogger describes the application process of one of her children and the factors considered when attempting to get into college. The following is a quote from the personal reflection:

“According to wisdom gleaned from the chatterers on college advice Web sites, the college offering the scholarship was not highly ranked enough or selective enough (admission rate: 65 percent) to be deemed a ‘good school’ (as in, ‘Your kid’s going to Dartmouth? Good school!’). It was low on the prestige factor that is deemed so important.”

This statement reflects many people’s perceptions of higher education. After I read this I wondered where this blogger lives; New Hampshire. For those who live in the greater Boston area, New York, Philadelphia, down to DC, and finally Richmond the competition to get into a ‘good school’ is intense. People who live in the northeast all live within a few hours of many of the best colleges and universities, both small and large in the country. This is not to discount excellent institutions all around the country, but this area has more well-known institutions per square mile than anywhere else in the world. For those who are swayed by the allure of a ‘good school’ the decision is difficult.

On to the next article; the New York Times listed the acceptance rates for a variety of colleges and universities; some big, some small, some private, some public. The acceptance rates range from Stanford, 6.61% and Harvard, 6.17%; to higher ones such as NYU, 32.96% and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, 51%.

What do these numbers mean? All acceptance rates tell us is that on a given year x number of students apply, y number of students are accepted, giving us an acceptance rate of z. Does this have anything to do with quality? No. Does it have anything to do with learning outcomes? No. Does it have anything to do with networking? No. Does it tell you about future job opportunities? No. So what does it tell you? Acceptance rates communicate exclusivity, demand, and the free market; nothing more, nothing less.

With that said you can infer certain things from acceptance rates. Students who are able to get into schools that have low acceptance rates are extremely high performing and probably skilled at networking. Because the quality of students entering is usually exceptional these schools have high graduation rates and graduates that are successful post-college. What these schools do with their undergraduates (again these students are already educated and high performing) is refine them rather than purely educate them.

Back to the blog:

“We worried that she would forever see herself as second rate because the name on her diploma didn’t command sufficient admiration. Hadn’t she already been subjected to some stinging offhand comments about this particular college? From one of her teachers: ‘You’re a great student. Why would you want to go there?’ Or this backhanded compliment from a relative: ‘You know, my company gets some of its best interns from the second- and third-tier schools!’”

For me, I do not care what people think about where I got my degree. If someone looks at my diploma and comments that it is from a second or third-tier school (my undergraduate is from a third or fourth-tiered school) I want little to do with this person. They will probably look down upon a variety of other things including living in Arizona, where I work, and my social status, aka how much money I make (although they will not flatout say it).

But remember this, acceptance rates is only for undergraduate education. Graduate education, what most Ivy and elite institutions are built upon, do not factor into this metric that people use to compare schools. The number of nobel prize winning faculty members a school has (and other prestigious awards) is not solely for undergraduates but mainly for graduates and prestige.

At the end of the day, students need to go the school that fits their needs and not be swayed by societal pressure. If you have money and/or are academically gifted at 18 with a proven track record and if needed, can get scholarships that will not put you in debt, go to a ‘good school’; it will be a profound experience. But if you do not go to one of these schools remember you are not second rate. Even if you walked the halls of Mesa Community College or the University of Texas at El Paso, the only thing that matters today is what you bring to the table. Having a degree from a ‘good school’ might get you in the door or even a few jobs but your life after college is all about what you produce and the quality of your being; not the name on your diploma.

Who Benefits from College

As I was driving into work late the other day, I was sick and slept in a bit, I overheard a story on the Diane Rehm Show called, “Who Benefits from College and Why.” As I listened to this story, which was excellent, my mind drifted to whom the panelists were; Isabel Sawhill, a senior fell of economic studies at the Brookings Institution; Nina Marks, president of Collegiate Directions Inc.; and Robert Lerman, professor of economics at American University. All highly respected in their fields with decades of experience.

As I got closer to work I wondered where these experts went to school. It turns out, according to their biographies, they went to New York University, Wellesley College, Brandeis, MIT, and Harvard (Marks only listed Harvard). According to Google Maps it is 15.4 miles from MIT to Wellesley College with Harvard and Brandeis University ‘in-between’; New York University is the odd man out.

Now that I knew where these guests went to school I wondered: where is the diversity of thought, experience, and perspective from these panelists?

First of all I do not question the credentials, the accomplishments, or the notoriety of the panelists. I do not question the status of the institutions where the panelists were educated. I do not question the research or the valid points that each of them contributed to the show.

But the sad reality is that many schools in this country are cash strapped. I am not talking about the schools that make the news everyday or the football/basketball schools that are always playing for NCAA championships; I am talking about the schools that educate the majority of undergraduates in this country without fanfare or large endowments. Because of the Great Recession, reduced funding from state governments, unfocused business plans, dated educational priorities, the inability to change, legacy costs, etc. many higher education institutions are struggling.

One metric that people use to compare institutions is the funding per student. Below are examples of funding per student at four institutions in Massachusetts:

Wellesley College:

Wellesley College has an endowment of around $1.5 billion, with around 2,300 students, and an endowment per student of approximately $652k.

Brandeis University:

Brandeis has an endowment of around $703 million, with around 5,828 students (undergraduate and graduate), and endowment per student of approximately $120k.

University of Massachusetts at Amherst:

University of Massachusetts at Amherst has an endowment around $210 million, with around 28,084 students enrolled (undergraduate and graduate), and an endowment per student of approximately $7,477.

Bunker Hill Community College:

Bunker HIll Community College does not have an endowment but the Massachusetts FY2012 budget allocated around $17.4 million to Bunker Hill Community College (not including a federal grant), with around 14,000 students enrolled (undergraduate; two-year associate), and funding per student of approximately $1,242

What do these numbers mean? The amount of money per student shows how much institutions theoretically have to spend on educating their students. Institutions such as community colleges and small to medium sized four-year colleges and universities are tasked with educating high risk students with minimal funding. Other institutions, such as Amherst has enough funding to focus on student learning and compete with other institutions for national prestige. Elite institutions have so much money beyond what is needed to support student learning that it is used to enhance prestige and maintain exclusivity (high educational standards are rarely questioned at these types of schools by anyone).

I would like to see this same discussion that occurred on the Diane Rehm Show but with a different panel; Sawhill would be included because she authored the study but include a president from a community college, a professor from a directional school, and a middle to low income college prep director from a major metropolitan area ideally from the south. I also would like to see these people’s degrees coming from a variety of places, not just Boston or New York.

Why do I want this ‘alternative’ discussion? To be honest, part of it is my own anti-elitism but more importantly I want to hear first hand accounts of what people are doing everyday to improve higher education in this country. I want to know what community colleges are doing, what directional schools are doing, and even what for-profits are doing to help undergraduates prepare for life after college. I want to know what Mesa Community College, Jackson State University, University of Texas at El Paso, Missouri State University, and the like are doing to help their students and their localities succeed. I want to know what all the cash strapped institutions are doing to help adults learn and prepare for the future without the help of billion dollar endowments.

An Academic Cesspool

Recently an article came out in the Chronicle about the accreditation status of University of Phoenix. After reading this article I meandered down to the comments section and was surprised by the harsh and hateful language used by what I assume are working academics. Below are my favorites:

“Why does the Association continue to shelter this fraudulent dump? Phoenix is a rip-off institution. It doesn't truly educate anyone...It insults the integrity of legitimate higher education.”

“The University of Phoenix must be regulated out of business...The peer-reveiw process is irrelevant when it comes to the for-fraud sector, and unilateral - if not dictatorial - actions must be taken if anything is ever going to change.”

“The U of Phoenix  is an academic cesspool. Any person who taught there and taught at 'real universities' knows that the quality of academics is abysmal. To even consider it a 'university' is to insult every other real residential university.”

As someone who works at one of these cesspools these comments are not surprising. The hate that is directed at for-profits is invidious and unproductive. I could counter these people with stories of successful graduates, faculty members that are dedicated to their students, and an organization that wants the best for its students and employees; but instead I will offer a simple proposal, “come work for us!” Be a change agent and help ‘fake universities’ become ‘real’.

If you are a tenured professor or an administrator take a sabbatical or see if you can set-up an exchange program with your university and a for-profit. But some writers and thinkers use their pens to criticize rather than using their words to create solutions. The complexities and real challenges that adult education faces in this country are not going away and public funding will not miraculously appear out of thin air; we all have to work together.

With that said, I guess some want a benevolent dictator to take charge and just fix everything.

Anything but Egalitarian

"A stirring call for the genetically gifted to band together and form a master race."

If you take this tweet out of context you might think it is from the 1930s but it is a ‘humorous’ comment responding to a letter to the editor at The Daily Princetonian. After reading the source material of this letter I pondered the message of the author and arrived at three conclusions:

1) This Princeton graduate is truly concerned and wants to provide solid ‘life’ advice to the Princeton community;

2) She is focusing on Princeton women because of her own life experience;

3) Her message is anything but egalitarian.

This letter is first and foremost written by a concerned mother offering advice to the Princeton community and the men and women that pass through those hallowed halls. Because of her life experience she wants others to view finding a mate as she does, an extremely important endeavor that will greatly affect you the rest of your life. Per the letter, students at Princeton need to look around their classrooms and find a mate because “simply put, there is a very limited population of men who are as smart or smarter than we are. And I say again — you will never again be surrounded by this concentration of men who are worthy of you.” Having never walked the halls of Princeton I have no idea what she is talking about and I, like others who have walked the halls of UTEP are probably not a good match for a Princeton graduate (I will not comment on the last three words).

Next, the concerned mother focuses on Princeton women because of her own life experience. I will not take anything away from her or judge because I have not walked in her shoes, I have not experienced her experiences, and have not lived her life. With that said, she thinks very highly of herself and the women at Princeton, “of course, once you graduate, you will meet men who are your intellectual equal — just not that many of them...But ultimately, it will frustrate you to be with a man who just isn’t as smart as you.” I find this interesting because during my adult life I have learned a lot about the different types of intelligences that we humans possess and she seems to focus just on the linguistic and logical-mathematical types of intelligences. This is fine, but there is more to life than talking about Jane Austin, string theory, and politics with your chosen mater (or whatever smart couples talk about).

Finally I find her message anything but egalitarian. I do not fault her for her for opinion; she graduated from Princeton, one son is there, the other graduated recently, and I assume her husband graduate from Princeton or an equivalent institution. They have worked hard to carve out a place in the second estate for themselves and if any of them are or have been elected to public office they would be part of the first estate. They are the elite.

Immediately after the letter to the editor was published people reacted. An interesting response came from Ross Douthat, a blogger for the New York Times. Mr. Douthat said a lot of things in his article but two statements stand out: “thus the importance, in the modern meritocratic culture, of the unacknowledged mechanisms that preserve privilege, reward the inside game, and ensure that the advantages enjoyed in one generation can be passed safely onward to the next” and “the intermarriage of elite collegians is only one of these mechanisms — but it’s an enormously important one.” Mr. Douthat responded in an honest and practical manner; he discussed how the elites maintain the status quo.

A more egalitarian reaction comes from Elizabeth Landau, a young Princeton graduate who in my mind, encapsulates everything that should be said publicly: “Inside the Princeton bubble, this may seem improbable, but you can find fascinating people who did not go to Princeton or any schools atop the U.S. News & World Report rankings. I know smart, funny people without four-year degrees. I have wonderful friends with great careers with degrees from non-elite schools. In fact, I have been dating one of these amazing people for five years -- longer than a Princeton education.”

I agree with Ms. Landau as would most people but the reality is that those who occupy the first and second estates side with Mr. Douthat. With that said, even a mediocre PR firm will recommend that elite writers do not publicly acknowledge the way things really are as Mr. Douthat stated at the end of his article, “do we have to talk about it?”

Response to 3 Suggestions for For-Profits

I agree, I agree, and I agree.

It may seem simple but I agree with everything Joshua Kim says in his article, 3 Suggestions for For-Profits. As someone who has dedicated his career to higher education and the last eight-years at a for-profit I want all of higher education to succeed. I also want my institution to succeed and provide the best possible education and learning outcomes to the students that enroll. Below are my comments concerning Joshua Kim’s three suggestions.

Suggestion #1: Commit to Transparency

I agree. This goes well beyond my pay grade but I agree that transparency should be the norm, not the exception.

Suggestion #2: Elevate the Autonomy, Visibility, and Status of Your Faculty

I agree. As someone who works directly with faculty, I want to elevate the autonomy, visibility, and status of the faculty. At my institution we have faculty members who are 100% committed to their students and work tirelessly for their success. We have faculty members who have graduated from directional schools and others who have graduated from elite institutions; they all care about the learning outcomes of the students. I want to see articles by my faculty at conferences, journals, The Chronicle, and Inside HigherEd, and have them state proudly that they teach for my institution and to be rewarded for their efforts.

Suggestion #3: Provide leadership in Partnering with Non-Profit Institutions:

I completely agree. I would love to see my institution partner with the Arizona institutions (proximity) and anyone else who will have us including elites. For-profits have experience that traditional institutions do not have; traditional institutions have experience that for-profits do not have. Educating America is a huge task and is not taken lightly by anyone; every level of higher education needs to work together to figure out how to educate America’s adult students.

But where do we start? Suggestion number one and two have to be taken up by individual for-profits. Concerning suggestion number three all it takes is for one person at a for-profit to start talking to one person at a traditional institution. They will need to work together, build a relationship of trust, get the buy-in of leadership, and change higher education, one partnership at a time.

My kid is going off to college (in 2031)

My son is on his way to college and I am a proud, proud father. Of course before I get too excited my little guy is only five-months old but since I have dedicated my career to higher education I am already thinking about him heading off to college. What will he study? What school will he attend? How will we pay for it? Will he want to go to an ‘elite’ school? Will he want to go to a football school? Will he go to the local community college? Will he need to know Spanish by the time he enters college? Will he even go to college? What will higher education look like in 2031?

There are far too many unknowns 18 years in the future so in the meantime my family will do the only thing possible at this point, start saving. But how much do we save for college? In my attempt to figure this out, I went to FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and used their college savings calculator.

To save for college in 2031, I used the following variables:
- $25,000 in today’s dollars for one year of college;
- 18 years until enrollment;
- 4.5% annual return;
- 3% annual inflation rate;
- 4 years for an undergraduate degree.

By the time my son enrolls in college in 2031 the annual cost will have risen, according to FINRA from $25,000 to $42,500 in 2031. This calculator states we will need to save $5,237 per year, or $436 per month. If we have another child, we will need to double this number to $876 per month and if our children (one real and one hypothetical) want to attend an ‘elite’ school we need to double our savings again to $1,752 per month.

Where to start? Saving $436 per month for one child is ‘doable’. I say this because I have steady employment and my wife has an extremely flexible, in-demand job. But here is the kicker: I do not know what is going to happen over the next 18 years. Consider the following:
- Will I still be with my current employer?
- Will my career continue to advance?
- Will I get reasonable/modest pay raises?
- How will my retirement perform?
- Will I get laid-off and have to start over?
- Will we have to move to a different state for some reason?
- Will my family have any medical emergencies?
- Will my family have any unexpected expenses?
- Should we send our son (our children) to private primary and secondary school?

In addition to the above: my wife and I have college loan debt; I will need a new(ish) car once every five to eight years (this is a must living in Arizona); and we want to take modest family vacations once in awhile to stay sane and have a little fun.

With the above unknowns I go back to the original action plan; we better start saving. The only thing I can do is my best at work, make good decisions for myself, and with my wife as my sidekick (and me as her’s), make the best possible choices for our family.

Everything else is having a little faith that life will work out over the next 18 years.

Least stressful job of 2013...Part III

So what does this mean; the CareerCast rankings and Part I and Part II of my conversation? Of the eleven job demands that Careercast uses to rate the most stressful jobs, five do not apply to university professor: physical demands, environmental conditions, hazards encountered, own life at risk, and life of another at risk. Of the remaining job demands the most stressful by far is competitiveness followed by deadlines, working in the public eye, and meeting the public.

When discussing stress, many university professors will often say the following: four years for undergrad, two years for a masters, three to five years for a doctorate, and possible post-doc appointments before they even get their first legit job. I am sorry to say but the average person does not care or understand how many years of education has been accumulated although they will be impressed when it is brought up. Attaining a basket of degrees is an intensely personal journey that is a job requirement for university professors but it is not a stress factor when factored into a full time, tenured position.

Now the comparisons; is the job of university professor as stressful as being:
- An enlisted military personnel?
- A firefighter?
- A cop?
- A corporate executive?
- An airline pilot?
- A medical doctor?
- A surgeon?
- A nurse?
- An oil rig worker?
- A correctional officer?
- A paramedic?
- CPS worker?
- A home health care provider?

No.  

Being a university professor is stressful but for different reasons than the stresses associated with the above jobs. University professors do not have to worry that their actions might kill someone or greatly endanger people. University professors do not have to worry that mistakes made on the job might cost the university millions of dollars. University professors do not have to worry that their actions might lead to disaster.

The stress of maintaining an academic profile that is competitive on the national and international international market is stressful beyond reproach. Example, in Arizona, does a lawyer or doctor have to be one of the three best in the entire state just to get a job? No; there are thousands of lawyers and doctors in Arizona but there are only three professors of bassoon in Arizona. If you do not get a job in Arizona you have to move onto a different state.

This leads to self-doubt and a mindset that nothing is ever good enough, “my writing is never good enough, my CV is lacking, I need to publish more, I need to finish my book (or second or third), my degrees are not from good enough schools.” And the list goes on and on.

But with these stresses, university professors have great freedoms; besides academic freedom university professors have the freedom to create and be inquisitive their entire lives. Being able to use words to create ideas that can inform and influence students and others is a gift. Being able to be inquisitive, stay inquisitive no matter what happens, to use your inquisitive nature to fix problems, and to be inquisitive throughout your life; this is freedom incarnate.