**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**
A guest column by Brooke Chaplan
One of the most exciting things about college and living on your own is getting your first apartment off-campus. It’s a big step and can be a little scary, but doesn’t have to be expensive or a very difficult transition. There are a few things you can do to make sure living your life off-campus is enjoyable and won’t put you deep in debt.
Find an Apartment Close to Public Transportation
One of the best ways to save money while living off campus is to find an apartment within comfortable walking distance of public transportation. Owning a car is expensive. Between monthly car payments, gas, insurance, and regular car maintenance, cars can be a money pit. That’s not even mentioning if you have to pay extra for parking or, worse, park on the street where you could incur damage that you have no control over. Finding an apartment close to the bus or train line will let you get to and from campus, the grocery store, or anywhere else you need at an affordable rate.
Use Weekly Grocery Ads and Buy In Bulk
Buying in bulk and using coupons aren’t just for soccer moms and reality show stars. Shopping with coupons and using the weekly ads to plan your meals is a great way to stock on up items on the cheap and save money. Is chicken on sale? Buy in bulk, separate the pieces into individual freezer bags, and freeze what you won’t eat right away. Choose frozen over fresh when buying vegetables and fruit unless you plan on eating them right away. Fresh veggies and fruit can go bad quickly while flash freezing just after picking, preserving nutrients in a way fresh fruit cannot. Shopping smart in bulk will save you a lot of money in the long run.
Monitor Your Bank Account Closely
It is smart to get a bank card as soon as you have the opportunity, but do not confuse your debit card with a credit card. A bank card will help you save money by never carrying cash, but it will also help you track your expenses and keep an eye on what money you have available without incurring massive amounts of credit card debt. Most banks like theState Banks of Cross Plains also have online accounts that can help you easily see what you’ve spent and what you have left.
Living off campus doesn’t have to be an expensive endeavor that drains your bank account. You can enjoy the freedom of an apartment while still keeping your budget in line by using just a few smart tips.
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Brooke Chaplan is a freelance writer and blogger. She lives and works out of her home in Los Lunas, New Mexico. She loves the outdoors and spends most her time hiking, biking and gardening.
**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**
A growing number of colleges and universities are emerging as multinational organizations – creating start-up versions of themselves in foreign countries.
Those vacationing in western France may drive past a campusof Georgia Institute of Technology. Similarly, those visiting Italy may come across a Johns Hopkins nestled in Bologna; or if you are a visitor to Rwanda, you may come across a Carnegie Mellon University campus.
According to the Cross-Border Education Research Team (C-BERT) at SUNY-Albany, 51 US universities now operate 83 branch campuses outside of the United States. Arkansas State has recently announcedit will build a campus in Mexico. Qatar is already home to campusesfrom six American universities.
Students can now earn degrees from New York University in New York City, Abu Dhabi or Shanghai.
This sort of activity is being duplicated by institutionsfrom Australia, the United Kingdom, India and more than two dozen other countries. Globally, universities in 32 countries export 235 branch campuses across 73 nations.
How are we to understand these developments? Do they bring advantages for students, academia as well as nations? Have higher education institutions become tools of public diplomacy? Or, are such institutions evolving into multiple national corporations with limited affinity with their home nation?
For the past five years, as co-directors of C-BERT, we have been tracking the development of this phenomenon, research that has included visits to some 50 of these institutions in 15 countries.
Universities go global
The fact is that no longer are global activities limited to the for-profit educational conglomerates such as the Apollo Group University of Phoenix and Laureatethat have developed an international footprint through investment in online education and the purchase of colleges in multiple countries.
Rather, a growing number of public and private nonprofit universities have entered this space, creating, for example, branch campuses where a student in a local country can attend classes, join student organizations, engage in research projects and earn a degree awarded in the name of the home campus.
The earliest branch campus we’ve identified opened in the 1920s, when Parsons Fashion School in New York opened a location in Paris, so they could be in the fashion capital of the world, even though much of the growth in this sector started only in the 2000s.
Today, this effort is not limited to a handful of elite four-year institutions; it includes schools ranging from community colleges to boutique graduate schools, offering associates’ degrees to doctorates.
Proponents argue that branch campuses provide needed educational capacity in underserved areas, while allowing the home institution to diversify its revenue and enhance its reputation. Critics claim that operating under authoritarian governments hampers the academic freedom of faculty and students.
Push and pull factors
Most branch campuses seem to fall somewhere in between the glorious and the atrocious. But, first, let us look at some of the factors leading to the setting up of these branch campuses.
In our view, there are a number of internal factors pushing institutions to open branches – mainly, resources, regulations and reputation.
With declining government subsidies at home, concerns about rising tuition rates and heightened competition for students, some colleges and universities are looking for new ways to expand their economic base, through the delivery of courses overseas, foreign research monies and relationships with donors in other countries.
Having a physical presence is helpful, and at times necessary.
Also, it is sometimes easier to expand and be innovative in a different country, where the rules and regulations of the home and host nations (or states) do not constrain their efforts as much. In the US, we have foundthat while accreditation standards apply to international activities, many state regulations do not extend beyond their borders.
In addition, places like the Dubai International Academic City and EduCityin Malaysia are considered “free trade” zones designed to provide such regulatory relief from both the importing and exporting nations.
In going global, higher education is changing rapidly. Kevin Dooley, CC BY
Global engagement also seems to be increasingly tied to an institution’s and nation’s reputation. For example, global university rankings such as those by US News and World Report and Times Higher Education factor in the international engagement of institutions.
This is not all. Higher education institutions have become tools of public diplomacy. Some exporting governments see International Branch Campuses (IBCs) as a means to strengthen their alliances with the importing nations.
There are also a number of factors pulling institutions to set up overseas.
Foreign universities have demonstrated interest in locating branches near rapidly expanding academic markets and being part of the emergence of Asia as a power player in the higher education landscape. It is no accident that most of the IBCs built in the past decade are located around the Indian Ocean and Pacific Rim.
Indeed, some countries have developed strategies and enacted policies to encourage international branch campus development through an “education hub.” Hubs usually indicate a country’s intention to promoteitself as a regional or international destination for students.
Places like Abu Dhabi (UAE) and Qatarhave provided financial and regulatory incentives to attract prestigious IBCs. But destinations such as Dubai, that do not offer any subsidy, are popular locations as well; in fact, IBCs are charged high rents to operate in places such as Dubai International Academic City (though they can receive exemption from many local regulations).
Some importing nations seek to raise their own international reputation by aligning themselves with well-respected institutions such as Duke, Yaleand Texas A&M University.
These campuses, like the 26 others that C-BERT data report, closed because they either encountered unexpected market and cultural conditions or lacked sufficient support from the home campus.
Unrealistic projections of revenue and enrollment, regulatory conflicts, and incompatible partnerships are the hallmarksof a bungled branch.
Creating an IBC is akin to creating a “start-up” in a foreign nation – with a different set of laws, cultural expectations and educational infrastructure. Abu Dhabi is very different from New York City. And it isn’t China either.
The established infrastructure of a campus in one country is repurposed in another country with the intention of educating students, fostering local research and innovation, and, through spillover, improving the overall quality of the domestic education sector.
As pioneers in an educational experiment, faculty and staff may be called on to help with a variety of tasks including budget planning, recruiting students, course scheduling, website design, furniture construction, staffing residence halls and even fixing computers.
Changing loyalties
It is clear that colleges and universities are emerging as important international actors, offering benefits to the institution as well as the importing and exporting nations.
What is not clear is how these arrangements will affect the relationship between a nation and its higher education sector.
Historically, colleges and universities have been viewed as anchor institutions that are tightly linked to their local communities and often are significant engines of economic development.
But we are now seeing campuses move locations in their effort to find “best deals” in terms of more regulator flexibility or government subsidies. The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business announcedin 2013 that it would leave Singapore and set up shop in Hong Kong.
Similarly, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has indicatedthat it will leave Singapore this year. It is now looking for another Asian base.
Do these trends suggest that US universities will close their home campus if they get a better deal elsewhere? Likely not. Much of the cachet of the branch campus comes from being associated with a home country like the United States, for example.
But both institutions and nations need to realize that these endeavors can be big gambles, and not everyone has a winning hand.
In a startling new surveyconducted by the Higher Education Authority, a significant amount of international college students “feel they are not learning job skills” — which clearly is the point of spending tens of thousands on earning a college degree.
Nearly 28,000 students from Ireland participated in the survey where they were asked about questions geared towards their college experience as well as future career outlook.
While many of students who participated DO feel unprepared, the vast majority state that they “felt they were gaining knowledge and skills that boosted their chances of getting a job.”
The study also reveals how students who major in certain disciplines feel about their job prospects post graduation.
“In general, scores for “work integrated learning” were lowest among students studying courses in the arts and humanities, which tend to be broader and may not include work placements.”
The study also found that students majoring in business administration and law, services, and “comm. techs” indexed higher scores when it came to career readiness. Each area seemingly has higher job placement than arts and humanities because the positions in those fields are far more static.
The Irish Times reports that “he survey was developed in response to a key aim of the national strategy for higher education to 2030” which may be to incorporate more of what students want into learning curriculum.
Compared to students in the United States, the findings are the same. Back in 2010, a studyprepared by the York College in Pennsylvania found the same evidence: students in America “seem to be ill prepared for the demands of the workplace.”
Same goes for managers hiring students fresh out of college in America. According to Forbes.com, Harris Interactive found that “fewer than two in five managers believed college graduates were well-equipped for a job in their field of study.”
The study went on to find that many managers feel that new college graduates lack clear writing skills, can’t conduct a meeting, and cannot manage a project.
If anything this collection of studies abroad and domestically show that a college degree may be tangible and lead to a job post graduation, but skills learned in college may not help former students keep them.
Standardized testing in K-12 education is a perennial hot button issue. Proponents feel that measuring knowledge in these rigid ways helps lift the entire educational system. Critics say the measurements do nothing but encourage “teach to the test” methods and narrow the scope of what instructors are able to teach if they want to have acceptable test results. These arguments are nothing new, but they are now seeing a new audience.
What if the same principles of K-12 standardized testing were applied to colleges and universities? Americans spend over $460 billion on higher educational pursuits every year, yet there is no official worldwide system in place to determine whether students are learning what they should, compared to other schools. In June, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development unveiled research on whether a global testing system for college students is possible. The group will continue to review its findings and decide later this year if it wants to push for implementation of the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes test, abbreviated as AHELO.
Right now the comparison system for colleges and universities lies in the many rankings that are released each year by sources like U.S. News & World Report and hundreds of bloggers who weigh in on the topic. The AHELO would be a “direct evaluation of student performance at the global level…across diverse cultures, languages and different types of institutions.” It would provide institutions feedback meant to help them “foster improvement in student learning outcomes.” In a nutshell, the test would not actually measure student achievements as much as shine the light on instructors that need some improvement.
To K-12 students, this sounds familiar. To college faculty, the idea is fraught with landmines. How can one test take into account so many variables in higher education across the globe? Would instructors be punished by the institution, or even worse held to some misguided accountability scale by peers, if students did not rank highly enough on an AHELO, or some other test? If college is a time for fostering critical thinking skills, would a standardized test take away some of that freedom?
College instructors and administrators are right to have doubts, and particularly before any testing mandates go into effect. Take the classic college entrance exams – the SAT and the ACT. Though research has found little correlation between results on these tests and actual knowledge or intelligence, they are a standard part of college admissions. It is more difficult to reverse a testing mandate than to fight it off at the outset.
It is easy to see why colleges and universities are leery of standardized testing, but K-12 instructors should be too. Presently, K-12 instructors guide students through the formative education years, dealing with standardized tests and other demands of contemporary teaching. Success with those students is ultimately determined by two other numbers: graduation rate and college placement. At that point, a K-12 teacher’s job is done, at least in theory. Adding another layer of teacher testing (cleverly disguised as core knowledge testing) at the college level could have an impact on K-12 instructors too.
ideological
If the AHELO is designed to “foster improvement” in the higher education schools that are tested, who is to say that those ideals of improvement will not then be extended to the K-12 schools that came beforehand? A student who demonstrates below-college-level proficiency in language or math would in theory not be the product of college that failed him or her – that student’s incompetency would be a result of a previous school, or schools. Could a global test for college actually negatively impact the K-12 schools that preceded it?
As with any measurement of teaching and learning, the AHELO and other similar initiatives need close scrutiny before becoming global law. I am not sure of the necessity of such a system and it will take some hard arguing by the other side to convince me otherwise.
Are you in favor of standardized testing in colleges and universities?
In these increasingly uncertain times, colleges and universities are forced to come up with innovative ways to deal with funding cutbacks and revenue shortfalls. In this installment of “Diverse Conversations,” Lewis Duncan, President of Rollins College, dispenses advice on how higher education institutions can strategically manage their resources in a manner that can help them thrive during these financially turbulent times.
In the face of unprecedented fiscal challenges, how can colleges and universities maximize their increasingly scarce resources?
Most private liberal arts institutions are highly dependent on student revenue. At Rollins College, for example, 86 percent of our total annual operating budget is derived from student revenue.
One way to maximize increasingly scarce resources is to find innovative ways to supplement the operating budget. Our approach was The Alfond Inn, a boutique hotel that opened in August 2013. The Inn, located a block from campus, not only meets a community need for lodging and conference space, but also provides full scholarships (tuition, room and board) for top students through The Alfond Scholars program — the College’s premier scholarship fund. Net operating income from the Inn will be directed to the scholarship fund for the next 25 years or until the endowment principal reaches $50 million, whichever comes later. The allowable spending from the endowment will supplement the operating budget in the form of additional financial aid support.
Q: What’s the value of your school’s endowment now compared to last year? How has this impacted the way that you allocate your university’s resources?
A: The market value of our endowment on May 31, 2013 was $349.1 million, which is an increase of $17.6 million over the previous year. Currently, our endowment provides approximately 10 percent of our annual operating costs, and that percentage has held constant through market fluctuations.
In addition to our endowment, we have invested in commercial real estate in the Winter Park community, which annually provides more than $2 million in net return in support of our operations. The real estate is also increasing in value and could be sold at some point in the future, which would add to our endowment investments.
Q: Given the current economic climate, how have you addressed the fragile balance of maintaining high academic standards with the need to keep enrollment high enough to pay the bills?
A: Rollins has experienced record enrollment in our undergraduate day programs each year for the past three years. We are now nearing 1,900 students, which is close to capacity. We are land locked and do not have the opportunity to continue to expand enrollment, which makes it even more important to look towards other sources for funds to help pay for the increasing costs of operations.
Through this growth period, we have been able to maintain our high academic standards with a low faculty-to-student ratio and continued recognition as the #1 comprehensive private liberal arts institution in the South as rated by US News & World Report. We will not compromise academic standards.
Q: What do you think should be done in terms of reforming the way we fund higher education in the United States?
A: We might find better incentives for families to plan long term and save for college. The current federal grants and loan programs actually advantage families who have not saved. Perhaps we could consider a partial tax deduction for such educational savings plans at the federal (rather than state) level. We also support additional measures of educational accountability, but urge that such standards consider the lifelong and career-long benefits of higher education, not just a graduate’s entry-level job or pay.
Q: As you look to Rollins College’s future, what new directions do you see the university taking?
A: We will be seeking to run the College as efficiently as possible while preserving the special values of a liberal arts education. We will also be pursuing new revenue opportunities in both degree and non-degree programs, expanding partnerships with similar small colleges using online and blended learning cooperative programs and expanding our traditional student body to include additional non-traditional and international students.
Well, that concludes my interview with President Duncan. I would like to thank him for consenting to this interview and for his contributions to the field of higher education and humanity in general.
It seems that graduating from high school is no longer the end goal of P-12 learning – earning a college degree has replaced it. By 2018, 60 percent of jobs will require a college degree. In a recent post, I wrote about the nationwide average high school graduation rate being 80 percent – which is admirable but also means that at least 1 in 5 kids won’t make it to college classes. When you factor in the high school graduates that bypass college completely, it seems that at some point America’s workforce will simply not be able to meet the demands of its employers.
When it comes to minorities who graduate high school and are ready for the rigor of college coursework, numbers are bleak. A new report from the College of Education at the University of Arizona found that less than 1 in 10 minority high school graduates in the state are adequately prepared for college. Non-minority students are not much better off though, with only 2 in 10 prepared for college after graduating from high school. A rise over the past 15 years in minority students in elementary and high school in state, as well as economic disparities between students of color and their white peers, are cited in the study as drivers behind the high school graduation-college readiness gap.
Arizona should not be singled out though. Of the 1.7 million high school graduates that opted for the ACT college entrance exam in 2012, only 60 percent were deemed “college-ready.”
Arizona is a standout example, though, of the way the changing landscape of the country is impacting P-12 education and the college demands that follow it. Childhood classrooms today look vastly different from the ones even 10 years ago and children, minority or white, come with different need sets. Teachers can learn only so much from textbooks and their own school experiences – they must have the resources to reach students from different backgrounds, and understand how those students will change over the course of the teachers’ careers.
In the case of Arizona, some mandatory Spanish-language education would be a start but the language barrier is only the tip of the iceberg. If students in Arizona classrooms are first-generation Americans, their own parents are not familiar on a firsthand basis with classrooms in America and certainly not the university system.
Even students who are academically ready for college may not be emotionally ready for the pressure and responsibilities of self-learning – both things that need to be taught before high school ends.
I also think that the assimilation mentally of generations-past needs to be forsaken. It seems to me that all of the energy that goes into trying to “change” minority students who enter the classroom would be better spent adjusting teaching methods to ones of inclusion. The global economy demands that students understand that the world is made up of diverse people with a variety of backgrounds, and languages. In order to succeed as a nation, that recognition must take place and those lessons must be included in the process of educating.
The “passing the baton” mentality also needs to be abandoned if students are truly expected to succeed academically after high school ends. If America truly wants to live up to its “Land of Opportunity” moniker, this generation of P-12 students needs to be viewed as a responsibility by their educators long after the high school graduation benchmark has been met. Instead of letting students make their own mistakes in early adulthood, at least when it comes to the future of their careers and livelihoods, educators should stay involved and help bridge the high school-college gap.
What programs do you think might help make this happen?
Many administrators in higher education rise from the faculty. However, when a faculty member is promoted to an administrative position, becoming a director, department chair, or deans, perhaps, it can be quite a challenge to master the art of leading.
To get some insight into how new administrators can learn to effectively manage and lead, I recently sat down with Dean Amy Hillman of the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University to talk about promoting for within and some of the strategies that work best in an educational setting.
Q: First, tell me some of the key reasons for and benefits of promoting from within, selecting administrators from established faculty members?
A: Making this choice is similar to a private business choosing whether to bring in an outside manager or CEO, or to promote an insider. There are advantages to both. When significant trajectory change is needed, often an outsider is best because he or she can see the organization anew and shake things up. However, if a radical course change is not needed, then there are a lot of reasons to look inside. First, insiders know the organization. This advantage cannot be overemphasized. Insiders know the culture, generally the way things work, and have insights into the faculty, staff and students. Second, promoting from within in any organization provides career advancement for key faculty who want to grow into administration. Retention of top faculty talent as administrators is more effective and less costly than losing top faculty to take administrative jobs at other universities. Finally, while insiders know the organization, the organization also knows them. They have a personal network and have already established some social capital that will help them succeed in their new post.
Q: What is the most important benefit, in your experience, when it comes to promoting a faculty member to an administrative position?
A: Continuity of the elements of the organization that are its strengths, without sacrificing the benefits of change.
Q: When you promote a faculty member to an administrative position, you essentially start up a transitional phase for them and for the university or department they are going to lead. In your experience, what are some of the most important features of this transitional phase?
A: Setting clear direction is important for any department or unit, but it can’t be done without the new leader getting into the new role and having some time to assess the best path forward. Early in the transition, it’s important to listen to all the stakeholders while learning the full scope of the new responsibilities. After people feel heard, they are much more inclined to follow direction from new leaders.
Q: What, would you say, is the biggest challenge for new administrators going through this transitional phase?
A: When you’ve worked somewhere as a faculty member for a long time, it’s pretty easy to think you know a lot about the school, but an administrative job opens your eyes to all sorts of things you didn’t know about. The toughest challenge is learning the new responsibilities, while reframing your view of the organization.
Q: The W. P. Carey School of Business has promoted from within on a number of occasions and done so quite successfully. What are some of the strategies you have found to be most effective for managing this important transitional process?
A: Having multiple mentors is great. For example, new department chairs have peer chairs in other disciplines, who are more seasoned. Also, staff within their units have rich history that is invaluable. Supervisors and peers at other universities can also be a great source of advice.
Q: What steps does the W. P. Carey School of Business take to support administrators when they are transitioning from a faculty position to a leadership position?
A: We reduce expectations and workload in teaching and research to allow focus on the administrative position. We have more frequent meetings with the new administrator’s supervisors and team members early in the transition, and we always talk about how to improve, whether they’ve been in the job for days, months or years. Finally, discussing the transition back to faculty is also important.
Q: Which supports has the W. P. Carey School of Business found to be most effective?
A: Mentoring.
Q: Lastly, what are your top recommendations for a faculty member who is shifting into an administrative position? What can they do to make the transition successful from the start?
A: Recognize that you may be an expert in your field, but you may not know much about the administrative role in the organization and may need management coaching. Being open to feedback, asking questions and, in general, humility are a great start.
And that concludes my interview with Dean Amy Hillman of the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. Thank you for these great insights and for all that you do to support our leaders in higher education.
It’s that time of year when students are in the midst of cramming for final exams. Trying to recall all that you have learned over the past year is only half the battle. New research from productivity website Stop Procrastinatinghas found that 64% of students believe that exam stress and anxiety is affecting them so much that it will lower their performance and affect their grades.
The poll of 2,000 undergraduates heading into their final exams found that 66% of students believe their stress levels are greater than in the past due to modern day problems, such as the difficult jobs market. They cited stress over the ways a lower grade could affect the rest of their lives, closing doors to opportunities and missing out on jobs.
The survey found that procrastination was a major cause of stress. Students today have more opportunities for distraction with the rise of the internet, smart phones and social media. Forty-five percent said they wasted time on the internet or social media instead of studying.
There is good news, however. The survey also found the strategies and solutions that students find most effective. From using an internet blocker when revising, to taking more exercise or breaking down studying into bite sized-chunks, students are finding ways to cope and succeed.
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that social worker positions will rise nearly 20 percent by 2022. While much of this demand will be for geriatric social workers to meet the needs of aging baby boomers, new child and family social workers are urgently needed to address the effects of child poverty, family homelessness, parental addiction, and child abuse and neglect. For children and adolescents who witness or experience violence in their neighborhoods, schools and homes, social workers are often the first and only responders available to ease their suffering and ameliorate the long-term, deleterious impacts of multiple and repeated traumas.
In California, where one out of every four children lives in poverty, there is a critical need for more clinical social workers who are trained and experienced to effectively treat child traumatic stress and its lasting effects. In addition to master’s level social workers with strong clinical skills, California requires a mental health workforce that reflects the state’s increasing ethnic and cultural diversity. Bilingual and bicultural mental health professionals continue to be in very short supply, and the demand for services among immigrant and other cultural minority populations is significant and growing.
The dilemma facing Seneca and other nonprofit, mental health/social service providers is the fact that most high-quality Master of Social Work (MSW) programs are accessible only to young people who have both the extensive time (two years) and financial resources (tens of thousands of dollars) required to complete one of those programs. This burden undoubtedly serves to limit the pool of potential social workers and mental health professionals, often at the expense of a culturally and linguistically diverse workforce.
Three years ago, we began to explore an innovative solution to address this situation by approaching a number of social work graduate schools to discuss the possibility of bringing an MSW degree program inside a multiservice provider agency for the first time in the field. Each year, we hire hundreds of talented young adults, many of whom are individuals of color, to fill the bachelor’s level youth counselor positions in our school- and community-based mental health programs. Because many of these young people have already amassed substantial student debt and must financially support not only themselves but other family members, enrollment and completion of an MSW degree program is well beyond their reach.
Our idea, therefore, was to create MSW program opportunities where bachelor’s level staff could continue to earn their regular salary, plus receive significant financial aid, while they worked toward attaining a graduate degree in social work. These MSW programs would not only enhance the diversity, skills and expertise of our clinical staff, but encourage talented young adults to make a longer-term commitment to a social services career.
Through partnerships with the University of Southern California (USC), the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), and any other accredited MSW program in which our staff are currently enrolled, Seneca now offers three options for its employees to obtain their Master of Social Work while earning either full-time wages and benefits or a stipend for field placement within a Seneca program.
The first option, developed in partnership with the USC School of Social Work, is the seven-semester Seneca MSW@USC program. This option enables our employees to earn a top-tier MSW using USC’s online learning platform, while they gain real-world social work experience in one of Seneca’s mental health programs. Seneca MSW@USC students continue to be paid as full-time employees while receiving substantial tuition assistance from both USC and Seneca. The program is also available on an advanced standing basis for individuals who hold a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) degree, but are not currently employed by Seneca. This accelerated, four-semester alternative enables students to complete their MSW in just 35 units (as opposed to the traditional 60 units), for a little over half the cost of a standard USC MSW degree.
The second option, developed in partnership with the UCB School of Social Welfare, enables staff who have been accepted by that school’s full-time MSW program to complete their field placements at Seneca. These Seneca employees will have the ability to earn current wages while completing their MSW field practicum, along with the opportunity to work additional paid hours and/or complete a summer fellowship at Seneca while earning UCB credits. Having the option for Independent Study credit will serve to help students complete their fieldwork at Seneca.
Finally, Seneca offers a third option for agency staff who are enrolled in another MSW program and may want to complete their fieldwork at Seneca. We work with any student/employee to advocate with their school to identify first- and second-year field placement opportunities in Seneca programs. For Bay Area and Central Coast students, Seneca stipends are available for first- and second-year field placements, along with competitive hourly wages for additional paid work in a Seneca program.
Not only do these options allow Seneca to recruit and retain social workers who reflect our diverse client populations, but they support dedicated practitioners who otherwise may not have the opportunity to reach their clinical and professional potential. All Seneca MSW student/employees receive extensive training and practice in the agency’s clinical practice model, Unconditional Care, which is designed to meet the service needs of children, youth and families who struggle with the most profound emotional, psychological and financial challenges. Training and intensive supervision in Unconditional Care, which applies attachment theory and learning theory within the context of culture and social ecology, enables MSW graduates to achieve a deeper and broader level of clinical expertise.
Going forward, we hope that all the options through partnerships with USC, UCB, and other Bay Area and Central Coast schools of social work will serve as a model for other institutions of higher learning to consider, or they may spur different innovative ideas from other nonprofit, mental health/social service providers for recruiting and retaining master’s level social workers during the coming decade.
Ken Berrick is Chief Executive Officer of Seneca Family of Agencies based in Oakland, California (www.senecacenter.org).
If the P-12 education system is all about preparing its students for success in adulthood, then college preparation is obviously a must. In the fall of 2012, 66 percent of high school graduates from that year were enrolled in college, and that number does not include students that waited longer to enroll or non-traditional adult students. It seems that P-12 classrooms are getting more students ready for the academic demands of a college education – but what about the financial commitment?
Currently, there is a call for a more affordable college education, which makes sense. It comes on the heels of a recession that undercut the value of a college education. Even those with a college degree were not immune to the financial hit that the economy took and those still paying off their student loans were often left without the very job they had always assumed would pay off their educational debts. A look at the way college loans are distributed and administered was certainly in the cards as the latest generation of college graduates saw the real ramifications of payment in an economy that simply could not support it.
Payment reform, spear-headed by the Obama Administration, goes a long way to addressing this problem. Initiatives include mandates that new borrowers will pay no more than 10 percent of their disposable income towards outstanding student loans and any student debt remaining will be wiped clean after 20 years. Furthermore, public service employees, like military members, nurses or teachers, will have their debt forgiven in 10 years if they make their payments on time.
Why is college so expensive anyway?
These actions address the high cost of college attendance as it exists today – but what about that high cost itself? The lifetime earnings numbers show the clear reasons why a particular student benefits from a college degree, but that thought pattern is too narrow. The economy and shared learning of the entire country sees a lift when more if its youth are educated at a college level. Therefore, efforts at financing college in a more communal way would go a long way toward easing the financial burden of today’s youth. To this end, there are several plausible solutions.
One idea is to allow private investors to pay for the tuition of college students in exchange for a portion of their earnings later on as outlined by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio. This would mean the students acquired no traditional debt and would not start out their careers in the hole – at least not in a typical way. However, this approach leaves the student without protection if he/she becomes unemployed or otherwise unable to work. Similarly, the idea of a state-run repayment program that is similar to Rubio’s private investor one has already been implemented in Oregon. The Pay It Forward program has been approved (though not yet enacted) and will give students their public college education upfront, free of cost, in exchange for paying the state a portion of their earnings post-college. Supporters bill it as a “debt free” alternative to a college education, but like Rubio’s plan there is still money owed at the end of the college term that does impact actual earnings. It will be interesting to keep an eye on Oregon in the coming years to see how the program impacts the first groups of students who take advantage of it.
What if a public college education was completely free, though? At his State of the State address, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam called for free tuition at Tennessee’s community colleges in order to improve the state’s reputation as one of the least educated. Haslam proposed that the money to pay for it come from the state’s lottery earnings that would be placed in a $300 million endowment fund. While a short-term solution, it is an interesting idea.
I believe that paying something for a college education is reasonable, but the current setup puts an undue burden on the nation’s young people and as a result, the entire economy suffers.
What creative cost and repayment options for a college education would you like to see implemented?
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