Note: Today’s op ed comes to you courtesy of George M. Johnson, an advocate for change in Higher Education. He is the Former Director of Student Accounts at Virginia Union University and counsels students properly preparing for college. He has been published in HBCUDigest.com and blogs at iamgmjohnson.com. Follow him on twitter @iamgmjohnson
Yesterday, a tweet from @Med_School12 took Social Media by storm that stated “A 4.0 at a HBCU is not equivalent to a 4.0 at a rigorous PWI. Sorry, but it’s the truth”. Immediately twitter swarmed this tweet as the thousands of retweets with comments ranged from a question mark to all out fury. I too, took my frustrations out tweeting how my multiple degrees from HBCU’s have in no way made me less that of a person who received their degrees from a PWI. After the initial shock and awe of the situation, I decided to sit down, gather my thoughts, and really think about what she actually wrote.
The tweet, although less than 140 characters is much layered in contradiction and furthermore should have been sold as her opinion not truth.
Issue 1: What differs a PWI from a Rigorous PWI
At first read, the tweet all but diminishes the worth of attending an HBCU in comparison to going to a PWI. But upon further analysis, she actually does compliment and offend all in the same sentence. Based on her teeth, she agrees that a 4.0 at an HBCU is equivalent or better than that of one from a normal PWI, just not a rigorous PWI. So the true question that needs to be answered is “what is a rigorous PWI”. Is it a top 20 ranked college? Is it a private school as opposed to a public school? Is it based on the college’s endowment? Either way, the determination of what makes one college rigorous compared to another is purely subjective to the student that attends. Some students probably thought Harvard was easy as compared to those who may have struggled at Rutger’s. There is no true way of determining the “rigors” of one college over another.
Issue 2: Is the statement based on where you were educated or where you teach?
This is one I had to think about. Let’s say the PWI is made up of 5 professors that all were educated at HBCU’s. The school they are being compared to is an HBCU that is made up of 5 professors that were all taught at PWI’s. There is probably no need to go any further as you can probably see where I am going with this. The statement does not take into account the people that are actually doing the instruction. Based on the statement, your professors could have come from community college and HBCU’s, but as long as they are “worthy” enough to teach at a “rigorous” PWI, the learning will be greater. But if you attend an HBCU with all professors with Harvard Education, your learning will not be equivalent because the perception of the HBCU as a whole is less than the standard. The patriarchy and privilege in that statement alone is disappointing.
Issue 3: The final issue, which was also my initial reply, “whose truth”?
In this age of social media, people are very quick to make accusations, assumptions, opinions, and poorly executed statements and claim that they are truth as if some actual research had been done. Her claiming that the PWI she is attending is rigorous for her is “her truth”. This should not be generalized and projected on others as a factual statement about the university that she attends. My truth is that I have never attended a PWI, and any statement made about the rigors of one would solely be my opinion. And to play devil’s advocate, there are many people whose truth is that they attended a PWI and an HBCU and found the HBCU to be more rigorous than the PWI. That statement vice versa is someone else’s truth.
Living in the age of social media can be quite fun and intriguing, but it can also be dangerous when we begin spreading our truth’s as facts and making them the beliefs of others. Rather than arguing if a 4.0 at an HBCU is equivalent to that of a 4.0 at a PWI, we should be praising and commending anyone that receives a 4.0 at any institution of Higher Education. For that takes “rigorous” work.
Despite receiving an award for HBCU ‘Female President of the Year,’ Elmira Mangum is facing stiff criticism from the school’s board of trustees.
According to Tallahassee.com, Rufus Montgomery who serves as chairman of the board of trustees, wants Mangum placed on a 90-day probation plan.
“And while some board members talked about moving forward and having faith in Mangum’s leadership, trustees chairman Rufus Montgomery pushed members of the Special Committee on Presidential Evaluation to place Mangum on a performance improvement plan “and hold her accountable.” He suggested a 90-day plan.”
Good thing for Mangum that Montgomery doesn’t make the final decision. The board rejected his plan and decided to go another route.
But the problems between the board and Mangum stem from the board’s assertion that Mangum is failing to meet expectations in her role as president. Magnum, obviously, believes otherwise.
She outlineda list of challenges that she’s faced since arriving.
“She said when she arrived, FAMU was dealing with the aftermath of a hazing scandal, unfavorable financial audits, changes in top leadership and addressing the large percentage of students enrolled who were not ready for the academic challenges.”
The board will meet August 6th and the Special Committee on Presidential Evaluation will meet the day before.
FAMU seemed to be on higher ground as the school had emerged from a cloud of scandal. A string of good press and Magnum’s award were definitely good ways to show off what the school had to offer.
But as the power struggle continues between Magnum and the board, the way forward for the school hangs in the balance.
The face of higher education is rapidly evolving as more middle- to low-class young people find ways to obtain a college degree or technical training. The Hispanic population in the U.S. is no exception as the number of college applicants and enrollees increase every year. While these strides benefit this specific group of students, everyone stands to benefit from Hispanic higher education success. Let’s look at why:
Hispanics are the largest (and fastest-growing) minority in the United States. The U.S. Census reports that the estimated Hispanic population in the nation is 52 million – making residents of Hispanic origin the largest minority in the country. In fact, one of every six Americans is a Hispanic. That number is expected to rise to over 132 million by 2050 and Hispanics will then represent 30 percent of the U.S. population. Children with Hispanic roots make up 23 percent of the age 17 and under demographic — making future higher education legislation critical for this growing and thriving minority group.
Many Hispanic college attendees are first-generation college students. Young people of Hispanic origin face specific challenges when it comes to higher education. Many prospective students are first-generation Americans, or even undocumented residents, and do not have the first-hand experience or guidance from parents regarding the college experience in the U.S. Like all other ethnic groups, Hispanic youth face financial difficulty when trying to determine if college is a possibility. Many young Hispanics may feel overwhelmed by the social and financial pressure associated with college attendance and are in need of the right guidance. While higher education initiatives are changing to address these issues, only 13 percent of the Hispanic population over the age of 25 had a bachelor’s degree or higher in the 2010 Census.
The DREAM Act is giving undocumented immigrants opportunities to thrive here in the United States. The Obama administration recognizes the rapid growth of the Hispanic community, specifically as it impacts higher education, and has put several pieces of legislation into motion including the DREAM Act. First introduced in the U.S. Senate in August 2001, the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act was designed to reward children in good standing that came to the country illegally. Temporary residency is granted for a six-year time frame for young people that seek out higher educational pursuits with an option for permanent residency after completion of a bachelor’s degree or beyond.
The bill went through several iterations before President Obama announced in June 2012 that his administration would stop deporting undocumented immigrants meeting DREAM Act criteria. While this legislation applies to more than Hispanic immigrants, they are the group that stands to benefit the most from its enactment. With no fear of deportation, Hispanic youth with higher education aspirations are free to pursue them and work toward a better individual and collective future.
Helping the Hispanic community succeed means helping America succeed. Increasing higher education opportunities for Hispanics has obvious positive benefits for the demographic itself, but the influence will be felt even further. Think of it as a ripple effect, where the Hispanic community represents the initial splash and all other ethnic groups feel the impact too. The Obama Administration has made known its goals to make the U.S. the leader in college degrees earned in proportion to population. In order for this goal to be met, Hispanics (specifically those of Latino descent) will need to earn 3.3 million degrees between now and 2020. The economic success of geographic areas, specifically urban areas, is directly affected by the number of college graduates that study and stay there. In states like Texas, this is an especially poignant point where a one-point college graduate rate increase can result in $1.5 billion more in annual economic activity for cities like San Antonio. Without the help of Hispanic youth, these numbers are difficult, if impossible, to achieve.
Legislation like the DREAM Act is just the start of changing the culture of higher education to be more welcoming to Hispanic youth. Individual colleges and universities must also step up and offer academic and financial aid programs with specific Hispanic needs in mind. The future achievements of higher education in the U.S. are dependent upon the inclusion and success of Hispanic students and the same is true of a stable economic climate. The sooner federal and state initiatives, along with colleges and universities, embrace these inevitabilities, the better.
A recent article via Forbes.com asks a fairly interesting question regarding financial aid for students attempting to attain a higher education.
Does financial aid help colleges more than students?
The article is based on a report via the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that shows how well financial aid works for students.
“Students pay an extra 55 cents in tuition for every dollar of Pell Grant they receive, meaning they only save 45 cents in terms of out-of-pocket costs. Colleges gain even more than the 55 cents from each dollar of new Pell Grants because they collect the extra tuition from all their students, including all the ones who do not receive Pell Grants.”
Basically students can’t seem to catch a break.
The study goes further by stating that student loans make the situation worse as “college tuition goes up by 70 cents for every extra dollar of student loans.”
So basically, if the federal government truly wants to help drive down the cost of higher education and help students, making student loans and Pell Grants more available to students isn’t the best route to take.
The other part of that is how may students attain capital in order to attend college without help from the federal government? Is there a way to place caps on the tuition charged to students who receive loans and grants? If so, then that would make the playing field uneven for everyone.
Certainly a study worth looking further into, the government has to find ways to ensure that colleges aren’t unfairly profiting off of programs meant to help students.
In 1473, Alexander Hardynge, who had finished his bachelor’s degree at Oxford nearly two years previous, borrowed money through an educational loan service. The loan came with a one year repayment deadline.
With some of that money, he rented a room at Exeter College and offered tutoring services to college students. He soon repaid that loan. In 1475, Hardynge took out a second loan – again, in part to rent teaching space.
Then, in 1478, he was appointed as a subdeacon, a post two orders lower than a priest, likely in Durham, a city in the north of England. From all evidence, it seems that he promptly packed his robes and abandoned his teaching gig. There is also nothing to suggest that he gave a single penny to his lenders.
For students today, Hardynge’s story would be too good to be true. Not only did he get his bachelor’s degree without incurring debt, but also, he did not have to repay the money he borrowed.
Prompted by my own anxiety about educational debt, an anxiety that intensified several years ago with the birth of my own prospective college students, I have been researching the long history of educational loans in order to get a better context for the current student debt crisis.
With student loan growth rates spiraling out of control, it behooves us to think through the ways other time periods and cultures have monetized, funded or not funded student labor.
Loan chests, books as collateral
The history of student loans starts with the establishment of institutions of higher learning in medieval Europe from the late 11th century.
The University of Bologna, considered the first official university, was quickly followed by the University of Paris, Oxford University and Cambridge University. All of these places offered degrees to young men, training them for positions in the Catholic Church and, later, in government.
St. Frideswide’s Chest was literally a chest. Bound by two different locks, with each key held by a different college magister, or faculty member, it resided at St. Frideswide’s Priory, a religious house in central Oxford, amid the city’s colleges, academic halls and student apartments.
To get a loan from St. Frideswide’s, a borrower had to be a scholar of modest means – and likely took an oath for proving so. He also had to have something of value to deposit in the chest as collateral. From the pledge notes I’ve seen in roughly 100 manuscripts and descriptions of manuscripts, it’s clear that scholars hocked everything from silver spoons to gold plates.
But the most commonly collateralized items were books. Not fancy, illuminated books. Just textbooks. In the late Middle Ages, this included works by Aristotle, the Bible, law codes and medical tracts. Here’s a link to a manuscript at Balliol College that was used as collateral. The lines on the final page record two loans taken out by a scholar, Thomas Chace, in 1423 and 1424. The Merton College manuscript (pictured) contains eight pledge notes from the same century.
Merton MS 32, fol. 137v taken by Jenny Adams with permission of the Warden and Fellows of Merton College Oxford. The Warden and Fellows of Merton College Oxford., CC BY-NC
These were not textbooks as we know them today. They were manuscripts made from animal skin and completed through hours of scribal labor. They fetched large sums. As in modern times, medieval textbooks too derived part of their value through the educational market.
Today, for example, the Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications (US$305 secondhand) commands a high price because faculty use it to teach and students use it to research in one of the fastest-growing majors. Back then, it was Peter Lombard’s Sentences, a staple of the Oxford curriculum and also the book Hardynge used for collateral.
Sadly, the pledge note in Hardynge’s text, as recorded in the British Library’s on-line description of its manuscripts, does not include the loan amount. But on another leaf of the manuscript one can see a scrawled “precii xl.s.” or “price 40 shillings.”
Hardynge almost surely did not get a loan of this amount. As noted by other scholars who have written extensively on medieval loans and debt collection, the value of the collateral far outweighed the actual amount of the loan. But given that a student in the early 15th century could pay for an entire series of lectures for six shillings, even a loan of 20 shillings, or half the book’s value, would have represented a hefty sum.
Loans for scholars
This system might sound like a pawn shop crossed with a secondhand book store. But the use of collateral meant scholars did not always feel the need to repay their loans. Once employed, they could walk away from their debts, just as Hardynge did. If that happened, the chest manager would then put the collateral back into the market. For many borrowers like Hardynge, who had finished his education, buying back his book was simply not worth it. Now employed, he had little need for his copy of Peter Lombard’s Sentences.
By the end of the 14th century, roughly 20 more loan chests had appeared in Oxford. The chests had also moved in 1320 from St. Frideswide’s Priory to the university’s congregation house, and they held the equivalent of millions of today’s dollars. Most often the money came from wealthy patrons who either wanted to support scholars or liked the thought of having their name associated with a chest.
This later impulse seems to have been the case with some of the later chests, which were funded by professionals rather than the nobility. Thus, while King Edward I’s consort, Queen Eleanor of Castile, founded a chest in 1293, the Guildford Chest (1314) and the Robury Chest (1321) were founded, respectively, by a judge and an attorney-turned-judge.
These later chests opened borrowing to all scholars, not just poor students. In short, the chests now targeted the Alexander Hardynges of Oxford. Hardynge was not poor. He probably funded his education through parental handouts and part-time work, or received on support from a wealthy patron. But clearly by several years after his graduation, he needed money to stay afloat.
Printing press changes the system
For 300 years, the loan chest system thrived. Then, one evening in early March of 1544, two men – Robert Raunce and John Stanshaw – armed with an “iron bar and hammer,” broke into the congregation house and smashed all of the loan chests. Although Raunce and Stanshaw were eventually tried and sentenced, their burglary still managed to wipe out much of the chests’ wealth.
The arrival of the printing press changed the value of a book. Thomas Hawk, CC BY-NC
Around the same time, bankers began to make loans on the premise of future returns rather than in exchange for real property. The shift toward anticipated future earnings soon came with the England’s 1624 legalization of interest-bearing loans, which pushed even more people into this model of lending.
With their loan chests gone, students again became just like other borrowers. And just like other borrowers, they, too, could end up the notorious debtors’ prisons that began to swell with inmates as early as the 17th century.
Modern-day loans
Student loans arrived in the United States in the mid-19th century. Like the medieval loan chests at Oxford, these loans started through a singular university, in this case Harvard, which administered them.
UMass students protest against student loans. Jenny Adams, CC BY
This localized system changed in the mid-20th century with the creation by the Department of Education in 1965 of federally guaranteed student loans made by private lenders and available to students across the country.
Students were once again put into a special category. But in this case, this meant they could now collateralize their estimated future incomes (without even knowing what those incomes might be) in order to obtain a degree.
For a long time and for many students (this writer included), this model of credit worked. Loans opened up college to many people, allowing them to pursue a career path otherwise unavailable. But now that we’ve entered the age of six-figure student loans, this freedom seems more like a virtual debtors’ prison than a chance to economic mobility.
I would never advocate a return to the Middle Ages. Yet as we consider the current morass of educational debt, we need to think harder about historical precedent.
True, medieval universities excluded many groups – religious minorities, feudal villeins (a commoner legally tied to a feudal lord in the Middle Ages) and women were barred from entry. Yet poor young men with talent had a chance. Fees were not high. Patrons helped out. And if one needed money, one might be able to pledge a book – not a future.
Note: The following guest post comes to us courtesy of Steve Fireng, CEO of PlattForm. He has more than 25 years of experience in the education industry covering admissions, financial aid, Group President for Career Education Corporation, and CEO and President of Embanet Compass Knowledge Group (now Pearson Embanet). Dear College Marketing Director:
First let me say, I feel your pain. Your job has never been harder.
For the last 25 years, I’ve watched higher education undergo a vast transformation with the rise of career education, specialized institutions, distance and online learning. But we are also hearing more complaints about rising tuition and the relevance of a college education in an era of stagnant family income. Students, parents and policymakers are paying close scrutiny to their investment in higher education and questioning their return on this investment. They want to know that it is going to pay off with a degree and more importantly, job opportunities.
A generation ago, the college search/application business was pretty linear. Students talked to their high school counselors, friends, and family members and sent away for brochures. Then they typed up their college essays and sent in their applications. But with the advent of the internet and social media, that process has gone the way of the typewriter.
To succeed in this changing environment, colleges and universities have to recognize the importance of differentiation, of having and communicating the clear value. Over the next several years, the strength of marketing and brand presence could be the difference between survival and growth. It is time for universities to stake their position, clearly define their value, and own their marketplace – showcase how they’re above the competition. If they don’t, they risk failure. As a Harvard Business School professor’s dire prediction states, as many as half of the more than 4,000 universities and colleges in the U.S. may fail in the next 15 years.
Scores of colleges and universities are spending precious dollars on marketing efforts that don’t produce their intended results. The challenge of reaching students and parents on multiple devices, across multiple channels with multiple vendors has many schools scrambling to figure out how best to spend their marketing dollars. But while the multi-channel marketing mix required to reach today’s fragmented customer base has changed dramatically, there are still some marketing basics that should be followed:
Understand your market. According to research, only 15 percent of today’s college students fit the traditional model: 18-22 year olds, attending college full-time and living on campus. The fastest growing student segment in higher education is the “over 25” population. Many of these adult learners are returning to school for job training in order to stay competitive in today’s employment landscape which is increasingly STEM focused. In order to attract this growing market segment, higher education institutions need to offer flexible class options, online/distance learning opportunities, the ability to transfer credits, as well as update/add courses, majors, and curriculums that will prepare students with the highest level of 21st century skill sets to match the demands of the global job marketplace.
Be consistent. Don’t disaggregate your brand. Prospective students are reading and learning about your college or university in lots of different places. Your challenge is to deliver a consistent message, a consistent look and feel, and a consistent appeal at each stop on their journey. If your marketing team is not talking to your creative department and they are not working with your social media group, your messages and your brand will get disaggregated. If that happens, you will likely waste valuable marketing dollars.
Have a well-defined value proposition. Prospective students are looking for the education they want at a cost they can afford. Helping them find what they are looking for by providing options on how to keep tuition at an acceptable and affordable price-point turns prospects into students.
Use data to make informed decisions. The days of making decisions based on surveys and a “gut feeling” are over. We are in an industry where everything can, and should be tracked and analyzed to turn insights and measurements into buying decisions. Knowing more about your students will give you a competitive edge. The questions you need to ask yourselves are “how much do I know about my students, how do they behave, where can I find them and what message is needed to attract them?” Don’t ignore the data. You must utilize these tools to stay ahead of the competition.
Move with your market. Today’s tech-savvy students are just as likely to use their mobile and tablet devices to aid their college search process as a traditional computer. According to research, 68 percent of students said they have viewed a college website on their mobile device and 73 percent of students would download campus-specific applications for schools on their target lists. Investing in a comprehensive digital marketing campaign with content and images designed for “small screen” communications and ensuring those are consistent with print materials is crucial to delivering marketing messages with big value.
Be creative and authentic. Prospective students want to know about your school and how it can help them reach their goals so they can easily envision themselves enrolling. Creative, authentic messages and images can help answer their questions and communicate your school’s unique attributes and values across marketing channels. Develop content that answers prospective students’ questions, with messages and creative that engages and moves them through the enrollment process.
To compete effectively in today’s highly competitive environment, higher education institutions must adopt a marketing model similar to those used by companies in other sectors. Unless you are an “ivy” or high-profile, competitive school, relying on brand name recognition for meeting enrollment goals is a likely non-starter.
No question, marketing directors face challenging circumstances. As a marketing professional with a quarter century of experience, I’ve seen a lot of change and yes, in many ways, your job has never been harder. But today’s technologies are providing new opportunities for smart, cost-effective brand strategies. From where I sit, enrollment marketing presents exciting new possibilities. Never before have we had the intelligence to understand marketing performance in such a holistic way. And we can use that information to provide value to prospective students – not just noise.
Have you ever wondered how higher education is financed in other parts of the world? No matter what country you choose, you will find that the topic of financing higher education is a contentious one. Over the last decade, there has been a worldwide shift of the burden of higher education costs from governments and taxpayers to parents and students. This is much to the chagrin of parents of course. To find out more about current trends in international higher education financing, I sat down with Dr. John C. Weidman, Professor of Higher and International Development Education at the University of Pittsburgh. Without further ado, let’s begin the interview.
Q: Historically, how has financing higher education internationally differed from the American model?
A: The main differences stem from variations in the role of national governments with respect to education. In most countries, there is a national ministry that has overall responsibility for education. In some cases, there is a separate ministry for higher education but it still tends to be a national entity. Countries also vary in level of funding provided to public higher education institutions. In most countries other than the USA,
In the federal system of the USA, education is the responsibility of the states so the influence of the national government is much more limited than in most countries. In the USA, responsibility for covering the cost of higher education has been shifting continuously to the individuals benefitting, namely students, through a variety of loan schemes. At the same time, states have been reducing their contribution. Consequently, there is considerable variation by state in the types and costs of available higher education. In the USA, the most highly regarded and hence most difficult for students to gain admission are private. It is just the opposite in most other countries in the world, with public universities having the highest status.
Countries differ in their approach to meeting increasing demand for higher education. Three main ways are expanding the numbers of government-funded institutions, enabling the expansion of the private sector without significant government investment, and various combinations of public and private expansion. One reflection of such differences is the proportion of students attending private as opposed to public (government funded) institutions. According to data collected by the Program for Research on Private Higher Education (PROPHE) at SUNY-Albany, this varies from less than 10% in several European countries (e.g., Austria, Germany, Czech and Slovak Republics, Ireland, Italy, Spain), Australia, and South Africa to more than two-thirds in Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. In the USA, about 26% of all undergraduates are enrolled in private higher education institutions. This is actually below the worldwide average of 31%. All of the countries with very high private enrollments regulate student fees much more than the USA.
The third alternative is to charge higher tuition to less qualified students attending government-funded institutions. In Kenya, for example, the scores on the national secondary school leaving exam required for students to receive government scholarships to attend universities have been slowly increasing. Students whose scores to not reach the grade threshold are still eligible for university admission, but they have to pay tuition at an unsubsidized rate for “Privately Sponsored Students Programs” (PSSP).
Q: Increasing the price of tuition is usually proposed as a way to guarantee quality in higher education. Does the seemingly annual escalation of tuition worldwide make sense?
A: This notion is very possibly driven by the mistaken belief that the very high tuition, elite, private universities in the USA (e.g., California and Massachusetts Institutes of Technology, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford) that are placed in the top tier of most international rankings are the inevitable model for quality worldwide. Much lower tuition (i.e., highly government subsidized) institutions (e.g., University of California-Berkeley and the University of Michigan in the USA, Oxford and Cambridge in the UK, Tokyo University in Japan, Seoul National University in South Korea) are also highly ranked. Quality is a function of skills and academic productivity of faculty as well as institutional resources. Escalation of tuition is primarily a function of a) the increasing costs of maintaining institutional capacity (foremost among them faculty salaries and benefits along with infrastructure such as classrooms, libraries, laboratories, etc.), and b) a pattern of decreasing government funding. Unfortunately, ways of reducing costs in higher education are not necessarily related to maintaining quality.
Q: Loan systems usually mirror changes in tuition. What are the major trends in student loans internationally?
A: The main trend internationally is to reduce the amount of direct government funding of loan schemes. This means developing better ways of collecting payments on government provided loans so there is a revolving fund that does not require huge annual investments. Another trend is moving responsibility for student loan schemes from the government to the banking sector, though often not without some type of subsidy.
Q: Are there countries that you think do an exceptional job of promoting quality higher education, with access?
A: In both South Korea and Japan, virtually all secondary school graduates attend higher education. Both countries have built strong private higher education sectors to absorb the huge demand for enrollment rather than expanding public higher education. In both countries, the private higher education sector is strongly regulated, with government limits on the amount of tuition that can be charged and strong monitoring systems to make certain that acceptable levels of quality are maintained.
Q: As you look at worldwide trends in financing higher education, do they create opportunities for U.S. higher education?
A: In my view, the most important trend driving higher education finance worldwide is the increasing demand for higher education, both from prospective students and from governments aspiring to stimulate national economic development by increasing the numbers of highly educated people entering their workforces. If governments are unable to meet excess demand for admission to higher education institutions through expansion of publicly funded institutions in their respective countries, students and their families may seek opportunities in other countries. In China, for example, there are only places for about 20% of the age cohort seeking higher education admission. As a consequence, many higher education institutions in the USA (as well as other countries) have begun actively recruiting Chinese students. For public higher education institutions in the USA that charge a higher tuition for non-resident students, this is a potentially significant source of revenue. It also provides opportunity for institutions faced with decreasing enrollments due to population shifts in the USA to increase enrollments. In addition, many countries are funding scholarship programs for graduate students to pursue degrees abroad, especially in fields in which their own universities have limited space and/or quality. Those institutions recognized in widely accepted international rankings (e.g., Times Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University) as being in the highest quality tiers will continue to attract significant numbers of international applicants.
Well, that concludes my interview with Dr. Weidman. 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.
During college football season on any given weekend, it seems that every social media newsfeed is full of people cheering on their alma maters or sending shout outs to their favorite college mascots. The football season on the professional level and every tier below it has become an iconic fall tradition of American culture. This glorification of a sport, particularly in the case of college athletes, put priorities in the wrong spot, though.
Does collective obsession with college football and other collegiate sports give K-12 kids the wrong idea about the purpose of higher education? Yes—and here’s why:
The brutal truth about athleticism: Let’s face it—it’s at least partially genetic.
People love to mention the story of Michael Jordan being cut from his high school basketball team as an example of motivation for anyone who faces adversity. No disrespect to Mike, but his raw athletic ability had to be apparent during his high school years. The fact that he was cut from the varsity team was likely more a result of relying on that talent and not putting in the effort to hone it. Once he realized what a lot of practice and persistence, paired with unmatched talent, could mean in his life, he was able to excel at what he was already good at doing.
Call me cynical, but not every kid who is cut from a sports team has the ability to be like Mike by just putting his nose to the grindstone.
The pedestal athletes are placed on: This applies to college athletes as well as the pros. Peers, coaches, and parents think of them and treat them as budding celebrities.
I won’t deny it: the feats of the human body are admirable. However, what’s the impact on academics when a young adult with athletic ability is treated better by an institution of higher learning than one whose strengths are in engineering or the life sciences?
The promise of fame and fortune (achieved after a college career if NCAA rules are followed) make a “career” as a college athlete look glamorous. But, again, what is lost from an academic standpoint?
The money schools throw at athletic programs: Colleges and universities do not elevate athletes in principle, of course. There is no bylaw that mandates the best athletes be given advantages or treated better than everyone else on campus. But money talks. The highest grossing college football program is at the University of Texas, and it brings in an astonishing $90 million annually to the school. You can add the Ohio State University, the University of Florida, and the University of Notre Dame to the short list of college football programs that consistently bring in revenue in the tens of millions to their schools.
The direct financial impact is not the only way football, and other popular athletic programs, aid in a school’s bottom line. A strong athletic program brings in more future students and rallies boosters under a common cause. To call college football a cash cow is an understatement; these programs are more like the blue whales of university revenue outside of actual tuition.
The less-than-appropriate behavior we tolerate from student athletes. So student athletes like Aaron Hernandez are allowed to act suspiciously, getting into violent bar fights, as long as they are part of an epic college team headlined by Tim Tebow. Years later when Hernandez is accused of involvement in multiple murders, and no longer a college football player, people claim that there was always something “odd” about him. So why did he get a pass?
Of course, most college athletes walk the line. They hone their athletic abilities while showing respect to academics and the reputation of their schools. They should be applauded for their accomplishments, but not to the point that academics take on a role of secondary importance on campus.
It’s not the athletes’ fault. Most of them are just young adults. The blame falls on the school officials and supporters that send the message from grade school that sports culture is greater than academics.
What do you say? Does the cultural obsession with college sports send younger students the wrong message about the purpose of higher education? Leave a comment below.
Recently, like many Americans, I had the task of choosing a new medical provider as my previous medical plan was no longer offered. While making a decision on the medical provider was relatively simple, once I enrolled in the medical plan I was faced with the daunting task of choosing a primary care physician (PCP). After going through the PCP candidate biographies and photos, I began to ask myself, “Where are the African American male doctors?” As an African American male educator, I understand being underrepresented in a profession as we comprise approximately 2% of the teacher workforce. However, I was disappointed because I did not have the opportunity select an African American male doctor. From that experience, I began to contemplate how not having a diverse workforce could impact the lives of African Americans.
Although diversifying the medical profession has been discussed in detail, the results are still staggering. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) approximately 3.3% of US physicians are African American. Moreover, in 2014 African Americans account for approximately 2.5% of medical school faculty. When looking at African American males specifically, the AAMC found in their 2015 report titled, Altering the Course: Black Males in Medicine, that in 2014, African American males comprised 37.5% of African American medical school applicants, the lowest of any gender and/or racial group. Given the barriers for African Americans generally and males specifically such as dealing with racism, stereotype threat, and racial discrimination in medical school, residencies, and in the workforce, these numbers are no surprise. However, we must do more to support the matriculation, graduation, and professional development of African American males considering and/or currently in the medical profession.
When seeking to understand the nature of the underrepresentation of African American men in the medical profession it is imperative that researchers and policy makers examine the entire education pipeline (PK-20) as barriers exist at each level that limit the number of African American males in medicine. For instance, the AAMC reports that interests in science, technology engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines is a strong indicator medical colleges use to determine possible medical school applicants. However, K-12 institutions have often created school climates where African American males are led to believe that they are either a “math or science student” or a “humanities student.” The results of this approach are devastating as these negative experiences may lead African American males to not even consider a STEM undergraduate major altogether. While having a STEM degree is not a requirement for admission into medical school, it is paramount that African American men have a strong STEM background to prepare for the Medical College Admission Test.
Although there are numerous barriers that exist for African American men in the medical profession, it is also essential to explore how African American males succeed in medical school and in the profession. In particular, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are in position to prepare and train African-American medical doctors. In 2013, Howard University and Xavier University led the country in African American undergraduates who went on to U.S. medical schools. HBCUs have historically served students from underserved communities; thus, these institutions should be an integral part of the conversation on increasing the representation of African American males in medical school.
Unfortunately, the lack of African American physicians negatively impacts African American men. They do not have access to doctors who look like them, share lived experiences, or recognize their struggles. Changing this current trend is important as several studies suggest that patients are more likely to seek support from a doctor of the same race. In addition, African American doctors are more likely to work in communities with higher concentrations of minority patients. Limited access to African American male doctors can also have an impact on African American males’ decision to seek treatment. Given that eight of the top 10 leading causes of death for African Americans according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) are preventative, African American male doctors are in place to help address healthcare inequities that adversely impact the African American community. Furthermore, as our nation’s population continues to become more racially and ethnically diverse, it is critical to have doctors who reflect this demographic shift.
The 2015 AAMC report on increasing the representation of African American male doctors has opened a conversation that I hope continues and is addressed. We must work collaboratively to increase the amount of African American males not only attending medical school, but graduating from these institutions. Solving this issue will require educational institutions (K-12 and higher education) generally, and medical schools specifically to examine how the school climate and culture negatively impact the socialization of African American males. To support the increase in African American males doctors it is critical to form an African American male medical pipeline that fosters partnerships between practicing African American male physicians, current medical students, African undergraduates considering applying to medical school, and high school and middle school males considering the medical profession. For instance, a collaboration between Howard University’s Department of Psychology and School of Medicine, the Young Doctors DC program provides opportunities for middle and high school African American young men to be mentored and trained by African American physicians and medical students in order to prepare them for a career in healthcare and to make an impact on underserved communities. These types of support structures are critical to ensuring that African American males have a support system throughout their academic and professional careers.
Ramon B. Goings is the Program Coordinator of the Sherman STEM Teacher Scholars Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a doctoral candidate in Urban Educational Leadership at Morgan State University. He conducts research on Black male student success PK-PhD, nontraditional student success in higher education, and STEM teacher preparation.
Traditionally, it has been assumed that, once an academic holds a Master’s degree or PhD in their discipline, they can share their knowledge and teach students effectively. Most, though, don’t have a teaching qualification, nor have they been offered any opportunities to develop as teachers while studying towards their advanced degree.
This means that many lecturers feel like they have been thrown into the deep end at the start of their teaching careers. There has been some work in this field and many universities now offer formal and informal academic staff development opportunities.
But there is far more to good university teaching than just being able to project your voice, prepare a good PowerPoint presentation or keep your students interested. Academics’ deeply held views about their students must be challenged. They need to question seriously how issues of identity, belonging, privilege, diversity, racism and sexism can be addressed explicitly in the classroom.
Who is best placed to shape university teachers who are more than just technically proficient? This work is done by academic developers in teaching and learning centres in most universities. However, we believe that to do this work well, academic developers themselves need to engage deeply with questions of teaching, curriculum design and transformation.
How academic development has changed
The field of academic development first emerged in South African higher education in the mid-1980s. Its initial purpose was to support the small numbers of black students who had been admitted to historically white, English-speaking universities earlier that decade.
This approach to academic development was in line with the view that students lacked some of the requisite skills and knowledge to learn successfully in their new contexts.
By the early 1990s it became clear that not only were students under-prepared for the university context, but that academics were ill-equipped to teach a rapidly growing and increasingly diverse student body to learn successfully. Academic development then also started to concern itself with curriculum and staff development.
Many academics have common sense views about student learning. They tend to believe, for instance, that if a student is failing a particular course this is a reflection only on the individual student’s abilities.
These and other normative views about teaching and learning need to be challenged. Those who have been in the field of academic development for a few decades have developed more nuanced conceptions of teaching and learning and have been instrumental in helping to build the now extensive knowledge base of the field.
Developing the developers
In South Africa, there are ongoing and urgent calls from a number of quarters for the transformation of higher education.
This discussion is happening alongside debates worldwide about how best to professionalise academic staff. Each country brings a particular set of challenges or circumstances in its own higher education landscape to the table.
Rhodes University’s Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning offers a postgraduate diploma in higher education. There has been, in recent years, an increasing demand for the centre to organise academic staff development courses for a number of institutions in South Africa and on the continent.
We felt it would be more beneficial for the field if the centre worked with academic developers rather than directly with academic staff. This equips academic developers with the knowledge and skills they need to offer staff development courses to the lecturing staff in their own institutions.
Why this approach works
The resulting postgraduate diploma for academic developers is, as far as we are aware, the first of its kind in the world. The programme this year welcomed its third cohort of academic developers from universities around South Africa. The country’s Department of Higher Education and Training funds bursaries for course participants, demonstrating the government’s commitment to improving higher education.
The diploma offers spaces for academic developers to have serious, intellectual conversations. Some of these are about the nitty-gritty of teaching. Other debates deal with the broader context referred to earlier. The course participants consider, for instance, how institutions, teachers, curricula and teaching need to change to contribute to enabling all students to access the “goods” of the university.
Once this work is done, academic developers can return to their own institutions armed with knowledge and skills that can be shared.
Lynn Quinn, Associate Professor of Higher Education Studies. Head of Department of the Centre for Higher Education, Research, Teaching and Learning, Rhodes Universityand Jo-Anne Vorster, Course Co-ordinator, Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning, Rhodes University
