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 SEM America |
| Strategic Enrollment Management WORKS |
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| SEM WORKS AMERICA E-NEWSLETTER, Volume 8, 2009 |
According to Eric Hoffer, "In times of great change it is the learn-er who will inherit the earth, while the learn-ed will find themselves beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists." The relevance of this prognostication for enrollment managers could not be more pertinent given the current state of the economy and its implications for institutions of higher learning.
In short, responding to such significant environmental flux by "resting on one's laurels" or "doing what has always be done" should not be the natural reflex for many during uncertain times. And so, becoming as informed as possible about enrollment trends, understanding economic fluctuations and their impact on the financing of higher education, and learning about and experimenting with contemporary retention best-practices may well be the best path to becoming an institutional learn-er outfitted to successfully navigate the world today.
The articles below are divided into three categories: enrollment trends and predicaments, the financing of higher education, and learning communities in higher education.
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ENROLLMENT TRENDS AND PREDICAMENTS
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- Recent Trends in Student Aid, Enrollment, and Graduation in Higher Education: This newly released report takes a look at the 2007 - 2008 enrollment trends, graduation rates, cohort characteristics, and financial statistics of two and four year public and private institutions.
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- Institutions are Seeking Students Less Likely to Reject Them: It seems that many colleges are putting less faith into the typical statistical models they would normally use to guide their application process, and are getting more experimental with the admissions process.
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- Adult Education in USA: The education of adults in post-secondary institutions could be considered the next enrollment frontier. This report highlights what is known as well as what is not known about adult education across the USA. To view a profile of adult learners in your Statestate, click here.
- Online Transfer Degree: Tiffin University is so confident about their new associate degree online program called "Ivy Bridge" that they are prepared to say that their graduates will have a 100% chance of acceptance in a four year university.
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- Hispanic Enrollment in Colorado: The University of Colorado is using new grant monies to address the enrollment and retention needs of a growing number of Latino students coming out of their local high schools. To read more click here.
- Enrollment - up for some, down for others: Economic woes are driving many private college students to apply to public four year schools, and public four year college students to apply to community colleges. But overall, everyone shares in the financial uncertainty for fall 2009.
To read more, click here.
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THE FINANCING OF HIGHER EDUCATION
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- Trends in Pricing: The College Board's 2008 "Trends in College Pricing" report is out. This 20 page report takes a look at some of the tuition differences and similarities between private, 4 year public, and 2 year public institutions. Specifically, the report discusses the published versus actual amounts of tuition and fees paid at different types of institution as well as some of the longer-term tuition increase trends and educational appropriations per student.
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- Trends in Spending: Where pricing reports tell us where the money comes from, it is just as important to know to whence the money goes. Sponsored by the Delta Cost Project and American Institutes for research, this report takes a look at public and private non-profit universities and their enrollment, revenue, tuition, and spending trends, as well as the role of subsidies.
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- The Public Gets to Weigh In: Public Agenda, a non-partisan and non-profit entity, was commissioned by the National center for Public Policy and Higher Education in 2007 to conduct a study on parents' and the public's view of higher education. To view, click here. More recently, Public Agenda was commissioned again to study the public's views on college costs specifically. This report can be found here.
- Is College Worth it? Understandably so, many are wondering if the price of a college degree is worth the investment given their difficulty in finding a good paying job on the other side of graduation. This link provides differing points of views on student debt, including how that debt impacts optimism levels of graduates as well as the public's perception of the value of education.
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- Loss of a Legend: While the death of Senator Claiborne Pell marks the end of an important era, his contributions as an advocate for financially disenfranchised students will live on. Most notably, in 1980 the Basic Opportunity Grant was renamed the "Pell Grant" to signify the Senator's contributions to securing financial aid for the poor and middle classes. To read about his political career and accomplishments click here. To view a short video of some of those who attended his funeral click here.
- Straight from the Source: In this video clip President Obama talks about the significance of education to today's economy, the four pillars of reform for securing the future of the country as a whole, and his government's intention to provide financial support for initiatives that offer results. To watch this speech from the White House, click here.
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LEARNING COMMUNITIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION
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- Back Where It All Started: The concept of learning communities has been around at least since 1985 when Patrick Hill spoke on the subject at the Inaugural Conference on Learning Communities. To read a transcription of that speech, click here.
- How Does Collaborativee Learning Fit Into All This?: Collaborative learning is the pedagogy at the heart of any successful learning community. In essence, collaborative learning represents a "shift away from the typical teacher-centered or lecture-centered milieu" and incorporates more "...discussion and active work with course material". To understand more about this important underpinning of learning communities, click here.
- Engaging Faculty in the Process: If collaborative learning is the heart of a learning community, faculty is its eyes, ears, and hands. That is to say, that a learning community will only be as effective as those who design and deliver it. This website offers resources for helping faculty to understand learning communities as well as some strategies for implementation on your campus. Read more
- Designing a Learning Community in One Hour: This article offers a simple outline for a workshop where cross-disciplinary faculty come together to engage in a reflective, participatory process. This process is ultimately designed to move the group through the steps of brainstorming and crafting of a semester-long collaborative-teaching strategy for a themed course for students. To learn more, click here.
- Learning Communities and Minority Retention: In this scholarly article Demaris & Kritsonis (2007) take a look at how learning communities can be used to enhance retention of minority students. To read the full article click here.
- A Case Study in Learning Communities: Kingsborough Community College, a CUNY school in Brooklyn New York, took on the challenge of designing and studying a "learning community" initiative. The results from the study are encouraging and show that the six students who participated in the learning community appeared to have more success in completing developmental courses than did their control-group counterparts. To read the entire post-study report, click here.
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This e-newsletter was edited by Maggie Killoran for SEM WORKS, based on publicly-available information. Neither the editor nor SEM WORKS assume liability for comments or information posted by others. Please send your comments to Kara Mohre, Director of Marketing at [email protected]
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