U.S. losing global grad race?
By Jane Stancill
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
RALEIGH, N.C. — The nation's colleges and universities need to churn out 37 percent more graduates each year by 2025 if the United States is to compete with the best-performing nations, a new report says.
It is the latest in a series of alarm bells from national organizations that warn that the United States is losing its competitive edge in higher education, which could undermine the country's economic and social future. At the same time, costs are rising, students are paying higher prices and, some studies suggest, college graduates' skills are declining.
The United States is falling behind other developed nations in producing higher-education graduates, and the gap will grow to 16 million degrees by 2025, said the report, "Hitting Home: Quality, Cost and Access Challenges Confronting Higher Education Today."
The data is from the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems for a new project called Making Opportunity Affordable.
"We believe there is a real and growing productivity problem in the United States," said Travis Reindl, author of the report and leader of the initiative.
The country must expand opportunity at a cost that taxpayers and students can afford, Reindl said, noting that this will require deep change to a higher education system that often values reputation over results.
The report's message is stark:
The report, citing U.S. Census figures, says 37.4 percent of U.S. adults have at least an associate's degree. (The report says that 40.7 percent of Hawai'i adults have attained this level of education, putting the state 15th in the nation in a ranking that includes the District of Columbia.)
Reindl, saying the initiative group wants more people to go to college, adds, "We want to improve quality. We want to contain the cost."
The group recommends strengthening collaborations between community colleges and four-year campuses, reducing remedial work, eliminating underused academic programs and promoting swifter student progress toward graduation.
The report suggests incorporating more technology in academic courses and using professors as tutors rather than lecturers.
One group, the National Center for Academic Transformation, tested that idea and found that 25 of 30 schools with redesigned courses had better learning outcomes and average costs that were 37 percent lower.
Lackluster graduation rates remain an obstacle in the United States, which, according to one recent measure, ranks in the top five in the proportion of young people who go to college but 16th in the proportion who finish.
If institutions were funded based on their back-door completion rates rather than their front-door enrollment rates, Reindl said, the system's productivity would surge.
