Immobile Transfer Credits

Immobile Transfer Credits

Life is ever evolving, and no one is immune from the life changes that will occur.  For many, picking an undergraduate institution to attend is difficult. Students make a decision to pick a school that they will attend for four or five years on average.  Most of these students have never lived away from home, but experience a big culture change once they arrive on campus. Many of these students spend their first year at their choice school, but wish they could move closer to home, attend a school that, now, aligns more closely to their future goals, or just cannot afford to stay at their dream school. Either way, once these students decide to leave their first school they discover the difficulties of having their credits transfer towards their degree.

When a student is denied transferable credits, the student normally has to retake the class, or take entirely new classes in order to graduate at their new institution (Lederman, 2007). When this occurs, the student’s time for program completion is prolonged, and is usually out of pocket extra funds (Jaschik, 2005).  Sometimes, these actions can frustrate the student and prevent them from graduating overall (U.S. Gov. Accountability Office, 2005). When the country looses graduates to such instances, we loose the ability to promote the local community to businesses from an educational workforce standpoint.

           
        Thus, universities, or the government, should strive to solve this issue for future students and communities. Preventing higher education frustration should and setbacks must be at the forefront of today’s educational philosophy. Without such leadership, the declining trends on graduation and retention will continue to devalue our long-term future.

References:

Lederman, D. (2007). Tussling Over Transfer of Credit. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from, http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/26/transfer#ixzz1cCAP9PdN

Jaschik, S. (2005). Demanding Credit. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/10/19/transfer#ixzz1cCAzdKLM

U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2005). Transfer Students: post secondary institutions could promote more consistent consideration of coursework by not basing determinations on accreditation. Retrieved from, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0622.pdf

How is cost measured in higher education?

I found a book by Professor Robert Martin that addressed some of the concens I have related to financing higher education.   He stated: "The way colleges and universities establish and maintain reputation is mostly by the level of and increases in their spending. The more the spending per student, the better the institution’s reputation, according to Martin, and there is a rough correlation between the influential U.S. News rankings and spending per student." (Martin, 2011).

I find that higher education cannot be efficient when its effectiveness is measured by reputation and by spending per student. The old supply and demand cycle works well when the customer is quickly able to assess the quality of the purchase. But, I agree with Martin's contention that higher education quality is not that easily measured.  In the normal economic purchases, there are no "third parties" involved in the choices. In higher education there are many "principals" who inflence college cost and productivity.  Measuring costs in higher education must be about more than a simple U. S. News ranking; administrators and politicians are continuously struggling with funding issues.

Martin address the fact that higher education costs are a big concern for university students.  He reminds persons that the quality of teaching is not the big concern.  The idea that higher education costs have increased more dramatically than health care costs was an issue addressed in his book; he states that 83 percent of students feel they have to borrow too much money to attend college.

His final thesis is that one of the biggest problems is the way incentives are provided for higher education.  I find that the "cost disease" has raised some real concern about the way costs are delivered to students, depending on what state or institution a person attends. Measuring the costs of higher education is not an easy task for any institution, whether it is private or public.
                          

                        Reference

Martin, R. (2011). The college cost disease: Higher cost and lower quality. Northampton, MA:  Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.

The Cost of Innovation and Technology

To either be ahead of the pack, or even with other higher education institutions, colleges and universities must be up to date with their technology, as well as continue to be innovative in order to attack the best students, as well as faculty and staff. Although institutions are continually asked to improve “the academic aspects of institutions performance”, they are warned against going beyond the budgets set forth by board members (Graves, 2005, p. 80).

Institutions have to work with little to no extra funding as well as making sure that tuition does not go beyond what is feasible for incoming students (Graves, 2005, p. 80). William Graves coins this as a “catch 22” when institutions have to be innovative and have the latest technology, but the institutions barely have the means to make their ideas happen. As Graves mentions in his article, policy makers expect higher education institutions to innovate internally, which in their minds, would be economically feasible, but that may not possible. Outside resources can be more objective and supply better means of providing the information needed to make the institutions run properly (Graves, 2005, pp. 80, 82). Internal IT departments must be up to par in order to maintain the technology.

There is also the risk of having technology become obsolete once implemented, or purchasing equipment that may not be necessary or may not ever be used (Bugeja, 2008). An example that Michael Bugeja notes in his article, a department may install equipment to be used with receivers purchased by a class of 400 students at $40 a piece. Although the move is considered to be cost effective by the institution, whether or not it would be a good investment in the future depends on how often, if at all, the equipment is used. (Bugeja, 2008).

As a side note, this did happen in our department. During a meeting earlier this week, our dean mentioned that we had a “state of the art” conference call system that was installed over two years ago into one of our classrooms, but it has never been used. This is an example of being innovative and wanting to move forward and be on the same level as other well-known higher institutions, but not implementing the idea. Investing money into technology and not put it to use takes away from other ideas that that could plausibly be put into motion. Institutions should evaluate the ideas that would not only work out in the long run, but also work out upon implementation.

Graves, W.H. (2005). Improving Institutional Performance Through IT. Educause Review. http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0564.pdf.

Bugeja, M. (2008). Classroom Clickers and the Cost of Technology. The Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/article/Classroom-Clickersthe/6009/.

The Effects of Risky Investing

          

            When making investment decisions, there will always be the question of whether or not it will be worth the risk to invest in a product without further investigation. We hear when individuals lose after making a risky decision, we know that the risk usually affects just that one person, or possibly others who may be directly connected with that individual. Higher education institutions are not immune to being affected by risky investment decisions. The decisions made by investment managers for higher education institutions can affect the budgets for each academic year.

           

            Yale University is an example of an institution that was affected by the risky investment decisions made by its investment manager. Yale’s average annual return for the last 20 years would equate to at least 16%. In 2008, Yale’s endowments reached $23 billion. As of 2009, the value of the current investments was ¼ the value of previous investment. (The Chronicle, 2009). Due to the lower returns that the institution received, the administration considered layoffs as well as delaying construction projects that were planned for the institutions. (The Chronicle, 2009).

            Risky investments by investment managers can affect an administration’s hiring decisions, as well as affect the amount of endowment funds taken in annually. Requests for more donations towards endowments as well as further fund-raising opportunities are possibly sought after feeling the effects of a risky investment. (Pulley, 2002). After losing money due to investing in risky investments, such as real estate and various other stocks, some investment managers may even look to placing the institution’s money into hedge funds. The returns may still be low, but the risk has been lower than other stocks.

            In order to avoid risky investment decisions, investment managers as well as the other administration leaders should do more research prior to making investment choices (Pulley, 2002). If the investment manager, endowment manager, or even the financial manager is making all of the decisions, other members of the administration should at least be familiar with what will ultimately be the final decision.

                                                                                              

The Chronicle of Higher Education (2009). 13 Reasons Colleges Are In This Mess: How greed, incompetence, and neglect led to bad decisions. http://chronicle.com/article/13-Reasons-Colleges-Are-in/33943/.

Pulley, J. (2002). Betting the Endowment on Risky Investments. The Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/article/Betting-the-Endowment-on-Risky/32798/.

Legal Issues

Something that is lending to the current cost disease in higher education is the number of lawsuits being brought against higher education institutions by students, faculty, and the public.  The Chronicle of Higher Education highlighted a lawsuit brought about by students against Westwood College, a for-profit institution, claiming that the institution “flourished in the unscrupulous culture of the for-profit college industry” (Blumenstyk, 2010, para. 1).  The claim is that officials of the institution “follow a simple formula:  Recruit those with the greatest financial need and enroll them in high-cost institutions to maximize the amount of federal funding” (Blumenstyk, 2010, para 2). 

On the homepage of the National Association of College and University Attorneys, there are many summary judgments on cases in higher education around the country today.  One of the cases on the homepage is Van Heerding v. Louisiana State University et al. for violation of a faculty members First Amendment rights.  This case is just one of many that can be seen. 

In an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on June 7, 2009, that due to the Pennsylvania’s Right-To-Know Law, schools had to report to PA Open Records Office and file an annual Internal Revenue Service Form 990.  It is found that Penn State spent approximately $3.5-million on legal fees in 2007-2008 and the University of Pittsburgh spent $8 million in legal fees in that same time frame (Schnacker,  2009).  These fees are just a glimpse of the overall picture of the impact legal issues and fees have on higher education, and yet not spending this money could result in even higher payouts in the long run.

Blumenstyk, G. (2010, August).  In lawsuits, former students accuse Westwood College of widespread deception. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Former-Students-Accuse/123882/

National Association of College and University attorneys. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.nacua.org/

Schnacker, B. (2009, June 7). Revised law offers glimpse into college spending. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved from http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09158/975707-298.stm

Academic Dishonesty

Throughout the years, there always tends to be an issue with academic dishonesty, plagiarism, cheating, whatever you want to call it. In every syllabus, the professor places their blanket statement for academic misconduct and that it is not tolerated.  Period.  However, it seems that in today’s society, where the internet is being carried around with you all the time, by the means of phones, electronic tablets, computers, etc., this is definitely a growing issue in higher education.  Chand (2007) reports that in recent years plagiarism and cheating have become more and more acceptable and one possible reason for this is that there has been a significant drop in morals in today’s society. 

One example of academic dishonesty is the student response, or more commonly “clicker”system.  These handheld gadgets are used in large auditorium classrooms for students to respond to in-class questions.  Zou (2011) reported that many students were bringing multiple clickers to class and answering for their absent friends.  When a sophomore at the University of Florida was interviewed about this common method for student participation, he commented: “It happens in every class” (Zou, 2011). 

Solution

One solution that enables professors to check plagiarism is turnitin.com.  This website allows professors to utilize the current technological advances to check a student’s honesty.  This website gives a percentage of how much of the work the student contributed and how much is actually copied from other sources.  This is definitely a good method of keeping students honest.

Resources

Chand, A. (2007, November 11).  Academic dishonesty [Web log post].  Retrieved from http://socyberty.com/education/academic-dishonesty/

Zou, J. J. (2011, September 4). With cheating only a click away, professors reduce the incentive. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Cheating-Is-Now-Only-a-Click/128879/

Streamlining Research and Statistical Practices

Minton and Fruend's 1977 article on organizing statistical activities on campuses of higher education institutions still has relevance more than 35 years later.  The authors describe the wide variety of disciples available to study on college campuses, and they note that almost all of these disciples use statistics in their research.  Statisticial research is important for all functions of the university, including teaching, research, and service (Minton & Fruend, 1977),

Minton & Fruend (1977) suggest several modes for streamlining research and statistical practices are presented.  The suggested mode is to create a "Statistics Center, Department, or Institute" (p. 116), which involves the creation of a centralized department to conduct all statistical activities across disciplines.  This department would have responsibility for teaching, research, and consulting to departments.  Minton & Fruend (1977) state this would streamline the statistical processes and save resources and funding.

The University of Memphis has an Office of Institutional Research that provides data on many functions of the University (University of Memphis, 2011).  However, the do not have the primary responsibility for teaching across disciplines.  Perhaps if more colleges and universities could consider Minton and Fruend's (1977) model, they could save funding and streamline processes in this area.  This model of streamlining should could also be applied to other areas of colleges and universities when efficiency and effectiveness are desired.



References
Minton, P. D. & Freund, R. J. (1977).  Organization for the conduct of statistical activities in colleges and universities.  The American Statistician, 31(3), 113-117.  Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2682956.pdf?acceptTC=true

The University of Memphis (2011).  Office of Institutional Research: Turning Data into Information.  Retrieved from http://oir.memphis.edu/