Washington
The federal government should broaden the range of student-graduation data it reports, and improve student-transfer data, to reflect the diverse student population at community colleges and paint a fuller picture of student progress and completion at those institutions.
That is the essence of draft recommendations from a committee that has spent almost a year examining how to revise the way the government measures the academic achievement of community-college students.
The committee will meet Wednesday to discuss the draft report and make any necessary changes. It has until April to hand over a final report to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
The Committee on Measures of Student Success, a 15-member group consisting of college officials, scholars, and policy experts, was charged with helping two-year colleges comply with a new federal requirement that degree-granting institutions report their completion or graduation rates, and also whether they had alternative measures for capturing student success.
The reporting requirement was included in the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, which also called for the creation of the advisory committee.
Among the specific recommendations are that degree-seeking, part-time students, and those enrolled in remedial coursework, be included in the community-college graduation rates reported by the Education Department.
In addition the department should develop a measure that counts students who transfer laterally, transfer to four-year colleges, are substantially prepared for transfer, or are still enrolled beyond the statutorily defined tracking period.
The National Governors Association and the American Association of Community Colleges have both proposed voluntary accountability systems that aim to measure student achievement across many variables. But unlike those organizations, the committee's recommendations may lead to more-concrete changes because they won't be voluntary. Secretary Duncan has the discretion to require the community colleges to adhere to all, some, or none of the recommendations.
Students in Focus
Two-year colleges serve a diverse set of students, including those who want to learn new skills without pursuing a degree and those working toward an occupationally focused certificate or associate degree, as well as those who plan to earn credits and transfer to four-year institutions.
In addition, many students enroll part time, which can affect their progress toward graduation. However, the current graduation-rate survey of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or Ipeds, measures only full-time, first-time degree- or certificate-seeking student. Those students represent a minority at two-year institutions. Part-time, nondegree, and noncredit students typically make up the largest percentage of community-college students.
Community-college proponents have long argued that the current data collected by the Education Department do not adequately reflect students' achievements at those institutions. To deal with the deficiency, the committee has recommended that the Education Department add a part-time, degree-seeking cohort in Ipeds, and also distinguish between remedial and nonremedial students in graduation rates.
The committee has also recommended creating a more-robust mechanism for the reporting of transfer students, including clarifying what is considered "substantial preparation" for transfer to another institution and also what "constitutes a transfer student for reporting purposes."
Alternative Measures
States, foundations, associations, and other organizations have initiated several efforts to collect data from two-year colleges on alternative measures of success such as student learning and employment after college. Because of the complexities and variations on how to measure student learning, the committee has not recommended that institutions be required to report these data.
However, there is no consistency in the way data are gathered and reported by each entity, the committee report said. To improve the effort, the committee has recommended disclosing the information publicly to give consumers and policy makers easier access to information about student achievement at two-year institutions.
Similarly, the committee suggests creating a centralized, easily accessible Web site to ensure that data disclosed by institutions required under the gainful-employment regulations (such as employment rates for certificate programs) is made available to the public.
