States should pay colleges for the number of their students who are Pell Grant recipients and who finish a year of study, successfully transfer, or complete a degree, according to recommendations in a new report by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.
In the report, “Strategies for Improving Student Success in Postsecondary Education,” Arthur M. Hauptman, a public-policy consultant on higher education and the report’s author, says that the nation’s record on preparing students for college and helping them succeed once they enroll is mixed and must be improved. Part of the problem, he writes, is that federal and state policies tend to focus on improving access to college while paying less attention to adequately preparing students for postsecondary education and helping them complete their degrees in a reasonable amount of time.
States, he says, could help improve students’ success rates by paying more attention to helping financially needy students and rewarding institutions that do so. Mr. Hauptman also recommends increasing funds for academic-preparation programs and establishing tougher academic requirements for students to be eligible for state aid.
