The elimination of California’s higher-education coordinating board is causing concern among some researchers that decades of data about college students will be harder to access.
In a line-item veto last month, Gov. Jerry Brown eliminated support for the California Postsecondary Education Commission, calling it “ineffective.” The surprise move has provoked concern that the commission’s student-records database dating back to 1976 will be in limbo—or even lost—when the agency closes in September.
The database includes statistics on enrollment, transfer between public institutions, college-going rates for high-school students, and other measures that can be difficult or impossible to get from each of the state’s three college systems.
“We don’t know what the $11-billion we’re spending on higher education is delivering for us,” said Adrian Griffin, the commission’s assistant director of research and policy development. “Without this, it’s hard to tell how well students are succeeding, how well the transfer system is working, and how well university graduates are doing in the labor market.”
But college officials downplayed those concerns. The database will be moved to the community-college system, and the state’s college systems have agreed to keep contributing information until it can find a new home, said Patrick Perry, the community colleges’ vice chancellor of technology, research, and information systems.
“Data won’t be destroyed,” Mr. Perry said. He said the system’s goal is to prevent a gap in data collection and to make sure the data remains available to the public.
However, he said it was too early to say whether the community colleges would be able to maintain an existing Web site that allows researchers, journalists, and others to access the data online. Mr. Griffin said he doubts the colleges will have the resources to maintain online access or handle specific questions from researchers, legislators, or the public.
Richard W. Moore, a researcher who has used the commission’s data, bemoaned the loss of an independent agency that can analyze information about the nation’s largest higher-education system and provide policy recommendations to lawmakers. The colleges will not have the same mandate reporting on themselves, he said.
“We really kind of expect better from California,” said Mr. Moore, a management professor at California State University at Northridge. “There was an era when we led in this way, when we had the best system and the best data. We don’t anymore.”
