August 5, 2008

At Enrollment Conference, Experts Ponder a Higher Education 'Puzzle'

Los Angeles — Why are Americans who attend college more likely to vote than those who do not? And why are people who earn degrees less likely to smoke cigarettes?

Michael S. McPherson isn’t sure, but on Monday evening he told an audience of admissions officials here that such questions were worth investigating. After all, the answers might help explain how, exactly, attending college changes people.

“What makes these outcomes happen is a great, interesting puzzle,” said Mr. McPherson, president of the Spencer Foundation and a former president of Macalester College, in St. Paul, Minn.

Mr. McPherson’s remarks came during an opening speech at the inaugural conference of the University of Southern California’s new Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice. The center was created to improve the admissions profession’s understanding of admissions, financial aid, and student outcomes.

Today, attendees plan to discuss a host of issues, including college readiness, the implications of demographic changes, and the impact of tuition and financial aid on college choice.

As they ponder such topics, Mr. McPherson said, they should also consider big-picture questions that transcend admissions outcomes. One: What are the experiences of students once they enroll?

“We study how to get in, how to pay for it, and what happens after college,” Mr. McPherson said. “But there’s less on what happens to students while they’re there.” —Eric Hoover

Comments

1. I’d like to know if he mentioned the fact that it may be that people who are more likely to vote and less likely to smoke are simply more likely to go to college. Maybe going to college didn’t change that in them at all. Just because two traits are found in the same people doesn’t necessarily mean that one caused the other.

   — Gwen    Aug 5, 08:46 AM    #

2. I actually started smoking during my senior year of undergraduate and it was directly related to being in college and working two jobs. Thankfully, I stopped a few years later.

   — Jeff    Aug 5, 08:59 AM    #

3. It is amazing how much cleaner our decisions are as/when the critical thinking process matures. Learning environments are know to nurture maturity.

   — Dr. Bill    Aug 5, 11:24 AM    #

4. Questions worth investigated are why high acheiving low-income students still enroll at numbers comparable to low acheiving high-income students?; why institutions continue to raise tuition so that they can provide aid to the highest income students in the competition for talent?; why is 52% of current Federal aid non-need based. (Haycock, 2006)? This is roughly $45 billion dollars. Of the total $1.3 billion in tuition and fee and income tax deductions, 34% goes to families making more than $1000,000 and 19% to families making $29,999 or lower.

   We still have some work to do on “getting them in.”

   — Brian    Aug 5, 12:48 PM    #

5. That should be “families making more than $100,000,” right? It’s bad, but it’s not quite that bad.

   — Dan    Aug 5, 03:20 PM    #

6. Because kids who go to college are spineless twits who did everything their parents told them to do like study, vote, and not smoke. It has nothing to do with intelligence or maturation, it has to do with being good wittle boys and girls who grow up to be good wittle boys and girls who would never question their government’s totalitarian empire“ Smoke, drink, cuss, revolt!

   — Lester Clupp    Aug 5, 03:40 PM    #

7. Yo lester!

   — Good ol' Bubba    Aug 5, 03:57 PM    #

8. I always thought that the purpose of a college/university education was to create “responsible” thinking citizens, not job training like some in the Bush administration appear to believe. Being responsible and thinking would certainly go with voting and not smoking.

   — Susan    Aug 5, 04:02 PM    #

9. Obviously Lester missed the ’60s…..

   — rec    Aug 5, 04:47 PM    #

10. Oh, Lester! Meow!!!!

    — Didi Pontiac    Aug 5, 04:50 PM    #

11. In response to post #1: I’ll come to Mike McPherson’s defense by saying that he stated that the findings on smoking and voting are after controlling for other factors. So it does appear that there’s something that occurs while students attend college that affects these decisions.

    — A participant at the conference    Aug 5, 08:09 PM    #

12. Sounds like a whole research insitute on Student Affairs, but Group Argues That Out-of-Class Learning Is Domain of Faculty, Not Student Affairs. Geez, who knew you learned about being a responsible adult in your chemistry class? Hint, you don’t!

    — doh    Aug 6, 12:22 PM    #

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