lifting the federal student unit record ban, but the ratings system will proceed even without this important change.
Making the Case for Community Colleges This past fall, the Department held a series of listening sessions to allow the public, colleges, students, and other stakeholders to speak about what should be included in any college ratings system, and ACCT testified at the listening session held at George Mason University in Virginia. Our message was simple: determining accurate and valid data continues to be the largest hurdle to a meaningful ratings system. The following are some of the recommendations made by ACCT based upon community college concerns: Access. The ratings system will evaluate institutions based on the number of low-income students enrolled. However, the system should not focus solely on the number of Pell Grant recipients, since that number will generally be lower than the total number of low-income students. Low-income community college students often do not fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) at all — frequently citing that they had no idea financial aid existed, believed they would not qualify for aid, or found the application process too complex. Affordability. Community colleges remain the most affordable sector of higher education, providing a path to higher education with minimal or no debt for students. However, tuition and fees at community colleges are largely outside of the institutions’ control, as state and local funding cuts have escalated these costs 29 percent in just five years. In order to gain a more accurate picture of affordability, ratings should also evaluate student loan debt based on the median debt load of all completers at an institution. Outcomes. Community colleges support the mission of helping more students succeed. The flexibility offered by community colleges to students who can attend a program that is convenient
to their home or work, or to reduce their course load as life circumstances change, is something about which our postsecondary system should be proud. While current consumer sources exclude students who transfer out, President Obama has proposed using a combined completion and transfer rate in the ratings system. However, current federal data sources show completion rates of only first-time, full-time students — an exceedingly small fraction of community college enrollments. Measuring “completion” rates at 100, 150, and 300 percent of the “normal time” of program length at full-time enrollment would provide more accurate outcome data, as would pending efforts to include non-first-time students in the measurements. As federal data collection efforts improve, and as state data systems begin to integrate, the specific outcomes of transfer students from two-year institutions will become more clear. The President has also proposed evaluating graduates’ post-college earnings or incomes. Should this be done, it would be imperative to accrue accurate data, which is made more challenging by the current ban on collecting data on non-federal aid students. The Department of Education has recently proposed collecting earnings information only for federal loan borrowers, yet many community colleges cite borrowing rates among their students as low as 1 percent, and some do not participate in the Direct Loan program at all. Earnings information based on borrowers alone would not reflect those who have completed their studies — and in many ways would represent heavily skewed data that would not apply generally to community college students and their outcomes.
from high school and enrolls directly into college with a full-time credit load. Higher education demographics are rapidly changing, while the available federal data are too narrow and fail to capture the actual experience and outcomes for millions of community college students. Because the new federal ratings system is still being developed, it is unclear whether it will ultimately have a significant impact on consumer choices or federal funding. Community college students attend their local community college based primarily upon location, affordability, and the presence of highquality programs. Even if a similar institution is more highly rated in another state or locality, the vast majority of community college students are unlikely to opt for out-of-state or out-of-district tuition and fees to attend that institution. In order to truly serve student interests, the college ratings system must be nothing less than a fully transparent consumer information tool that provides clear and concise data for all prospective students and their families — including colleges where the majority of students do not participate in federal student-loan programs. Designing this tool remains an uphill task. ACCT will continue to monitor and inform the Administration as it develops the ratings system and other elements related to higher education. We encourage you to utilize ACCT’s online policy center to communicate with your members of Congress, and follow federal legislative updates through the Latest Action in Washington (LAW) email alerts and the Capitol Connection e-newsletter. To join, email publicpolicy@acct.org.
An Uphill Task Currently available and utilized data only represent a minority of the students served by community colleges. The majority of students in higher education are classified as “non-traditional” students, but all the data provided are designed for a traditional student who graduates
ACCT Vice President for Public Policy and External Relations Jee Hang Lee can be reached by email at jhlee@acct.org, or by phone at 202-775-4667. T R U S T E E Q U A RT E R LY W I N T E R 2 0 1 4
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