Everyone seems to agree that peer pressure is real. Groups have effects on individual behavior. Sometimes this is a bad thing when it involves social vices (violence, drugs, promiscuity) but peer pressure can also promote positive outcomes (kindness, love, and compassion). But can your peers actually have a substantive effect on your intelligence? Does simply associating with smart people make you smarter? This question has received large amount of anecdotal discussion, but very little scholarly discussion (perhaps because of the difficult nature of measuring the peer effect). The question, however, is not without substantial policy implications. For instance, you agree with many scholars in asserting that peers do affect ability to learn (i.e., students learn better, faster, more deeply in the company of able students than with weak ones), than would there be an aggregate increase of learning if admissions into higher education institutions were based on random selection (rather than test scores or gpa). Or perhaps there is a proper formula for the idea classroom or freshman class. Additionally, how does the increasingly impersonal technological world of education lose as peer interaction is reduced (I think of myself as I write this essay for a course of only one). There are additional questions of who counts as a peer? clearly students, but does the age matter? class? what about teacher or volunteer, or professional? The answers to these questions could lead to monumental changes in higher education policy, but they all depend on the underlying premise that peers matter.
It seems that higher education already accepts that premise; at least it does so implicitly through the race to selectivity in admissions. Southern Utah University recently unveiled its plan to become "the states only public liberal arts university." An important aspect of the strategic plan is to significantly raise tuition and become more selective in its admissions. It seems to me that very few have even questioned the correlation between an "elite" school and "selective admissions" and "high tuition." I admit that I did not even question the proposal because it just seemed to make intuitive sense. But why? As far as I can tell the primary justification is educational quality. Somehow, we simply associate high tuition and selective admissions with high educational quality--why? is such an assumption warranted.
Arguing from the premise that "peers matter," we can assert that selective admission increases the average aptitude of the student body (assuming that SATs and GPAs actually correlate with aptitude). If the quality of one's peers influence the learning ability of the individual, the smarter peers may actually contribute to the educational quality of the school. In a way, the elite schools seek to leverage student aptitude to accelerate learning. The students come to these more selective institutions because the learning environment and association with other bright students creates an opportunity for accelerated learning not possible in other "open access" institutions.
That sounds great, but I'm not convinced; I think its just a cover. These institutions use the image of greater education returns for an excuse for exclusivity. These institutions benefit from a "brand" which alumni carry with them. The brand is benefited from a sense of exclusivity--it means something more if not everybody can get one (which also means you can charge more for it). If this were truly about education we would see less exclusivity and greater leveraging of student aptitude to benefit other students.
This race to selectivity creates silos of accelerated learning which may increase the widening income gap in the United States. The elite institutions will only augment already advanced students while leaving those who deeply need assistance are left to public and open access institutions (if that). As a policy concern, the selectivity accentuates the growing class distinctions in the United States. The middle class we birthed is dying.
If peers matter for educational quality, admissions to universities should strive to discover the proper mixing and structuring of classes to optimize this value added product. Professors should structure class activities, discussions, and seating arrangements in strategic ways to get people of different aptitudes interacting. There will be some trial and error, but the results are promising--if you believe peers matter.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Key to competative advantage
The key to maintaining and creating a sustainable competitive advantage is inimitability. You need to do something that is not easily imitated.
Use this in strategy.
Use this in strategy.
Using Data
I've noticed that it less about what the stat is you are giving, but rather the manner in which it is given. Even a bad stat stated in a positive tone can sound good.
"We are consistently ranked among the top eighty institutions in the world, in the world."
I don't even have any idea if this is good, but it sure sounded nice when he said it with such enthusiasm.
"We are consistently ranked among the top eighty institutions in the world, in the world."
I don't even have any idea if this is good, but it sure sounded nice when he said it with such enthusiasm.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Trends in Higher Education Economics
This week I reviewed "Trends in College Spending: Where does the money come from? Where does it go?" This article used a sources of nationally reported data to construct broad conclusions about the trends in higher education finance and economics. It has six basic conclusions:
(1) Higher education is becoming more stratified. Spending is increasing, but only at the institutions which are not growing. The fastest growth in enrollment has occurred in those institutions with the least resources and with the greatest evidence of actual spending cuts in the last few years--the public community college.
(2) Tuition keeps rising. As a proportion of total revenue, tuition has continued to increase since 2002.
(3) Direct instruction expenses have dropped in proportion to total education and related spending. The deepest reductions in spending for instruction has occurred in "teaching" institutions (as opposed to research institutions).
(4) The primary reason for a rise in tuition is a drop in state appropriations. Since 2002, 92% of revenues from tuition increases were the result of "shifts" in costs (from appropriation to tuition).
(5) The student share of the cost of education has continually increased. Notedly, the share of the costs borne by students in private institutions grew more slowly.
(6) There is no good metric for measuring the how institutions do in productivity. Because it is difficult to measure quality or concrete learning outcomes, tying spending to degrees could not only be misleading but dangerous. Nevertheless, just to see out it looks, costs per degree in the public sector increased from 95 to 02 but dropped from 02 to 06.
Nothing real surprising here, but I did enjoy thinking about what metrics should be used. It gives an idea of how complicated higher ed leadership can be. No metric is perfect and only become more so the more of them you compound together.
I think sometimes we (higher ed administrators) get drowned in numbers and data. There are so many ways to say the same thing that it all becomes irrelevant. A institution should decide what it will measure. These should be no more than five general metrics. These should be meticulously tracked and strategically selected. this approach has the salutary effect of focus, but the dangerous complication of leaving out important issues. If you only focus on cost will you forget about the achievement gap? If quality is the pursuit, how will efficiency fair? Not to say anything about the differences in students, classes, and degree types. It all seems overly daunting to try and track and focus on everything; but it's equally as difficult to only focus on a few.
Perhaps a president or commissioner should have a few separate metrics for each cabinet member? This would have the benefit of covering a wide variety of issues and perhaps could provide sufficient focus where needed. A risk would be a disconnected and fractured cabinet. Each would seek to better his or her metric and perhaps even hinder the others. This perhaps, could be ameliorated by a few central metrics that hopefully could correlate across cabinet members.
I guess my bottom line is that goals are good; and for goals to be effective they must be measurable. Leaders must be able to shift through the growing collection of higher education metrics and select those which best fit their situation. They then, must track these and set goals based on them. Seems simple; why is nobody doing it?
(1) Higher education is becoming more stratified. Spending is increasing, but only at the institutions which are not growing. The fastest growth in enrollment has occurred in those institutions with the least resources and with the greatest evidence of actual spending cuts in the last few years--the public community college.
(2) Tuition keeps rising. As a proportion of total revenue, tuition has continued to increase since 2002.
(3) Direct instruction expenses have dropped in proportion to total education and related spending. The deepest reductions in spending for instruction has occurred in "teaching" institutions (as opposed to research institutions).
(4) The primary reason for a rise in tuition is a drop in state appropriations. Since 2002, 92% of revenues from tuition increases were the result of "shifts" in costs (from appropriation to tuition).
(5) The student share of the cost of education has continually increased. Notedly, the share of the costs borne by students in private institutions grew more slowly.
(6) There is no good metric for measuring the how institutions do in productivity. Because it is difficult to measure quality or concrete learning outcomes, tying spending to degrees could not only be misleading but dangerous. Nevertheless, just to see out it looks, costs per degree in the public sector increased from 95 to 02 but dropped from 02 to 06.
Nothing real surprising here, but I did enjoy thinking about what metrics should be used. It gives an idea of how complicated higher ed leadership can be. No metric is perfect and only become more so the more of them you compound together.
I think sometimes we (higher ed administrators) get drowned in numbers and data. There are so many ways to say the same thing that it all becomes irrelevant. A institution should decide what it will measure. These should be no more than five general metrics. These should be meticulously tracked and strategically selected. this approach has the salutary effect of focus, but the dangerous complication of leaving out important issues. If you only focus on cost will you forget about the achievement gap? If quality is the pursuit, how will efficiency fair? Not to say anything about the differences in students, classes, and degree types. It all seems overly daunting to try and track and focus on everything; but it's equally as difficult to only focus on a few.
Perhaps a president or commissioner should have a few separate metrics for each cabinet member? This would have the benefit of covering a wide variety of issues and perhaps could provide sufficient focus where needed. A risk would be a disconnected and fractured cabinet. Each would seek to better his or her metric and perhaps even hinder the others. This perhaps, could be ameliorated by a few central metrics that hopefully could correlate across cabinet members.
I guess my bottom line is that goals are good; and for goals to be effective they must be measurable. Leaders must be able to shift through the growing collection of higher education metrics and select those which best fit their situation. They then, must track these and set goals based on them. Seems simple; why is nobody doing it?
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