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I’m Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, covering innovation in and around academe. Here’s what I’m thinking about this week.
Three trends I noticed from The Chronicle’s 2019-20 Almanac
Higher education is still stratified by socioeconomic status. Enrollment of African American students in college has fallen. And adjunctification in the academy continues to grow.
I know this because I’ve been digging through the 108 pages of stories, charts, tables, and other information in this year’s Almanac. The publication, assembled by a team of editors and reporters led by my colleague Ruth Hammond, offers a rich and illuminating snapshot of the state of higher education today.
I can’t begin to summarize everything of interest in the Almanac, but along with the perennial favorites (fastest-growing and most expensive colleges, etc.) these three things really struck me.
Family wealth still shapes whether and where students attend college. Several charts from the section on diversity show this all too starkly. Nationally, 54 percent of students who were ninth graders in 2009 enrolled in college within a year of completing high school. For those from the lowest-income families, that figure is 32 percent, while for the wealthiest, it’s 79 percent. For those who never enrolled in college, the numbers go the other way: 44 percent from the lowest-income group, just 7 percent from the highest.
The stats on where students attend, based on family income, are even more striking: At their first college, 78 percent of the students from the wealthiest families are pursuing bachelor’s degrees as their first degree, compared with 32 percent from the lowest-income families. Of those enrolled in selective four-year institutions, 37 percent were from the wealthiest families while just 7 percent came from the lowest-income families.
Compared with the gains of younger Hispanic students, college enrollments of African American students haven’t been as robust. In fact, as this chart shows, the percentage of black high-school graduates who enrolled right afterward dropped from its peak of more than 66 percent in 2010 to just over 58 percent in 2017. Meanwhile, Hispanic enrollment during that period went from 62 percent to 67 percent (although it was as high as 69 percent in 2015).
These two sets of data don’t include trends for adult students, where there has been a lot of attention of late. (That includes this recently announced six-state effort by the National Governors Association). Still they show we have a way to go before we can stop worrying about underrepresented groups in higher education. This story describes some of the efforts underway at colleges to reverse the trend.
Across all classes of colleges, the percentage of full-time faculty members who are not tenured or on a track toward tenure continued to go up. In some cases the non-tenure-track share grew by a lot. The chart on this trend tracks changes from 2008-09 to 2018-19. It shows, for example, that over the past decade, the share of non-tenure-track faculty members at public doctoral universities increased from about nine percent to more than 27 percent, and it shows a similar increase at private nonprofit master’s institutions (from about nine percent to nearly 28 percent.)
This seems significant because when colleges are criticized for being inflexible, tenure typically gets the blame, even though it’s become a less dominant factor in the makeup of the professoriate.
One more fun fact … about the source of philanthropic gifts to higher ed. We know colleges remain popular as recipients of big gifts. But what’s behind all that money? Turns out most of came from people associated with media, entertainment, and finance and investments. Also real estate, the food and beverage industries, technology, health care, and oil.
I can tell you this because Ruth analyzed all gifts of $1 million or more that were announced or promised in 2018 as compiled by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, our sister publication. Of the nearly $8 billion given or pledged ($8 billion!), about a quarter came from people or organizations associated with media or entertainment. (It’s worth noting that this category was inflated by one $1.8-billion pledge to the Johns Hopkins University from one particular media mogul, Michael Bloomberg). Gifts from people in the finance and investment worlds accounted for nearly 24 percent. Overall the top 10 sources of wealth accounted for three quarters of all the big gifts.
Quote of the Week.
“Ivy League salary. No enrollment ‘gifts’ required.”
— Holberton software-engineering school
From a recruiting poster in the window of this coding school in San Francisco, which I spotted while visiting the city last week. I tweeted about it, and apparently they noticed.
A “free college” venture marks some milestones.
Two years after publicly launching its “Freshman Year for Free” program, the Modern States Education Alliance announced this month that its free online courses have enrolled more than 150,000 students.
Modern States offers more than 40 online courses, all taught by professors recruited from various universities. The courses are designed for students aiming to earn college credits by taking either the Advanced Placement or College Level Examination Program exams, administered by the College Board. For those who request it, Modern States covers the cost of the tests.
I’ve been following this effort for a while now. I’ve spoken with professors who teach these classes. Two summers ago, I even visited the IBL Education studios near New York City, where all the CLEP courses were produced, and got to play a little with the technology. (Little did I know the IBL folks would convince me to put my disheveled self on camera, too, with an impromptu demo.) So I was curious to dig a bit beyond Modern States’s recent announcement on enrollment and additional philanthropic support.
The number of students who have actually used the courses to earn an entire freshman year for free is relatively small — 50-plus according to the nonprofit alliance. Some of its other usage stats are a bit more impressive. Free courses are notorious for having low completion rates, but Modern States says its course completions now total more than 30,000. The alliance has received more than 20,000 requests for vouchers to cover the costs of the AP and CLEP tests, and from that group, it reports a pass rate of 75 percent. Overall test-taking figures could be even higher, since some students may not be asking for the vouchers and the military covers the costs for students on active duty.
Even if students aren’t using this to replace their freshman year, Steve Klinsky, the founder and chief financial backer of the project, told me he considered the uptake on the CLEP tests a significant mark of progress because students who use the courses that way can at least save some money on college costs. “We’ve helped them to that extent,” he said. And if students are using just a section of a course to, say, brush up on the organic chemistry, that’s worthwhile too.
He also noted that the courses are gaining acceptance with educators, including a high school in New Orleans where, he reports, teachers are incorporating the courses into their teaching.
Klinsky talks about Modern States as a “library” of college courses. Some such “libraries,” like the Modern States offerings, are free. Others, as I’ve previously written, might be better described as “free(ish)” because they charge a fee, but it isn’t that high. Last week, I noticed a new entry in that latter category. The co-founder of MasterClass, which is known for its celebrity instructors, has formed a new company called Outlier and announced its first two credit-bearing courses (at $400 a pop). Klinksy, for one, said he saw that as a validating sign. As he put it, “the more libraries of college, the better.”
Got a tip you’d like to share, or a question you’d like me to answer? Let me know, at goldie@chronicle.com. If you have been forwarded this newsletter and would like to see past issues, or sign up to receive your own copy, you can do so here. If you want to follow me on Twitter, @GoldieStandard is my handle.
