Castleman, an associate professor at the University of Virginia, studies the economics of education and founded the Nudge4 Solutions Lab there, mining data to forge new policy approaches. His latest findings on adult students got a lot of attention last week when he and three colleagues blogged about them on the Brookings Brown Center Chalkboard.
As I see it, despite some caveats to the study itself, the bigger story centers on the implications of this research. The study examined the labor-market trajectories of students who left community colleges in Virginia six to 11 years ago, so — caveats — it doesn’t reflect how the pandemic may have reshaped the job market, nor how the potential of a bachelor’s rather than an associate degree might have affected the conclusions.
Nevertheless, the topic is especially timely, as so many states, communities, and organizations are kick-starting (or redoubling) efforts to win back adult students as overall enrollment in higher education has fallen. To wit: this appeal from the Center for an Urban Future suggesting that it was “eminently possible” to re-enroll a significant share of nearly 700,000 New York City adults; this $20-million college-completion program proposed by Rhode Island’s Gov. Dan McKee; this Prioritizing Adult Community College Enrollment initiative, involving 20 colleges, sponsored by Achieving the Dream; and this just-published “Degree Reclamation Playbook” from the Institute for Higher Education Policy.
As hopeful as these projects are, they’d all benefit from the reality check the research from Castleman’s team provides. For example, even among people who had amassed a substantial number of credits, the study found that only about 3 percent could “reasonably expect a sizable earnings premium from completing their credential.”
At the same time, money for these recruitment efforts isn’t limitless. So rather than going for the whole pool, Castleman said, it makes more sense to focus on subgroups like low earners. For the record, yes, I do think higher education is valuable for many more reasons than just the salary premium it might bring. But I’m also a realist about why many people enroll in college out of high school.
Soon Castleman will be putting his theory to the test. Starting next month, his lab will be working with a community college in Virginia to contact several hundred former students with low salaries and a substantial number of credits, aiming to show them how re-enrolling to pursue an associate degree could make a big financial difference. I’m eager to see — and report — how that plays out.
Meanwhile, consider the lessons from Tennessee’s community colleges, where Castleman’s team has been assisting the Board of Regents with Covid-era retention and enrollment challenges. Community colleges there saw a 12-percent decline in enrollment among students age 25 and older between fall 2019 and fall 2020. “We’ve been hemorrhaging adults,” Russ Deaton, the executive vice chancellor for policy and strategy, told me, despite the free tuition offered under the Tennessee Reconnect program, a national model.
Looking to stanch the tide, the system redesigned communications to more clearly explain Reconnect rules, like the need to reapply for the grant each year and the requirements to carry at least six credits at a time and stay continuously enrolled. “Putting the message in bigger fonts and saying it louder” wasn’t enough, said Deaton. So now that information is going out in text messages, via faculty members, and in letters to students directly from college presidents. The system has also begun a new peer-mentoring program, and while it has reached fewer than a thousand students so far, of the 16,000 enrolled in Tennessee Reconnect at community colleges, officials say it’s showing some positive results.
Still, counterbalancing economic realities — like the lack of “economic necessity” highlighted in Castleman’s research — appears to be a significant factor now. In the current economy, many people seem to be getting along pretty well without a college degree, said Deaton: “That’s definitely a headwind for us.” To the extent it’s a headwind elsewhere, colleges and policy makers will need to recognize that — and respond accordingly.
Public service that helps pay for college, and other updates.
Here’s the latest on three ideas highlighted in previous newsletters.
California named the first 45 colleges that will participate in its new College Corps program, through which some 6,500 students will work on community-based service projects and receive annual stipends of $10,000. The program is a successor to the Civic Action Fellowship program I described two summers ago, which itself grew out of a project that Dominican University of California had developed.
The nonprofit Jobs for the Future acquired Educational Quality Outcomes Standards, an organization that is developing a student-centered system to measure the value of academic and work-force-training programs. This deal portends greater stability and sustainability for EQOS, which aims to be “the educational equivalent of Energy Star,” as its chief executive put it to me last fall.
My third update is more of a reality check on an early-pandemic idea to recruit college students on a massive scale to a national online “tutoring corps” for schoolchildren whose education was disrupted. Matthew Kraft, the associate professor of education and economics at Brown University who championed the corps, got positive feedback and decided to test it, albeit on a very small scale. Kraft and three colleagues recruited tutors from three selective colleges that are part of the CovEd mentoring organization, assigned them in spring 2021 to work with 560 students from a low-income middle school south of Chicago, and studied the outcomes. The results showed “consistently positive but significantly insignificant effects on student achievement.”
Why am I bothering to share that? Well, as Kraft told me, it’s important to share findings even (especially?) when they’re not glowing. Also, he said, the experience highlighted the meaningful difficulties of creating a college-to-school program like what he first imagined. Among other challenges: Tutors’ schedules made it hard to provide the full nine hours of tutoring planned (Kraft suspects more sessions would have had greater impact). Ultimately, he said, the evaluation indicates that it might make more sense for schools and colleges to invest in more-comprehensive programs, while also taking some lessons from this low-cost approach.
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