e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: College Scorecard

  • 17% Of Community Colleges Are Not Included In College Scorecard

    In addition to the highly-misleading usage of ‘first-time full-time’ qualification for official graduate rates reported in the College Scorecard, there appears to be another major issue with the data. In particular, the Education Department (ED) is using a questionable method of determining whether an institution is degree-granting rather than relying on the IPEDS data source. In a nutshell, if an institution awarded more certificates than degrees, then it is not labeled as “predominantly awarded 2-year or 4-yeard degrees” and therefore excluded.

    Russ Poulin noted in his WCET post that several community colleges were missing from the Scorecard based on a quick spot check:

    • Colorado – Aims, Front Range, Pueblo, and Otero Community Colleges.
    • Arizona – Rio Salado College.
    • California – Bakersfield College.

    The consumer website itself offers no explanation that certain degree-granting schools are excluded. The Technical Paper that corresponds to the data release explains that selection of schools on page 28: (more…)

  • College Scorecard: An example from UMUC on fundamental flaw in the data

    Russ Poulin at WCET has a handy summary of the new College Scorecard produced by the Education Department (ED) and the White House. This is a “first read” given the scorecard’s Friday release, but it is quite valuable since Russ participated on an ED Data Panel related to the now-abandoned Ratings System, the precursor to the Scorecard. Russ describes the good, the “not so good”, and the “are you kidding me?” elements. One area in particular highlighted by Russ is the usage of the “dreaded first-time, full-time completion rates”:

    I knew this would be the case, but it really irks me. Under current data collected by the Department’s IPEDS surveys. They the group on which they base their “Graduation Rate” as: “Data are collected on the number of students entering the institution as full-time, first-time, degree/certificate-seeking undergraduate students in a particular year (cohort), by race/ethnicity and gender; the number completing their program within 150 percent of normal time to completion; the number that transfer to other institutions if transfer is part of the institution’s mission.”

    This rate has long been a massive disservice to institutions focused on serving adults and community colleges. Here are some example rates: Empire State: 28%, Western Governors University: 26%, University of Maryland University College: 4%, Charter Oak Colleges: no data, and Excelsior College: no data.. The problem is that these numbers are based on incredibly small samples for these schools and do not reflect the progress of the bulk of the student body.

    I won’t quote data for community colleges because they are all negatively impacted. They often serve a large number of students who are not “first-time” or define “success” in other ways.

    I know that they are working on a fix to this problem in the future. Meanwhile, who atones for the damage this causes to these institution’s reputation. This data display rewards colleges who shy away from non-traditional or disadvantaged students. Is this what we want?

    Russ is not the only one noting this problem. Consider this analysis from Friday [emphasis added]: (more…)