ACTA's Must-Reads
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Elusive answers to a simple question
The Cato Institute hosted a panel yesterday entitled "Taking Control of Spiraling College Costs" that featured Cato's Neal McCluskey, Centre College professor emeritus Robert E. Martin, Education Sector's Kevin Carey, and George Leef of the Pope Center. Though the speakers did not agree on the causes of the vertiginous increases in tuition we have witnessed in past decades and they offered differing assessments of how to rein in costs, there was a consensus on the need to make more information available to parents and policymakers on what students are actually learning (the "value added by institution" in highered-speak).
Carey expressed enthusiasm for the Collegiate Learning Assessment and the National Survey of Student Engagement, while emphasizing the higher education establishment's fierce hostility to making results of these tests publicly available. Leef deplored the decline of employer-administered aptitude tests following the ruling in Griggs v. Duke Power. An audience member wondered why universities do not disclose information on the earnings of their graduates. Martin rightly noted that people end up placing such disproportionate importance on reputation because an answer concerning quality is so hard to come by.
How, then, are parents, students and policymakers to assess the quality of the education received at our colleges and universities? One way to approach the question is to focus on general education requirements. On WhatWillTheyLearn.com, we grade universities based on the strength of their curricula -- the core courses required of all students and aimed at providing a strong foundation of knowledge.
After plowing through course catalogues to separate the rigorous curricula from the watered-down varieties filled with loopholes ("Floral Art" counts as a science class at the University of Rhode Island), ACTA has presented its findings on WhatWillTheyLearn.com, thereby allowing all those concerned to identify which universities are making sure students graduate having covered the basics.
Perhaps one day the push for increased accountability in higher education will lead to more sophisticated measures of student learning. In the meantime, ACTA's focus on the core offers the best answer to the elusive question of student learning.
Posted by David Azerrad on October 07, 2009 at October 7, 2009 10:45 AM
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