Last week I complained about unreasonable expectations being placed on colleges and universities. I rather quickly assembled a list of 10 such issues (there are actually a few more), and I indicated that in Part 2 of this topic, I would offer an opinion about what higher education can (and should) do – and what is simply beyond our capacity to correct.

I’d like to start with three related issues that represent numbers 1, 2 and 7 in my list from last week:

• More low-income students need to be admitted at top private schools;
• The pipeline to college must be widened; and
• It’s all about college completion rates.

On January 16, President Obama convened more than 100 higher education officials (most of whom were either the presidents of elite colleges or heads of community colleges or public university systems) to seek commitments on four areas of concern:

• Better matching of low-income students with colleges that fit their ability;
• Increasing the number of low-income students who are high achieving;
• Increasing the quality of advising for students from underserved populations; and
• Improving the quality of remedial education.

The higher education officials made commitments that filled almost 90 pages. Northeastern University will offer 30 new full-need grants to low-income students from Boston. Brown University will guarantee students who are receiving need-based aid at least one funded internship or research opportunity. Columbia will fund a select cohort of current undergraduates to travel to areas with high proportions of low-income and first-generation college students. Drake University will implement a pilot STEM program serving low-income high school students. Franklin & Marshall College will expand its financial support for low-income students by 10 percent. Harvard will enhance its social media approaches to reach low-income high school students. Lewis & Clark College will explore the possibility of increasing transfer student enrollment by 50 percent. MIT will develop a new initiative focused on outreach to high achieving, low-income students.

Well, all this is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but is it, as President Obama states, “an extraordinary accomplishment?” I don’t think so. A few students will benefit – but these individual campus commitments do not in any way represent the systemic change that is required in order to provide access to higher education for young people from underrepresented communities.

And the idea that high-achieving, low-income students must attend elite institutions is not only unnecessary but also arithmetically impossible, as I discussed in an earlier blog post (“A Modern Fable,” July 8, 2013). A January 8 article in The New York Times by David Kirp, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley presents an argument on behalf of a hypothetical student, graduating from a public high school with a 3.5 GPA. Dr. Kirp imagines this student attending one of three universities – Chicago State University, the University of Illinois at Chicago or Northwestern – and he strongly implies, without ever quite saying so, that her chances of graduating are directly linked to the graduation rates of those three schools (that range from 20 percent to 93 percent).

Well, the graduation rates are correct – but the suggestion that they will predict the likelihood of graduation for a particular student is nothing short of silly. Northwestern enrolls an academically far stronger group of students than Chicago State, and for that reason alone has a far higher graduation rate. Motivation to succeed? Compatibility with the campus culture? Familial and financial support? Surely these factors will play at least as significant a role in the student’s likelihood of graduating as will the overall graduation rates of these three universities.

A more realistic view of this whole business of widening the pipeline and improving graduation rates was provided (perhaps inadvertently) by two articles that ran recently in The Providence Journal. The state of Rhode Island has been engaged in an active debate over whether passing the NECAP, a standardized test widely used in New England, should be required for high school graduation in Rhode Island. As one might expect, there have been no shortage of opinions.

However, on January 10, the Rhode Island Department of Education announced that students who had been admitted to a two- or four-year selective college (meaning any college that is not open enrollment) could be awarded a high school diploma without passing the NECAP. The argument was, as one school superintendent put it, “If a child is accepted into college, how can we say you can’t graduate (from high school)?”

Fair point. But four days later, on January 14, the second article ran in The Providence Journal. It reported that “only 24 percent of students with low scores on the math NECAP were still in college at the beginning of the third semester.”

So colleges can widen the pipeline, but if the students they admit do not arrive academically prepared to do college-level work, the graduation rates will fall, not rise.

And here’s the bottom line: Colleges and universities cannot remediate society’s failure to provide young people with a quality K-12 experience. If those of us in leadership positions in colleges and universities raise more money, we can marginally improve our students’ graduation rates by spending that money to provide more counseling and tutorial assistance – but that’s like putting a bandage on a severed artery. A handful of students will benefit, but the majority of their age cohort will remain unable to realize the benefits of a college education.

Next week: Part 3

It’s an interesting time to be a university president. Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t raise a new expectation of what universities can or should be doing. Often, this expectation comes in the form of criticism. Sometimes, it arrives as a recommendation about improving a process.

Taken collectively, the various tasks and expectations now being dropped on higher education administrators are often highly unrealistic, frequently mutually exclusive, and ultimately are doomed to fail.

It’s time for a little straight talk. Let me start by acknowledging two things.

First, higher education in the United States has, at least for the last 150 years, been more responsible than any other component of our society for the American success story – both as a country and as the ladder to individual prosperity and accomplishment. We should therefore be wary of radical changes to a proven track record.

Second, and despite what I have just said, higher education is overdue for some serious reform. Higher education has become complacent over the past 40 years. We have allowed our focus to wander, from the standpoint of our core mission, and we have been painfully slow to integrate both technology and new knowledge about the learning process into our instructional protocols. We have worried too little about the cost of higher education for our students and their families, and too little about how most of our students plan to use their education: to get a well-paying job. At least some of the criticisms that have been directed at higher education are well deserved, and at least some colleges and universities are now addressing them in meaningful ways.

But these positive responses by universities have been overwhelmed by the blizzard of expectations and criticisms in the media and on blogs that continue unabated, and now seem to be growing in both number and volume.

What is the primary problem with higher education? Let me list the contenders:

1. More low-income students need to be admitted at top private schools. (“College recruiters give low-income public campuses fewer visits,” LA Times, 27 December 2013; “Obama counts on power of convening people for change,” The New York Times, 10 January 2014)
    
2. The pipeline to college must be widened. (“Getting high school dropouts to college,” Inside Higher Ed, 9 January 2014)
    
3. Higher education is hidebound. (“U.S. seeks experiments on new models of higher ed,” Insider Higher Ed, 5 December 2013; “Lumina-funded group seeks to lead conversation on competency-based education,” Insider Higher Ed, 12 December 2013)
    
4. Higher education is going broke. (“Ivy League budget deficits prompt Harvard, Yale to seek cuts,” Bloomberg, 12 December 2013; “Survey suggests colleges aren’t ready for new higher-education landscape,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 6 December 2013)
    
5. Too much student debt – and it’s rising. (“Student debt and the class of 2012,” The Institute for College Access & Success, 4 December 2013; “Students blame colleges for debt woes,” Inside Higher Ed, 4 December 2013)
    
6. Large numbers of colleges will go out of business – unless… (“A path forward,” Center for American Progress, December 2013; “Colleges can still save themselves. Here’s how,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 6 December 2013)
    
7. It’s all about college completion rates. (“Completing College,” National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, December 2013; “How to help college students graduate,” The New York Times, 8 January 2014)
    
8. Too many students learn too little in college. (“Academically Adrift,” University of Chicago Press, January 2011; “White people are skeptical about the value of a college degree,” The Atlantic, November 2013; “More data show students unprepared for work, but what to do about it?” Inside Higher Ed, 29 October 2013)
    
9. We need more technical education. (“Obama administration embraces career education,” Huffington Post, 13 November 2013; “Tech students get support from Ga. Governor,” Diverse Education, 10 January 2014)
    
10. Higher education needs a scorecard on affordability, access and outcomes (including salary). (“Higher education leaders respond to Obama’s ambitious ratings system plan,” Inside Higher Ed, 23 August 2013; “Obama’s aid proposals could use a reality check,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 6 September 2013)

Well, now that I look at the list, I guess it’s not so bad after all. College and university presidents just need to recruit many more low-income students while significantly lowering the price of tuition, and then ensure that a much larger percentage of this expanded pool of students not only graduates but does so with the skills necessary to get good jobs, thereby reducing income inequality and social stratification, even as the presidents incorporate technology and place their institutions on a stronger financial base. Higher education once again rescues the American economy! (Pardon me while I find my cape, and that stretchy outfit with the big letter “S.”)

So sarcasm aside, what reasonably can (and should) higher education actually do? See Part 2, coming next week.