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By Richard Ekman 
The
good news is that high school seniors, their parents, journalists, and
state legislators increasingly seek indicators of quality in higher education.
A college with distinction in one or more programs or in the track record
of alumni has a more attentive audience now than a generation ago. In
combination with such familiar factors as a college's location or price,
soaring numbers of applications to some colleges and universities and
precipitously falling numbers to others suggest a degree of discrimination
by prospective students not seen earlier in this century. The bad news is that the public's measures of educational quality are not always the ones that we who are in the field believe are accurate. The disproportionate influence of the U.S. News & World Report rankings is symptomatic. But meanwhile, more fundamental aspects of educational quality are not being addressed adequately—such as how much students learn and how well they use their knowledge. 
To fill the vacuum, in the world of small colleges we have seized upon the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) (a survey conducted for the first time last year, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts) because it suggests that students are more deeply involved in their education at small, private institutions. The NSSE was not intended to be a measure of institutional quality, but it is being used in that way, given the paucity of other measures. And surveys—by the Lutheran colleges, for example—that illustrate the greater civic and moral commitment of graduates of church-related colleges have become handy measures of quality. We also look at the record of small colleges in producing career scientists—in disproportionate numbers. Accreditors who have in the past looked at student-faculty ratios and the numbers of books in libraries—simple, if insufficient, indicators of quality—need to expand upon these measures. More emphasis on student learning outcomes would be useful, especially when tied to issues that already have the public's attention. The "new" Knight Commission, for example, has suggested a link between athletes' academic performance and continued eligibility to compete that could be incorporated into regional accrediting standards. To be sure, every specialized accrediting agency thinks its concerns should be given more prominence in general accreditation of institutions, but that in itself is not a reason to refrain from adopting some of them. Accreditors have an obligation to choose those that are most important. More use of longitudinal data could also illuminate the connection between the in-school experience and the long-term returns from higher education. William G. Bowen and Derek Bok's The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions is a good example of the kind of helpful study of correlations between success and satisfaction at intervals after graduation, with aspects of the undergraduate experience. The long-term effectiveness of colleges and universities ought to be more prominent in accreditation reviews. Accrediting agencies can help also with addressing the twin challenges of distance education and growing numbers of transfer students. The issue here is that, although colleges are reasonably effective in judging how much a student has learned from a single course (and whether the course itself is of high quality), our institutions are not very good at judging the totality of an undergraduate education. We claim that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, especially in small, residential, liberal arts institutions, but we are hard pressed to document the claims of superior results of this form of education. As more students attend several colleges before obtaining their degrees and more distance education courses are included in a student's dossier, it is urgent that we document our claims for the effectiveness of live, small-class, interactive instruction and of settings where the out-of-classroom complements the in-classroom experience. Colleges and universities continue to need help in "making the case." The drumbeat of public complaint over such issues as escalating tuition charges, perceived grade inflation, incoherent curricula, and overuse of graduate teaching assistants has not abated over two decades, despite significant efforts to rein in tuition increases, rethink graduation requirements, and put more emphasis on classroom effectiveness by senior faculty. These achievements have apparently not been enough, as activist trustees and state legislators have begun delving into details of educational programs that are, by normal standards, inappropriate. Only better evidence of the results of higher education will answer these skeptics. Colleges vary in their affluence and selectivity, but that is not a reason for colleges that are medium-selective or financially hard-pressed to avoid making judgments about their own educational quality. There is already ample anecdotal evidence for us to believe that our kind of institution is of greater effectiveness than others, and that the "value added" from matriculation to graduation in smaller, teaching-oriented, arts-and-science-based institutions is greater than at other kinds of colleges and universities. Statistics compiled by ACT on student retention, for example, suggest that retention is better at small, private colleges than at larger, public counterparts—at all levels of selectivity. If accrediting agencies do not move in the direction of a longer term view, an outcomes orientation, and comparative judgments or benchmarking, the danger is that public complaints about institutional quality will persist, the worst form of a market mentality will prevail, and governmental agencies will fill the gap left by the voluntary bodies that failed to provide "quality assurance." To an unusual degree, American colleges and universities are still trusted by other institutions of society to make judgments—through grades and degrees—about the quality of individuals who are being considered for employment, civic service, and admission to further educational programs. We must do all we can to insure that the public's trust is not diminished. Independent |
