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Advocate Online
In the Know
A Report Card for the States
A new analysis of state contributions
to postsecondary education finds college preparation, admission opportunities,
affordability, and completion rates vary widely from state to state.
Measuring Up 2000, The State-By-State
Report Card for Higher Education, from the National Center for Public
Policy and Higher Education, is a first-of-its-kind report card that grades
states, rather than individual colleges and universities, on their performance
in post-secondary education.
The findings: Many states perform well
in several areas, but no state receives straight As in providing opportunities
for education beyond high school.
"Despite the accomplishments of American
higher education, its benefits are unevenly and often unfairly distributed
and do not reflect the distribution of talent in America," said North
Carolina Governor James B. Hunt, Jr., chair of the National Center's board
of directors.
States were evaluated according to five
key measures: how well they prepare students for college; how many of
their citizens are attending college; how affordable a college education
is in the state; how well those who enroll in college do in completing
their academic and vocational programs; and what economic and civic benefits
accrue to the states from the education of its citizens.
Twenty states received at least one A from
the researchers, while seven states received at least one F. Massachusetts
came away with four As, and other states—Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas,
Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island—did well across
the board. Among states with the lowest scores, on average, were Louisiana,
Arkansas, West Virginia, Georgia, and Nevada.
Other key findings:
- Many states don't provide challenging high
school courses that prepare students for college. In Massachusetts,
for instance, 59 percent of high school students take upper-level math.
In Alabama, less than one-third do.
- People in some states pay a much higher share
of their income to attend college. Families in Vermont, for example,
spend an average of 40 percent of their annual income to send a child
to a state university, compared with 17 percent for Utah families.
- Completion rates vary also. In Vermont, 68
percent of full-time freshmen complete their degrees in five years.
In Louisiana, the five-year completion rate is 28 percent.
More information, including a full copy of the report,
is available at http://measuringup2000.highereducation.org.
| From The
Lectern |
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For the individual
scholar, translating academic jargon into language comprehensible
to those beyond your immediate field is a humbling experience. It
makes you realize how far your work is from real life, and how difficult
it is to convince people that what you do is interesting and worthwhile.
Using accessible language also makes academe a more user-friendly
place, allowing professors and students in other fields to understand
what is going on in unfamiliar disciplines. If we take an even broader
perspective, we see that as scholars, we also owe an explanation-one
that just about anyone can understand-to a wide audience. If the
purpose of academic research is to contribute to human knowledge,
presumably for the greater good, then that research should be accessible
to everyone.
—Meredith
F. Small, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 17, 2000
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