[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
INNOVATION TO IMPROVE EQUITY:
EXPLORING HIGH QUALITY
PATHWAYS TO A COLLEGE DEGREE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
AND LABOR
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JUNE 19, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-29
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: www.govinfo.gov
or
Committee address: https://edlabor.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
36-908 WASHINGTON : 2021
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia, Chairman
Susan A. Davis, California Virginia Foxx, North Carolina,
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Ranking Member
Joe Courtney, Connecticut David P. Roe, Tennessee
Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Tim Walberg, Michigan
Northern Mariana Islands Brett Guthrie, Kentucky
Frederica S. Wilson, Florida Bradley Byrne, Alabama
Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Mark Takano, California Elise M. Stefanik, New York
Alma S. Adams, North Carolina Rick W. Allen, Georgia
Mark DeSaulnier, California Francis Rooney, Florida
Donald Norcross, New Jersey Lloyd Smucker, Pennsylvania
Pramila Jayapal, Washington Jim Banks, Indiana
Joseph D. Morelle, New York Mark Walker, North Carolina
Susan Wild, Pennsylvania James Comer, Kentucky
Josh Harder, California Ben Cline, Virginia
Lucy McBath, Georgia Russ Fulcher, Idaho
Kim Schrier, Washington Van Taylor, Texas
Lauren Underwood, Illinois Steve Watkins, Kansas
Jahana Hayes, Connecticut Ron Wright, Texas
Donna E. Shalala, Florida Daniel Meuser, Pennsylvania
Andy Levin, Michigan* William R. Timmons, IV, South
Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Carolina
David J. Trone, Maryland Dusty Johnson, South Dakota
Haley M. Stevens, Michigan
Susie Lee, Nevada
Lori Trahan, Massachusetts
Joaquin Castro, Texas
* Vice-Chair
Veronique Pluviose, Staff Director
Brandon Renz, Minority Staff Director
------
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 19, 2019.................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Scott, Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'', Chairman, Committee on
Education and Labor........................................ 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Foxx, Hon. Virginia, Ranking Member, Committee on Education
and Labor.................................................. 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 5
Statement of Witnesses:
Gadkaree, Mr. Sameer, Secretary, Senior Program Officer,
Joyce Foundation........................................... 42
Prepared statement of.................................... 44
LeGrande, Ms. Tomikia, ED.D., Vice Provost for Strategic
Enrollment Management, Virginia Commonwealth University.... 15
Prepared statement of.................................... 17
Long, Ms. Charla, J.D., Executive Director, Competency-Based
Education Network.......................................... 24
Prepared statement of.................................... 26
Marwick, Ms. Judith, ED.D., Provost, William Rainey Harper
College.................................................... 7
Prepared statement of.................................... 9
Additional Submissions:
Lee, Hon. Susie, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Nevada:
Policy Brief: Doubling Graduation Rates in a New State... 95
Ms. Long:
Quality Framework for Competency Based Education Program
(CBEN)s................................................ 107
McBath, Hon. Lucy, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Georgia:
Turning More Tassels..................................... 141
Article: 6 Ways to Make Dual Enrollment Programs
Equitable.............................................. 175
Panther Retention Grants................................. 177
Artile: Georgia Perimeter Improves Graduation and
Transfer Rates After Merging With Georgia State........ 184
2018 Report Georgia State University Complete College
Georgia................................................ 192
Letter dated June 18, 2019 from The Century Foundation... 225
Findings From the 2018 National Survey of Postsecondary
Competency-Based Education (NSPCBE).................... 229
Article: The Moneyball Solution for Higher Education..... 265
The Promises and Limits of Online Higher Education....... 276
Schrier, Hon. Kim, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Washington:
Letter dated June 18, 2019 from the Western Governors
Association............................................ 318
Stevens, Hon. Haley M., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Michigan:
Link: A Path From Access to Success...................... 345
Questions submitted for the record by:
Omar, Hon. Ilhan, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Minnesota
Guthrie, Hon. Brett, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Kentucky
Fulcher, Hon. Russ, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Idaho
Ms. McBath
Responses to questions submitted for the record by:
Mr. Gadkaree............................................. 359
Ms. LaGrande............................................. 364
Ms. Long................................................. 371
Ms. Marwick.............................................. 375
INNOVATION TO IMPROVE EQUITY:.
EXPLORING HIGH-QUALITY PATHWAYS
TO A COLLEGE DEGREE
----------
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
House of Representatives,
Committee on Education and Labor,
Washington, D.C.
----------
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:36 a.m., in
Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building. Hon. Robert C.
``Bobby'' Scott [chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Scott, Davis, Courtney, Sablan,
Wilson, Bonamici, Takano, Adams, DeSaulnier, Norcross, Harder,
McBath, Schrier, Underwood, Hayes, Shalala, Levin, Trone,
Stevens, Lee, Trahan, Foxx, Roe, Walberg, Grothman, Stefanik,
Allen, Smucker, Walker, Cline, Taylor, Watkins, Wright, Meuser,
Timmons, and Johnson.
Staff Present: Tylease Alli, Chief Clerk; Emma Eatman,
Press Assistant; Christian Haines, General Counsel; Stephanie
Lalle, Deputy Communications Director; Andre Lindsay, Staff
Assistant; Jaria Martin, Clerk/Assistant to the Staff Director;
Richard Miller, Director of Labor Policy; Max Moore, Office
Aid; Jacque Mosely, Director of Education Policy; Katherine
Valle, Senior Education Policy Advisor; Banyon Vassar, Deputy
Director of Information Technology; Claire Viall, Professional
Staff; Taylor Ware, Education Policy Fellow; Joshua Weisz,
Communications Director; Courtney Butcher, Minority Director of
Coalitions and Member Services; Cate Dillon, Minority Staff
Assistant; Bridget Handy, Minority Communications Assistant;
Amy Raaf Jones, Minority Director of Education and Human
Resources Policy; Hannah Matesic, Minority Director of
Operations; Brandon Renz, Minority Staff Director; Alex Ricci,
Minority Professional Staff Member; Chance Russell, Minority
Legislative Assistant; and Mandy Schaumburg, Minority Chief
Counsel and Deputy Director of Education Policy.
Chairman SCOTT. The Committee on Education and Labor will
come to order. I want to welcome everyone and note that a
quorum is present. The committee is meeting today on a
legislative hearing to hear testimony on innovation to improve
equity, exploring high quality pathways to a college degree.
Pursuant to rule 7c, opening statements are limited to the
Chair and Ranking Member. This allows us to hear from our
witnesses sooner and provides all members with adequate time to
ask questions. I now recognize myself to make an opening
statement.
Today the committee will hold its fifth and final
bipartisan hearing on the Higher Education Act to discuss the
role of innovation in improving student outcome and advancing
equity. I would like to thank Dr. Foxx and her staff for their
partnership during this entire process.
Throughout our hearings, we have established Congress's
responsibility to restore the intent of the HEA and to provide
all Americans no matter their background with a quality college
education that prepares them for the modern workforce. More
than 95 percent of jobs created since the recession went to
workers with at least some college education, and we expect
growing demand for skilled workers to continue for years to
come.
Our higher education system must give every student the
opportunity to be on the right side of this trend but this is
not the case today. State disinvestment in higher education has
forced students and families to shoulder more of the cost of
college. Declining state funding accounts for well over a third
of the rise in tuition costs since 2008.
This trend has also left institutions serving our most
vulnerable students including community colleges, HBCU's,
tribal colleges and universities to try to do more with less.
Simultaneously, the Federal investment through student
financial aid--student Federal investments in student financial
aid have failed to keep up.
In 1980 the maximum Pell grant covered 3/4 of the cost of
attending a public four-year college. Today the maximum Pell
grant covers less than 30 percent of that cost. Because of the
rising costs of college, the weakening power of Pell grants,
too many low-income students either cannot afford to enroll in
post-secondary education or cannot afford to complete their
programs. Pell grant recipients - Pell grant recipients are 18
percent--18 percentage points less likely to graduate than non-
Pell recipients.
Students of color also suffer disproportionately lower
graduation rates. White students also complete college degrees
at more than one and a half times the rate of Black students.
In short, those who benefit the most from completing
college are the least likely to do so. To address this trend,
we need structural reforms in our higher education system that
not only lower the cost of college but also better serve
today's diverse students.
Innovation, backed by rigorous evaluation, plays a key role
in this reform. Today we will hear about institutions
pioneering strategies that empower students to access and
complete college programs that fit their needs.
Our witnesses, including my fellow Virginian, Tomikia
LeGrande of Virginia Commonwealth University, will share their
experiences with new approaches that help achieve the goals of
quality and equity.
For example, investing in wraparound supports for students,
including career counseling, financial assistance and
employment support has proven to help students complete their
programs on time. When we identify such successful innovations,
our role as Federal policy makers is to support and expand
them.
A college--in the college and high school programs known as
dual enrollment help students gain college credit while still
in high school and can help reduce the cost of college.
Research shows that these benefits are particularly important
for underserved students who may be discouraged from enrolling
from college because they believe they cannot afford to do so
or do not--just don't see themselves as college students. Yet
dual enrollment programs continue to be accessible to primarily
affluent students compared to low incomes students and students
of color.
Similarly, we must ensure that programs offering learning
beyond the traditional classroom provides students with
flexibility to learn at their own pace. Programs like online
courses and competency-based education can provide an
opportunity to drive down the cost of college and accelerate
learning, but research is clear that these aren't outcomes are
not evenly experienced by today's students.
We must be careful to not only promote and expand policies
that we know, based on evidence, will benefit all students.
Congress has a responsibility to explore innovative
strategies that provide more students the support they need to
complete college and reach their full potential. But as we
pursue new pathways for students to earn a quality degree, we
cannot sacrifice our commitment to quality and equity.
And so, today's hearing will help us balance these
compelling interests and we want to thank our witnesses for
being with us today and yield now to the Ranking Member, Dr.
Foxx, for her opening statement.
[The information follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Chairman,
Committee on Education and Labor
Today, the Committee will hold its fifth and final bipartisan
hearing on the Higher Education Act to discuss the role of innovation
in improving student outcomes and advancing equity. I would like to
thank Dr. Foxx and her staff for their partnership during this entire
process.
Throughout our hearings, we have established Congress's
responsibility to restore the intent of the HEA and provide all
Americans, no matter their background, with a quality college education
that prepares them for the modern workforce.
More than 95 percent of jobs created since the recession went to
workers with at least some college education, and we expect the growing
demand for skilled workers to continue for years to come.
Our higher education system must give every student the opportunity
to be on the right side of this trend. But, this is not the case today.
State disinvestment in higher education has forced students and
families to shoulder more of the cost of college. Declining state
funding accounts for well over a third of the rise in tuition costs
since 2008. This trend has also left institutions serving our most
vulnerable students--including community colleges, HBCUs, and Tribal
Colleges and Universities--to try to do more with less.
Simultaneously, federal investments in student financial aid have
failed to keep up. In 1980, the maximum Pell Grant covered three-
quarters of the cost of attendance at a public four-year college.
Today, the maximum Pell Grant covers less than 30 percent of the cost
of attendance at public four-year colleges.
Because of the rising cost of college and weakening power of Pell
Grants, too many low-income students either cannot afford to enroll in
postsecondary education or cannot afford to complete their programs.
Pell Grant recipients are 18 percentage points less likely to graduate
than non-Pell recipients.
Students of color also suffer disproportionately lower graduation
rates. White students also complete college degrees at more one-and-a-
half times the rate of Black students.
In short, those who benefit the most from completing college are
the least likely to do so. To address this trend, we need structural
reforms in our higher education system that not only lower the cost of
college, but also better serve today's diverse students.
Innovation, backed by rigorous evaluation, plays a key role in this
reform. Today, we'll hear about institutions pioneering strategies that
empower students to access and complete college programs that fit their
needs. Our
witnesses, including my fellow Virginian Tomikia LeGrande of
Virginia Commonwealth University, will share their experiences with new
approaches that help achieve the goals of quality and equity.
For example, investing in wraparound support for students -
including career counseling, financial assistance, and employment
support - has proven to help students complete their programs on time.
When we identify such successful innovations, our role as federal
policymakers is to support and expand them.
College in high school programs, known as ``dual enrollment,'' help
students to gain college credit while still in high school and can help
reduce the cost of a degree. Research shows that these benefits are
particularly important for underserved students who may be discouraged
from enrolling in college because they believe they cannot afford it,
or just don't see themselves as college students. Yet, dual enrollment
programs continue to be accessible to primarily affluent students
compared to low-income students and students of color.
Similarly, we must ensure that programs offering learning beyond
the traditional classroom provide students with the flexibility to
learn at their own pace. Programs like online courses and competency-
based education can provide an opportunity to drive down the cost of
college and accelerate learning, but research is clear that these
outcomes are not evenly experienced by today's students. We must be
careful to only promote and expand policies that we know, based on the
evidence, will benefit all students.
Congress has a responsibility to explore innovative strategies that
provide more students the support they need to complete college and
reach their full potential. But as we pursue new pathways for students
to earn a quality degree, we cannot sacrifice our commitment to quality
and equity.
Today's hearing will help us balance these compelling interests.
I want to thank the witnesses for being with us today for this
important discussion. I now yield to the Ranking Member, Dr. Foxx, for
an opening statement.
Mrs. FOXX. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
thank our panelists for being here with us today.
For too long we have believed in the stereotype of college
students as being young, bright-eyed youth, fresh out of high
school, lounging in their dorms before heading to class in the
quad.
While true for some, this traditional image of post-
secondary education is no longer the case for the majority of
American students. Today, 37 percent of college students are 25
or older. 49 percent are financially independent from their
parents and 64 percent are working while taking classes.
And yet the Federal Government and the higher education
sector too often continue to cater to an outdated vision of
post-secondary education. This stubbornness in policy has
resulted in mountains of debt, low student completion rates,
dissatisfied employers and a lack of accountability for poorly
performing institutions.
The overall national secure completion rate regardless of
starting institution type and enrollment intensity is just 58.3
percent. That is unacceptable. The old ways are hurting
American students and businesses and something needs to be done
about it.
We sit on this committee because we agree that it is time
to broaden our horizons in addressing the needs of all
students. We have had several hearings already this Congress
that demonstrate our shared commitment to reform post-secondary
education. And today, we will hear about some promising
interventions that provide students more options in pursuing
post-secondary pathways.
Options such as dual enrollment, competency based education
and apprentice style earn and learn programs have proven
pivotal in propelling many students to success when they may
have otherwise been ineffectively served by the post-secondary
education system.
I forgot my show and tell. Riding to the airport on Monday,
I was reading weekly newspapers and there is an ad in the paper
for the community college that I used to be president of and it
said Mayland Community College invites high school students to
enroll in the early college program and gain their AA degree at
the same time they gain their high school diploma. That is the
kind of thing we are talking about and I was so proud to read
that. It is just exactly what is happening all over North
Carolina.
These promising and innovative initiatives seek to define
pathways from high school to college and finally to fulfilling
high paying jobs. Committee Republicans acknowledge that post-
secondary education market place has many strengths but we also
recognize colleges, universities must step up to produce
qualified graduates to fill the millions of open jobs available
in our booming economy.
Today I hope to hear of several innovative practices that
bridge the job skills gap linking students to affordable,
practical pathways that direct them toward lifetime success. In
order to aid all Americans, these innovations must work in such
a way as to push for the success of all students including
minority students and students from low income households.
Innovation is not and cannot be a loophole that avoids high
quality. And schools experimenting in delivery models must not
exacerbate the challenges currently facing the post-secondary
system today.
But we also all need to embrace the change that is
necessary in the post-secondary education system and work to
support new, high quality paths to continued learning.
As we strive to work towards reauthorizing HEA, it is
critical that we don't just rubber stamp an outdated, failing
policy. Bold reforms are necessary to put the post-secondary
system on track to meet the needs of students.
Last Congress, we worked hard to move forward with
comprehensive HEA reform to unleash innovation and prepare
students for a dynamic economy. To ensure all Americans have
the opportunity to prosper, this committee must pledge to
reimagine antiquated concepts of post-secondary education.
If we do that, I am confident Congress can support students
in completing an affordable, post-secondary experience that
prepares them to enter the workforce with the skills they need
for lifelong success. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, I yield
back.
[The information follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Virginia Foxx, Ranking Member, Committee on
Education and Labor
For too long, we've believed in the stereotype of college students
as being young, bright-eyed youth, fresh out of high school, lounging
in their dorms before heading to class in the quad. While true for
some, this traditional image of postsecondary education is no longer
the case for the majority of American students. Today, 37 percent of
college students are 25 or older; 49 percent are financially
independent from their parents; and 64 percent are working while taking
classes.
And yet the federal government and the higher education sector too
often continue to cater to an outdated vision of postsecondary
education. This stubbornness in policy has resulted in mountains of
debt, low student completion rates, dissatisfied employers, and a lack
of accountability for poorly performing institutions. The overall
national six-year completion rate, regardless of starting institution
type and enrollment intensity, is just 58.3 percent. That's
unacceptable The old ways are hurting American students and businesses,
and something needs to be done about it.
We sit on this Committee because we agree that it's time to broaden
our horizons in addressing the needs of all student We've had several
hearings already this Congress that demonstrate our shared commitment
to reform postsecondary education, and today we'll hear about some
promising interventions that provide students more options in pursuing
postsecondary pathways. Options such as dual enrollment, competency-
based education, and apprenticeship style ear and-learn programs have
proven pivotal in propelling many students to success when they may
have otherwise been ineffectively served by the postsecondary education
system.
These promising and innovative initiatives seek to define pathways
from high school to college and finally to fulfulling, high-paying
jobs. Committee Republicans acknowledge the postsecondary education
marketplace has many strengths but we also recognize colleges and
universities must step up to produce qualified graduates to all the
millions of open jobs available in our booming economy. Today, I hope
to hear of several innovative practices that bridge the job skills gap,
linking students to affordable, practical pathways that direct them
toward lifetime success.
In order to aid all Americans, these innovations must work in such
a way as to push for the success of all students, including minority
students and students from low-income households. Innovation is not and
cannot be a loophole that avoids high quality, and schools
experimenting in delivery models must not exacerbate the challenges
currently facing the postsecondary system today. But we also all need
to embrace the change that is necessary in the postsecondary education
system and work to support new, high-quality paths to continued
learning.
As we strive to work toward reauthorizing HEA, it's critical that
we don't just rubber stamp on outdated, failing policy. Bold reforms
are necessary to put the postsecondary system on track to meet the
needs of students. Last Congress, we'll worked hard to move forward
with comprehensive HEA reform, to unleash innovation and prepare
workers for a dynam economy. To ensure all Americans have the
opportunity to prosper, this Committee must pledge to reimagine
antiquate concepts of higher education. If we do that, I am confident
Congress can support students in completing an affordable postsecondary
experience that prepares them to enter the workforce with the skills
they need for lifelong success.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you very much and without objection,
all other members who wish to insert written statements in the
record may do so by submitting them to the committee clerk
electronically in Microsoft Word format by 5 p.m. on Tuesday,
July 2. I will now introduce our witnesses. Dr. Judith Marwick
is Provost at William Rainey Harper College, a two-year
institution in Chicago, Illinois. She--her career includes
teaching and administrative positions at several Illinois
community colleges.
Tomikia LeGrande serves as Vice Provost for Strategic
Enrollment Management at Virginia Commonwealth University where
she leads, develops and implements strategies that enrich
college access, affordability and student success. She has over
15 years of higher education experience focusing on improving
college access, retention, graduation, and student satisfaction
rates to institutions with a strong commitment to serving
underrepresented groups.
Charla Long is the founding Executive Director of the
Competency Based Education Network, a national consortium with
more than 120 institutions of higher education and statewide
systems seeking to design, develop and scale new models of
student learning. She has more than 20 years of higher
education experience in both public and private institutions in
the United States including the Founding Dean--including as
Founding Dean of the College of Professional Studies at
Lipscomb University.
Mr. Sameer Gadkaree is the Senior Program Officer at the
Education and Economic Mobility Team at the Joyce Foundation, a
Chicago based foundation focused on advancing racial equity and
economic mobility in the Great Lakes region. He leads the
organizations grant making and higher education and the future
of work.
Appreciate all of our witnesses for being here today and
look forward to your testimony. Let me remind the witnesses we
have read the written statements and they will appear in full
in the hearing record.
Pursuant to committee rule 7d and committee practice, each
of you is asked to limit your oral testimony to a 5 minute
summary of your written statement. We remind the witnesses that
it is illegal to knowingly and willfully make false statements,
representations, writing, and documents or material fact to
Congress or otherwise conceal or cover up a material fact.
And before you begin your testimony, please remember to
press the button on the microphone in front of you so that it
will turn on and the members can hear you. As you speak, the
light in front of you will turn green. After four minutes, the
yellow signal will come on indicating you have one minute
remaining. When the light turns red, your 5 minutes have
expired, and we ask you to wrap up as soon as you can.
We will let the entire panel make presentations before we
move to member questions and when answering a question, please
remember once again to turn your microphone on. I will first
recognize Dr. Marwick.
TESTIMONY OF JUDITH MARWICK, ED.D., PROVOST, WILLIAM RAINEY
HARPER COLLEGE
Ms. MARWICK. Thank you. Chairman Bobby Scott, Ranking
Member Virginia Foxx, and Members of the committee, thank you
for the opportunity to testify today about using innovation to
improve equity in higher education through dual credit
programs.
My name is Judy Marwick. In 2010, Harper College engaged in
a transformational partnership entitled the Northwest
Educational Consortium for Student Success or NECSS, to ensure
that every high school student will have the opportunity to
attend college and be prepared for 21st century careers. NECSS
is a regional, educational collaborative comprised of Harper
College and three high school districts totaling 12 public high
schools to serve 23 communities.
Together, we created an intergovernmental agreement and a
statement of goals and objectives, a shared organizational
design, and specific accountability measures. The goal of the
partnership is to improve curriculum alignment and early
college opportunities to increase the percentage of students
who graduate ready for college and to create pathways that lead
to post-secondary credentials.
One of the most significant initiatives of NECSS is called
the Power of 15,which we developed based on an analysis of
college data showing that attainment of 15 college credits is a
tipping point predicting student persistence in completion. The
Power of 15 was founded on the premise that most high school
students should be able to graduate from high school having
earned 15 hours of college credit in combination of AP, dual
credit and credit by exam.
Senior year should be a time for students to catch up if
they are not yet college ready or to speed up and begin college
level course work while still in high school. Dual credit
courses compliment and expand early college opportunities for
students in subjects where AP courses are not available as well
as help lower remediation rates.
Additionally, the results speak directly to the
effectiveness of collaborative partnerships like NECSS. Not
only do such collaborations promote post-secondary education,
but dual credit classes empower students to believe they can
achieve at the college level by already completing such
courses.
There were approximately 6500 high school graduates in June
2018 among the 12 NECSS high schools. While the early college
attainment rates remain lower for low income and minority
students, they are increasing across all demographic groups. Of
the low-income high school students, 19 percent or 335 students
graduated with at least 15 hours of college credit, up from 13
percent just two years ago. Among all students, 32 percent are
graduating with at least 15 hours of college credit.
Further, when we consider students who receive a C or
better in at least one dual credit course, the low-income
students, 928 of them, are attaining this mark at the same
percentage as all district students. 54 percent.
Further, as we have developed the Power of 15, and expanded
dual credit, most dual credit classes are now being taught at
the high schools during the high school day. This is important
because it eliminates the need for transportation costs and
time.
In 2012, approximately 1100 students were enrolled in a
dual credit course at Harper College. In 2017, over 6,000 high
school students took a dual credit college course. 95 percent
of these students were taught at their local high school during
the school day.
While the Power of 15 has achieved significant success, the
initiative encountered some implementation challenges including
cost of tuition, data sharing among secondary and post-
secondary districts and credentialing of high school teachers
to qualify them to teach college courses.
There are opportunities for Congress to help address some
of these changes especially as it relates to cost. We recommend
making Pell grant funding available for qualified high school
students. We also recommend that college--Congress establish
grants or incentives for institutions of higher education to--
and school districts to form partnerships such as NECSS, to
align curriculum, reduce remediation and offer dual credit
courses.
Additionally, data sharing is an important component of
such partnerships to establish the need for alignment and to
share results.
We recommend that Congress review FERPA to address
challenges that deter such collaborative partnerships which
still protect the privacy of students.
Thank you to the committee for the opportunity to testify.
[The statement of Ms. Marwick follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Dr. LeGrande.
TESTIMONY OF TOMIKIA LEGRANDE, ED.D., VICE PROVOST FOR
STRATEGIC ENROLLMENT MANAGEMENT, VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH
UNIVERSITY
Ms. LEGRANDE. Good morning, Chairman Scott, Ranking Member
Foxx, and committee members. I am proud to be with you on
behalf of Virginia Commonwealth University, an urban public
research university of 31,000 students which also includes a
nationally premiere academic health system. Together, we are an
economic engine with more than $6 billion impact on the
Commonwealth of Virginia.
I have spent my career ensuring that colleges and
universities deliver on their promise to transform student
lives and enable them to pursue their American dream. I see it
happen every day. And I have lived it. I am the first person in
my family to graduate college. My education from three
outstanding public universities transformed my life and
inspired me to ensure that every student has that very same
opportunity. That's what we focus on at VCU.
All of our students have great potential and capability,
but they have not all had equal access to power or to
information with respect to how to succeed in college. This
means that some students get lost in the academic enterprise
and must figure it out for themselves. So at VCU we have
transformed our approaches to meet the needs of our diverse
student population.
Our student body looks much like America. 43 percent of our
students are from minority populations. One third are the first
in their families to go to college. And 30 percent are Pell
eligible.
Over 86 percent of our students are residents of Virginia
and our commitment to helping students succeed is evident in
the fact that our Latinx, African American and Pell eligible
students graduate at nearly the same rate as their peers from
more privilege.
We believed that we can completely eliminate this gap by
the time our current incoming freshman class graduates.
Something few universities have done.
But this follows a larger trend at VCU. For all of our
students, both four- and six-year graduation rates have
increased by more than 14 percentage points since 2012 and now
are higher than the National average. More importantly, 17
percent of our students move up two or more income quintiles
after they graduate.
A student born in the bottom quintile of family incomes has
a 27 percent chance of reaching the very top quintile after
graduating from VCU.
It is critical that colleges and universities move beyond
the simple academic checklists that existed when we were
students and rethink our approaches putting the needs of our
students first.
Through several innovative strategies and tools focused on
guidance and support, student faculty engagement, and college
access and affordability we work to meet our students where
they are.
Our intrusive advising model proactively guides students
through a reflection of experiences identifying purpose and
setting goals as they focus on their educational outcomes. We
have invested significant resources to lower the student to
advisor ratio and increased focus on connecting with students
to ensure their fit in their chosen academic program.
We also use technology and predictive analytics that allows
for well-timed advice and guidance to promote timely progress
to gradation.
Our definition of student success extends beyond
graduation. We've implemented Major Maps, a unique tool that
combines academic and career planning. Students create an
individualized plan focusing on their goals after graduation
and work backwards to determine how to succeed through skill
development such as undergraduate research, internships and
networking.
We have also modernized first year courses through
interdisciplinary community based and inquiry-based learning
experiences. Our students develop traditional academic skills
in an environment that fosters connectedness, creativity and
engagement.
Our REAL initiative, relevant, experiential, and applied
learning lets students apply knowledge from the classroom into
action and service. And students in these high impact
experiences are more likely to persist and graduate on time.
So, we are committed to providing a real experience for all of
our students. That's the VCU promise.
We know student success begins in many places, so we
partner with every community college in Virginia through
guaranteed admissions, articulation agreements, co-enrollment
options and reverse transfers and we have developed transfer
maps to connect to over 22 high need programs.
Lastly, we have prioritized affordability investing more
than $35 million over the last eight years to build up our
institutional aid and award completion grants to cover small
outstanding balances to help students.
I am grateful to work in this kind of environment and I am
proud of our record of student success. Thank you for your time
for listening this morning and I look forward to answering any
questions.
[The statement of Ms. LeGrande follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Ms. Long.
TESTIMONY OF CHARLA LONG, J.D., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COMPETENCY-
BASED EDUCATION NETWORK
Ms. LONG. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Foxx, and members of
the committee, thank you for holding this hearing and for
allowing me to testify about the role competency-based
education plays in creating high quality pathways to post-
secondary education. We really are serving our Nation's diverse
learner population.
While not defined in Federal law, the field often defines
CBE as being focused on actual start-student learning and the
application of that learning rather than the time spent in
class on material.
Learners, their progress is measured when they demonstrate
their competence through a system of rigorous assessments
meaning they much prove they have mastered the knowledge and
skills necessary for their required program of study.
Higher education institutions using competencies as the
currency of learning are able to connect, compare and validate
learning across multiple contexts and create pathways for
learners.
For example, Tracy. She is a 43-year-old daycare worker who
had completed over 170 professional development hours, yet she
had not one college credit.
By focusing on competencies, she enrolled at Hartland
Community College's program for the child care credential where
they held their expectations of learning constant but the way
in which she acquired that learning to be flexible.
The time it took Tracy to demonstrate the competencies and
the context from which she learned it was variable. Tracy
progressed towards her credential at a personalized pace,
demonstrating mastery of her required competencies.
She earned 16 hours of credit and 2 industry recognized
certifications and she did so in an affordable, accessible
manner that was 25 percent less the cost--was only 25 percent
of the cost of a traditional offering.
Tracy is not alone. In my written testimony I share story
after story of folks that are military personnel, from those
that are incarcerated, to those that find themselves unemployed
and unskilled in today's economy.
Typically, institutions develop their CBE programs with
common goals in mind such as how do we lower student costs or
increase quality or the transparency of learning outcomes. Or
make it faster to completion or increase work force
preparedness or use desired leverage all the learning a student
brings.
We wanted increased access for underserved learners. These
are some of the reasons that CBE programs exist. The landscape
has seen tremendous growth in recent years and C-BEN recognizes
new members each month as they join this sector. However,
beyond a handful of studies, data on the effectiveness of CBE
programs is not yet plentiful. Although much of the research is
limited to small samples and single institution case studies,
which my written testimony shares, the results achieved by
individual institutions is quite promising. But looking across
institutions there is still much to learn.
With so many new entrants and such rapid expansion
underway, we believe we need to test, validate, iterate, on the
outcomes of CBE under an entirely new Federal structure, one
that's not based on the credit hour. This will enable
established CBE programs to experiment with new flexibilities
and for Congress to understand the outcomes while ensuring the
quality of learning.
While tempting to fully open up requirements to allow CBE
to grow, we believe it is still too soon to take that step. We
must protect students, assure quality learning and safeguard
tax payer investments. Therefore, we call on Congress to
authorize a demonstration project for CBE programs in
particular to create a definition for CBE.
Under this demonstration projects, colleges should be
allowed flexibility with Federal financial aid rules to assess
how a new system would work under a controlled manner that
protects students and tax payers while ensuring quality.
Finally, Congress should require the collection and the
publication of accurate, comprehensive, and robust data to
support the rigorous assessment of the demonstration project
success in serving students.
We hope Congress will take this next step towards
responsible innovation, so our providers can continue to
develop promising pathways for students. And if you do that, we
hope you will leverage our quality framework for CBE programs.
Thank you again for allowing me this time and to be with
you today.
[The statement of Ms. Long follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Mr. Gadkaree.
TESTIMONY OF SAMEER GADKAREE, SENIOR PROGRAM OFFICER, JOYCE
FOUNDATION
Mr. GADKAREE. Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Foxx, and
members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify.
I lead higher education grant making at the Joyce Foundation. I
previously led the adult education division for Chicago's
community colleges.
The Joyce Foundation seeks to advance racial, equity, and
economic mobility in the Great Lakes region. The foundation
gives $50 million annually to public policy nonprofits and have
assets of $1 billion.
For decades, the foundation has worked to improve education
and workforce development programs. Educational attainment is a
key determinant of an individual's lifetime earnings and of our
Nation's global economic competitiveness. That's why it's
troubling that gaps in college attainment are widening by race
and wealth.
In 1990, White young students were 13 percentage points
more likely than Black young adults and 18 points more likely
than Latinx young adults to have a bachelor's degree or higher.
Those gaps are wider today. For Black young adults, it is
worsened to 19 points. For Latinx young adults, it has worsened
to 24 points.
Shockingly, students from wealthy families are 48 points
more likely to hold a bachelors than students from poor
families. Also, a worsening gap.
The Joyce Foundation hopes this committee will support
changes to our college system to close racial and wealth gaps
in college attainment.
A good place to begin is community colleges since half of
first time Black, Latinx, and low-income students start there.
I have five points to cover today.
First, well-targeted investments in community colleges can
yield significant increases in graduates. Currently only 39
percent of students who start in a community college complete a
certificate or degree.
But four randomized control trials tested programs that
were able to double graduation rates with more intensive
advising and student supports.
This evidence led a bipartisan group including two former
Chairs of the Council of Economic Advisors to recommend a
direct investment in community colleges which would produce 3.6
million more young graduates in 2030 and 28 million more older
graduates.
Thus, Federal policy makers should provide funding to scale
community college evidence-based programs.
Second, investments can connect community college graduates
to good jobs. Overall, well-paid jobs are shifting to people
with bachelor's degrees. In the last 25 years the economy added
18 million well-paid jobs for bachelor's degree graduates, 3
million for associate's degree graduates and 300,000 for
certificate holders. We lost 2 million well-paid jobs for high
school graduates.
Because that shift worsens economic equality, the Joyce
Foundation supports employers who hire associate's degrees. The
associate degree graduates for good jobs.
In Chicago, Aon, Accenture and other leading employers have
hired community college graduates. Joyce and others are
building the public sectors capacity to meet those employer
needs.
Federal policy makers could similarly support college's
capacity. For example, they could build on the learnings from
the pack effort, the Trade Adjustment Act community college
career training effort. As the audit of that program suggested,
better Federal data collection would be required to track
efficacy.
Third, states can improve the community college pipeline to
four-year degrees. Fewer than 20 percent of students who start
in a community college will earn a bachelor's degree. States
can improve this pipeline, so we and other philanthropies are
investing in stronger state policy.
The racial representativeness of public flagship colleges
in the Great Lakes region is declining. Enrolling and gradating
more community college students can address this problem and
thus Joyce is supporting individual universities efforts to do
so. Though states and colleges need to lead in this arena,
Federal policy makers should create stronger incentives for
colleges especially wealthy colleges to enroll minority and
low-income students.
Fourth, increasing employer skill needs may mean that
community colleges should offer technically-oriented bachelor's
degrees. 25 states now allow this and allowing community
colleges to grant work aligned four-year degrees. Though this
is mainly a state issue, it seemed germaine to today's topic.
Finally, I want to touch on education technology. Joyce
funded research to see if technology can increase GED and
English learner outcomes and got mixed results. Those findings
add to a mixed research base generally about technology and
college onramps. Technology alone may not be able to solve our
completion challenges.
As this body considers how to improve higher education, I
hope you will consider programs that meaningfully close race
and income-based gaps in attainment and build a more equitable
society for all.
Thank you again for inviting me to testify. I would be
happy to answer your questions.
[The statement of Mr. Gadkaree follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Under Committee Rule 8a, we will
now question witnesses under the 5-minute rule. And as Chair I
have decided to go at the end so recognize the Chair of the
Higher Education Subcommittee who will--oops. Who has switched
places with the gentlelady from Florida who will be now
recognized as Secretary Shalala.
Ms. SHALALA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
address the elephant in the room and that is AP courses versus
dual enrollment courses because it seems to me that there is
data now that shows that we may be able to move faster with
dual enrollment courses than we ever were with AP courses.
Though, for parents they are confused about the two. And
so, I want to ask you whether you believe that higher education
as opposed to the College Board, higher education taking over
the responsibility of offering students courses, high school
students courses is going to move the needle faster and what
your experience has been as opposed to the narrower focus of AP
courses. That is my number one question.
And number two, what are these dual enrollment courses? Can
someone take a science course and actually move to upper
division that has been a challenge? I understand the math
courses, but what are the mix of courses in which we know that
a student can move when they go to college to the next level?
And any of you can answer these questions.
Ms. MARWICK. Perhaps I'll start. We are offering dual
credit courses where AP is not available with one exception and
that's English 101. The reason is in our school districts,
they--students have the availability of AP courses. And yes,
they have to pass the test in order to get credit. Universities
generally accept AP courses readily.
In Illinois, they also accept the dual credit courses that
are articulated for transfer. We have something in Illinois
called the General Education Core Curriculum at the state level
so all the transfer dual level courses we are offering are in
that general education--
Ms. SHALALA. So you have got an articulation agreement that
allows them to transfer directly?
Ms. MARWICK. That's correct.
Ms. SHALALA. Into the Illinois.
Ms. MARWICK. So we are offering over 40 dual credit
courses. We are offering them in the arts, in the sciences, we
are offering biology, we are offering anatomy, we are offering
English 101, we are offering speech, we are offering several
math courses just to name a few. And they do transfer.
On the career side of the house, there is no AP credit for
our career track college students. And so, I see those courses
as giving college credit to career students to get a head start
on their college education and also show them that they can
complete successfully college courses and by the way, they're
already halfway there when they graduate.
Ms. SHALALA. Dr. LeGrande.
Ms. LEGRANDE. I agree with you. The questions around dual
enrollment seem to focus on transparency of information for
students and their parents and consistency of application
across institutions and then students' preparedness for the
next set of courses.
So, a few of the things that we have done in Virginia is
really working with other institutions to create greater
transparency. So right now, there is a 30-credit hour
certificate for General Education where the dual enrollment
courses are offered. They normally are general education
courses. But those courses are often times prerequisite to
courses in the major to upper division courses.
Secondly, there is also the development of a new 15-credit
hour passport because it is likely that all students won't be
able to take 30-credit hours while in high school, so the 15-
credit hour passport will allow a very similar transparency for
families to understand what courses students are eligible to
take in the dual enrollment status and--with a--how they will
transfer to the university and how they fall into the degree
programs of the students interests.
I think the next step for the preparedness of the next set
of courses, I think there is mixed results across the Nation.
Whether students are prepared for that next set of courses but
one of the things that we want to do in understanding that a
majority of our students are coming in with dual credit is to
make sure that we have those wraparound supports for those
students.
And so, in courses where we realize there are already
barrier courses at the upper division level, we want to make
sure that we are connecting students with the appropriate
academic support tutoring, supplemental instructor, instruction
to make sure that they are leveraging that credit and making it
work for them so they pass the next course.
I think one thing I will mention in Virginia that we
realize we are working toward in furthering this initiative is
to create a true pipeline for families and their students to
understand how dual enrollment courses apply to the
institutions they're interested in attending and to the majors
that they want to pursue by creating an online portal for them
to search this information and get that access.
Ms. SHALALA. Unfortunately, my time has run out, so I can't
listen to the next to answer the question. Mr. Chairman, I just
want to make a point that we have put a lot of money into AP
courses. We need to solve the problem of how to finance--both
the Federal Government and the State Government need to solve
the problem on how to finance these dual enrollment courses
because they may have just as much promise if not more promise.
Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Dr. Roe.
Dr. ROE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also thank all of you
all for being here today and, Dr. LeGrande I could not agree
more. I associate my feelings with what you said.
The best investments I ever made in my life was I have four
years of undergraduate school and you have friends,
relationships, basic knowledge and skills that will teach you
to lifelong learn.
And, Mr. Gadkaree, I did learn, I noticed in your testimony
about the soft skills. I have learned at age 15 I did not want
to be a dishwasher when I washed 350 dishes three times a day
at a Boy Scout camp. It taught me that.
Two, in a tobacco patch one hot summer it convinced me that
organic chemistry was not that hard. So you, that is the skills
that you learn elsewhere are also extremely valuable.
I passed a, helped pass a bill with my colleagues called
the Forever GI Bill which is where you now can use your GI Bill
the rest of your life when you get out of the military and the
reason I thought that was important was because technology and
things are changing so fast, the skills are changing so fast so
you are going to have to go back and learn other skills. And in
our State of Tennessee we recognize that one of the biggest
deterrents to an education for low income people is cost. They
couldn't afford to go.
So now you can attend any community college in our State
for free. You can attend any technical school for free. If you
make less than 50--if you family makes less than $50,000 a
year, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Chattanooga and
at Martin if you meet the criteria to go there will make sure
that they pass the--pass along those last dollars. Once you
have used your Hope Scholarship which we provide in Tennessee
we do not want--we understand that economics is a barrier to
many low income people. It is not in our State. We also have a
technical school within 50 miles of every person that lives in
the State and we graduate about 8,000 people. Almost 100
percent of them get placed in their specific area.
And one of the criticisms I hear when I talk to employers
in my State is that we are educating people on things they
don't need so I think the--Ms. Long, I want you to comment on
competency based education and then Dr. Marwick, just for you,
Northeast State Community College which is in my district has
had success working with high school students to prepare for
college math.
In the Northwest Education of Consortium Student Success
which your college participates in has helped high school
students prepare for college math. What has been the biggest
lessons you have learned from the consortium and the work in
this area because that is where a lot of kids just drop out.
They can't figure the math out. Start with Dr. Marwick and then
to Ms. Long.
Ms. MARWICK. Thank you. Well, being a former math professor
at college, I saw students misplaced in college level math and
when we did the research with our school districts at Harper,
we showed them that about 60 percent of their recent high
school graduates were needing developmental mathematics. They
said that can't be true, we are doing a good job.
But what we found is a lot of students weren't taking
mathematics senior year and they then tested at developmental
level when they didn't really need it. So, we worked with the
high schools and now 98 percent of their students are taking
math senior year, even though in Illinois only three years of
math is required.
And we have said there's three tracks. There is AP calculus
and pre-calculus, they've always been doing a good job with
that. There is a general education math course which meets the
requirements in Illinois and most schools for people who are
not in STEM fields in their math requirement for college. Take
it now, don't skip a year. So, we are offering that as dual
credit when they're seniors.
For people not ready for college level math, we're giving
placement tests in the junior year to see. We helped them
devise an algebra three course which is a deeper dive into
problem solving and algebraic thinking skills rather than going
on and given them trigonometry which most of them are not going
to need.
We have now have over 80 percent of the students, recent
high school graduates coming to Harper College, college ready
in mathematics.
Dr. ROE. Just a personal step, I get hives when I go in a
math class. Ms. Long.
Ms. LONG. Thank you so much my fellow Tennessean. I
appreciate the question. In a high-quality CBE program, we
start with asking what is it a person needs to know and be able
to do if that is the credential.
In our quality framework one of the eight quality elements
are your competencies clear, meaningful, measurable and
integrated and what we mean by that is are we putting students,
are we preparing students with the right kind of competencies?
So, look at what is it that's needed today, how do we
design a program to ensure that is the knowledge that they're
going to have when they leave that they can demonstrate that
knowledge and they'll be workforce ready when they exit the
program.
Dr. ROE. Thank you all, you are just a great panel and I
yield back.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentleman from the Northern
Mariana Islands, Mr. Sablan.
Mr. SABLAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good morning
everyone. One challenge that we often hear about is the
misalignment of high school graduation requirements and college
entrance requirements.
It is concerning that a student can gradate from a public
high school and arrive at a college, public college in that
same state only to be told that they need to take remedial
coursework before entering a credit bearing program. We hear
that this morning from some of you.
Dr. Marwick, I understand that Harper College has made
intentional efforts to bring the K12 and post-secondary systems
into better alignment. Can you tell us about what motivated
this and what results you have seen from them?
Ms. MARWICK. Yes. We, 10 years ago our college president
reached out to the high school superintendents and we
determined that these are all our students. Our high schools
are very good high schools and the teachers are preparing
students for high school graduation by offering dual credit in
the high schools, the teachers in the high schools are now
preparing their high school students for college level courses.
They didn't know that not taking math senior year was a
real problem when students took placement tests at any college.
They didn't know that senior year English courses need to be
writing based, not literature based for all students.
And when we shared that, they changed what they're doing in
the high schools and the vast increase in dual credit means the
high school teachers focus is to get students in one of those
dual credit courses their senior year, so they are preparing
them for college level courses in addition to high school
graduation.
Mr. SABLAN. Yeah and yeah, I--so I see that and, you know,
like we also have AP classes where you can but is--would this
correlation between K to 12 and college, preparation for
college, would it work also for say someone going to a
vocational training program?
Ms. MARWICK. Absolutely. Because the truth is for people
going into vocational curriculum in post-secondary education,
they have to know, be able to write, they have to be able to
compute as well. So that's important.
By giving them the appropriate dual credit courses in their
career program, we can start their pathway towards a
certificate and a degree in the career programs that they're
interested in and show them that they've already completed
college education and they don't have perhaps very much more to
do in order to get at least their first certificate.
Mr. SABLAN. Okay. So, I guess it does, you know, make a
difference, tremendous difference for students to have a clear
pathway to a degree and career so they are not left guessing
what courses to take or how those courses connect to future
jobs, employment professions.
But again, Dr. Marwick, I understand that Harper College is
starting a pilot that gives high school students access to
healthcare pathway programs. In my district provider shortages
and filling these healthcare jobs continues to be a challenge.
Really big challenge. Also, can you tell us a little bit more
about this effort and what led to its creation and please?
Ms. MARWICK. Yes. We decided to start with a healthcare
pathway and we do several things. We offer CNA in our high
schools as dual credit. That is the first credential necessary
to work and to take the licensed professional nursing or the RN
program.
Then we ask the high schools to identify students who were
interested in our RN program and they came to the college in
the afternoons. We only had four of them the first year that we
did this, and they took anatomy and physiology, their English
course, microbiology on the college campus and then passing
those courses we reserved seats for them in our RN program, so
they didn't have to wait to take the prerequisites.
Mr. SABLAN. So yeah, in my district, we have a 2-year
college that has a two year nursing program. Those students
graduate from the 2-year take the NCLEX class, the NCLEX...
Ms. MARWICK. Yes.
Mr. SABLAN. and become qualified as registered nurses.
Unfortunately, they can only practice in the northern, in my
district not anywhere else. But this relationship between the K
to 12 and the college, the State government is very much
involved, the State of Illinois if I am correct, right? That
agreement between this different, the schools--
Ms. MARWICK. This agreement is between Harper College and
our high schools.
Mr. SABLAN. And our, and your high schools. Oh, okay.
Ms. MARWICK. Other colleges in Illinois may have similar
agreements however.
Mr. SABLAN. Right. My time is up and the reason I am asking
this is because we are trying to work--I am trying to convince
our schools that high schools and our community college needs
to align the career vocational education programs. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman, my time is up.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr.
Walberg.
Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
this hearing. This is an exciting hearing and I think we are
starting to get the concept around here that our education
institutions ought to be serving the best interest that we have
for careers and jobs and people being prepared and ready to
fill exciting job situations, career opportunities and oh, by
the way, be responsible citizens and earn a paycheck. That
makes a difference.
So thank you to the panel for being here as well. Dr.
Marwick, the dual enrollment credits that you offer to students
may be part of a career pathway leading to employment. Could
you provide further example of one of those career pathways?
Ms. MARWICK. Certainly. We offer career pathways in law
enforcement, in our fire science program, in our fashion design
program, in our advanced manufacturing program to name just a
few.
Mr. WALBERG. Okay. And they are leading to jobs, actual
jobs in those career areas?
Ms. MARWICK. They lead to actual jobs in the career
industry. On the other end, we have partnerships with the
businesses in our community.
Mr. WALBERG. Okay.
Ms. MARWICK. We are expanding our apprenticeships programs
and have apprenticeships in some of those fields so that
students graduate from high school, can be hired into the
apprenticeship program. They earn a salary, they go to school
and three years later they have a degree without any debt plus
they've had a salary.
Mr. WALBERG. That is exciting to hear, and I wanted to hear
more about that. Adron College for instance in my district, in
conversation with Google came up with a plan developing a
network now where Google said, you know, we love all of the IT
students we get but we have to retrain most of them.
They don't fit. They don't work in Google and so we have to
take on all sorts of educational and training opportunities for
them again. And so why don't we work with you, why don't we
prepare your curriculum, work with your professors and do it in
such a way that it can be transferred to other schools as well
so we can get the 5,000 coders or IT professionals that come
online immediately when they get to Google and see this with
Olivetti College. And with Michigan State University. Working
with major insurance corporations and providing jobs for the
students as they are working toward a degree as well.
How do you develop that relationship with business and
industry so that they actually work with you and oh by the way,
maybe pay the students as they are going through the
internships?
Ms. MARWICK. Our first advanced apprenticeship program was
with Zurich Insurance and we are just now graduating our second
class of students with the AAS degree in business with an
insurance focus.
Zurich pays for each of the students, pays for all of their
books and they work at Zurich three days a week and they come
to college two days a week and that's part of their employment
agreement. Zurich has been really happy with the program.
We are also doing a lesser number of students with Aon. We
have started working with Northrup Grumman now on an electrical
technology program.
We as leaders of the college particularly our president,
Kenneth Ender, he reaches out to the community, invites them
over to our college to see what we are doing, asks them what
their needs are and we are willing to adapt curriculum to
produce those degrees and give students those skills.
Mr. WALBERG. Wow, listening to industry, that is pretty
neat. I am sure that is why you are having success there.
Dr. LeGrande, in your written testimony, you state that 17
percent of your students rise two or more income quartiles
after graduation. To what do you attribute that success and
does VCU also have particular employer partnerships that help
contribute it to that outcome?
Ms. LEGRANDE. When we think about the economic mobility of
our students and looking at our strategies, we don't attribute
it to one thing. We do attribute the success of our students
able to move income quartile, quintiles truly because of the
advantages that a VCU education has afforded them.
The fact that students get to engage in a hands-on
curriculum and engage with competencies in learning 21st
century skills of critical thinking and problem solving,
through our REAL experiences, students are able to really apply
those hands-on strategies through undergraduate research or
internships and work study opportunities.
The students really are able to apply the knowledge in the
classroom to the real world. And we find that employers in
Virginia because so many of our students are from Virginia,
many of them stay in Virginia and the employers share the
success stories of our students in that way.
With the new Major Maps that we have, one of things that we
realize is that many of our students come to us saying they
want to get a good job. And so, we want to help those students
identify early what career options exist in a plethora of
opportunities because often times students major in, want to
major in disciplines for the careers they know but they are not
aware of all of the careers that exist.
And so the Major Maps allows students to be exposed to
those concepts and share that information with their families
who may also need to know about a broad range of careers that
we can help prepare them for in the classrooms and outside of
the classroom so that they can be competitive applicants for
that job.
Mr. WALBERG. Good. I wish you continued success. I am way
over time so thank you, I yield back.
Chairman SCOTT. The gentlelady from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici.
Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just had the honor
of speaking at the commencement at Clatsop Community College in
Astoria, Oregon on Friday and I noted that a significant number
of the graduates were continuing on to a four-year institution
and I also want to note the importance of the TRIO programs to
places like Clatsop Community College and other community
colleges in Northwest Oregon and across the country.
So, nobody on this Committee is going to be surprised to
hear me talk about the Federal role in education being about
equity. We know that many of the Federal education laws passed
in President Johnson's administration with that focus on equity
of opportunity and that means a couple of things. That no
student should be denied the opportunity to go through higher
education because of lack of resources but it also should mean
that the higher education is quality higher education.
And until those are fulfilled, I think we haven't met the
promise of the Higher Education Act because we know how
important, what a powerful force education is and especially
for first generation students and students of color. We have
some work to do.
Dr. Marwick, we know more low-income students and students
of color are enrolling in college, but they are still lagging
behind peers. Mr. Gadkaree noted this as well. Low- and middle-
income individuals are significantly less likely to enroll in
college than higher income peers. And Federal data released
last month showed up to 50 percent gap in college enrollment
between low income students and their wealthier peers.
So, could you expand just a bit on the dual enrollment
programs and how do you see those making a difference and I do
want to have time for another couple questions.
Ms. MARWICK. Sure. We still see gaps in low income and
minority students and dual credit attainment but, what we find
is they are 11 percent more likely to enroll at Harper College
and they are 11 percent more likely to graduate than their
peers without dual credit. So, we think it is making a
difference for those groups.
Ms. BONAMICI. And is that with any dual enrollment class or
do you need to take a certain number of classes?
Ms. MARWICK. We are measuring different amounts but that is
with any dual enrollment.
Ms. BONAMICI. Terrific. Dr. LeGrande, I was so glad you
mentioned critical thinking and problem solving. I am the
founder and co-chair of the Congressional STEAM caucus with
Representative Stefanik. We know that integrating arts and
design into STEM fields is building a more inclusive
environment in classrooms and it supports a greater diversity
of students interested in STEM including girls and people of
color. We are seeing a lot of success especially at the K12
level.
And I want to note, we don't know today what the jobs are
going to be when the students who are in school now enter the
workforce.
So, Dr. LeGrande, a couple things. What are you doing to
diversity the workforce and to educate students to be flexible,
creative thinkers?
And I am going to ask my second question as well just to in
the interest of time. Many of my constituents attend Portland
State University which like VCU is a large urban institution so
what are you doing to address the additional challenges of
urban institutions and I know this isn't just an urban issue
but things like food insecurity and the challenges of
affordable housing which make a big difference in being able to
complete.
Ms. LEGRANDE. Thank you so much for the question. Your
first question about diversifying the workforce and preparing
students for the jobs that haven't even been invented yet, it's
the important of the general education and making sure that we
have a strong curriculum around our general education.
We are currently at VCU working on our general education
redesign to make sure that we are really fully engaging
students around those concepts of critical thinking and written
oral communication. The transferable skills that will go with
you regardless of what your career path is but to make sure
that we are preparing students to be lifelong learners with
actual functional skills to get that first job and then to be
able to move on to that next suite of jobs.
I think again that's where the real experiences are
important because we serve such a large population of students
who are first gen and low income, they don't come to us with
the social capital to network and to understand all of the
pieces to help you land that first job in your next job and so
those are important to make sure in addition to the hands on
technical skills that those students often have--also have
those soft skills.
The second question about the urban institutions and the
challenges that come along with serving high need populations,
we currently at VCU do have a food pantry and we also have an
off-campus support program and office that helps students who
have home--house insecurity and food insecurities to connect
them to local resources including SNAP benefits, emergency
housing, and our food pantry on campus.
Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you so much. My time is about to
expire, I yield back. Thank you. Mr. Chairman
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentleman from Kansas, Mr.
Watkins.
Mr. WATKINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe the
objective of post-secondary education must be to prepare
students to enter the workforce with the skills needed for
lifelong success.
In my conversations with Kansas employers and businesses,
one of the top concerns always mentioned is the significant
labor shortages that our industries across the board are
facing. Higher education is the pivot point into a well-paying
job and our students need to be equipped to step into this back
log of existing jobs.
From Congress our focus should be to smooth the way by
enhancing--by enticing pro-growth policies that allow
educational institutions the room to be innovative and partner
with local employers.
However, Congress tends to look at Federal laws authorizing
education and workforce development programs as separate
initiatives. But this is a fragmented approach that results in
programs that fail to interact.
Dr. Marwick, in the Northwest Educational Consortium for
Student Success that sounds like an entity looking to bridge
the gap in this policy. Why did Harper College decide to join
the consortium and what organizational changes did you have to
make to better serve student because of your participation?
Ms. MARWICK. We started the consortium. The superintendents
of the three high school districts and the president of the
community college said let's do this. And with leadership from
the top, we designed a structure, data sharing, and we started
talking about what our students needed.
They start talk about careers in high school. We show them
the pathways to get there. Our first success was with
remediation in math. Eliminating most of the remediation in
mathematics when students go to any college.
We consider that a big win and then we move forward with
more dual credit, a vast expansion with the idea that everyone
in high school should be able to get some college credit.
Mr. WATKINS. Thank you and, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentleman from California,
Mr. Takano.
Mr. TAKANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am delighted about
the bipartisan interest in issues surrounding dual enrollment.
I served 22 years on a community college board as an elected
trustee and was delighted to see the expertise of a former
university president in Congresswoman and former Secretary
Donna Shalala.
So, you know, I want to--as a trustee I recall and you
were--and I gather Harper College is public community college
in the Chicago system. Is that correct?
Ms. MARWICK. It's not part of the Chicago system. We're in
the suburbs of Cook County.
Mr. TAKANO. So, but you are a public community college?
Ms. MARWICK. We are a public community college.
Mr. TAKANO. Can you tell me in what ways--I remember, I
recall the challenges in getting these programs started is the
planning resources. Is that still true?
Ms. MARWICK. There are certainly resource challenges for
community colleges, yes. What we started off with is we limit
the cost for the dual credit. One of our districts passes some
cost on to students, the other district covers the cost for
their students.
Mr. TAKANO. So the--whether a funding model they use for
the K12 and there is different segment for higher ed, this
attempt to blend these two functions is a source of I think
confusion for how state governments do the funding.
Ms. MARWICK. It is. And it's a little bit tricky. In
Illinois, when you have dual credit in the high schools, the
high schools get credit for those students in attendance and
the college gets credit for credit hour reimbursement for those
hours.
Mr. TAKANO. And so what I am getting at is that to get
these programs started, even though they have tremendous
benefit in terms of diversifying higher education and the ways
in which not over utilizing the traditional AP path to, you
know, get those extra credits, the advantages that we see for
low income and minority students to be able to succeed and move
into higher ed, getting these programs started then to expand
the number of programs I see as related to these--the confusion
over how we are going to fund them but also the planning
resources available for community colleges and the high schools
to be able to work together. But how much money do you think it
takes to get a program started if you are to start from scratch
as a new community college?
Ms. MARWICK. We have tried to think about that. It's pretty
difficult to think about the faculty time, the teacher time,
the administrative time that goes into setting up one of these
programs.
But with the outcomes we have seen, we were committed that
this was part of our strategic plan and that we were all
committed to do it together.
Mr. TAKANO. I had a, I don't know if I ever put this idea
to a bill but I, there was a way which I was thinking about how
we could maybe look at the Pell grant being made available to
an early college high school program or a dual enrollment
program so that money could increase--so if everybody who was
low income and qualified for a Pell grant say in a high school
cohort or an early college high school could be qualified for
that Pell grant, that would be a way for us to make sure that
we had the seminar, the smaller class size for seminars for
example. You know for seminars style of teaching.
What do you think about the possibility of finding ways for
the Federal Government to assist these programs in that way?
Ms. MARWICK. I think that's an excellent idea. You could do
it in the same way that adult education students are allowed to
use Pell if they qualify when they're simultaneously taking a
career course while finishing up their adult education.
Mr. TAKANO. And so I think probably two things, maybe the
Federal Government would maybe help you out with is to help you
with some of this planning money so local school districts and
community colleges could work together on that but also to find
a source of money, if you are delivering dual credit and these
kids are getting actual college credit, why shouldn't they
qualify for Pell if they are low income?
Ms. MARWICK. I agree with you.
Mr. TAKANO. All right. Well, I yield back Mr. Chairman.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Wright.
Mr. WRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of you
being her today. It has been a really interesting discussion. I
wanted to start with you, Ms. Long. I am very intrigued by your
CBE program.
But I wanted to see if you could elaborate a little bit
because I think the more innovation the better an education.
You mentioned that you talked about the assessment, talked
about the measures and they have to prove, you know, that they
got the material.
Can you talk just a little bit about how that is done? In
other words, to what degree is that subjective and are there
tests? Can you elaborate on that just a little bit?
Ms. LONG. Be delighted to do that and Texas is really
leading the way in the CBE effort.
Mr. WRIGHT. Yes we are.
Ms. LONG. You know, when you look at the Texas affordable
baccalaureate degree, you look at the results that we see out
of Texas A&M Commerce, where folks that are completing their
CBE program are doing that at about $6,000 versus 14,000--
Mr. WRIGHT. Right.
Ms. LONG.--for a typical Texas student, so good things are
happening in the state of Texas and you should be proud of
that.
Mr. WRIGHT. Right, thank you for that.
Ms. LONG. So, I would say when it comes to assessment, we
really believe that assessment needs to be authentic and what
we mean by that is that if the learner, you're going to say
that this is what you need to know and be able to do. We need
them to assess in a way that is as similar as possible to what
it looks like when they graduate.
So, if we are thinking about critical thinking skills or
problem-solving skills what does that look like post-
graduation? It's probably some sort of a project, it's some
sort of an applied activity in which they're having to look at
things from different angles and figure out how it works,
right.
And so that is exactly what we ask our CBE programs to
design. Assessments that mirror as closely to--as possible what
that looks like in application post-graduation. That is
typically not a pen and paper test.
Mr. WRIGHT. Right.
Ms. LONG. I have never gone to work and been asked to
complete a multiple choice test, right. And so, in a CBE
program you are going to see a different kind of assessment
model that's really based on this more authentic assessment
strategy.
Mr. WRIGHT. And in terms of the critical elements that you
would want to see in the Federal policy, you mentioned
flexibility. Is there something else?
Ms. LONG. Yeah, so I think there is a whole long list of
things that constrain us when we are having to measure
everything by the credit hour.
So much of what we want to be able to do is have that
flexibility from time. Why should time measure learning?
Shouldn't learning measure learning? And so being able to
disconnect that from time is really important.
But every Federal financial aid regulation is somehow tied
back to that credit hour and to time. So, when we look at
satisfactory academic progress, when we look at the academic
year, when we look at weekly engagement, all of those pieces
just keep tying back to time and it's limiting CBE innovation.
Mr. WRIGHT. Right. Dr. Marwick, I could ask this of all of
you, but I am going to start with you. In my district, you
know, the students are blessed to have a lot of opportunities,
a lot of educational opportunities. We have one of the largest
universities in the state. We have a very robust community
college system, some very large school districts and that's
just in Tarrant County, part of my district. And they all work
together.
They came together a few years ago during what has already
been discussed here but they brought in the high schools. They
brought in the school districts. And so they have this dual
credit program which I am proud to say my oldest granddaughter
is part of. She is going to graduate next year probably with an
associate's degree.
But the university has committed to accepting the credit
hours of these dual credits that they're going to get in high
school. And that is one of the reasons, it is not the only
reason but it is one of the reasons that the University of
Texas at Arlington has the lowest--when students graduate, the
lowest student debt of any university in Texas and one of the
lowest of any public university in the country.
And that is one of the reasons and in the last 17 years,
the number of students that are doing this in Texas has
increased 1100 percent. I mean, it is having a huge impact on
education in Texas.
There are a lot of different models for this and the one I
wanted to ask you, starting with you but kind of go down the
line, I don't have much time. Is what do you see as the most
successful model?
Ms. MARWICK. I think when we can smooth the educational
pipeline by having all of the educational units work with each
other, secondary, post-secondary, community college,
university, that's when we do the best job for our students.
And we should incentivize those kind of partnerships because
there's not enough of them and when we have them they're very
effective.
Mr. WRIGHT. How would you do that incentivizing? When you
say incentivize, how would you do that?
Ms. MARWICK. I would say that advising is very important
both in the high schools and also at the colleges. We are using
a case managed advising system. We are making sure that every
student has an education--a pathway to degree completion in
their first semester and we are seeing higher persistence rates
and graduation rates since we began that.
Chairman SCOTT. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. WRIGHT. Sorry.
Chairman SCOTT. Is, Dr. LeGrande, if you want to very
briefly respond.
Ms. LEGRANDE. I agree that smoothing the pathway will be
important for students who choose to start with dual enrollment
community college in the institution.
One of the things that we have done is partner with the
community college for example to have advisors at the community
college and at the university that share clear articulation
agreements and degree pathways that move beyond these handshake
agreements but really allow students to understand exactly what
we--will be counted so that they can make a four year plan so
they do their two years at the community college and two years
at the university.
Mr. WRIGHT. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the
extra time.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentlelady from Florida, Ms.
Wilson.
Ms. WILSON. Thank you, Chairman Scott, for holding this
hearing on improving equity in higher education through
innovation and thanks to the witnesses for testifying this
morning.
Although African American and Hispanic students have made
tremendous academic strides since the Civil Rights Era,
graduation and dropout rates suggest that substantial barriers
persist.
For example only 40 percent of African American and 54
percent of Hispanic students who go to college complete their
degree. Moreover, although high school incompletion rates are
improving, at 22 percent and 20 percent for African American
and Hispanic students respectively they are still high.
Therefore the innovative ideas we will be discussing today such
as dual enrollment in high school and additional students
support services in two and four year colleges among many
others have the potential to significantly decrease the equity
access gap in higher education.
Some very innovative educational programs are in my
Congressional district in Miami, Florida. Florida International
University, the Nation's largest Hispanic serving university
has a number of successful programs that really stand out.
Among them are the universities dual enrollment as an
accelerated program offering credit for previous work
experience, a seamless transfer pathway from high school to
college program and pre collegiate programs to increase college
going students, focus on quality engagement with high school
populations and summer bridge activities.
FIU has also partnered with area high schools to help
accelerate time to college completion and since 2009, has
helped thousands of high school students obtain college credits
to reduce the amount of time and money required to obtain a
college degree.
Another innovative program at FIU is the Golden Scholar
Summer Bridge Program which provides an alternative admissions
pathway for 65 to 85 minority first generation students and I
was proud to hear that this program is helping to support 8
Wilson scholars who will enter FIU in the fall.
I have a couple of questions for Mr. Gadkaree. What are the
major barriers holding back low income students and students of
color and why have they proven so difficult to remove?
Mr. GADKAREE. Thank you. One thing that I will note is that
our Nation spends $5 billion less educating students of color
in the higher ed system than it does White students. And that
is from a study by the Center for American Progress and that
ties into some of the supports that we are talking about.
In the community college settings where we have, where
there are fewer resources, students are getting less support.
There is less money for instruction, and that is certainly a
contributor to the gap although it's not the only reason.
Ms. WILSON. And now what are the implications of these
persistent access and success gaps on intergenerational
mobility and income inequality?
Mr. GADKAREE. So certainly because we are seeing college
become more and more essential, we are getting to a well-paid
job. As I noted there is significant growth in well-paid jobs
for bachelor's degree graduates and there is some growth for
associate's degree and certificate graduates.
But as a result of that, if we aren't able to get students
of color and low income students to that baccalaureate level,
its exacerbating the racial and economic inequality in our
country.
Ms. WILSON. We have heard during our last hearing the
different institutions have vastly different funding levels and
that the institutions serving the largest share of low income
students and students of color are often the same institutions
that struggle to provide the support students need because they
are chronically underfunded.
Do--you just explained to us those differences and how does
that underfunding impact the ability for these children to
receive a quality education and what can we do as Congress to
help support that?
Mr. GADKAREE. One of the things I mentioned in my testimony
was that there are these programs like CUNY ASAP, like 1
Million Degrees which works with Harper College as well as some
of the community colleges in Chicago, the Arkansas Career
Pathways Initiative.
And in these programs we are seeing both financial support
and levels of student services and advising that are at
dramatically higher intensity than community colleges typically
can provide and that four year colleges can typically provide.
So just to give you an example, in the Stay the Course
program which is in run by Catholic Charities in Dallas Fort
Worth, they have caseloads of 34 student per a, per social
worker. That's, you know, more than 10 times more intensive
advising and support than students would get in a community
college setting.
And so that's the kind of thing that community colleges
can't afford and partly as a result, I would wonder whether
these programs that have shown that they can double graduation
rates, if we are trying to scale them, we may need to get that
kind of support to more students.
Ms. WILSON. I yield back, my time is up.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentleman from South Dakota,
Mr. Johnson.
Mr. JOHNSON. Yeah, I think I will pick up the ball and
continue to ask questions about this advising issue. I just, I
loved the intrusive advising model that you have talked about.
I mean, talk about truth in advertising, right. I mean, it is
intrusive what you are talking about because people need those
extra supports and they are from an evidence based perspective,
proven to work from the information you shared.
Talk to me a little bit was there an ah-hah moment, Ms.
LeGrande, where it just, you guys decided to drastically change
how you approached advising?
Ms. LEGRANDE. Well, I think as an institution when we think
about the students we serve in meeting them where they are
which we often know is that sometime students don't know what
they don't know and so they don't know where to start. And so
we have to be there to make sure that we offer them that
support.
And I think when our leadership at the institution realized
that we had advising ratios as high as 1700 to 1 advisor that
did not allow us to be able to offer the kind of intrusive
experience that these students need.
And so the institution leadership, our president and
provost invested the resources, making some hard decisions to
allocate new advising positions across the institutions to
lower that advising load from that number to closer to about
350 to 1. Now that's still a large number for any group, any
advisor to see 350 students but that's where the technology
comes in with some predictive analytics to really help the
advisors understand and to prioritize the student populations
early to intervene to help students before they get into
trouble but also to identify the students who really need the
most intensive conversations to help them stay on that right
track. That was our ah-hah moment that we needed more
individuals to be able to create this culture of care and
support at VCU.
Mr. JOHNSON. So I love the use of technology because it is
easy to imagine it as a force multiplier and so, you know, Dr.
LeGrande, talk a little bit about, I mean, Mr. Gadkaree talked,
he raised concerns about scaling and expense and cost. Would
institutions, I mean, it has got to be a little difficult to
imagine finding the resources to integrate this technology into
the advising network, right?
Ms. LEGRANDE. Yes. The technology is expensive, right. But
I will say for institutions that find themselves in a place not
ready to procure technology, I would suggest that you look at
the data, right, because the technology is grounded in the
data. And let the data guide the conversation.
Who is really disadvantaged by the support structures that
currently are not working for them? Right. And go beyond just
race and ethnicity, go beyond that to look at the intersection
in what majors, in what departments, first generation students
and then engage the students in that conversation to learn of
their experience letting the data guide you.
Then you can identify and develop support mechanisms and
approaches to implement with an assessment plan. And so if data
is the foundation of that work, what we will--what you will
find is that you're continually assessing yourself as an
institution, identifying what is working, what is moving the
needle and what is not moving the needle and then being
courageous enough as an organization to decide to stop doing
things just because we have always done it that way if it's not
working for the students.
Mr. JOHNSON. Yeah, I just love this data driven approach
you are talking about, I mean, it just, we should be ringing
bells all over Capitol Hill today because that is exactly what
is going to help move the ball down the field. So how much of
this advising framework, I mean, clearly it is about
matriculation, it is about educational progress and it is about
course selection.
Is there a financial component to this as well? And while
you are answering, if there are things that Congress can be
doing or that the Higher Education Act can be doing to help
with that financial advising let us know.
Ms. LEGRANDE. So definitely. When we think about advising,
intrusive advising, it has to be about the whole student
because non-cognitive variables and things outside of the
classroom really impact that student experience and finances is
one of them.
And that's how completion grants came to be at VCU. We
found through advising conversations and looking at the data
that we had students who were running into small financial
barriers that prevented them from persisting and so we were
able to develop completion grant programs for students who have
90 credit hours.
So they're just within 38 credit hours shy of earning that
degree but they were stopping out, going to work and never
returning. And so engaging advisors with students we were able
to identify that to be a problem.
We are now moving to a more intensive financial advising
structure in the next coming year for that reason where we will
model very similarly the academic advising case management
model on the financial side. Because we realized that our
students not--need more than just financial literacy. They need
financial engagement.
They need a partner in this conversation to help them
understand how they can finance their education, what resources
to leverage across the institution and how to make good
financial decisions so that they can then accelerate their time
to degree and graduate with less student loan debt.
Mr. JOHNSON. Well said, doc, thanks very much and, Mr.
Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentlelady from North
Carolina, Ms. Adams.
Ms. ADAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you as well
to the ranking member and thank you for your testimony today.
It has been very enlightening and I want to just say that at
our last bipartisan hearing, we heard about the important role
that historically Black colleges and universities, tribal
colleges and Hispanic serving institutions play in supporting
students of color.
I am a proud two-time graduate of North Carolina A&T State
University the largest HBCU in the country, public HBCU, I
taught at Bennett College for 40 years so I have a tremendous
interest here.
But most of the conversation that we had focused on the
importance of fostering a sense of belonging and elevating the
communities of cultures of enrolled students as well as setting
the importance of setting high expectations and examples for
diverse students to follow.
Dr. LeGrande, let me ask you, first of all it is good
seeing you again. Given these significant gaps across the
Nation and persistence and completion between students of color
and their White peers, can you speak to what you think
predominately White institutions can learn from minority
serving institutions when it comes to better serving students
of color?
Ms. LEGRANDE. Well, I think if we were to distill that
down, it would probably rise to two broad topics. One is that a
sense of community matters so that help students understand
that the institutions care about them, that the institution is
committed to designing structures that are just for them.
Right. Understanding their cultural backgrounds and their
needs.
Not seeing students from the deficit perspective or the
things that they don't bring to the table but leverage their
experiences to understand the strengths and components they do
bring to the table build on that to develop the necessary
skills.
And the second thing I would say is that representation
matters. Having models in the classroom and in leadership, will
help students understand the possibilities that exist, possible
mentors for them and that ensures that leadership around the
table reflect diverse thought and contributions to the
conversation of helping all students succeed.
Ms. ADAMS. Thank you. Ms. Long, would you like to comment
on that issue? Yes.
Ms. LONG. I think one of the things that we often do is
hide learning from learners. And we are not very transparent
about what it is that we hope they are going to learn in a
particular course or in an area of study. And by hiding
learning, it makes it very difficult for learners that might be
first generation, learners that don't have a sense of community
to find their way.
It's one of the things I like most about competency based
education is that learning becomes transparent. Students are
told this is what you will learn, this is what you are going to
be able to do, this is how you can apply that knowledge. They
see immediate applicability and a desire to continue to learn
because they know what they can do with it.
Being able to create a sense of culture and community. If
you're creating a whole program that might be delivered
distance learning for example what are we doing to create a
sense of community for those learners and institutions we have
in our quality framework we ask them to integrate that as well.
Ms. ADAMS. Okay, thank you very much. Let me touch on the
importance of examples for diverse students and how cohort
based students support models peer mentors towards affinity
groups can help students of color thrive which also creates a
sense of community.
Dr. LeGrande, you mentioned that your office has developed
the you first at VCU to provide targeted supports for the first
generation students. I was a first generation student myself.
Can you tell us a little bit more about this effort and the
results that you have seen from it?
Ms. LEGRANDE. Sure. Our you first effort is really an
effort to create a network of programs and initiatives across
the institution that focus on first generation students.
The goal is really to increase their retention and academic
success, to help them understand habits of successful students
because they may not have anyone in their family that have a
college going history. And the third is to make sure that they
have opportunities to be engaged in the experience.
And we do this, we start at orientation with the students
and their families identifying first generation students and
bringing them together so that they realize they are not alone.
We have a summer scholars program in which we have a bridge
program for students where they can earn six credit hours in
the summer to get a jump start on their college education. This
allows the students to get familiar with the campus and
understand resources available to them and build community
among their peers.
We have an all TRIO scholars program which is a delayed
scholarship gratification program because we really help the
students the first two years with peer mentoring support with
other students who are first generation college and in their
junior and senior years we provide them upper division
scholarships to encourage them to persist and move forward.
This network really takes under an umbrella all of our efforts
for first generation college students so students have one
centralized resource to understand everything that exists for
them.
Ms. ADAMS. Thanks very much. I am out of time but, you
know, I think it would be great if we could replicate some of
these things in our workforce as well. Mr. Chairman, I yield
back.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
Allen.
Mr. ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and, you know, one of
the things that I have learned here is one of the benefits of a
growing economy is we also are creating lots of jobs and lots
of opportunity.
Because of our success and the hard work of the American
people, there is--I see more opportunities for young people
today than I have seen in my lifetime. In fact, we have many
more jobs available than we have people looking for jobs and I
want to applaud you as educators obviously you have taken on
this challenge because for whatever reason, we have had a
disconnect for some time between the job creators and those of
you who educate.
You know, when I go into the district, I have college
graduates who have come to me with student debt and they said
they can't find a job in their field. Yet when I visit all the
job creators, the institutions, you name it, businesses, they
all need a skilled workforce. And of course we have made some
efforts to from the--this level, the Federal level to try to
mend that disconnect that we have.
Because again I believe the only thing from keeping this
economy from growing even faster is the skilled workforce out
there.
And, Ms. Long I see you shaking your head. So I will start
with, you know, your competency based model and, you know, are
there particular programs that are easier to develop and if so,
do you have some--could you tell us about those programs and
any correlation between those programs, technical skills, and
the in demand high paying jobs that are available out there
today?
Ms. LONG. Yes, so I believe that you can develop a CBE
program in any area in which they need employment, right. Where
there is a need for a skilled workforce because we always start
with the end in mind. What is it that you need and then how can
we help build that, right.
So higher education owning that part of the role in making
sure we have a skilled workforce. So starting with that
backward design model, a lot of times we see programs in IT in
business, in healthcare fields, in advanced manufacturing, in
some of those really in demand jobs, programs across the
country try to modularize and by that I mean they take
knowledge, skills, and abilities, and those intellectual
behaviors and break them down and can offer them in discreet
courses so they can more quickly stack various modules together
to create a new program for a new workforce need.
To your point earlier, many of the jobs we are going to
have tomorrow haven't been created. So thinking about lifelong
learning not as I'm one and done, I have my degree, but I'm
going to have to continually retool myself and as an
institution I also need to think about its not just one and
done but it is about this how do we stack these modules
together.
I think that is one of the benefits of competency based
education is helping to create that more skilled workforce.
Mr. ALLEN. Exactly. And I know in our business we look for
people with experience. In fact, my mom, my dad went off to war
and she was a sophomore in college and she committed to work
for the war effort and never quit working. And she graduated
from college when she was 42 years old.
Ms. LONG. That's terrific.
Mr. ALLEN. And I was so proud of her and she is, she is a
long time school teacher. An amazing, amazing lady. So she had
the opportunity to work her way to what she finally wanted to
do.
But as far as the modularization of CBE, you know, as far
as the decentralization capabilities and competencies and the
ability of schools to from innovative programs outside the
traditional hierarchal structure, what is the benefit of
stackable credentials and how can more schools incorporate this
model in the future?
Ms. LONG. Yeah, it's really about responsiveness to the
need. It's about trying to say what is it that our workforce
most needs? What can we do in order to create a program more
quickly to respond to those needs?
If you listen to governors, you listen to folks that are
doing economic development for states, for our Nation, it's
about how do we get that workforce prepared?
By being able to stack competencies designed to develop
problem solving, decision making looks like problem solving
decision making. In a different context, we still can add that
specific contextual knowledge but that to us is key.
Mr. ALLEN. Yes, I'm about out of time but--
Ms. LONG. Yes.
Mr. ALLEN.--you know, we are a global economy--
Ms. LONG. That's right.
Mr. ALLEN. And the number one thing that every business
looks for out there is when they locate their business is a
skilled workforce. Thank you for accepting this challenge and I
commend you and I yield back, sir.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentlelady from Washington,
Dr. Schrier.
Dr. SCHRIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I would like
to submit for the record the Western Governors Association
Policy Positons and recommendations related to post-secondary
education and workforce development as they are eager to engage
with us on higher education issues.
Chairman SCOTT. Without objection.
Dr. SCHRIER. Thank you. And thank you to the witnesses
today for testifying. You all mentioned some great and
impactful initiatives to increase higher education student
access, enrollment, and completion.
And as I was reading your testimony I found some really
nice parallels and similarities with what you are doing or
investing in and what Washington State is doing.
The Running Start program in Washington is a dual
enrollment program for high school juniors and seniors to take
tuition free college credit bearing courses at several public
four year institutions at any of our State's career and
technical colleges.
In fact, I am a pediatrician and many of my patients have
enrolled or are part of the Running Start program and that have
gone on to University of Washington or other universities right
after high school as sophomores or juniors and that is
incredible and a way to save money.
Washington community and technical colleges also have a
universal articulation agreement with the state public four
year institutions similar to what you described, Dr. LeGrande,
regarding VCU. And Washington State University has a similar
program called Invest in Cougs, Washington State Cougars, which
provides students an incentize to save money while they are at
college and in return provides financial management counseling
and an opportunity to quadruple their savings up to $4,000 to
pay for every day expenses.
And these are great initiatives but they could be improved
and I was hoping to hear from your experiences about
opportunities for improvement.
Rural areas face challenges funding transportation for
running start students and it is harder for high school
students and the teachers in these areas to gain the necessary
credentials to teach credit bearing college courses in high
school.
So my questions is how do we ensure that rural communities
have the same access to these great opportunities especially
after hearing from Mr. Gadkaree that investments in technology
may not be effective?
Ms. MARWICK. I worked at a rural community college earlier
in my career and I started a partnership there with the school
districts. Some of which only gradated 60 students a year.
And it is a--teacher credentials are a problem across the
country and it is certainly across the state of Illinois. I
would like to see the Higher Education Act incentivize and pay
for high school teachers to get the necessary credentials to
teach more dual credit courses.
I think what we have done in a number of cases where our
high school teachers haven't had it, we have reached out to
partner four year universities who have agreed to offer the
classes at one of the high schools after the high school day.
In one case, the high school paid for their teachers to
take those courses, the other district did not and not many
teachers enrolled. So that is a cost issue.
Dr. SCHRIER. That is a great idea and certainly on a
teacher's salary, having the universities pay is, that is an
incredible resource. Thank you. Any other? Yes.
Ms. LEGRANDE. And so I guess I think about the
opportunities we have as we are preparing students for their
careers. I think about our social work program, our education
program where students really have a lens towards social
justice and equity really making sure that we are connecting
those students and possible opportunities to impact rural
communities as well.
We have lots of access oriented approaches when we are
recruiting students to the institution and those rural
communities but wanting to make sure that we are connecting our
students back to the communities that they serve is an
important part of our experience at VCU with making sure we are
directly impacting rural communities is an important part of
the work too.
Dr. SCHRIER. Thank you. And I was actually going to ask
about the micro grant efforts and their successes in increasing
graduation rates.
Washington State University's Invest in Cougs is similar
but as mentioned today a quarter of student are parents and
nearly 10 percent are homeless which means they have needs that
are far beyond what even $4,000 would pay for, fixing a tire or
paying off outstanding fees. I wondered are there some
successful efforts that have addressed these larger life costs?
Ms. LEGRANDE. Well, you're right. Completion grants are
small, impactful for the immediate. I think a few things that
would impact longer term is really thinking about how do we
incentivize progress to degree. Are there opportunities for us
to give students additional funds as they're making timely
progress to degree to reward them for this work.
There are some institutions that have found opportunities
to do retention grants and its one of the things that we are
pursuing at VCU looking into that direction.
But I think the other thing is as we think about our Title
IV programs for example, opportunities to make sure that they
are adjusting for the cost of inflation like the Pell grant
program and our Title IV programs right now when we think about
the cost of education, between Title IV programs, state grants,
and institutional grants, we still have students with so much
unmet need, unmet need toward the total cost of education.
And so as we are thinking about the reauthorization of the
Higher Ed Act, how we can shore up our Federal resources as
states also think about how they can contribute and invest more
holistically I think those kinds of things will help students
stay on par and cover the cost of education.
Dr. SCHRIER. Thank you so much and thank you to all of you
and I yield back my time.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentleman from Wisconsin,
Mr. Grothman.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Ms. Long. With regard to competency based
education, I hope one of the goals of this Committee is to get
out of here or pass something that is going to reduce the cost
of education which is one of the reasons why we have this huge
student loan debt and quite frankly I think anybody part of the
higher education system ought to go to bed at night just
wondering what they did wrong that we have so many young people
so in debt.
Can you talk a little bit about competency education both
the effect it would have on student loan debt as well as the
effectiveness in measuring whether somebody has actually
learned something in a class?
Ms. LONG. Yep. Two questions there. One you asked also
about cost, right. So for a lot of CBE programs, they've been
able to lower the cost of the degree and often times that's
done by the amount of time it takes to get to degree. So if you
think about some use what we call a subscription model where
you pay one price and you learn as much as you can.
It's like being at a buffet line, right, and you eat more
than you really should have but it was free or it was included
and you just keep eating? And learners in subscription models
tend to take more and be able to go more quickly which is in
essence reducing the cost of that degree.
In addition to that, recognizing learning that has occurred
from being agnostic as to the source of learning and
recognizing leaning that has occurred in a non-classroom based
setting, but validating that learning as being college level
has also yielded those kinds of cost savings.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Would you rather hire somebody who passed out
of the, a competency based education or somebody who just you
know--
Ms. LONG. You're asking a very biased question of a person
like me.
Mr. GROTHMAN. I know.
Ms. LONG. I would take a competency based person because
that institution is standing behind that learner and saying we
know this person can demonstrate and has demonstrated their
competencies. They may actually have a transcript in which you
can see what that looked like, what that demonstration looked
like. If that's some sort of a performance, a simulation, what
have you.
But you know what you are getting versus they got a C and
I'm not sure what that C means. I don't know what is taught in
that class. So I do think competency based education gives
employers, gives the learner and gives the government as the
payer and in most cases more assurance of learning.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Right. A C in a 19th century literature
class, you don't know what it means, correct? You don't know if
that has got value or no value whether than just that some
university charged somebody for it. But in competency based
education you know you have something of value so it is a
superior way of judging whether you had value for your
education isn't that true?
Ms. LONG. It's a way of articulating what it is that you
know you can do. So your knowledge, your skills abilities, and
your intellectual behaviors in a way that is very transparent
not just to the learner but to anyone else that would see that
learner's record.
Mr. GROTHMAN. And you feel because different people learn
at different rates, that you could wind up reducing the cost of
tuition and reducing the size of student debt with a more
competency based education?
Ms. LONG. Let me give you my feeling is yes. I would love
to see more data that backs that feeling up, right. So what we
see in early data is that it's showing promise that it can
reduce costs. I would like to see more data to prove that out
but that would be my personal feelings since you asked about my
feelings. So yes, that's how I would answer that question.
Mr. GROTHMAN. I am--the University of Wisconsin, my alma
mater is aware that they can produce maybe better students at
less cost with competency based education but they have some
problems with Federal regulations.
Do you want to comment on the Federal Government standing
in the way of better education and lower student debt?
Ms. LONG. So when you look at a direct assessment program,
University of Wisconsin extension has a direct assessment
model. When you look at that model that's completely untethered
from course and time, any of those programs and there is really
less than a dozen of them across the country had to go through
a two-step approval process, not just through their regional
accreditor but also through the Department of Education. And
then everything they do must still tether back in some way to
time. Those are constraints.
Mr. GROTHMAN. You, the rest of you, you are all part of
what I would call the educational establishment. Do you see a
lot of guilt out there on the part of administrators and
academia's as far as the huge amount of student loan debt and
the degree to which they have crippled these young people? Is
there a sufficient amount of guilt out there among these folks?
Ms. MARWICK. I don't know if I can comment about guilt, but
I will say that we watch very closely our tuition and at
community colleges the tuition is quite low. We have tied it to
the CPIU or to increases for--
Mr. GROTHMAN. Are you guilty when say you run across a 35
year old with $40 grand in debt? Does that make you feel
guilty?
Ms. MARWICK. Yes.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Good. Good, good, good, good. Thank you.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentlelady from Connecticut,
Ms. Hayes.
Ms. HAYES. Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank
you to all of the witnesses who are here today. Just very
briefly, as a very high performing classroom teacher, I value
public education and the work that we have done and the
investment that we make in children every day and I have no
guilt about that.
Dr. LeGrande, I just want to thank you for your comments
earlier about transferrable skills and those critical thinking
skills that I don't think people have value enough as we are
preparing young people for the job force, the workforce. Those
are the things that really identify high performers in the
workforce, you know, so we--I think we maybe need to reevaluate
our measure, you know, and do more capstone projects and
internships and getting students out into the world because
those are the things that employers have told me in my
experience that they are looking for.
I am glad to see that dual enrollment is being included as
a core part of the conversation in equity and affordability
today. My daughter started college with a full semester of
credits as a result of dual enrollment and AP classes taken in
high school.
And my own students at Kennedy High School benefited
greatly from dual enrollment programs through college career
pathways and Naguatucket Valley Community College and the
University of Connecticut's early college experience. In fact,
our UCONN ECE is the oldest continually operating concurrent
enrollment program in the Nation. I am proud to be from a state
who has led the field in that area.
As we continue to have this conversation, I think it is
important to talk about how we improve dual enrollment to
better serve students from all backgrounds and income levels
and effectively scale up these programs by strengthening the
educator workforce.
So, Dr. Marwick, in your experience, what specific support
services should successful dual enrollment programs provide to
their students, particularly students from families where they
may be the first in their family to go to college or are not
having these conversations at home?
Ms. MARWICK. We are piloting hiring an advisor at the
college to work with dual credits students in the high schools
to help them understand how their dual credit leads to a
college degree and what they have accomplished.
Secondly, dual credit in high school allows students to
take a challenging college level course while they still have
the supports of their high school teachers and advisors around
them. And I think that is a great way to start college because
some students have trouble in the first semester adapting to a
different structure of education.
Thirdly, I think it's really important that the high school
counselors helps students get into appropriate dual credit and
AP classes for them and they also need to reach out to the
parents of those students and explain what dual credit does and
does not do.
Ms. HAYES. Thank you. Also I want to follow up on a
question that Dr. Shrier asked, started to ask about getting
teachers who are willing to be dual certified.
I am someone who pursued dual certification to teach our
college courses at my school and I can tell you from my own
experience that the touch point has to be earlier because I
don't think what people realize is that when you teach a dual
certification class, you become an adjunct professor of the
university. Which means that most--often times or all the time
your masters has to be in that concentration area and that is
something that many educators don't realize who get masters in
curriculum or education or academia but not in the core content
area.
So I think a valuable route to go is to have that touch
point much sooner in an educators career to say as you are
considering your master's degree, these are some of the things
you need to know if dual certification is a pathway that you
would like to pursue.
So my question is do you, can you think of any ways, I
guess I just answered my question. Of how to incentivize
teachers to pursue dual enrollment much earlier because what
ultimately ends up happening or in my experience from what I
have seen is that teachers then go and have to get a second
masters in order to then qualify to be a dual enrollment
certified teacher.
Ms. MARWICK. You're correct. That is a big problem and what
we find is as you suggested too many teachers if they have
masters degrees have them in education. So our school districts
are trying as they hire new teachers to get teachers to--who
are already certified for dual credit but I think a bigger
outreach might be to education programs in universities to talk
about this issue while students are at the university. They
need either a master's degree in the discipline or a related
discipline with at least 18 graduate hours in the discipline
for entry level, to teach entry level dual credit classes.
Ms. HAYES. Thank you and my time has expired but I think
therein lies the problem because if people are not getting the
information at the beginning of the journey, they've taken
classes, taken on debt and then have to reroute back in order
to get on the right path to where it is they are trying to go.
Thank you. With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentleman from Pennsylvania,
Mr. Smucker.
Mr. SMUCKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has been a great
hearing. Thank you to all the witnesses, it has been
fascinating to hear the work that each of you is doing with
your organizations, your institutions to improve student
outcomes and improve our higher education system.
Ms. Long, I would specifically like to take some my time
and talk--allow you an opportunity to talk just a little bit
more about competency based education and may have a question
or two.
And when I am thinking about education, I look to some--the
K through 12, some of the school districts in my area who have
established some really innovative programs that allow them to
meet the students sort of at their level of learning and then
they receive almost constant feedback primarily through the use
of technology where they are getting almost real time feedback
on the student specific knowledge on the topic.
And then implementing strategies within the classroom to
sort of allow students to learn at the pace that they can learn
and advance at the pace they can learn. They are still within
the structure of the classroom so sometimes limited by that in
terms of allowing a student to move beyond that particular
topic but is that what you are talking about in competency
based education? Are you talking about universities changing
the way they deliver education and potentially using technology
as a part of that?
Ms. LONG. Yeah. So yes. And I think that's a good example
from the K through 12 sector and we see more K through 12
school systems exploring competency based education because of
that ability to personalize that learning experience. And allow
learners to pursue education at their own pace and with the
customization that they need.
In higher education, it's pretty similar, in the fact that
we look at common characteristics we would expect to see.
Obviously the robust assessment but that availability to
personalize the learning journey to look at say for example
when they completed a quiz how sure where they of their answer
or if they're doing an activity and they reflect back on the
project they completed, you're able to adjust the entire
learning pathway according to that particular learner which is
helping to yield the kinds of results that institution are
seeing in CBE programs.
So yes, it has that kind of personalization and the ability
to really take a path that's specific to the needs.
Mr. SMUCKER. Sure. Thank you. I was particularly interested
in your proposed demonstration project. How would that look and
what are--how would it be structured and what are some of the
outcomes that you would like to see from that? What would you
like us to be measuring? What would you like us to be looking
at?
Ms. LONG. Yeah, absolutely. What we say to our member
institutions all the time is what are your value propositions?
What is it that you say you're hoping to achieve with your
program and now go prove it. Maybe it's the attorney in me but
I don't believe it unless I see proof of it and so where's your
proof, right?
And so if an institution is saying we can allow a learner
to go as fast as they can go through the curriculum and also
allow them to slow down when they need time, where is the proof
that people speed up and slow down? If it's about we can do
this faster or at a lower cost, where is my proof of cost?
So we think about a demonstration project we would be
asking institutions to play by a certain set of rules and if
they do, they would have the luxury of not having to comply
with some of the financial aid requirements that make it pretty
difficult for CBE to really grow and expand.
In exchange, they would need to collect the kind of data
that would prove whether or not these programs work and then
for what learners and in what context, right. So we would look
at the value proposition. It would be great to have that
student level data so that we can really drill down
specifically on what kind of learner did it work for? Was this
a first gen, were they in their first semester, or was this a
person at this kind of experiences, is it in this type of a
program that it works better--
Mr. SMUCKER. And I am sorry, I am running out of time.
Ms. LONG. Yep.
Mr. SMUCKER. But so is it your recommendation or do you
believe that we would here at the Federal level change the
rules essentially to allow for that demonstration project so as
we are looking at HEA, is that a potential opportunity for us
to do that?
Ms. LONG. That, within HEA you would create a safe space
for that kind of innovation to occur with the guardrails so
what we can really check the outcomes and make sure. I think
the data is light right now on the effectiveness. That would
give us time to prove it. It would also give us time to test a
model that's not based on the credit hour. We would love to
throw the credit hour but I don't have an alternative tested
and ready to replace it.
Mr. SMUCKER. Sure, thank you.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentlelady from California,
Ms. Davis.
Ms. DAVIS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you to all of you. I have actually wanted to wait through all
my colleagues' questions because I think it is really helpful
and you have all been great in responding.
One of the things that I think is always important with the
panel and you have covered so many issues that expand and help
us see why sometimes programs don't work very well because we
don't have the services in place to be able to support the
student, to take them exactly right where they are.
And so, Ms. Long, you have--I think expanded on the
competency based education but I wanted to ask first, Mr.
Gadkaree, and the others, what is the downside of that? You
know, what should be the concerns that we don't go down a road
and find out that, you know, we haven't really been as focused
on outcomes as we could be, that there are some issues that
whether in the scaling or in the process have been ignored. Mr.
Gadkaree, could you speak to that a little bit? I know that you
deal with equity issues.
Mr. GADKAREE. Sure. I'll start with that. And I'll say
that, you know, I think the process that Ms. Long was outlining
in terms of a pilot where we test outcomes really well makes a
lot of sense.
I will say that, you know, sometimes there are things that
are innovative like education technology that if done poorly
don't do well for students but if done well they do. And, you
know, there is a recent AEI study on online education
technology that kind of found that it exacerbates gaps that on
average it may not be a vehicle for closing those gaps.
And so I think it's--it's really a question of
implementation. That's what we were finding in our study as
well. How can we ensure that these programs are set up in a way
that promotes high quality?
Ms. DAVIS. Thank you. And, Ms. Long, you want to comment
quickly?
Ms. LONG. I was just going to say that is the exact reason
why we created a quality framework for CBE programs because we
had this concern that if institutions with rapid growth came in
and they did it poorly, it's going to damage learners and it's
going to damage a movement that has a lot of promise.
So we really created a quality framework early. We are
trying to hold institutions to that framework. Do you have
these eight elements and are you playing it out in this manner
so that we are not having those kind of disparities that--
Ms. DAVIS. Yeah, thank you, Ms. Long. I mean, in many ways
that is sort of something that we need to be thinking about as
we talk about apprenticeships, as we talk about different kinds
and how we do that because we, they have to be accountable.
And I think sometimes when you offer something new
everybody kind of rushes to implement something without having
the foundation and you speak to that well.
Mr., if I could just go back to you for a second too, Mr.
Gadkaree, because we realize that you haven't had a chance to
respond as much and I wanted to get your wisdom as well.
On the issue of Pell grants and dual enrollment, what is
really critical here is that low income students benefit from
that because we know they don't have as much exposure in their
lives and it is very important that there be some focus. Again,
what concerns do you have, how do we make sure that if in fact
Pell grants are used for that, that we don't end--we don't have
programs that students end up paying for but aren't getting
what they need out of them.
Mr. GADKAREE. Well, one thing that would be important is
making sure since we actually even at the community college
level, even at the four year level, sometimes I have students
who change their minds about what they want to do and that
concern also exists of course in dual enrollment, dual credit
programs.
So it would be important to make sure that students don't
use up all of their Pell eligibility before they are able to
get to a degree. It would also be important to address issues
around college readiness which is one of the big barriers that
students might have to in doing dual enrollment programs.
Ms. DAVIS. Yeah, absolutely and the readiness issue and I
think there have been a lot of good ideas talked about,
certainly wraparound services and mentoring is important.
Dr. Marwick, you talked particularly about the partnerships
and I am just wondering quickly about the challenges in doing
that? What is the Federal role? How can we do something
different perhaps and you have been very helpful in thinking
about the reauthorization. What is critical to you in terms of
the Federal role in incentivizing?
Ms. MARWICK. I don't know exactly how to incentivize these
partnerships but I urge that we find a way because I know for
sure that we have better outcomes for our students because we
are working together and its hard work.
A number of colleges and high school superintendents have
come to us and said how are you doing it, what are you doing
and they've been unable to do it. It takes a lot of effort.
Ms. DAVIS. A lot of effort, yes. Thank you. In my remaining
minute I just wanted to put a plug in and I really appreciate
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle as we are talking
about advising. I think we need a better infrastructure in high
school as well as in college for supporting and exposing our
counselors to the kinds of information that they have available
that will help our students. Thank you so much. And really
appreciate your being here, you have been very helpful.
Chairman SCOTT. Yes, the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Cline.
Mr. CLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing on innovation and higher education. You have got a lot
of great examples in the commonwealth to choose from. I am
glad, I want to thank our witnesses for appearing but I am glad
we get the opportunity to show off a little bit of Virginia
innovation.
And, you know, in Virginia I worked really hard to add to
that. At the State level we created the online Virginia network
partnership between Mason and ODU and online Virginia.net where
people who are pursuing nontraditional degrees can get course
work online through a common portal, a shared network between
institutions.
A lot of times you get competition from higher institutions
of learning rather than collaboration and cooperation. And so
encouraging that cooperation is helping Virginia to lead the
way in innovation.
But I am very proud in my own district of James Madison
University, the great program they have called JMU X-Labs where
students are given real and complex problems from the defense
and intelligence communities and then they are tasked with
prototyping solutions and working with the state department and
other agencies.
Programs like these simulate work that students may do
during post graduate employment and Virginia serves as an
example of innovation and of a statewide community effort to
better opportunities and access.
Dr. LeGrande, welcome and I want to thank you for your
testimony today and the work that you are doing and I want to
applaud you and VCU for the graduation rates that you are
discussing today, the fact that low income first generation and
minority students are graduating at nearly identical rates as
their peers.
I know that you through your partnerships with community
colleges can attribute some of that to that success. What other
best practices can you speak to that you have implemented that
helped you achieve these results and specifically to closing
that gap?
Ms. LEGRANDE. Well, when we think about specifically
closing that gap, we have talked about creating the systems for
guidance and support for those students and using data to
determine who really needs support early but the other piece
would be about financial assistance to students who are in need
and timely financial advice as well as making sure that we have
a true support system for those students with transition.
Oftentimes when we think about coming to college we think
students transition one time from high school to college for
the first time. But students transition year after year. They
are constantly assessing what is the purpose of this education
and why am I here.
And so it's important that we have experiences along the
way that help students not to just develop those competencies
that we are talking about but to be able to articulate what is
this college degree teaching me? And what product do I have
that allows me to showcase that skill?
And so these applied learning experiences we really believe
have contributed to our higher graduation rates because
students are now connected and invested in their education and
they have a tangible product of experiences to showcase
employers about what they have learned.
Mr. CLINE. Are you encouraging externships, programs
outside in cooperation with career services that are giving
students a real world example of how they can use that
knowledge in the workforce and actually make money with that
degree when they graduate?
Ms. LEGRANDE. Yes. Externships, internships, undergraduate
research, you know, we have even found how we can leverage work
study opportunities for example to help students do
undergraduate research.
The greatest challenge that we find in that though while we
know that these experiences are important is that we find a
vast majority of our students need to work. And when they find
themselves competing with interests of participating in this
internship that is often times unpaid, and taking a paid job
they go with the paid job.
And so we are trying to identify ways to help incentivize
for students to take the opportunity for that hands on learning
and making difficult choices.
Mr. CLINE. I know this might not be your department but is
VCU being aggressive in their attempt to cut costs and not just
to paper over the costs of providing that degree but all
actually to reduce costs internally, you know, dropping courses
that aren't used, shedding some of the maybe excess in the
administrative departments, focusing on classroom expenses,
things like that to help make the cost of education more
affordable?
Ms. LEGRANDE. Yes. In fact when I mentioned the fact that
we have been able to raise our institutional aid over the past
8 years, it has been largely about the institution having to
make--having to make some hard choices, right.
It's not just been about increasing revenue through
enrollment and tuition gains but really trying to find
efficiencies across the institution. Just in fact in this last
year in an effort to ensure our commitment to our priorities
and increasing institutional aid, we made about $5 million in
budget cuts. And identifying efficiencies and place where we
could reallocate funds to really invest it in our students
understanding that college affordability is one of our highest
priorities as well.
And in this year, we were able to partner with the general
assembly in Virginia, thank you to our general assembly to be
able to hold tuition at a zero percent increase. And so tuition
is flat because the State identified resources to invest in the
State institutions, the Virginia public institutions and that
partnership so that students now have a predictable tuition
rate for the next year.
Mr. CLINE. It is truly a partnership. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentlelady from
Massachusetts, Ms. Trahan.
Ms. TRAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all the
panelists, this has been very informative. So before running
for Congress, I was in public service for about a decade and
then I worked in the tech industry for another 13 years and I
guess my experience in both sectors taught me that we can
definitely do a better job leveraging technology to identify
issues and improve outcomes in any system. Technology like
predictive analytics certainly allows our leaders to better
understand and address the individual needs of students.
And I believe this technology is particularly important
because today's students hail from increasingly diverse
backgrounds, communities and experiences and too often find
themselves adrift in a system that wasn't designed to support
them.
I think, Dr. LeGrande, you gave great testimony about the
data that you used to improve completion rates at VCU. I am
really wanting to probe on more of those types of examples.
And, Mr. Gadkaree, I am wondering if you can share with
this committee and it is always open to anybody who can add to
it, what promising models you have seen nationally when it
comes to leveraging technology, predictive analytics or
anything else to improve some of these student incomes--
outcomes, outcomes.
Mr. GADKAREE. Sure, thank you. Well, Georgia State has been
a leader in terms of a number of innovations to close their
equity gaps and increase graduation rates and they have been
using predictive analytics to help them in their advising
models and to try to figure out when students might be in
trouble, what might be barriers that the institution has
created perhaps inadvertently, and taking those barriers down.
So I think that that's a good use of paring technology with
some of the people who can help in advising and support and
keep students on track.
Ms. TRAHAN. Great. Anyone else?
Ms. MARWICK. I would just say that we are moving, we have
moved to a case managed advising program and we were able to
get a Title III grant which allowed us to purchase
technologies. We have redesigned the student portal. We--so
that students can see their progress towards degree completion.
They all have an electronic plan. Their advisor can also see
that.
They can run a program called Degree Works to see how close
they are to completion and if they change their major, what
will that mean towards getting that new degree? They can do
that themselves.
We have a starfish early alert system that lets faculty
flag students to the advisor who is--are struggling in class at
four weeks and eight weeks in the semester. And we are using
predictive analytics to note when a student may be going off
the path, may be getting themselves in trouble and advisors
reach out proactively to those students to help them.
Ms. TRAHAN. Great, thank you. Any--
Ms. LEGRANDE. We have identified at VCU a few things. One
of the things is in addition to the academic support system
that our students really enjoy engaging with the technology
because the data is accurate, it's on time and they can access
it at 2 in the morning.
Ms. TRAHAN. Yeah.
Ms. LEGRANDE. And so one of the things that we have really
thought about in engaging is how can we use the technology to
influence student behavior and so we have launched an app
through our predictive analytics tool that allows us to nudge
students at the right time.
Instead of sending students an email communication with 10
steps that says do all of these things, we can nudge them and
say we need you to complete this one step. You've been selected
for verification for example on your financial aid application.
Complete this one step and you're 90 percent of the way there.
And those nudges can help us improve our student behavior.
Ms. TRAHAN. Yes.
Ms. LEGRANDE. Right, to help them move through that
process. Another piece of technology that we are implementing
that we are excited about this year is really connected to
early indicators for at risk populations.
So for example, class attendance is important, right. In
order to make good grades you need to go to class. But
oftentimes at large universities, faculty are unable to take
attendance, right, regularly.
So we are implementing new technology to use GPS software
to really understand where our students are in proximity to
class. And that data then feeds in, will feed into our
predictive analytics software really to inform advisors to help
students understand the importance of going to class just as
getting early grades from faculty and indicators but to
identify possibly students are homesick and they are not
leaving their dorm room.
And so all of those cognitive and non-cognitive aspects of
the student experience, leveraging the technology to inform the
conversation is important.
Ms. TRAHAN. Great. Thank you. I am, I had one more question
but I think I am going to be respectful of time. Thank you so
much.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. You are setting a new precedent.
The gentlelady from Michigan, Ms. Stevens.
Ms. STEVENS. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
to our distinguished panelists for joining for today's hearing.
We are so proud of you and so delighted to engage in this
conversation.
Before being in Congress, I was a workforce development
professional and helped to spearhead STEM education initiatives
particularly in the digital manufacturing and design technology
space where I helped to launch along with the assistance from
the Federal Government, the Manufacturing USA Program, the
country's first online training program specific to digital
manufacturing design technologies that supported credits in
working with universities and university partners so I love
this idea about innovating and meeting students where they are
at to complete their post-secondary degrees and what so many of
you have been a part of.
I represent a district in southeastern Michigan and college
promise programs which cover student's tuition and fees have
become increasingly popular in recent years. Students in
Michigan have been given incredible opportunities through the
Kalamazoo Promise and the Detroit Promise.
And college promise programs do a great job of expanding
college access but not all of them address college success when
students enroll in college. And research done by the MDRC in
Detroit has found that adding evidence based support services
such as coaching and financial incentives on top of existing
promise programs is an effective way to help students not only
enroll in college but stay in school and accelerate their
progress toward earning a degree.
And so, Dr. Marwick, I would love to ask you what impact
has the Harper College Promise Scholarship had on students and
would it be useful to provide additional support services to
Harper College promise students?
Ms. MARWICK. The first Harper College promise class begins
in the fall. We started registering students getting them to
sign up for it when they were freshmen in high school. So the
first students have gone through four years of high school.
We asked them to earn the scholarship by doing a couple of
things, having really good attendance in high school, doing a
little bit of community service, taking rigorous college high
school classes and being college ready when they graduate from
high school. We will see, we have 600 students still eligible
that we expect to enroll next year.
As far as the supports, absolutely. They would be very
essential. We probably--we hope the students have in our
promise program have habits of mind through the promise program
that will make them successful at any college.
The--we have used 1 Million Degrees in the Chicago area
which is very much like what is being done in the Detroit
promise ASAP and what was done in some of the Ohio schools.
We have found and University of Chicago Urban Labs is doing
a controlled randomized study of the outcomes and we still need
to wait a couple years to see but right now we have
significance in graduation rates, significance in persistence.
And Harper College has found we have a 60 student per advisor
ratio in that and students in the program are also given $250
in incentives three times during the college year if they have
done all the right things that they were supposed to do. See
tutoring, attend your classes, meet with your advisor, et
cetera. We have had really good outcomes.
Ms. STEVENS. Yeah. Well, I and I admire and just love the
work that all of you do so much and I was just wondering if we
could kind of open this up to the rest of the panel to chime in
about designing support programs or supports that go beyond
just covering the cost of tuition. We can start with you, Dr.
LeGrande.
Ms. LEGRANDE. So at VCU we do have some support systems. We
mentioned the food pantry for example and off campus support
services to really help students with housing insecurity to
connect them to the right resources as well as Federal and
state resources to help students who find themselves in
emergency circumstances.
There is one unique institution that has a program, a food
scholarship program for example in Texas. That's partnered with
the food bank and it allows students to get a food scholarship
that connects with the--based upon the number of credit hours
they're enrolled in the institutions. And they use that food
scholarship in the food pantry on their campus where it's a
declining balance. That food pantry is just as fancy as a
grocery store. They have produce and canned goods and meats.
As we think about the complications we have with our
student population and needing resources beyond just tuition
and fees, we won't be able to just food pantry our way out of
this. Right. We have to think of new innovative strategies that
really show the students that we have support mechanisms for
them on our campus, and we are connected to the community and
so I think the more creative we can get as institutions allow
us to do that.
Ms. STEVENS. Well, I am over time but I just want to thank
you, you all and I would also now like to just ask for
unanimous consent to enter into the record an evaluation of the
Detroit Promise Path published by the MDRC, a research
organization known for its rigorous evaluations which shows the
impact and importance of approaches that combine financial aid
and wraparound supports. Thank you all. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman SCOTT. Without objection.
Ms. STEVENS. I yield back the over time. Thank you.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentleman from Pennsylvania,
Mr. Mueser.
Mr. MEUSER. Thank you, Chairman Scott, and thank you, Dr.
Foxx. Thank you all very, very much for being here with us
today.
I did serve on Pennsylvania State System of Higher
Education PSSHE where we did focus very much on affordability,
accountability, transparency, and innovation. And that
certainly continues after my departure.
There is a serious need as we are discussing here for
innovation in higher ed, traditional higher education is not
working as nearly as well as we would like to it be. The
completion rates are not necessarily--not satisfactory. Costs
are extremely high. Some would phrase through the roof.
For those who are graduating, many are not skilled, not
ready for the jobs that are available. Graduates and those who
don't graduate are very much in some deep debt very often. The
skills gap does exist as our country we do have 7 million
unfulfilled jobs. So there is certainly work to do.
My questions today will focus on the importance of
accountability from an academic and financial advising
standpoint. And ensuring that any innovation in higher ed
continues to be accessible to students in rural communities as
my district, Pennsylvania's 9th, is relatively rural although
we have really some terrific higher education schools both
traditional and career institutes.
So my first question will be based upon I have concerns
that many college students are not well informed about how the
decisions they make can have long lasting financial impacts.
For example, just taking an extra elective or two as we all
well know can derail a student's path to graduation by a
semester or more which of course is very, very costly.
PSSHE has a focus and a concept of holistic advising.
A student centric approach that accounts for all aspects of
a student's academic experience, financial aid, what their
major path is, are they fulfilling the requirements for that
major? Are they doing it in a timely manner? If they are not,
are they being informed in an honest way? Is even perhaps the
payer, not necessarily parents, but who the payer is, are they
being notified--perhaps there was a waiver allowed to be signed
that they could be notified if they are not fulfilling the
requirements that were being paid for which I think would,
could create a higher level of commitment.
So, Dr. LeGrande, in your testimony you talked about VCU's
intrusive advising model which does sound somewhat familiar and
I read the details to the holistic advising. Can you describe
what you are doing there a little bit further than you have and
regarding this model and the benefits that are coming from it?
Ms. LEGRANDE. Sure. Through the intrusive advising model,
we really focus on two groups that we are leveraging. One is
the intrusive advising directly to the student, right.
Identifing what their needs are early on and connecting them
with resources and we use the tool that we talked about in the
written testimony, the Major Maps to help students do that.
Right.
So in addition to just the degree plan, right, the outline
of courses a student needs to take, how do we ensure that
students are able to maximize this four years to participate in
all of the opportunities including pursuing a minor by
leveraging their financial aid. And so an advisor is able to
have that conversation with students early on about lets plan
out these four years.
That Major Map we found because it works backward from the
career plan has really been interesting to parents. Because it
helps them see exactly what the plan is for their students for
the next four years. And they have then found that they are
able to have a more intellectual conversation with the student
who is interested in studying psychology, right. And that way
the parent understands that there are career paths available
beyond just being a psychologist.
The second group that we work to leverage with our advising
is faculty. Faculty buy in is important in this intrusive
advising model for a few reasons. One, students spend 60
percent of their time with faculty and so they are really most
informed about a student's behavior in the classroom as far as
academic ability.
So for example in courses where we have high D, W and F
rates, we work with the faculty to understand what are some of
the challenges the students are experiencing, understanding the
syllabi so that the advising conversation can help inform the
student and help them prepare. So those two groups we are
really working with through advising.
The last thing I would say is that it is truly a
partnership. All right. Engaging the students in that effort,
advising is not just giving a student a map. It is really
helping them understand what their interests are and if they
don't know, then we are giving them the tools to explore that
through career inventory tools that help them understand what
their interest are and what possible career options and help
them making choices if they're not quite ready.
But by the time they reach 30 hours we really want students
to have a pathway in mind because we realize that four years
will be over before they know it and we want to make sure that
they're maximizing their introductory courses into applicable
majors to end with a fruitful career.
Mr. MEUSER. Wow, that is terrific. I can see why VCU is
doing so well. Thank you very much for your testimony and,
Chairman, I yield back
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentleman from Maryland, Mr.
Trone.
Mr. TRONE. Thank you, Chair, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking
Member Foxx for your leadership in looking for innovative
ideas.
I want to reiterate I really appreciate the comments by
Ranking Member Foxx and I couldn't agree with more what she had
to say and especially struck by the 58 percent. That is just so
unacceptable. It is mind boggling.
I serve on three college boards and I can see it firsthand.
It is disappointing. You know, I grew up on a farm and the farm
went bankrupt and because of that, I went back to get a
graduate degree to move on and Pell grants were there. And were
able to pay them off and I got through and that led to moving
forward in life.
Now with Pell grants picking up 75 percent down to 30
percent, that opportunity is just not there. So we have to keep
thinking of innovative ideas and that is why we are here today.
And the dual enrollment I think is a really good step in
that direction. Over 10,000 folks in Maryland work in dual
enrollment at our high schools. And the question, the problem
is that the enrollment seems to benefit those in the higher
income strata and they benefit with the college attendance and
they participate. And the folks in the lower incomes they don't
do as well.
So it has become more focused for white, for middle to
upper income. So this racial disparity in dual enrollment is a
missed opportunity. And we need to find models to close this
equity gap because these programs clearly lead to higher
attainment of low income students.
So, Mr. Gadkaree, how can policy makers and other
stakeholders create a system that fosters more equitable
treatment for dual enrollment?
Mr. GADKAREE. Sure. I'll start this and I suspect a couple
of my panelists might have other thoughts as well. I think that
certainly two of the challenges in doing so are one is around
affordability and resources for both the students and the
districts and college that are involved.
We as we mentioned or as I mentioned earlier, some of the
districts and community colleges that have the most students of
color have the fewest resources. So I think that is one element
of it.
And then college readiness is certainly an issue as well
and one of the compelling models that Dr. Marwick has talked
about is having high schools and colleges work together to try
to address that dev ed need early on so that students can
become college ready and then take advance of some of these
early college opportunities.
Mr. TRONE. Go ahead.
Ms. LEGRANDE. One of the models that we have employed at
VCU is a partnership with specific high schools for dual credit
that align into a particular pipeline.
So for example, our health services academy really seeks to
take students who come from lower income communities to help
them understand and identify broad based careers in the health
field.
But that dual enrollment courses really help them beyond
just taking college credit, they also get college preparedness
skills, they explore health careers and we have seen an
increase in students participating in those programs and those
students actually continue on to higher education, earn
baccalaureate degrees, some in the STEM health professions,
several in the health connection, health field and then go on
to pursue graduate degrees.
So as we think about dual enrollment, there are
opportunities for us to impact communities by partnership with
specific high schools as well.
Mr. TRONE. One more quick area I want to touch on. Every
year three is 600,0000 folks that should be graduating and they
would have graduated but instead they are coming out of
incarceration. And they are average education fourth, fifth
grade.
And I know there is a lot of innovative, high quality
programs around the country but this is an area that I am
focused on and I think is of great importance. Do you know of a
particular institution states where you have really seen a
connectivity point with the community colleges and business
also because when they are coming out, if they have got some
education, if they don't move to a job, they are going right
back in again. The cycle goes right around.
And 60 percent one year later don't have a job. Have you
seen any best practice that I should dig into more?
Ms. LONG. I would encourage you to take a look at Sicklier
Community College. I included them in my written testimony, the
work that they are doing in prisons, working in particular in
their CBE offerings and thinking about how in those last--that
last period of time of incarceration how do I get them prepared
for a career in which they are going to get hired. Right. We
know that a lot of employment opportunities will be closed to
those that are coming out of that incarcerated environment.
I was at Lipscomb University, we also did a program at the
Tennessee Prison for Women in which our competency based
program was offered to inside students. Our outside students,
students from our campus would go once a week and collectively
we had class together.
Our outside students, the folks that are on our campus
everyday as traditional learners were really paying for our
inside students to be able to get that education. We have seen
incredible results from that.
A number of those learners initially we started only as an
associate's level. I got a letter in the mail from one of the
inmates asking for the opportunity to bring our baccalaureate
program there and they did that. And they've graduated and with
their CBE base degree and as they're getting back out in the
workforce, they're getting those jobs that they need which we
hope will lead to a reduction in recidivism.
So encourage you there's a couple there I would say
Sinclair, I would also ask you to take a look at the LIFE
Program, L-I-F-E, at Lipscomb University as well as two models.
Mr. TRONE. Thank you.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The Ranking Member, Dr. Foxx.
Mrs. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again I want to
thank our witnesses for being here today. Dr. Marwick, I
appreciate the comment in your testimony that we must make sure
dual credit is an opportunity to take a college course in high
school and cannot be a college credit for high school course.
Academic rigor is critical to preparing students for
college level course work and the jobs that follow. To what
extent do you interact with your accreditor to maintain the
quality of concurrent course offerings and do you have any
recommendations for how accreditors can help you expand college
offerings in high school settings?
Ms. MARWICK. Thank you for bringing that up. I feel really
strongly about the standards for dual credit courses.
Mrs. FOXX. And I do too.
Ms. MARWICK. We work very closely with the high school
teachers. They come and meet with the college faculty, they
talk about the syllabi and then we follow dual credit students
who come to Harper College and take sequential courses. And we
have found that they do as well and often better that the
typical students that test into those courses. With our
accreditor, we make sure that we follow the same standards. We
treat our dual credit high school teachers as if they are
adjunct faculty on our campus. Our HR office has all of their
credentials, their transcripts. We use the same credentials for
teachers to teach whether it is on our campus in that course or
whether they are teachers in the high school.
Secondly, any prerequisites that are required or showing
that you're college ready for the students, every student in
that course must have those, met those standards and they must
show evidence of that. And we, that is what our accreditor
suggests.
Also assessment of student learning. If there is a final
exam or other assessment, it's given to every section of the
course on campus then that also must be given in the high
schools as well. And we look at the outcomes of those
assessments and then the teachers and the faculty get together
because we are giving the same on campus and they share
effective practices.
Mrs. FOXX. Thank you. Ms. Long, I am encouraged that C-BEN
is dedicated to providing a high quality learning experience to
students. To what extent do accreditors take into account your
quality framework guidance and are there particularly, a
particular accreditation provisions in statute that make it
needlessly difficulty to start and grow CBE programs?
Ms. LONG. Yes, thank you very much. So with accreditors, we
invited the creditors to the table early on as we were
designing the quality framework. We continued to have
accreditors who will come to convenings, who will breathe into
kind of the way we are thinking about best practices as a
national network.
So I think we are really trying to continue to foster good
relations with all the accreditors. As you know, every one of
them require something a little bit different and so you can
see patchwork of different approaches around this Nation and
how different schools have different models and one might
require a substantive change as you know about, another one
might not. And so there is a lot of differences from one
accreditor to the next. Right.
When CRAC issued its consistent definition of what CBE is,
I think that was very helpful. Before that, they all kind of
looked at it in a little bit different way and how they defined
it so that consistent definition was helpful.
Our member institutions have asked for and we will be
responding at our next National convention with time just by
regional accreditor and we are asking our regional accreditor
to join us so that the can better illustrate.
We are looking for one pagers that would help capsulate
what is it that you really require? Because there is a lot of
institutions who find themselves confused about is this a
substantive change or is this not? Do you really disincentive
this innovation or are you really in support of it? I hear one
thing from other institutions but maybe I hear something
different from you.
So we are getting ready to do a road trip to all of our
regional accreditors, myself with a board member from each of
those regional accrediting bodies to try to work on the
consistency of language to make it clearer for institutions
what the expectations are and kind of that accreditor view on
CBE innovation. Does that help?
Mrs. FOXX. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Gadkaree, a footnote in your
testimony highlights four programs, CUNY ASAP, 1 Million
Degrees, Arkansas Career Pathways Initiative and Stay the
Course proven to double or triple graduation rates for
students.
Could you tell us very quickly how one or two of these
programs operate and what evidence based practices they engage
in to promote student success?
Mr. GADKAREE. Sure. And let me talk about Arkansas since
that's the one we probably heard the least about. In Arkansas,
they have served 30,000 students over a decade using TANIF
dollars.
It's a program that's running in 22 community colleges
across the state and they have intensive case load mentoring
and advising on the order of 40 to 80 students per caseload.
They provide employment support services like resume help. They
provide financial support for text books, calculators, and
supplies and they provide some financial support for childcare
and transportation so it's again this mix of intensive advising
and some financial supports.
Mrs. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for your
indulgence.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentlelady from Nevada, Ms.
Lee.
Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you Ranking
Member Foxx for having this important hearing today about
improving equity.
I have spent my career working in the K to 12 realm with
wraparound services which is why I am particularly interested
in talking about that. You know, Nevada the majority of our
students in our public school system live in poverty so having
that type of program where we provide robust wraparound
services is incredibly important.
And now we are finding that as those students move on to
college and we have one of the most diverse higher ed programs
in the country, continuing those wraparound services is
important to their success.
A specific program that we have talked about CUNY's ASAP
program is as we know innovative and effective model that
provides those wraparound services. And an evaluation by MDRC
shows that ASAP nearly doubled graduation rates for students
and at a lower cost per degree as well. And recent evaluations
show that it is replicable, that we can replicate that model in
Ohio for instance.
And in my home state, I am proud of the Napontla program
which is helps our first generation college students navigate
their college experiences by accessing those key wraparound
resources, community services and programming. This model is
effective because it leverages that experience and expertise of
shareholders but also helping walking students through their
education program.
And, Mr. Gadkaree, I wanted to ask you, what do you think
the biggest barrier is to expanding this model to all community
colleges? Or all colleges for that matter?
Mr. GADKAREE. I think the biggest barrier is cost. We are
seeing that these programs and we have talked about four of
them, they are probably about $1500 to $2500 per student per
year. Some might fall a little bit outside that range.
But that is just a cost that private philanthropy is not
going to be able to support at scale so it's going to have to
be up to either states or the Federal Government to figure out
how do we support that cost?
I'll note that cost gets recouped in the MDRC CUNY ASAP
model, they actually produced more graduates per dollar than
students outside of that program because graduation goes up so
much that it's more effective from that standpoint.
Ms. LEE. And yes, speaking of our Federal role, you
mentioned that there could be a role. Do you have any specific
ideas in particular?
Mr. GADKAREE. I think that given this body of evidence, a
program that is scaled up evidence based approaches around
community college supports, perhaps some kind of funding that
was kind of in that vein, it may be along the lines of I3 or
something like that, but I don't know exactly what it would
look like unfortunately.
Ms. LEE. Okay. I would like to ask unanimous consent to
enter in the record this MDRC evaluation.
Chairman SCOTT. Without objection.
Ms. LEE. And I agree, I mean, having the evidence is so
important to making sure and we know that this type of
investment definitely has a return on investment.
Ms. Long, I want--I appreciate your willingness to share
your assessment on what we know and what we still don't know
about competency based education. I have had the opportunity to
learn about Western Governor's University in Nevada. It is a
model that's attracted over 3300 current students and 3,000
alumni in my State.
And I believe that when we explore innovation and different
models within our higher education system, we need to consider
how these will effectively serve the students of the future.
Could you share a little bit more about the variation of CBE's
impact on cost and time that it takes students to complete
their degree?
Ms. LONG. Yes, and again what we would see is mostly
institutional case studies about, you know, specifically how
has that happened. In my written testimony, I include
information from Salt Lake Community College that's just
redesigned 24 of their traditional programs into a CBE format
and I have shared with you kind of the results that they saw
both with time but also the cost as well as salary data from
learners that completed those programs and where they saw
salary gains.
So there is data from Texas A&M Commerce, a number of
institutions that show that they're actually saving both cost
and time. What I would point out is that there are a lot of
different models of CBE at the country. Western Governors is
probably one of the most well-known, obviously the largest of
the models.
But various programs design their CBE according to what the
specific needs of those learners are that they're wanting to
reach. Some of them are online, some of them are not. Some of
them target a traditional 18 to 24 year old learner and the
vast majority of them target something that's not that. Right.
And so you see a huge wide model variation around the
country. And because of that, we also see very different
results. Some aren't as saving as much on time because they
want their people to slow down when they, you know, really need
that. Others are seeing, you know, more advances in money
because they're using a subscription model.
So I'd encourage you as you all begin to really look at the
outcomes data to think about what's that model because we are
still trying to build that data that says if you have these
elements that's what's driving this, you know, outcome result
or this set of elements, that's what's getting this outcome
result if that makes sense.
Just want to be transparent. I don't have great, you know,
cross multiple institution data on what those results look
like, just institutional case studies.
Ms. LEE. Great. Well, I look forward to working together on
that.
Ms. LONG. Absolutely.
Ms. LEE. In the future. Thank you. I am past my time. Thank
you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. I recognize myself now for 5
minutes. And asking, Dr. Marwick, you were asked about the
$40,000 debt that people come out of community college with. Is
that typical?
Ms. MARWICK. I don't know any community college where
people come out with $40,000 of debt. At Harper College, you
can get a two year degree for about $16,000. Also we give
students advice not to take loans unless they have to and we
have a less than 8 percent default rate now.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Mr. Gadkaree, you mentioned the
programs that you talked about had been studied on randomized
trials and it significantly increased graduation rate. Did you
talk about how much these programs cost?
Mr. GADKAREE. Yeah, the costs range from about $1500 to
about $2500 per student per year. So that's a pretty
significant investment but again it appears to pay off.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Ms. Long, in developing the
competencies, is that a--the each institution does their own
competency?
Ms. LONG. Yeah, usually they would start with some sort of
a competency framework so they're going to look and see is
there already a framework in existence? So you might look at
the Department of Labor building block model. You might look at
DQP for example, the Degree Qualification Profile.
They'll look first to say is there an established set of
competencies for this particular degree or credential that we
can leverage? Then they would typically involve employers to
breathe in with faculty what is it that needs to go into the
composition?
They'll benchmark against other institutions as well to try
to keep create that list.
Chairman SCOTT. And the oversight is with the accreditors.
They will accredit the list of competencies that you've
created?
Ms. LONG. Absolutely. Absolutely. You explain to the
accreditor how you derived your list of competencies, what is
that based on.
Chairman SCOTT. And how do you determine how many credits
you get for certain competencies?
Ms. LONG. Yes, so the regulations would require us to think
about that in the context of a traditional offering. So you're,
you have to what we call course walk that or cross walk that
back to what you would offer in a normal program. So if you
thought about in a typical communications class, you might have
a module that's on written communication, oral communication,
on these different areas, how much time is spent, and that
might be the way in which an institution would decide to
allocate--
Chairman SCOTT. And when you allocate--
Ms. LONG.--competency work
Chairman SCOTT.--when you allocate the credits, does the
accreditor get to oversee that?
Ms. LONG. The accreditor, they would be given the
information on how they set that information, that would be
given to the accreditor during a substantive change process.
Chairman SCOTT. And if you come in and show your
competencies the first week, do you have you pay for the whole
course?
Ms. LONG. It depends on what kind of a model but typically
if you're on a subscription model you would just keep going to
the next model to the next competency to the next to the next
if it's on a subscription model.
Chairman SCOTT. Does that mean you have to pay for the
whole course?
Ms. LONG. You are paying for that period of time of
learning in a subscription model. So you're paying say for
example a six month model and it is a learn as much as you can
during that six months. So you're trying to demonstrate as many
competencies as you can.
So it's not like there's a course per say that you're
paying for. You're paying for that block of competencies. It's
one of those places in which language can get in the way,
right.
Chairman SCOTT. And so but if you--if you show that, if you
show all of those competencies the first week, do you have to
pay for the whole course?
Ms. LONG. You would be then be opened up to new content
that you could continue to keep moving onto new competencies.
Chairman SCOTT. Dr. LeGrande, can you say a word about the
effect that TRIO programs have on the pipeline and completion?
Ms. LEGRANDE. Sure. TRIO programs are important for
pipeline and completion. TRIO has two suites of programs,
college access based programs that affect the recruitment of
students in preparation of underrepresented populations of
students, low incomes, students of color, and students from
disadvantaged backgrounds.
Preparing them for college preparedness to come to the
institution and then once they get to the institution, there's
a suite of programs, TRIO support services programs. We have
TRIO support services at VCU that really complements that
wraparound services in addition to that academic advising model
to make sure those students have everything they need. In fact,
programs like TRIO programs create really good evidence based
approaches for institutions in a small scale because those
populations are typically 1 in 200 students that then the
institution can think about how do we take this same evidence
based approach and then apply it more broadly across the
population. We have seen those evidences at VCU and in other
populations, other institutions as well.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. This ends the questioning.
I remind my colleagues that pursuant to committee practice,
materials for submission to the hearing record must be
submitted to the committee clerk within 14 days following the
last day of the hearing. Materials submitted must address the
subject matter and only a member of the committee or invited
witness may submit materials for inclusion.
Documents are limited to 50 pages each. Documents longer
than 50 pages will be incorporated by way of an Internet link
that may or may not be--work in the future.
I want to thank our witnesses for participation today. What
you have said is very valuable and helpful as we develop the
Higher Education Act reauthorization. The committee may have
additional questions for you which we will submit in writing
and we would ask you to respond in writing. The record will be
held open for 14 days in order to receive those responses. I
remind my colleagues that pursuant to practice, witness
question for the hearing must be submitted to the majority
staff within 7 days. The questions submitted must address the
subject matter of the hearing.
I now recognize the Ranking Member for her closing
statement.
Mrs. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank our
witnesses for their expert testimony.
Previous hearings this Congress exposed how the post-
secondary education system is falling short. 1.5 trillion in
outstanding student loan debt. Fewer than 60 percent of
students complete their programs in six years. Fewer than 2 in
5 managers believe graduates are prepared for a job in their
field of study.
Wow, do we need competency based education. All education
in my opinion should be competency based. Many programs across
all sectors of post-secondary education are failing to prepare
students to succeed in getting a job that will help them repay
their loan debt and rise up the socioeconomic ladder.
Bold reform is necessary to reverse these trends and the
hearing today highlighted a few ways colleges can better serve
their students.
Dual enrollment can increase graduation rates and reduce
costs. Intrusive counseling keeps students on track to pursue a
degree--pursue a career related to their academic program.
However, I do wonder as we sit here and talk about the amount
of handholding that is required to do as to whether or not we
are dealing with adults or not. The term helicopter college
comes to my mind as I hear the comments being made.
CBE can provide nontraditional students a quicker and less
expensive route to gain skills and enter the workforce to fill
in demand jobs. Earn and learn opportunities help students
apply lessons in the curriculum--in the classroom to real world
jobs.
I do think we missed an opportunity today to learn more
about some of the innovations that are happening outside what
we call traditional higher education system.
There are providers working to give students skills that
are in high demand with employers. Some of these providers are
working with colleges, some are working with employers, but all
of them are turning the idea of quote higher education end
quote on its head in a positive way for learners.
We must broaden--therefore I think we must broaden our
ideas of what post-secondary education looks like to truly meet
students where there are in their lives.
At the same time, Congress must encourage innovation that
helps all students regardless of their background. It does not
shirk away from providing a high quality learning experience.
The Federal Government does not have all the answers. And
policy makers need to have a little bit of faith in the good
actors and creative teachers--thinkers on the ground to try new
methods to serve students currently being left behind.
I wonder what is the purpose of publicly funded colleges
and universities if not to meet the needs of the community. Why
should we ask Federal tax payers to pay in some states for what
other states are providing with state funding? Such as dual
enrollment, such as helping faculty gain a Master's degree in
the field without saying why should Federal taxpayers again be
paying for that?
There will always be an unmet need because the higher we
raise financial aid, the higher are the costs for attending
colleges and universities. We will never get rid of the unmet
need as long as Federal tax payers are paying for people to go
to college.
I want to thank Chairman Scott for beginning this
bipartisan process. I want to affirm my commitment to
continuing this conversation to reform the HEA in the best
interest of students and taxpayers. And I yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. I now recognize myself for the
purpose of making a closing statement.
And comment that, Dr. Foxx, you mentioned the--a lot of
programs that are short term that can lead to a good job. We
are going to be dealing with those as we reauthorize the WIOA,
and that is up for reauthorization next year so I look forward
to working with you on that to make sure that those short term
programs that can lead to a--that aren't leading to a degree
but can lead to a good job are fully available.
I would like to thank again the witnesses for joining us
today in the discussion on innovative strategies to advance
quality and equity in higher education. This hearing was an
important opportunity for us to understand promising approaches
to higher education that can help today's diverse students
succeed.
It is also a reminder that we must ensure that innovation
closes rather than exacerbates existing equity gaps and higher
education.
Today marks the last of five bipartisan hearings which will
inform the Committee's efforts as we try to pass the
reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Over the last
three months we have heard nearly 20 hours of testimony from
experts, educators, students on how to solve the most urgent
challenges in our education.
There are several things that we heard that the Federal
Government must invest in making college more affordable,
student loans easier to pay off, that the Department of
Education, state authorizations, and accreditors must do a
better job at ensuring that only quality programs receive
Federal funds and tax payers dollars.
Especially vital for those entities to hold sectors who
consist--who which with consistently low student outcomes to
additional oversight.
We have to provide students with the support they need to
complete their education and not just enroll in college. We
must invest in chronically underfunded institutions that
educate our most underserved communities.
And finally our hearing today showed that while scaling
innovative practices can expand access to higher education for
underserved students, innovation cannot come at the expense of
quality and equity.
With these principals in mind I look forward to working
with our colleagues in the coming months to introduce in
advance a comprehensive overhaul of the Higher Education Act
and invest in communities, families and students.
And finally I want to thank Ranking Member Foxx and her
dedicated staff for engaging in this process. Working across
the aisle is not always easy and we have had our policy
differences from time to time. Yet because of this bipartisan
process, each member has had the opportunity to examine
research and evidence and have open conversations about needed
reforms in higher education.
These conversations will be critical and passing a
comprehensive Higher Education Act reauthorization that
provides every American the opportunity to earn a quality
college degree.
Is there any further business to come before the Committee?
If not, Committee stands adjourned.
[Additional submission by Ms. Lee follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Whereupon, at 1:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[all]