Panel lists steps to boost ranks of college grads
Posted on Saturday, August 16, 2008
Arkansas is seven years and $ 95 million away from meeting the regional standard for the percentage of state residents with college degrees, according to a report issued Friday by a task force created by the Legislature.
Much of the money would be devoted to scholarships to help get students into college and to colleges to encourage them to keep the students moving through the educational process.
The good news is that more high-schoolers are graduating and going to two- or four-year colleges or universities around the state, said state Rep. Johnnie Roebuck, D-Arkadelphia, an education professor at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia and chairman of the task force.
But Arkansas is dead last nationally in the percentage of adults over 25 who hold undergraduate degrees, bested even by former basement-dweller West Virginia.
Arkansas’ slide to the bottom of that category kept the pressure on the task force to produce a road map for getting more Arkansans college degrees. And it’s clear, Roebuck said, that the current system of colleges offering remediation — or catch-up courses designed to ready students for college-level classes — isn’t getting the job done.
“Remediation is not working. Students who are remediated have little chance of obtaining a college degree, even after spending $ 54 million,” said Roebuck.
That’s the amount of state money spent by colleges and universities last year to offer remedial courses.
Roebuck, a freshman legislator, co-wrote Act 570 of 2007 creating the 16-member task force composed of lawmakers, top state government officials in education and executives from colleges and universities. Its stated goal is to raise the state’s percentage of residents holding bachelor’s degrees to 27 percent by 2015. That’s the average reported by the Southern Regional Education Board reflecting 16 states.
To get there, the state will have to produce 7, 098 more graduates each year before 2015, the report said. Now, the state has 11, 186 graduates with bachelor degrees each year, according to the report.
The task force — which also included state Sens. Dave Bisbee, R-Rogers, and Gilbert Baker, RConway, and Rep. Bill Abernathy, D-Mena — recommended that state-funded colleges and universities examine the group’s 59-page report carefully because many of the recommended changes can be made at the policy level instead of by lawmakers.
Abernathy, a retired president of Rich Mountain Community College in Mena, said that in the first decades of the 20 th century about 80 percent of scholarships went to needy students. Now, 60 percent go to “students without financial needs.” The state’s 11 four-year universities, 22 two-year colleges, and a variety of higher-education in- stitutions, schools, administrative units and cooperative programs collectively want their total base funding of $ 790. 6 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, to grow to $ 867. 3 million in fiscal 2010.
Almost $ 35 million of the proposed 9. 7 percent increase would restore state appropriations that the schools were expecting this fiscal year before the state reduced its revenue forecast this spring, said Steve Floyd, deputy director of the Higher Education Department.
Public Schools, community colleges and four-year universities all have to rethink how to get high school graduates ready to obtain a diploma, Bisbee said. Now, only 16 percent of Arkansas ninth-graders in 2008 will graduate from college, according to the report.
Bisbee said that it’s clear that “everyone is working hard” from kindergarten teachers to college professors, but a state that spends $ 54 million a year to teach catchup classes to incoming freshmen needs to think about “doing things differently.” Better communication between community colleges and universities is needed and the state’s 11 percent transfer rate between twoyear and four-year colleges is less than half the national average, said Clarence E. “Chip” Ates, executive vice president for student learning at Northwest Community College in Bentonville.
The fact that each branch of state education is talking and pledging to work together encourages Calvin Johnson, dean of the school of education at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and a former member of the Arkansas House of Representatives.
What’s different about this effort at change is that communication, he said. Roebuck referred to Johnson as the intellectual mentor of the task force.
“I haven’t seen that before,” he said.
The task force’s report beat its deadline by 2 1 / 2 months, Roebuck said, because members wanted it to be available for Gov. Mike Beebe to consider as he puts together his budget plan for the 2009 legislative session, which begins in January.
“The governor has said for awhile now that higher graduation rates are a priority for his administration and will be a priority in the session,” said Matt DeCample, Beebe’s spokesman. Noting a run of economic development successes, including a Hewlett-Packard call center in his Senate district, Baker said that good jobs and good schools are dependent on one another.
But future economic growth depends on a well-educated work force, Baker said.
“The bottom line is we have to increase the number of adults in the state with college degrees,” he said.
The task force recommendations estimated to cost more than $ 1 million each include: Creating pathways to get students with GEDs — high-school equivalency degrees — into college degree programs, $ 1. 5 million. Creating a program to provide scholarships to high school student to take college courses before high school graduation, $ 5 million. Increasing need-based transfer scholarships for students switching from two- to four-year colleges, $ 1 million.
Increasing need-based scholarships by expanding eligibility requirement for state grants, $ 25 million to $ 37 million.
Revising the Academic Challenge Scholarship to allow community-college graduates and others who didn’t apply within 12 months of high-school graduation to participate, $ 10 million to $ 15 million. Increasing state aid for student campus employment, $ 10 million. Providing incentives to colleges and universities where graduation and retention rates are increased, $ 10 million.
Providing incentives to colleges and universities to target high-need employment areas and develop programs in these areas, $ 5 million (first year ), $ 7. 5 million each additional year. Implementing a statewide data system, $ 2 million. Developing an interactive public database to offer information on scholarships, transferring and the state’s higher-education institutions, $ 1 million, $ 750, 000 a year thereafter Creating new programs where gaps exist and phase out existing programs that are no longer supporting work-force demands, $ 5 million in start-up needs.
Hiring 300 career coaches to counsel high-schoolers on college choices and the types of skills needed in a global, 21 st-century economy, $ 15 million.
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