Academic Advising: The Future of Student Success

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Academic Advising The Future of Student Success
Thomas J. Grites, Ph.D. Assistant
Provost Tom.Grites_at_stockton.edu
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The Big Picture

• Collaboration working together or
• too many fingers in the pie?
• Collision a clash among forcesor
• a new Big Bang Theory?

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The Big Drivers a.k.a. The Completion Agenda

• Obama - 2020 Goal US will return to 1st in the
  world in proportion of population (ages 25 34)
  with some form of post-secondary education
  includes 90 high school graduation rate
• Lumina Foundation 2025 The Big Goal 60 of
  Americans will hold some kind of high quality
  credential
• Current Status (age 25) 9.5 have Associates
  credential and 30.5 have Bachelors or higher
• Source US Census Bureau (2011)

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What do these goals mean?

• To meet the 2020 Obama goal we will need to
  double our current US college enrollments (to 40
  million students) by 2016
• To meet the 2025 Lumina goal we will need to
  produce an additional 166,000 US college
  graduates per year, each year
• - in New Jersey (now at 44.6) we will need to
• graduate 765,000 additional students, an
  increase
• of c. 5,600 per year, each year, for 14 years
• Source Chronicle, Sept 20,2011

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Yet

• Retention Rates and (5-Year) Graduation Rates
  have remained relatively constant for the past 40
  years defined in late 1980s, but still used
  today
• c. 75 and 52 respectively
• c. 56 and 28 (3 years 2-year
  schools)
• Source ACT Institutional Data Files
• i.e., most students are
  counted as failures (including President
  Obama)

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and more

• Degree Completion Status after 7 years
• Bachelor's degree by year 4 35
• Bachelors degree year 5 to 7 30
• Associates degree only 4
• No degree, but still enrolled 10
• No degree, not enrolled 22
• Source ACT Information Brief 2012-18

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The Competing Forces

• VS.

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Enrollment Growth

• Most likely to be in the community colleges
• ( targeted for technical programs/careers,
  adult non-completers return to mission?)
• But downsizing programs (athletics, adult ed,
  remediation)
• Sources AACC, 2012 White House, 2012 USA
  Today, 3/19/12
• More transfer students in the 4-year sector
• (vertical reverse transfers, swirlers
• non-traditional credit sources
• shift in course needs?)

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Legislative and Legal Action - Federal

• The credit hour rule
• The state oversight rule (online students)
• The gainful employment rule
• The maintenance of effort requirement (states)
  (Alabama and Michigan sanctioned Iowa and Ohio
  pending 20 others cited, but complied)
• Doubling the interest rate on student loans
  (July 1, 2012)
• No (Senior) ROTC credit no Federal (HR
  2628)
• American Dreams Act of 2012 (college savings
  plans and re-introduction of a student-unit
  record k-PhD)
• pending joint commission appointed to make
  recommendations (5/23/12)

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Legislative Legal Action - States

• Your State
• Statewide Transfer Agreements - ?
• Florida
• common Gen Ed curriculum, common course
  numbering, Junior status, no more CCs, no funding
  for liberal arts majors
• Texas
• some of the above the 10,000 Bachelors degree
  (2 created) the slacker law the 6-course
  withdrawal limit)

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Legislative Legal Action - States

• Indiana
• create statewide core curriculum to reduce cost
  per degree, increase on-time completion limit of
  120 credits
• Michigan
• constitutional case re 2-year schools awarding
  4-year degrees

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Legislative Legal Action Institutions

• Return of the 4-year guarantee (even though it
  never worked beforeor always worked before)
• Differential Tuition by Major
• Differential Tuition by Gen Ed course demand -
  St. Monica College (2-year)
• Steering (Columbia University) Civil Rights
  violation to/from courses or instructors

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Advances in Technology/Applications

• The Big Data phenomenon (analytics for
  marketing, policymaking, hiring?, and
  instructional potential advising?)
• The innovation campus
• (K-State, Missouri, Akron,
• Woolongong) proximate
• industry/university research
• partnerships

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Advances in Technology/Applications

• MOOCs and badges no cost, no degree, just
  skills DIY U
• Degree Compass (Austin Peay University)
  predicts students grades and GPA before they
  register within .02 of GPA and within .6 of
  individual course grades

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Sources of Credit

• AP, IB, CLEP, DSST, ACE, etc
• Dual Credit, Dual Enrollment (high schools)
• Degree Completion Programs (at CCs)
• Reverse Transfer
• Work, Military, Life Experiences
• The transfer college (Altius) credit
  brokering
• New York Times (The Knowledge Network)
• Outsourcing (reverse adjuncts)
• reduced funding for low-income students (NYT,
  3/17/12)

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• versus

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Accreditation and SLOs

• Middle States accreditationatteststhat an
  institution has met the following criteria
• that it is guided by well-defined and
  appropriate goals, including goals for student
  learning and that it assesses both
  institutional effectiveness and student learning
  outcomes, and uses the results for improvement
  (p. iv).

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continued

• Lumina characterizes high quality degrees and
  certificates as those in which specific learning
  outcomes can be demonstrated.
• Luminas Degree Qualifications Profile -
  framework for SLOs in 5 areas of learning at the
  Associates, Bachelors, and Masters levels
• American Historical Association has begun this
  effort

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continued

• WICHIE Interstate Passport Initiative 5 states
  and 28 institutions to map common learning
  outcomes in a common Gen Ed core to result in
  friction-free transfer, using
• Harmonizing macro level (curriculum)
• Tuning micro level (courses)
• American Historical Association has begun this
  effort

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Career Outlook

• Demand and focus clearly seem to be in the
  technical areas (STEM disciplines and job
  availability) where the are going
• Yet employers still complain about the
  character, interpersonal skills and comportment
  of the young people they encounter as well as
  such basic skills as writing a clear memo were
  called into question (i.e., the need for and
  value of a liberal education) (Farkas,
  Public Agenda, 2011)
• The good news jobs for college graduates to
  increase by
• 7 - 9.5 this year (LA Times, 3/18/12)
  

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Ability to Pay

• Federal level
• Federal Education Budget Project with scorecard
  includes costs, graduation rates, ability to
  repay loans, amount of debt, and earnings
  potential (gainful employment) no more
  ability to benefit test
• State level
• VA set to launch similar scorecard in April

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Ability to Pay

• Institutional level
• reduced state funding (WA, MT, GA)
• over 300M since 2007
• accelerated programs using the new
• sources of credit provide more online
• education
• Student level
• average loan debt 28,720 (FinAid.org)
• 27 have past due balances (IHE, 3/6/12)

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Whats the (Big) Result?

• We will likely have
• more students
• more remediation
• more transfer students
• more degree options
• more means to earn degrees and certificates
• more scrutiny
• more legislation
• less financial support

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Where Are We Headed?

• On a collision course
• more degrees awarded, in shorter time, with
  fewer credits, in more convenient modes, from new
  sources
• QUALITY OF THE DEGREE
• similar retention and graduation rates (now
  reported over 8 years), with accreditors and
  employers requiring more and better demonstrable
  skills, more student debt, fewer equitable jobs

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What Do We Do?

• Our jobs, as academic advisors and
  administrators
• Recognize and anticipate the competing forces
• Adhere to the NACADA Concept Statement,
• Core Values, and the CAS Standards
• Use the Advising as Teaching philosophy
• and strategies
• Help create an experience through which each
  student obtains a high quality degree

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In Fact

• Academic advisors just might be the only ones
  who will have the ongoing opportunities to
  develop and preserve the quality of education
  that we espouse in our mission statements, our
  Bulletins and Program guides, our recruitment
  efforts, our rankings, and even our accreditation
  reports.

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In Fact

• The quality of higher education, as reflected in
  all these degrees and certificates to be awarded
  in the next decade, rests in our hands.

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THANK YOU!

• Thomas J. Grites, Ph.D.
• Assistant Provost
• Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
• 101 Vera King Farris Drive
• Galloway, NJ 08205
• Phone [phone]
• Tom.Grites_at_Stockton.edu