BizVoice March / April 2015

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40 BizVoice/Indiana Chamber – March/April 2015
‘Ah-hah I want to do this for the rest of my
life,’ ” he explains.
The problem is particularly pervasive at
community colleges. “Their largest degree
program is general studies, which means
those students never really made a (major)
decision,” Jones notes.
Merisotis feels part of the problem is
“that colleges and universities are really being
squeezed by the demands of the students for
choice. But as Complete College America has
pointed out, this idea of excess choice has a
real, real consequence in terms of the success
of students. They are literally facing a
cacophony of choices that’s confusing and
often overwhelming.”
The institutions need to help sort things
out, Gora concedes.
“I bet 90% of colleges now have degree
programs in which every semester there is
clearly defined what courses you take and
how they lead to a four-year degree. The
problem is that too many students really
aren’t sure what they want to do.”
When Gora presided over Ball State,
there was realization that too many of the
students who dropped out hadn’t declared a
major. That triggered structured career
counseling for students that begins with
freshman orientation.
“It requires them to go to a meeting with
a counselor to talk about what their test
results showed in terms of where their skill
sets were, where their interests were and
whether there was an obvious career path or
not,” she outlines.
This process became required, Gora
says, because too many students didn’t sign
up for it when it was optional.
The end result saw Ball State increase its
graduation rate by getting students to focus at
a much earlier juncture on their potential
career path.
“We knew all the time (the majors)
could change. What matters is that students
have a clear understanding of what their
future might be and how what they are
doing now is going to lead to that desired
future plan.”
On their own, “far too many students
don’t have enough experience and enough
information to make that decision early
enough to have real impact on completing
(college) in a timely fashion,” she concludes.
Policies like this one at Ball State
represent a growing trend, according to
Jones. “More colleges and universities are
requiring students to plan and to actually pick
a major.”
Gora admits, “Overall, it’s been a bit of
a hurdle for colleges to say, ‘OK, we have to
act more parental, if you will, and we have to
reduce choice. We have to require things.’
“Colleges never used to take attendance
– never. That was considered preschool-ish,
but now some classes will do that. It’s been a
real culture change for colleges.”
Student ownership
However, Jones isn’t implying students
should be let off the hook; they have a
responsibility for their education path –
particularly those receiving financial aid.
“Students on scholarships or grants or
with subsidized loans, we should treat more as
a partnership. We should expect reasonable
progress toward degrees, a reasonable
attempt to get a job and those kinds of things.
“So it’s not giving the student money
without any expectation of what’s expected
from the student. That part I really like, and I
think that we see more state financial aid
programs start to put in those kinds of
features,” he remarks.
Indeed, students taking part in Indiana’s
largest two aid programs – the Frank
O’Bannon grant and the 21st Century
Scholars program – are obligated to do just as
Jones outlined. Students must complete at
least 30 credits each calendar year.
The Indiana Commission for Higher
Education said in a January release that the
response to these 2013 financial aid reforms
has been encouraging, with double-digit
improvements in the percentages of students
taking and completing the minimum number
of required courses to graduate on time.
The funding factor
Jones stresses that the general public
believes it’s important for their children to go
to college, but that doesn’t necessarily
translate to action by the state regarding its
public universities.
“If you go to the Legislature and ask
them if they had a discretionary dollar where
would they spend it, higher education ranks
down there with prisons and welfare. And
it’s because, even though the general public
views higher education very highly, they (the
legislators) view it as private value, a private
good – not a public good.
“But it’s as important that we educate
your child or Jamie’s children as it is we
educate our own children because that
benefits all of society,” he underscores.
According to the latest Government
Accountability Office report, state government
funding to pay for public colleges has been on
a steady decline for the last decade. In 2003,
states provided 32% of funding; by 2012 the
public state support was down to 23%.
“The disinvestment in higher education
is troubling, and it’s troubling because of
what we know in terms of the enormous
public benefits that you get from higher
education,” Merisotis declares.
“Part of the challenge, though, is that
higher education has not been clear about the
outcomes it’s producing. How they can
demonstrate that these students have relevant
knowledge, capacity, skills and experiences.
… They’ve been slow to respond to the idea
that a college degree should mean something
that you can document, that you can be clear
about – not just at this individual institution
but in a broader sense.
“The funding decline should be a wakeup
call for the sector that it’s got to focus on
producing those outcomes,” he surmises.
Merisotis is a proponent of outcomes-
based funding – but done the right way.
“You shouldn’t be comparing institutions
with dissimilar missions. You should be focusing
on making sure that you take into account the
student population that’s served and what the
mission of the institution is. But you should
expect institutions to produce results in terms
of student outcomes, in terms of success rates
of the students. If it’s a research institution,
“The idea that the focus of authority
for the decision-making should rest
solely in the hands of the colleges
and the universities without any
expectations in terms of those kinds of
outcomes – those days are behind us.”
– Jamie Merisotis