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Academe is worth a regular bi-monthly look. The AAUP provides quality content. Access is not restricted. In the current issue, using its own words:

"Slip-Sliding Away: An Anxious Public Talks About Today's Economy And The American Dream," is a report from Public Agenda which finds that the number one financial concern of economically-stressed Americans who also have children is college affordability. Also high on Americans' priorities, stressed financially or not: Social security and retirement benefits and job training.

If this isn't an indication of high demand for higher education, we don't know what is:

When it comes to what would be "very effective" in helping people become economically secure, the public puts its faith in higher education and job training, along with preserving programs like Social Security and Medicare. These are the top three solutions among both those who are struggling and those who aren't.

"Making higher education more affordable" led the list overall (63 percent) and among those who say they're struggling (65 percent). Preserving Social Security and Medicare was next at 58 percent (62 percent among the struggling) and expanding job-training programs came in third at 54 percent (56 percent for the struggling).

Neither cutting taxes for the middle class (48 percent) nor reducing the federal deficit (40 percent) get majority support, and other options rate even lower. ...

One reason for the faith in education may be the public's perception of who's struggling the most in the current economy. Three-quarters of Americans say that people without college degrees are struggling a lot these days, compared to just half who say college graduates are struggling.

We have admired for years the work of the California Community Colleges Research and Planning Group (RP Group). Willard Hom of Chancellor's Office, often posts very nice 1-2 page abstracts on research and articles of use to community college planners, but we're not certain how often those get shared outside of California.

So, continuing a trend of posting more in this SCUP Links blog about Hispanic students, here are a couple of Hom's latest abstracts.

Location Matters (PDF): Geography and Hispanic Community College Enrollment: This abstract summarizes many point of interest, among which are:

Geographic considerations should be of special interest to researchers studying Hispanics’ higher education aspirations. More research is needed to explain the effects of geography on their postsecondary attendance. More than either comparison group (Black, White), Hispanic students show a tendency/desire to stay at home while pursuing postsecondary goals. This is especially true for Hispanic students who do not live in strong Hispanic states. [p. 830] Despite their awareness of the advantages of entering through a four-year institution if they aspire to a Bachelor’s degree, these Hispanic students tend to reside in greater proximity to two-year colleges and place importance on living at home during college, which increases the likelihood of two-year attendance. The greater likelihood of attending a two-year institution due to geographic factors contributes to a lower likelihood of entering a four-year institution and achieving a four-year degree.

Hispanic Students (PDF): Acculturation, Expectations, Support, and Perceived Barriers:

The findings by FBRTP may help college counselors, faculty, and administrators to expand their awareness of students whose expectations, kinship affiliation, acculturation status, and perceptions of barriers increase their vulnerability to negative academic situations. The college’s institutional culture and practices should encourage success and create a sense of belonging for all students, but this appears to be especially important for Hispanic students. Differences within the Hispanic population (by gender and generational status) can make a difference in the efficacy of targeted resources and counseling for retention and success.

We've been puzzled for decades by those who complain about the state of American education. Sure, you can point to students who underperform and yet are graduated. And that's only one theme of criticism. But we've always felt that it was unfair to be comparing the underperforming or average student of, say, 2010, with the average college student or high achieving student of, say, 1950. Instead, how do today's top students compare to those of yesteryear; and how many of today's students would never even have been able to matriculate in 1950?

Philip G. Atlbach writes (PDF), in the current issue of International Higher Education, about the inevitability of inequality that derives from increasing access. It's worth a read for perspective's sake:

The reality of postsecondary education, in an era of access combined with fiscal constraint and ever-increasing costs, is that inequality within higher education systems is here to stay. Most countries have or are creating differentiated systems of higher education that will include different kinds of institutions serving specific needs. This process is inevitable and largely positive. However, the research universities at the top of any system tend to serve an elite clientele and have high status, while institutions lower in the hierarchy cater to students who cannot compete for the limited seats at the top. Major and growing differences exist in funding, quality, and facilities within systems. Given financial and staffing constraints, institutional inequalities will continue. Students will come from more diverse backgrounds and in many ways will be more difficult to serve effectively.

All of these issues constitute a deep contradiction for 21st-century higher education. As access expands, inequalities within the higher education system also grow. Conditions of study for many students deteriorate. More of them fail to obtain degrees. The economic benefits assumed to accrue to persons with a postsecondary qualification probably decline for many. Access remains an important goal—and an inevitable goal—of higher education everywhere, but it creates many challenges.

To access this full article, you may need a subscription or a day pass to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Saudi Arabia intends to go from 860,000 college students right now, to 1,700,000 ... in four years! We forecast the need for some darned experienced planners, and a need for that planning to be done in an integrated way.

[It's] a gargantuan task. Creating better-skilled, employable Saudi university graduates, says Mr. Partrick, involves reforming the entire educational system, restructuring the country's labor market, and encouraging a "cultural shift in terms of attitudes toward work—what Saudis will do—and education—what it's appropriate to teach to Saudi children."

All that will have to take place at the same time that increasing numbers of young Saudis pursue higher education. "As we are expanding access," says Mr. Al-Ohali, "there is a lot of emphasis not to lose quality."

Must-read: Ben Miller and Phuong Ly, writing in the Washington Monthly, use "Nestor" as a springboard to examining some of the remarkably difficult circumstances students can wade through trying to get an education when they have little money and don't qualify for admission to an elite school. It's a hard article, naming names and with a national perspective.

With its tree-lined campus and gleaming new steel and glass convocation center, Chicago State certainly looked impressive. But within his first month there, Nestor wanted to leave. Advisers in the engineering department seemed clueless about guiding him to the right courses, insisting that if he wanted to take programming he first needed to enroll in a computer class that showed students how to turn on a monitor and operate a mouse. (Nestor required no such training.) The library boasted a robot that retrieved books, but Nestor would have preferred that it simply stay open past eight p.m., since class sometimes ended at nine p.m. or later, leaving him without a useful place to study or do research before going home. Trash littered the classrooms and grounds, and during class many of the students would simply carry on conversations among themselves and ignore the instructors—or even talk back to them. Nestor was appalled. “It was like high school, but I was paying for it,” he says ... .

Nestor’s experience of educational incompetence at the college level isn’t just a Chicago phenomenon. Nationwide, low-income minority students are disproportionately steered toward colleges not where they’re most likely to succeed, but where they’re most likely to fail.

Roy L. Beasley, academic systems analyst in the Office of the Provost at Howard University, writes in Inside Higher Ed:

It's time to leave the 'historical' HBCUs to history. Whereas back in the early 1970s, over 80 percent of African American college students still attended HBCUs, not even 20 percent do so today; and the long-term trend is further downward. In other words, the days in which HBCUs were the largest suppliers of postsecondary educational opportunities for African Americans are over. 

Given the magnitude of the new challenges, the nation would be well advised to stimulate the development of a number of innovative institutions which, for now, I will call 'BCUs.' Their core mission would have two components, the first of which would be to develop, demonstrate, and disseminate more effective methods for educating the nation's African American students. Please note that the following paragraphs propose specifications for BCUs that are already met in whole or in part by many existing HBCUs, but their core missions are different.

Let us say first that SCUP is proud to note that the new president of the Arizona Board of Regents is Thomas K. Anderes, a long time SCUP member and leader who is currently the convener of SCUP's Resource and Budget Planning Academy.

The Lumina Foundation's Focus magazine for July 2010 (PDF) is focused on "The Productivity Push: System-Wide Reform Allows Arizona to Serve More Students." An excerpt:

Arizona is among a growing number of states that are expanding their capacity to graduate more students (see map, Pages 8 and 9). They’re doing this by spending money differently and by delivering education in new ways and in new places.

The plan Burnand shared with Cecilia that day — a joint initiative of the Maricopa Community College District and Arizona State University that jump-starts productivity even before a student sets foot in a college classroom — is but one piece of the statewide reform effort.

Once competitors for student minds — and public dollars — the schools in the state community college system and Arizona’s three four-year universities are now full-fledged partners. They’re working together to streamline transfer policies, expand student opportunity at “no-frills” regional educational centers, and keep costs down for both institutions and students — all in an effort to improve the system’s productivity and cre- ate new paths to learning.

The driving force behind this change is the 12-member Arizona Board of Regents, the panel that governs the state’s three research universities from its headquarters just a few miles from Alhambra High School. In a blunt comprehensive strategic plan released in 2008, the board called out Arizona for failing to keep pace with other states in the effort to recruit and retain low- income, first-generation and other 21st century students.

Mark Milliron, now with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, once again wowed a SCUP plenary audience on Monday morning. We are grateful that he is sharing his slide show (available only temporarily without password protection). And we have a brief YouTube video of part of his presentation (below). Enjoy! We did.

Don't miss out on joining nearly 1,500 of your colleagues and peers at higher education's premier planning event of 2010, SCUP–45. The Society for College and University Planning's 45th annual, international conference and idea marketplace is July 10–14 in Minneapolis!

Here's your SCUP Link to "Why Did Wal-Mart Choose American Public University?"

 New York Times writer Micheline Maynard wondered, too, and thus this story (in which SCUP gets a mention).

Wal-Mart surveyed 81 institutions, including for-profits, nonprofits, online universities, brick-and-mortar colleges, and “even some of the open-source, open-platform online offerings that are out there,” said Alicia Ledlie Brew, senior director of Wal-Mart’s lifelong learning program.

It had several criteria: a program with clear, low pricing (American Public charges $250 a credit hour, a price that has not changed in 10 years, Mr. Boston told the UBS audience); one that was accredited; a college that offered a variety of degrees and course subjects; and one that was used to dealing with adult students.

In a survey of employees, more than two-thirds told Wal-Mart they preferred an online college to a physical one.