Advice for Liberal Arts Colleges: Reinvest in Your Winners The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported that Franklin Pierce University shut down 6 of their academic programs. According to our data, they have 27 majors grouped into 20 fields of study. The Chronicle reports: “…The New Hampshire university will no longer offer degrees in American studies, arts management, fine arts, graphic communications, mathematics, and theater and dance. Current students in those fields will be allowed until May 2016 to complete their degrees.
Are You Providing The Best Education Your Student’s Money Can Buy Competition for students in higher education is fierce. The current “one-size-fits-all” rankings regime creates a winner take all environment where institutions are rewarded for investing in areas which have little effect in actual student outcomes. Colleges are interested in optimizing their brand, not optimizing education. The rankings arms race occurs at every stratum of higher education, with each institution trying to beat out it’s nearest peers.
Have You Found Your “Onlyness”? Recently I addressed a large group of college admissions and marketing professionals in Silicon Valley. We are known for our factual approach to the world of college, and college selection, and I provided my audience with some insights that were quite shocking to them judging from the looks on their faces. There are 60,317 potential choices a student could make to study a major somewhere in a traditional 4-year college or university.
Many Colleges Won’t Be Here in 10 Years During times of recession more students head to college, retreating from a poor job environment. Now that the economy is picking up a little, small colleges are starting to feel the pinch, and engaging in all sorts of antics to boost enrollment and cut costs. Some schools are offering drastic tuition cuts, eliminating low-interest programs, and letting go of teaching staff. But do these tactics work?
Play to Your Strengths: Rankings That Matter Do rankings still matter for colleges? One could say they matter more than ever. Parents and students play close attention to the rankings in US News every year, and competition for admittance increases every year for the schools that cling to the top 100 spots. Yet rankings can also be easily manipulated. Especially rankings that rely heavily on survey data and “inputs” rather than the outcomes of students.
Rankings by Major We’ve been publishing our rankings by major via USA Today since June of 2014. We’ve seen a tremendous interest in our rankings by major. Much more so than our other types of rankings. Why is there such an interest in majors? Where the Real Game Will be Won and Lost The word is getting out, and students are realizing that their choice of major can have a great and long-lasting effect on their lives.
Should Colleges be Held Accountable for Student Loan Burdens? Your Dream Job Is Just Four Years Away! How many times have you seen “announcements” like the one below? The University of Eat, Drink and Be Awesome is pleased to announce the introduction of a new four-year degree program in Fast Food Menu Development. This new program has been specially designed to meet the growing needs of the fast food industry, one of the most promising sectors of employment in our economy.
Should State Colleges Be Measured by How Quickly They Churn Out Grads? The U.S. Supreme court is poised to render its decision on Fisher vs. University of Texas, the largest affirmative action case the court has heard in years. While researching information on the subject, we stumbled on this opinion piece at the New York Times entitled Questioning the Mission of College. The author, Frank Bruni, asks some very interesting questions, beginning with this:
Stand Out in a Crowded Marketplace What do you do to stand out from the peers? In the business world you have to either cut prices, create a superior product, or customize your product so that it meets the needs of your customers in a way no other product does. College and Universities have the same opportunities, but few are taking advantage of them. Instead we see another small college invest in expensive equipment so they too can offer an engineering program, or a video-gaming program, or whatever the next trend will be.
The Higher Ed Debate Over Whether College Pays Off For Everyone The education industry has debated for many years whether college is the right choice for everyone, regardless of circumstances. In 2009, The Chronicle of Higher Education asked several experts to weigh in on the question “Are Too Many Students Going to College?” and there were as many different answers to that question as there were experts to ask. The concept of return on your college investment is an oft-discussed, and debated, topic around the College Factual offices.
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Why Low-Income Students Shy Away From Top Schools Study hard and get good grades, so you can have a better – or, at least, a more financially secure – life than your parents. For decades, this belief has been a core component of the American dream. Because of that, you might think that high achievers from low-income families would be applying to the best schools in the country, whenever and wherever they can.