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| ANAC Commentary |
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| AAC&U Liberal Education Outcomes Presents Gloomy Picture |
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AAC&U’s new national report suggests that colleges and universities have their work cut out both to increase student awareness of the importance of key liberal learning outcomes to their futures and to improve student knowledge and competence regarding these outcomes. The Association of American Colleges and Universities has just released the first report from its national campaign, Liberal Education and America’s Promise: Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes to College. The report, Liberal Education Outcomes: A Preliminary Report on Student Achievement in College, documents an emerging consensus among educators, business leaders, and accreditation associations on key learning outcomes essential for all students in the 21st century. The report compares results from student surveys with standardized tests, noting that there is both a dearth of national outcomes data and a contrast between what the data that does exist suggests students know and students’ own perception of what they have learned. Several examples of this disconnect, quoted from the AAC&U press release on the report:
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Carol Geary Schneider
President, AAC&U |
“While 77% of students report significant improvements in their writing skills in college, standardized tests show that only 11% of seniors scored at a “proficient” level in writing.
- Standardized test results indicate that only 6% of seniors graduate at the “proficient” level in critical thinking skills, while 87 percent of students believe that college contributed a great deal to improving their skills in this area.
- There is no national data on many other important outcomes of college. For instance, there is no national data on students’ knowledge of history or science, their ethical reasoning skills; their intercultural and global knowledge and skills, their information literacy, or their ability to work in teams and apply knowledge from one area to another.”
Public opinion research indicates that today’s high school and college students are largely unaware of this growing consensus about key liberal education outcomes and their importance both to the students’ future and the future of a diverse and inclusive democracy. |
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| Roberts Jones on American Higher Education and Global Competitiveness |
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| Roberts Jones |
Roberts Jones, President of Education and Workforce Policy, LLC, is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on the state of American higher education in an increasingly competitive global educational context. A graduate of the University of Redlands, Roberts Jones will speak at the ANAC Summer Institute, June 14-16, 2006, at North Central College. The summary and excerpts below are from a recent Jones’ presentation:
At a time when the United States is reducing its investment in higher education, especially at the state level, other countries are dramatically increasing their investment in higher education. Already, China and India produce far more graduates in fields such as science and engineering that are key to technological competitiveness and national security. In a post 9/11 world there is evidence that the U.S. can no longer depend on international students to fill our national needs in these fields, both because of tighter security which has limited the issuance of international student visas and because the U.S. has become a less popular place to study. Jones warns that we are jeopardizing one of our historically superior and most successful multinational industries—higher education.
Some observations Jones makes:
- 80% of new job growth requires some level of post-secondary education.
- In 1980 a college graduate earned 50% more than a high school graduate; by 2004 the gap had become 100% more.
- 2.3% of college graduates are unemployed; 8.3% of those lacking a high school degree are unemployed.
- Only 56% of high school students are enrolled in a college-bound curriculum.
- The U.S. skilled labor shortage is expected to be 7 million jobs in 2010; 21 million in 2020.
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| Simmons College campus. |
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