The sad reality for many Americans, and Ohioans, is that too many of them are not prepared to enter the workforce. There either aren’t enough jobs or the jobs that are available demand skill sets that many workers simply don’t have. The push for college-and-career readiness – signaled by Ohio’s adoption of the Common Core standards, for one example – is crucial to begin to address this problem.
The urgency around bolstering the current graduation rate is further emphasized by this recently released report, “Time is the Enemy.” It reveals that currently a majority (75 percent) of college goers attend on a part-time basis while attempting to juggle multiple responsibilities such as jobs and families. Gone are the days where a majority of students simply go off to college and focus solely on their studies. Instead, the new reality is that of a part-time student with numerous responsibilities beyond the classroom.
Although a majority of students attend college on a part-time basis they are graduating at a much less frequent rate as their full-time peers. Only 24 percent of part-time students complete a four-year bachelor’s degree in eight years, compared to the 60 percent of full-time students that do so. This is tragic. The authors of the report summed it best when they said:
Unless we move with urgency, today’s young people will be the first generation in American history to be less educated than their predecessors. Consider this is sobering wakeup call- and an urgent appeal for action now.
What should this call of action look like? How should states and schools make sure that more students graduate from high school college-and-career ready and complete college once they’re there? For starters, students need flexible schedules that better fit the busy and demanding lives they live. They also need different methods to attain their degree. As the report suggests this could come in the form of more on-line learning, a determined block of class time that is predictable and will allow students to better schedule work and family obligations, and an easier registration process where students do not have to sign up for classes each quarter, creating a more fluid transition between quarters.
Furthermore, colleges must realize that the longer it takes for a student to complete a degree the less likely they will actually do so. Time is of the essence and more often than not students are wasting their time with excess credits that they do not need to complete their degree. For example, students studying for a bachelor’s degree should take 120 credits and 4 years to do so. However, students are taking 136.5 credits and 4.7 years to complete their degree if they attend full time and 5.6 years if they attend part-time. Colleges should enact caps on their credit hours to ensure that students stay on track and take only necessary classes, as well as work individually with students to create on-time completion plans.
Remediation courses have also become the norm for many students. While this is a reflection of students leaving high-school not college or career ready, this is also something that colleges and universities must recognize and deal with if they are going to graduate more people on time. Of those students seeking a bachelor’s degree, on average 20.7 percent of them require remedial courses. In Ohio the remediation scene is worse, with 25 percent of college freshman attending a four year college requiring remedial classes.
Some states such as Texas, New York, and Tennessee have already taken steps toward enacting policies that help students balance work and school while at the same time reducing the amount of time it takes to attain a degree. For example, Texas reduced the likelihood that students will receive unnecessary credits by causing colleges and universities to lose their subsidy for students that exceed a certain credit limit.
The situation in Ohio also calls for action. By 2020, 59 percent of jobs will require a career certificate or a college degree. However, only 36 percent of Ohioans currently have an associate degree or higher, resulting in a skills gap of 23 percent. Ohio has started to enact some policies intended to increase college enrollment. In the most recent biennial budget lawmakers passed a law that allows students who have been out of state up to ten years to receive in-state tuition. Ohio is also taking an additional step by requiring public universities to start offering a three-year baccalaureate degree. According to the Board of Regents the goal is to transition ten percent of programs to three-year degrees by 2012 and extend this option to 60 percent of programs by 2014. While this is a step in the right direction Ohio must do more if we are going to close the skills gap and ensure that more people are career ready.
