Vol. 18 No. 1 September 2003
Summer Catch-Up
While you were away at the beach or...
Affirmative Action Affirmed
IN THE FINAL SESSION of its season, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its long-awaited opinion of the use of race in college and professional school admissions. The June 23 ruling was a split decision for the University of Michigan, the defendant in the case, but an important victory for affirmative action.
Yes, race may be used as a plus factor in the admissions calculation, as is done at the University of Michigan's Law School, the court said. No, Michigan's undergraduate admission system of affixing points to such a calculation is not permitted.
It had been a quarter century since the Supreme Court ruled so decisively on the issue of race and admissions, and the effect of this decision is more than likely to last another two-and-a-half decades.
"In order to cultivate a set of leaders," said Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, "with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity."
Dissenting Justice Clarence Thomas retorted, "The majority upholds the Law School's racial discrimination not by interpreting the people's Constitution, but by responding to a faddish slogan of the cognoscenti."
HARVARD'S RESPONSE
Several universities, including Ohio State and the University of Massachusetts, are reformulating their admission policies because they were similar to the mathematical model used by Michigan's undergraduate admissions.
However, Justice O'Connor cited Harvard's admissions plan as a model in her swing opinion. And Harvard and other elite institutions responded that the ruling reaffirmed their practices, which would remain unchanged.
According to the July 17 issue of the Harvard University Gazette, Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers said that, "the court's pivotal opinion embraces the core principles that have long informed Harvard's approach to admissions." He added, "And it confirms that universities are entitled to substantial deference on matters at the heart of their academic mission, such as selection of their students."
Summers concluded, "Perhaps most important, the court explicitly upholds the rights of universities to pursue student diversity through carefully designed admissions programs that flexibly consider each applicant as an individual and that properly treat race as one among a broad array of factors that may be taken into account. We all share a vital stake in the education of citizens and leaders for a diverse society."
OPPONENTS NEXT MOVE
A victory for affirmative action in the courts may only push the action elsewhere. Ward Connerly, who successfully led ballot initiatives against affirmative action in California and Washington, is launching similar campaigns in Michigan and probably two other states, possibly Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Oregon or Utah, for the 2004 election. He needs to sign up 320,000 Michigan voters to get on the ballot, and that could cost more than half a million dollars. Both Republican and Democratic political leaders in Michigan said they will oppose his voter initiatives.
Meanwhile, Colorado Governor Bill Owens and Republican legislative leaders are introducing legislation to prohibit using race as an admissions factor in their state schools.
Other college observers note that the affirmative action controversy never really applies to most colleges and universities where competition for admission is not as fierce as at elite schools.
[back to top]
OTHER SUMMER ACTION
Does Class Matter More Than Race? Discrimination by economic status, not race, is the greatest problem in college admissions, wrote Peter Sacks in the July 25 Chronicle of Higher Education. Sacks charged that "At America's selective institutions, class rules." He cited the fact that in 1995, at 146 of the nation's most competitive colleges, just 3 percent of admitted students came from "families of modest social and economic backgrounds."
Sacks, author of The High Price of America's Testing Culture and What We Can Do to Change It (Perseus Publishing, 1999), noted that in 1999, 80 percent of the fathers of white freshmen at 28 highly selective colleges had B.A. degrees and professional jobs. And 80 percent of the Asian students at those colleges, 66 percent of the Latino students and 60 percent of the black students were not first-generation college students. Standardized testing is one of the main barriers that keeps American colleges economically stratified, Sacks believes.
Pell Grant Funding Frozen. Facing deep federal deficits, Congress decided not to increase funding for Pell Grants this year. Maximum Pell Grants remain at $4,050, slightly above President Bush's recommended cut to $4,000 a year, beginning in October.
Other federal aid programs such as Gear Up and TRIO will receive small increases. The Supplemental Opportunity Grant Program, the Federal Work Study Program, the Perkins Loan Program and the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership Program will all be funded at current levels.
Pell Cuts. Last spring, the Department of Education reformulated the eligibility requirements for Pell Grants. As a result, an estimated 84,000 students could lose their grants for the 2004-05 school year. The Pell program will save $270 million.
"It doesn't stop there," Brian K. Fitzgerald, director of the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, which advises Congress, told The New York Times last month. "It will have a ripple effect through all the other financial aid programs such as state grants, loans and institutional dollars."
The Department of Education counters that despite the tightening of requirements, the increase in the number of higher education students will mean that as many as 300,000 students will receive Pell Grants in 2004.
NCAA Reduces SAT/ACT Importance. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has scuttled its single minimum test score cut-off for first-year college athletes. The old system, which began as Proposition 48 and set an 820 SAT sports participation cut-off level, has been replaced by a sliding scale that allows strong high school class performance to offset low standardized test scores.
For years, some civil rights organizations, minority coaches and teachers, and FairTest, an organization dedicated to ending over-reliance on standardized tests, fought Prop 48, saying it was biased and unfair. Last year, a U.S. District Court judged agreed, ruling that "the racially adverse impact caused by the SAT cutoff score is not justified by any legitimate educational necessity."
Under the new NCAA freshman system, a high school athlete with a core course GPA of 3.55 or higher could score as low as 400 on the combined SAT verbal and math tests. However, a high school student athlete with a 2.0 GPA would be required to score at least a 1010 on the combined SAT in order to play his or her freshman year of college.
NCAA president Myles Brand told The Washington Post, "I know from being president of Indiana University thatthe single most important predictor of success in college is high school performance in academic core courses. That's what's going to tell us whether they graduate or not."
The Real Cost of Athletics. And a just released NCAA study of college athletic spending concludes that, contrary to popular opinion, almost every college athletic program loses money. The typical university or college spends about 3.5 percent of the institution's budget on athletics.
At the same time, colleges that spend more money in hopes of creating winning teams or generating greater revenues do not achieve their goals. Nor does more or less athletic spending increase or decrease academic success among an institution's athletes.
[back to top]
Fall's Agenda
Trends in the year ahead
Three-Year High Schools Open
COLLEGES HAVE BEEN PUSHING their admissions process fast forward with early admissions programs, so is the fourth year of high school really necessary?
This summer, the Florida legislature passed, and Governor Jeb Bush signed, a new law requiring all Florida high schools to create an 18-credit, three-year high school track that concentrates on the core classes while eliminating "extras" such as physical education, electives and art.
The new option should be available at most Florida high schools this fall and will help alleviate school overcrowding. To graduate, students will still need a 2.0 grade point average and to pass the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
WASTED TIME?
"There are too many high school seniors walking around taking two study halls and three lunch periods because they collected all their required course work and GPA before their senior year even began," Florida Atlantic University president Frank Brogan told the Miami Herald.
Yet others fear that some students may not be socially ready to leave high school, forced prematurely into the work world or miss out on the crowning experience of high school including athletics or leadership experiences. The state's teachers union also opposes the change, in part, because it may lead to loss of teaching jobs and because it could deplete the elective, vocational and fine arts programs.
UNCERTAIN COLLEGE IMPACT
While Florida's 11 public universities will recognize the change, selective private colleges and out-of-state institutions may not be as sympathetic. But that could change if other states take up the idea. Then the early phenomena will have real impact.
HIGHER ED ACT REAUTHORIZATION FIGHT LIKELY
Congressional hearings have already begun for next year's reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, and observers are predicting fireworks. Indeed, instead of simply tinkering with the old Higher Education Act as has been the practice during other reauthorizations, many colleges are bracing for heavy criticism.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reported July 11 that the Bush Administration is gearing up to expand its "No Child Left Behind" education reform agenda to include colleges and universities as part of its reelection strategy.
The Bush administration is likely to attack the relentless rise in college tuition costs which its says threatens to put college out of reach for low-and middle-income students; demand more accountability from colleges for outcomes; and insist that colleges do much more to retain and graduate students, especially low-income students, of whom an estimated 80 percent drop out before graduation. Only about 50 percent of all students who enter college graduate within five years.
ORIGINAL INTENT
Originally introduced by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, the Higher Education Act is designed to increase college access for low-income students. Educational Opportunity Grants for low-income students were introduced in 1968, as was the guaranteed-student loan program to assist middle-class students. HEA has made college available to millions of low- and middle-income students since its original passage.
HEA's first reauthorization in 1968 added the TRIO program. The act was again reauthorized in 1972, with the addition of what are now called Pell Grants. In 1993, Congress voted to replace 60 percent of the guaranteed loan program with direct lending and gave students up to 25 years to repay loans.
In 1998, Congress halted the formula for conversion to direct loans. HEA is reauthorized every six years. New programs are added from time to time, and new levels of grant and loan authorizations are set by Congress. The actually funding of those programs is part of the annual budget process, and often the amount budgeted does not reach maximum reauthorization levels.
OUTLOOK: NO HELP FOR STUDENT AID
Early indications are that next year's reauthorization and budget will add very little money to federal student aid programs. With huge budget deficits of $450 billion this year and $475 billion next year hanging over them, lawmakers will have little room for new initiatives. CB will keep you updated on the HEA reauthorization process.
[back to top]
THE COUNSELOR'S CORNER
The Essay: Issues of Access
THE COLLEGE ADMISSION PROCESS is meant to draw from all aspects of the population of young people in this country, carrying them into the wider world of academia and ultimately to satisfying work thereafter. It's a fairly complex process of selection and consideration on both sides.
And tucked away in the middle of it all is the application essay, a tricky bit that challenges some applicants and makes the process substantially different for others.
The application essay is an opportunity for students to introduce themselves and their lives to the college, to present a single recommending trait or feature from their years of existence. "What can I show about myself in this essay?" is the critical question. And it is an opportunity for young writers to demonstrate mastery of a genre, the expository essay. But not all applicants maximize these opportunities.
HOW DO COLLEGES USE ESSAYS?
Since 1984, I've been asking students, school counselors and admissions officers at a broad range of high schools and colleges about application essays, how they get written and how they get read. Of course, not all colleges require an essay (although the 146 schools that accept the Common Application do), but it seemed worthwhile to determine how colleges evaluate this piece of student writing and what process the writers themselves go through in its creation.
In a 1998 survey, where the average number of applications read by the responding colleges was 4,600, I found that the average time an admission counselor spent reading an application was 17.8 minutes-with five minutes, on average, given to the essay. That's not a lot of time.
Conversely, admission counselors estimated the time students spent writing these essays was about four hours. Students reported more like nine hours busy at their desks. There's a disconnect here. It's important for students to know how quickly their essays are evaluated but it is also important for admission personnel to know how hard students work on this assignment.
More information about the importance of essays showed that both students and admission officers ranked the essay as the fourth most important component in the admission process. Overall, however, students tended to think the essay was more important than did the admissions officers. Another disconnect, but not necessarily a bad one. Essays, in general, may be only "somewhat important," and yet for a specific, individual application, an essay can become the "tip factor" that makes the decision among a group of similarly-qualified students.
There was some agreement: admissions officers and students both said that the top four criteria for an essay are correctness, organization, specific details and an individual or distinctive style. Students don't need to write amazing dialogue, choose a topic of international interest or break the reader's heart. They need correct, organized and specific essays that make clear who they are.
[back to top]
HOW DO STUDENTS WRITE APPLICATION ESSAYS?
As mentioned, students appear to take the essay seriously and often give many hours to its creation.
And in most cases, they are wise enough to seek a little guidance or help. In both large urban high schools and smaller, more affluent suburban high schools, students turned to parents, friends and teachers for help with essays. In schools with extensive counseling available to them, 70 percent of seniors sought help from a parent, 60 percent from an English teacher, 58 percent from a school counselor and 51 percent from a friend (clearly, most students went to several sources of help). But among the students in large urban schools, only 32 percent said a parent helped, and only 28 percent went to an English teacher. The school counselors were even less significant advisors, outranked by the student's own friends. And although in general parental involvement was very significant, among students of color, first generation college students or those with parents for whom English was not their first language, this was less true.
In like manner, students in schools where only about 60 percent of the students went on to postsecondary education were more likely to wait until the day before the essay was due to put pen to paperand this was slightly more likely to happen with boys. Also, 25 percent of these students dropped an application because of the presence of an essay. I came to think of these students as "under-counseled." They were already in high schools with high student to advisor ratios. And they clearly were getting less of the "extracurricular" advisement that teachers, coaches and parents are providing in other settings. Disadvantaged students are further disadvantaged in the application essay process.
What's too much help? Professional writers frequently kick their ideas around with somebody else. The amount of assistance a student goes after can and should be what would be available to that student in the institutions they are going to be attending. The idea that students should lock themselves in their rooms, write four pages that can affect their future lives and slam it in an envelope is ill-advised. In fact, in college itself, their success will in part depend on their ability to co-opt assistance and draw people into their educational process. So some hands-off help is appropriate and all students should ask for and be offered this kind of help.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Since essays matter at every type of college for a variety of reasons and uses, high schools can signal the importance of essays with programmatic support. High-income settings do that. But in schools where students aren't getting enough help, large group workshops, a half-day drop-in opportunity with English teachers or planned conversations in English or history classrooms would raise awareness and get kids started.
2. Since English teachers serve a significant role in assisting students, they should be noticed for that. Admissions personnel should talk with English teachers about the role they play, invite them to college admission offices or meet with them when visiting a high school to answer questions. English teachers need to feel noticed, dignified and well-informed about this "extracurricular" work.
3. Parents should be viewed as an essential part of the essay process. Parents, no matter their education, can be wonderfully helpful in talking with their senior about life experience, strengths (forget the weaknesses), and plans. Counselors should guide parents into the process and show them how to be useful and informed collaborators.
Sarah Myers McGinty is a university supervisor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a private educational consultant with the McGinty Consulting Group in Boston. This article was adapted with permission from a speech given at the 2002 National Association for College Admission Counseling conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.
[back to top]
TUITION TABS
California Tuition Crisis. Deep in red ink to the tune of $38 billion, California's legislature is slashing millions from its higher education budget. As a result, state universities have hiked tuition by as much as 30 percent this fall. The University of California system lost $360 million in state funds. Tuition at those schools rose by 25 percent to $4,794 for in-state students. But with the state budget still unresolved, the board of regents also authorized a further 5 percent increase if the cuts go deeper, possibly pushing tuition up to $5,400 a year for in-staters.
The California State University system of 23 campuses boosted tuition from $1,572 to $2,044 for in-state undergrads and from $1,734 to $2,254 for in-state graduate students. Financial aid for students from families with incomes below $60,000 will increase.
Illinois Tuition Freeze. Making good on his election promise to do something about escalating tuition, Governor Rod R. Blagojevich recently signed a new "Truth in Tuition" law that will freeze tuition for students at the state's public colleges and universities at the level set when they enter as freshmen. The freeze is good for four years for most undergraduates and five years for programs that are designed for five years. The law takes effect in the 2004-2005 academic year.
Gov. Blagojevich and state lawmakers were responding to voter frustrations over a decade in which tuition doubled. Tuition this year at the U. of I. has gone up another 5 percent to $5,568 for in-state students.
"The dream of a college education is something we must encourage, not discourage," the governor said. However, the new law may force universities to introduce large tuition increases before students matriculate. Still, parents will know for certain what they are facing from the start.
A 7 Percent Solution. Case Western Reserve University increased tuition by 7.1 percent, increasing the sticker price for undergraduates from $21,000 to $22,500. Room and board rates are increasing between 7.8 to 8.6 percent, depending upon the kind of room and its location. However, CWRU claims it is still "one of the best values in the country" and its value is rated 21st among national research universities by U.S. World & News Report. CWRU students received $58 million in scholarships, grants, loans and employment assistance in 2003. That amounts to $19,393 per student receiving aid.
The Pace Guarantee. Pace University in New York City is making a bargain with its students. The school promises to freeze tuition at whatever level a student pays during the first year of attendance, for the next five years. That is, it will remain stable after one more increase of 15 percent this academic year. The rate for the school's 9,000 undergrads will increase from $17,800 to $20,500. Current students will face smaller increases, which will also be frozen for them. Other schools, such as Western Illinois University, have similar plans.
Harvard Hits $37,928. Harvard's 2003-2004 undergraduate tuition, fees and room and board hit $37,928, an increase of 5.5 percent. Two-thirds of Harvard's undergraduates receive financial aid, averaging $27,050. Aid has expanded by 37 percent over the past five years. The average debt of Harvard grads has dropped by $4,000 over the past five years, to $10,450 per student.
"Harvard College is built upon the twin principles of need-blind admissions and need-based financial aid," William C. Kirby, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, reaffirmed.
Florida Cuts. Public colleges lost $40 million in this year's state budget and things could get worse next year. As a result, tuition will rise by 8.5 percent for in-state students and as much as 15 percent for out-of-state and graduate students. Tuition for Florida's community colleges is going up by 7.5 percent. In 2002-3, Florida's average public tuition was just $2,700 compared to $4,100 nationwide.
[back to top]
NEWS YOU CAN USE
The Dartmouth Class of 2007. Eighteen percent or 2,155 applicants were admitted to Dartmouth this year, drawn from the largest applicant pool in Dartmouth's history: 11,855.
According to Roland Adams, director of news and public information, it is also the most diverse in the institution's 234 years: 33 percent of the members of the incoming class are students of color; 6 percent are international students and there are more women (545) than men (535).
It is also one of the strongest first-year classes to enter any institution in the country, according to Adams. The SAT Medians: 710 verbal, 720 math. Nearly 24 percent were high school valedictorians, 10 percent salutatorians; 84 percent ranked in the top 10 percent of their class. About 62 percent of the class are from public schools; 32 percent from private schools; and 6 percent from parochial schools. All admissions were on a need-blind basis; 46 percent will receive scholarship assistance.
Harvard's 2003 Yield. Nearly 80 percent of students admitted to Harvard College for the Class of 2007 are enrolling, according to the Harvard University Gazette. As a result, few students were admitted from Harvard's Wait List. Harvard's record yield was even with last year, and reached the historic levels of the late 1970s, despite the fact that its Early Action program allows admitted student to enroll in other colleges. The percentage of students admitted this year was the lowest in the school's history, just 9.8 percent.
Director of Admissions Maryln McGrath Lewis said, "Throughout the United States and around the world, alumni and alumnae made an enormous difference in recruiting the Class of 2007 by visiting high schools, arranging visits to high schools for admissions officers, interviewing candidates, calling admitted students and hosting local gatherings in April for admitted students and their parents."
Trade Secrets. Where do college professors from the Northeast send their children to college? According to two Vanderbilt economists, Malcolm Getz and John J. Siegfried, who studied the trends for a decade: Oberlin, Carleton, Stanford, Duke, U. of Michigan, U. of Chicago, U. of California at Berkeley, Reed, Northwestern U. and C. of William and Mary.
Others included: Colorado, Vanderbilt, Washington U. at St. Louis, Pomona, Brigham Young, Kenyon, Richmond, U. of Wisconsin-Madison, Virginia Tech., Georgetown, George Washington and Macalester.
Gifts to Higher Ed Dip. The recession has been deep, but charitable gifting to higher education funds fell only a little more than 1 percent (2.6 percent when adjusted for inflation) last year to a still hefty $31.64 billion in 2002. Education receives about 13 percent of all donations, the leading category for giving.
Private Loans Soar. According to a report released in July by the Institute for Higher Education Policy, private borrowing by college students has increased 346 percent since 1995-96, and has reached
$5 billion a year!
[back to top]
COLLEGE BOUND's Publisher/Editor: R. Craig Sautter, DePaul University; Chief Operating Officer: Sally Reed; Contributor: Marc Davis; Circulation: Irma Gonzalez-Hider; Illustration: Louis Coronel; Board of Advisors: Rosita Fernandez-Rojo, Choate-Rosemary Hall; Claire D. Friedlander, Bedford (N.Y.) Central School District; Howard Greene, author, The Greenes' Guides to Educational Planning Series; Frank C. Leana, Ph.D., educational counselor; Virginia Vogel, Educational Guidance Services; M. Fredric Volkmann, Washington University in St. Louis, Mary Ann Willis, Bayside Academy (Daphne, Ala.).
|
