From Lagging to Leading

7/29/2019 From Lagging to Leading

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F R O M L A G G I N G TO L E A D I N GMaking Minnesota postsecondar y educat ion a national model

October 2012


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This report is an outgrowth of a small group of policy

leaders and education stakeholders convened by the Center

for Policy Studies in the winter of 2011. After several

conversations, the group urged The Center to dig deeper

into the challenges now threatening Minnesotas historic

dependence on a highly educated population. Participants

in the 2011 conversations echoed a broader sense among

many Minnesotans that the state is slipping in its capacity

to prepare an increasingly diverse population for both the

challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.

With that sobering charge, The Center convened a working

group that met a dozen times over the last year, ultimately

producing this report. Early on, the working group realized

it couldnt possibly do justice to all the challenges facing

the states postsecondary institutions and the students

and families they serve. Instead, its report focuses on the

need to:

Define and measure what students need to know and be

able to do;

Demonstrate the competencies students actually acquire;

and

Ensure the knowledge and skills students acquire match

the constantly changing demands they are already

facing as 21st century workers, engaged citizens, and

lifelong learners.

Thank you toJon Schroeder, who assisted in developing

this report. Schroeder has an extensive background in public

policy and journalism, including 10 years as a senior staff

assistant to former U.S. Senator Dave Durenberger and

work over the last 25 years on education policy and redesign

nationally, in other states, and in Minnesota.

Other active members of the working group included a

number of individuals with past and current leadership roles

in postsecondary education:John Adams, Lindsey

Alexander, David Clinefelter, Angie Eilers, Laura Gilbert,

Joe Graba, Jim Horan, Lars Johnson, David Laird,

Larry Litecky, Dan Loritz, Tim McDonald, David Metzen,

Mark Misukanis, Michael OKeefe, and David Shupe.

At about half its meetings, the working group was joined

by other experts in the field, including: Bill Blazar, senior

VP of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce; Larry

Pogemiller, director of the Minnesota Office of Higher

Education; Peter Ewell, VP of the National Center for

Higher Education Management Systems; Patrick Hunt,

a Twin Cities-based technology and international marketing

entrepreneur; and Terry Rhodes and Dan Sullivan, who

are leading several accountability initiatives being

undertaken by the Association of American Colleges

and Universities (AAC&U). The group was fortunate

to have the participation ofDavid Shupe, founder of

Minneapolis-based eLumen, who has national leadership

experience in introducing student learning outcomes as

the principal metric for the next generation of higher

education performance.

Separate meetings were held with Steven Rosenstone,

chancellor of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities;

Minnesota Education Commissioner Brenda Casselius;

andJim Bensen, former president of Dunwoody College

of Technology and Bemidji State University.

Regular communication was also maintained with the

Itasca Project, the Citizens League, and the Minnesota

Chamber of Commerce about their work to address the

challenges facing the states consumers and providers of

postsecondary education. All three organizations shared

various work products, including a short paper on the

origins and growth of Minnesota postsecondary institutions,

produced for the League by working group member

John Adams (see pages 10-12).

This report is available online in PDF form at

www.centerforpolicy.org/postsecondary.

By Curt Johnson, senior fellow at the Center for Policy Studies

and principal report author and convener. Johnson is a

former chair of the Metropolitan Council, chief of staff to

Governor Arne Carlson, and executive director of the Citizens

League. He began his career in Minnesota as president of three

of the states community colleges.

ABOUT THIS REPORT


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1

By now the problems are all too familiar. InMinnesota, as elsewhere in the United States, most

jobs that pay well require more education than highschool. Graduation rates, even for high school, are stuck atlevels too low. Completion rates for college certificates ordegrees are not keeping up with occupational demand; andthe skills and knowledge employers say they value aremissing in too many graduates preparation. Too much ofhigher education is supply-side driven; whats offered is

what educators want to provide. Costs of providingpostsecondary education have risen relentlessly.

Ade facto policy of higher tuition, evolved over the pastdecade, lacks a proportionate response in financial aid.Most troubling is the sense that students value only thecredential, the presumed ticket to the marketplace, notthe education itself. Employers, though, often use thosecredentials as filters in hiring, even though credentialsreveal nearly nothing about what the applicants actuallyknow and can do.

Minnesotas modern comparative advantage has longbeen directly tied to its investments in education, aimedat assuring that people in its regional economies are betterprepared than the employees in most markets. Looking

ahead, the only growth in Minnesotas workforce appearsto be coming from population groups whose history witheducation is bleak at best. Even with higher-than-averageunemployment, there is serious talk about future laborshortages (see Figure 1 below). The middle class, as ithas been defined, is shrinking. Those with sophisticatededucation and a creative bent have soaring work and lifeprospects. People who might formerly have gone to work inthe manufacturingplant across town arelooking at makingdo with less and less.These are not

sustainable conditions.

If future Minnesotansare to be prosperous,they will needhigher-orderintellectual andanalytic skills; theyllneed to be able tocommunicate clearly,

solve problems, and work in teams. Even for manufacturingor technical jobs, serious training is already a must.

Incremental system improvement, while needed, is alosing bet in a high-stakes game. What Minnesota needsfor its system of postsecondary institutions is a realgame-changer, a bold move.

So what is the change that would make such a powerfuldifference and clear the clouds in this storm of problems?In this report, we make the case that shifting to a systemof documented proficiency is exactly that kind of catalyst.

A proficiency platform delineating and documenting whatlearners know and are able to do will restore faculty focuson education results, induce students to concentrate on

what they are learning, and make the long-elusiveconnection between what happens in college and what isneeded in the workplace. This model has the capacity tomitigate, if not eliminate, the game of collecting creditsand capturing credentials for mostly utilitarian purposes.

Minnesota has a rich array of colleges and universities public, private, nonprofit and for- profit. No one caneffectively order them to undertake bold change. Nor is

there enough money to induce change with highersupport levels.

But policy makers, along with system and institutionalleaders, can and should create the conditions under whichfaculties and institutions can make this shift toward asystem driven by documented proficiency.

UnsustainableConditions

Minnesotans may

think they have seenthis movie before.Sometime in nearlyevery recent decade,political, business andcivic leaders arousethemselves to studythe problem andsuggest how to goforward. Up to now,

F R O M L A G G I N G TO L E A D I N GMaking Minnesota postsecondar y educat ion a national model

1.52%1.6%

1.4%

1.2%1.0%

0.8%

0.6%

0.4%

0.2%

0.0%

Data courtesy of state economist Tom Stinson and recently retired statedemographer Tom Gillaspy.

1.12%

0.75%

0.43%

0.10% 0.13%0.27%

2030-352025-302020-252015-202010-152005-101900-2000

AverageAnnualCha

nge

Labor Force Growth Is About to Slow Sharply Figure 1


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however, these blue-ribbon efforts have precipitated littlechange; usually they lament a lack of adequate resourcesbut then reaffirm most of the elements of the systems thatraise costs.

Costs rise partly from more and more demands, but alsofrom an inability to stop doing things and an unwillingnessto think about redesigning the system to fit new realities.

But this time entering the fall of 2012 may really bedifferent. The sense is settling in that a macro-shift hasoccurred in recent years. Pick any troubling title you wish That Used to Be Us, The Great Reset, Time to Start Thinkingits all about redefining assumptions and expectations.The goalposts have indeed moved. The long string ofpost-World War II decades that saw America enjoyseemingly effortless superiority have come to an end.The nations standing in preparing emerging generations

of citizens and workers is troubling. Americans used to befirst in the world in the proportion of adults with a collegeeducation. Now were down to 12th. As technologytransforms the economy at speeds never known before, theproportion of young people even showing interest in thecore disciplines required for good jobs has dropped.

Achievement by U.S. students now ranks 31st and 15thinternationally in the key foundation disciplines of mathand science.

The price of college has gone up over the past 30 years fastereven than health care costs, with public institution costsrising even faster than at private institutions. Few insiders

want to discuss means of achieving more productivity.Meanwhile, though college graduates continue to earn twice

what a high school dropout earns and have only half theaverage exposure to unemployment, theres a not-so-vaguesense that the content and value of degrees have slipped.

Over time Minnesota has a considerably better-than-average

record of sizing up threats and seeing opportunities, thoughnot necessarily in higher education. But there are stirrings.The Citizens League, taking the perspective of consumers,has a multi-year inquiry underway, looking for ways toprecipitate needed change. The Itasca Project, a coalition ofCEOs in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region, recently issueda preliminary report calling for more emphasis on researchand innovation and more completions of degrees, but alsofor better alignment between what employers need in

workers and the kinds of job preparation the statesinstitutions offer. Theres a palpable sense that the stateneeds a strategy to get this done. It has new leadership ineach of its major systems; their public statements suggestthey understand the challenge.

This is, of course, not just a Minnesota challenge. Nearlyeverywhere in the U.S., the system of postsecondaryeducation is under attack. From the right of political center,the American Enterprise Institute points out how weeklystudying by college students has dropped from 24 to 14hours per week, and that the proportion of studentsgraduating within four years has dropped to 40 percent.The even more rightist Goldwater Institute pins theresource problem on administrative bloat, citing how muchadministrative spending outpaced academic investmentbetween 1993 and 2007. To press the point, the institutesays that half the full-time employees at Arizona State

University are administrators, a trend explained byBenjamin Ginzberg in The Fall of the Faculty and theRise of the All-Administrative University and Why it Matters.

From the left comes a spate of books such as HigherEducation? How Colleges are Wasting Our Money and FailingOur Kids and What We Can Do About Itby Andrew Hackerand Claudia Dreifus. Indeed, time was when the social-economic value proposition was a good guide you stayedin school, went to college, finished, and took a good job,reasonably secure in the expectation of continuousemployment and excellent social standing. Todays trilliondollar-and-growing student debt (by 2010 an average of

$26,682 per student, according to federal data) suggestsstudents and their families still believe the proposition. Still,beyond the obvious burden this debt poses, whats the effecton college graduates propensity to take the creative route asopposed to sticking with whatever job will pay the bills? Isstudent debt stifling innovation?

Student debt at least provokes some soul-searching. Somestudents may wonder if they fell for the Chivas Regaleffect believing that a prestigious institution assures careersuccess and is worth it regardless of cost. In the news andaround kitchen tables, the conversation about affordabilityand value is heating up. Policy makers seem unaware of the

dangers to both the economy and the American democraticexperiment; or, if they are aware, they show few signsof urgency.

Consider how few policy makers even those who areinsiders have much insight into how schools andsystems actually work. They have scant understanding about

what the money is used for or what the systems produce forthe money paid. And is the situation much better insidethe

2

Americans used to be first in the

world in the proportion of adults with

a college education. Now were down

to 12th.

[ ]


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academy? Wheres the evidence that those in charge haveany leadership and management training themselves? In

America, with no central ministry to articulate whatsexpected and to make sure it happens, we have to manage

with a potpourri of purposes and institutional capacities.And what about parents, who surely still have thosetraditional high hopes for the success of their children?It sometimes seems like parents are also among theunplugged, clueless as to the educational and economicchallenges facing the emerging generation.

Nonetheless, the pressure rests squarely on Americascolleges and universities. In its annual rankings of collegesand universities, U.S. News and World Reportwriters said,If colleges were businesses, they would be ripe for hostiletakeovers, complete with serious cost-cutting and painfulreorganizations. But colleges and universities tend toendure. Charles Dow in 1912 created an index of the

leading corporations of that time. Nearly none of those existtoday. But all the universities that comprised the foundingof the Association of American Colleges and Universities arestill operating.

Robert Archibald and David Feldman argue in Why DoesCollege Cost So Much?that price increases generally trackeconomic growth and are the same for any industry thatrelies chiefly on highly educated staff.

Others charge that costs rise as subsidies grow; hence, thefestering debate over the eligibility for and size of federalPell grants to students.

And even as colleges and universities produce more andmore graduates, national studies (such as a 2011 reportfrom Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute) suggestas many as 600,000 jobs went unfilled in 2011 becauseprospective employees lacked adequate educationalpreparation.

A more recent survey, conducted by the Wall Street Journaland Vistage International, found 41 percent ofmanufacturing firms, 30 percent of service businesses,and 29 percent of retail businesses citing frustration infinding qualified workers to fill openings. Wages could be

a piece of this puzzle. For some jobs, another factor oftencited in surveys is that many of the jobs going begging are

jobs most people dont want. Surveys also confirm that mostenterprises in the U.S. are too small to sponsor their owntraining.

The notion, though, that the nation simply needs a bigpush toward technical training that fits the unfilled jobsignores the central reality that young people need the kind

of education that fosters continuous learning and equipsthem to be adaptive in the face of rapid change anduncertainty. We wont restore our competitive edge merelyby turning out a crop of welders to satisfy the needs ofprecision manufacturing.

Adding to the spate of books and columns on the subject,College What it Was, Is, and Should Beby AndrewDelbanco hit the shelves in the late spring of 2008,reminding all who still care that college is about more thantraining for employment. It should nurture a reasonedskepticism about the status quo, arouse curiosity about thenatural world, help young minds make connections amongseemingly disparate phenomena. Most surely, part of thecontemporary paralysis in policy-making is a fundamentalabsence of a working consensus as to what college is aboutand what its for.

In the 20th century, a cultural assumption took root aboutthe value of a college education. Taking college seriously and

getting a degree translated into an assured economic andsocial advantage, because you were a better-educated person.Today, even as degrees have vaguely slipped in importance,students seem more intent on acquiring a degree purely forits utilitarian purposes. Survey after survey show this trend.If thats the purpose, then why take difficult courses? Whyslow down by selecting the most challenging curricula orclasses? Young people quickly figure out how to get degrees

without the burden of subject mastery. This trend peelsback most mysteries around why by 2008 41 percent ofthe workforce was classified as financial services workers andenrollment in STEM fields continued its ominous slide.

Minnesota Slip-sliding

Minnesota has a long tradition of anticipating the curve ofchange and innovation and staying ahead of it. The secondhalf of the 20th century saw the state investing aggressivelyin education at all levels. We led the nation in getting tofull participation by women in the workforce. We builtgreat institutions, not just for formal learning, but also forarts, culture, and lifelong learning, outside of school. Were

3

The notion that the nation simplyneeds a big push toward technical

training that fits the unfilled jobs

ignores the central reality that young

people need the kind of education

that fosters continuous learning and

equips them to be adaptive in the

face of rapid change and uncertainty.

[]


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near or at the top of the charts for many things still fromthe number of professional theater companies to Fortune500 company headquarters. But theres a growing sensethat we are not as aspirational as we once were, that we arereluctant to make patient long-term investments, and that

were content to let some other place invent the future.Then well make a visit and see whats worth bringing home.People used to travel to Minnesota to see theleading edge.

Some say we were never that aspirational, that we were justenjoying the relative advantages of homogeneity. From themid-19th century up until the last 30 years, the state wasdominated by a culture of implicit agreement. Thedemographic changes in the last quarter-century stand inmarked contrast to the original settlement pattern. For along time, decisions could be made without the strife andrancor of other places. Whichever is the most accurate

historical analysis, those conditions are gone, replaced bygreater diversity of people and perspectives.

But getting down to specifics, lets take the misalignmentbetween qualified workers and ready jobs cited above.

Where does Minnesota stand? The Governors WorkforceDevelopment Council, citing a McKinsey Global Institutestudy, told the Civic Caucus group in April 2008 that this isthe core problem. Nationally, 71 percent of current workersare in low-demand jobs for which there is an oversupply oflabor; most do not have the skills and education for theemerging jobs that pay well.

We acknowledge that lack of education is not the onlyemployment challenge. The nation as a whole has driftedtoward limiting entry to occupations with standards andlicensure that may serve mostly as barriers to entry, allowingthose already inside the tent to engage in what economistscall rent-seeking at the expense of the public. Evencollege professors, if driven by expectations of market

compensation andtotal job security, become rent-seekers.

Nonetheless, the level of education people are gettingdangerously lags behind the requirements for effectiveemployment. The Governors Council says that 70 percentof Minnesota jobs by 2018 will require some postsecondaryeducation. Today 40 percent of workers in the region have abaccalaureate or higher degree; and according to theOffice of Higher Education about 67 percent have somepostsecondary education. To be fair, both proportions aresomewhat higher than the national average.

But the baby boom generation is retiring (or trying to);the only population growth is coming from demographicgroups with the bleakest record for schooling. And thatis where the 70 percent estimate of threshold educationbecomes a red-light warning for the state. Two-thirds ofMinnesota employers already report serious difficultyfinding people with the skills and education needed.

Larry Pogemiller of the Office of Higher Educationreports that barely half of white students leave high schoolcollege-ready. But the figure for African Americans is8 percent.

Recently retired state demographer Tom Gillaspy madehundreds of speeches in recent years, forecasting loominglabor shortages. Some analysts suggest this is a marketproblem that wages are not high enough. Or, seeing toomany employees leave for other jobs, even large employers

will no longer shoulder the risks of training.

The Governors Council also cites comments of NarayanaKocherlakota, president of the Minneapolis Federal ReserveBank, suggesting that upwards of 4 million adults couldfind jobs right away if they had the right education. Ifthats true, Minnesotas share of that gain would lowerthe unemployment rate by two points overnight if peoplefelt geographically free to move to find jobs. We notethat unemployment rates are low in Iowa and near zeroin North Dakota.

So is Minnesota working on this problem? Studying it, yes.

But from 1999-2011, Minnesota racked up a truly dubiousdistinctionleading the nation in disinvestment in highereducation (a decline of 48 percent). Public institutions inMinnesota reduced costs per student by about $1,000 ayear, which was nowhere near to matching the decline instate support.

As public support dropped, tuition went up. Completionrates sagged. Now, almost suddenly, changes in tuition getlots of attention; customers are pushing back. And while itsnatural to sympathize with institutions absorbing declininglevels of support, what Minnesotans should actually careabout is the cost per degree completed. And whether that

degree represents a high-quality general education andadequate preparation for employment. Whos keepingtrack of that? (Actually, the University of Minnesota hasundertaken a serious cost allocation analysis in order tounderstand the differential costs of a wide range of degrees.)

And lest we forget, Minnesota has a sterling collection ofprivate nonprofit colleges and universities, which togetherproduce more baccalaureate graduates than the University ofMinnesota every year and more bachelor of science degreesthan the public systems combined.

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The level of education people are

getting dangerously lags the

requirements for effective employment.[ ]


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Meanwhile Minnesota manufacturers say 5,000 jobs aregoing begging for lack of qualified workers. Businessmajors abound, but technicians to undergird a resurgentmanufacturing sector are scarce.

The challenge seems clear enough. Minnesota cannotcontinue to be a place where prosperity is within the reachof most people and where an educated citizenry sustainssensible politics unless every willing person is motivatedand able to get the kind of education they want and that theeconomy demands. More reports confirming this reality are

welcome enough. Conferences that reconfirm the urgencyof action are worthwhile. But whats needed is strategy,backed up by targeted spending.

Despite the decade of disinvestment, the state should simplyrefuse to spend another dollar on postsecondary educationthat is not part of a strategy to get better results.

What would that strategy look like?

Theory of Change

A quiet movement is already underway in the U.S.,with individual institutions, some departments withininstitutions, accreditation agencies, and at least one nationalassociation aiming at redesigning the college experience.They seek to clearly outline expectations for whatstudents know and can demonstrate and a system ofrecord-keeping that is convenient and transparent foreducators and learners.

If this system is to grow more rapidly, to emerge from theshadows of quiet innovation and become a major systemchange, it must follow the path of change and innovationin other systems.

This change disrupting fundamental practices cannot beordered from the top. Educational leaders can open doors,facilitate planning, and provide resources and conditionsunder which the work proceeds, but little else.

Nor is it reasonable to expect that change to a proficiency

platform would happen en masse. Some mightenthusiastically proclaim: Do all of this, do it everywhere,do it now. That sort of sweeping rhetoric makes fordramatic and controversial reports but is completelyunrealistic. And that is not how systems designed to beinnovative actually change. They change by being opento trying new and different things, by acknowledgingconstraints and opportunities popping up all around,and by committing to adaptive responses. They changeby consciously creating space where willing people candemonstrate different approaches. They allow some

organizations to be really different and see if thosedifferences catch on. They play by entrepreneurial rules:fail fast and learn from every mistake; get better as you go.

As this report is emerging, the Minnesota State Collegesand Universities (MnSCU) system leadership declares itsinterest in moving toward a proficiency model, evensuggesting that the entire system can make this shift. As agoal, this is laudable, but set against the record oforganizations dealing with system change, it appears like along shot. However, Minnesota postsecondary leaders, bothpublic and private, are poised to be involved in both the

new AAC&U assessment project as well as the State HigherEducation Officials (SHEO)/Lumina Foundation projecton assessment. MnSCU officials, for example, tell us thatinterest in a proficiency model is growing among facultyat several institutions, that work is under way to definelearning outcomes for programs and courses and build theinformation analytics infrastructure to support the model.

We suggest that, as soon as possible, institutions whereinterest and capacity are evident be given a green light tomove to this model. Thats the pattern of innovation andchange in every industry. Why would it not be true ofpostsecondary education?

Past efforts to improve postsecondary systems in Minnesotahave focused almost entirely on the supply side, improvingcapacity and counting on institutions and systems tochange. Given how thats worked out, perhaps its timefor a concerted focus on demand-side strategies, realigningthe incentives around the results needed.

Move to a Proficiency and Outcomes Model

Even people who agree that this shift is both desirable andoverdue wonder how to make it happen. What forcesmight persuade institutions to undertake such fundamentalchange? We nominate here the employer community,for starters. Major employers already use sophisticatedassessment instruments to screen people for, if notevery entry-level job, any position carrying significantresponsibility. These tests are a kind of facsimile of whatemployers believe people just show up knowing how todo. A meta-analysis of these assessments would almostsurely yield a composite set of expectations from employers,as well as specialized sets of expectations differentiated byindustry and type of job.

5

There are many students who are

energizedby learning, but mostindicators suggest that most students

learn to game the system, endure the

process, andget the degree.[ ]


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Why not use these? Meeting these expectations couldbecome a condition of employment in Minnesota. Sharingthese standards could go a long way toward building acommon understanding of what we expect from studentsand from postsecondary institutions. Getting there fromhere likely requires the combined clout of the Itasca Project,the Minnesota Business Partnership, and the MinnesotaChamber of Commerce.

The Itasca Projects mid-summer release of a report callingfor higher education curricula to be better shaped aroundmeeting employer needs drew an immediate affirmationfrom MnSCU. MnSCU, fresh from a round of listeningsessions conducted with the Minnesota Chamber ofCommerce, said its embarking on an initiative to do that.The Itasca report also hammered hard on the need formore completions of degrees and certificates, not merelymore starts.

If Minnesota were to move in this direction, the resultswould be the long-desired but chronically elusive clarityabout expectations, likely lower increases in cost, and higherrates of program or degree completion. In time, the termstwo-year degree and four-year degree might slip fromthe common lexicon, as students move through at theirown paces.

Specific Action Steps to Get to a Proficiency Model

1. Capitalize upon the apparent growing interest amongcolleges and universities in Minnesota to move toward aproficiency model. While in this report we do not feelfree to name institutions, it seems clear that institutionsin the public, private and for-profit sectors are activelymoving in this direction. The AAC&U is emerging as anational leader on this front, and they have identifiedMinnesota as a major laboratory. If institutions inMinnesota respond, the prospects for national leadershipare significant.

2. Challenge the employer community to publish andsystemically share its standard expectations. We seeincreasing interest from higher education institutions indigesting these expectations and calibrating curricula toalign with them.

3. Put Minnesota at the lead among states liberatingstudents (and institutions) from the fragmentation ofhigher education into course completions, substitutinga useable record of what learners know and can do.

4. Design a regime of new incentives to accelerateinstitutional and system change.

Organizations and whole institutional systems, even whilesteeped in traditions and wrapped in their evolved cultures,still respond to incentives. Indeed, organizations and people

working in them respond to the way work is structured andthe incentives that encourage one thing over another. So onecanard to dismiss is the notion that colleges and universitiesare too resistant to change to adapt to fast-changingconditions. It is a matter of aligning incentives with theresults the state wants.

If the state wants better alignment between postsecondaryeducation and the economy, someone has to design a newarchitecture of incentives. Besides, to put the matter bluntly,much of postsecondary education has become a system by

which students learn to collect credits to get a credential.The Governors Workforce Development Council, as it laysout what should be done, highlights goals of postsecondarycredentials. These goals are well-intentioned, but rooted

in an obsolete way of looking at the workforce andpostsecondary education. There are many students who areenergized by learning, but most indicators suggest that moststudents learn to game the system, endure the process, andget the degree. The evidence shows up in how little so manycollege graduates know and how inadequately they speakand write.

The system of credits is only a century old, devised bycollege administrators as a way to keep score and torationalize the value of professorial labor. (It was alsodecisively promoted by Andrew Carnegie as aquid pro quofor instituting a regime of pensions for faculty.)

What concerns every employer and ought to concernevery student is what is learned. What do graduates frompostsecondary institutions now know, and what are theyable to do?

But apart from the close interaction among somecommunity and technical colleges with the employercommunity, theres been scant evidence of systematicinstitutional interest in tracking whether postsecondaryprograms produce good preparation. As one member ofthis group quipped in an early meeting, My daughter justgraduated from a highly selective liberal arts college. They

made sure they knew a lot about her before admitting her.But they know less about her on graduation day than theydid her first day in college. This should not be the case.Until recently, it was technologically difficult andunaffordable to track student proficiency. No longer.

An academic institution can now define the expectedknowledge and skills that each student in a degree orcertificate program should demonstrate; and eachinstitution can know, in real time, where any studentstands relative to the expectations. It is not necessary to

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change the way students enroll or pay tuition. It is atleast ironic that even for those students who are energizedby learning, most academic institutions have little or noidea about their graduates individual abilities, and collectivestrengths and weaknesses. The system was never designed topay attention to these questions and seems incapable ofresponding to them.

On the other hand, accreditation agencies are now askinginstitutions to produce outcomes assessments as theyapproach re-accreditation. Obviously, its feasible for acollege or university, while it continues to run on creditsfor accounting purposes, to use expected and actualstudent-demonstrated capabilities (the accreditors phraseis student learning outcomes) as the new system formeasuring student achievement.

And contrary to what many in higher education believe,

the federal government allows institutions to award creditsbased on factors other than time spent in class and to awarddegrees based on direct assessment. So there is no real

jeopardy on financial aid awaiting proficiency pioneers.Once some institutions move entirely to proficiency asthe standard and employers can easily read transcripts toascertain what graduates know and what and how wellthey can perform, the credit-collecting, credential-seeking,co-dependent system will be undermined.

Incentives would speed up this migration, but no oneshould expect change to come easily. The Bush Foundationhas a major program assisting 11 Minnesota schools of

education to raise the quality of teacher preparation.Deans and faculty see the logic in curricular changesand recruitment standards, but the notion of facilitatingplacement in jobs and actually tracking the performanceof teachers over a three-year period is not an easy sell evenin the presence of financial incentives.

So how might some Minnesota institutions move to thismodel? Might the MnSCU system put some incentives andsupports in place so that the state can see models of howthis would work? The key incentive: link budget allocationsto outcomes. Not all at once, but slowly provide increasedfunding only for institutions willing to commit to a

proficiency platform. Target any new state dollars for highereducation to this goal. One state, Oregon, has announcedits moving toward a proficiency-outcomes model,commitments that await the arduous challenges ofimplementation.

And the AAC&U is in its sixth year of developing andtesting a 21st century learning outcomes model; a growingnumber of states are registering interest.

Also, the National Association of State Directors of CareerTechnical Education recently released a set of designedstandards for 16 career clusters, capped by a dozenoverarching career-ready practices.

A Learner-Centered System

The system could and should be reconstructed aroundlearning, not attending. Dozens of colleges and universitiesaround the nation are already demonstrating the feasibilityof specifying the proficiencies (skills, knowledge, and whatstudents demonstrate they know and can apply) needed forcitizenship and good employment. Beyond a foundationlevel, these proficiencies can easily be differentiated byemployment sector, even particular kinds of jobs. Studentsshould have information about where they can seek theireducation and be empowered with robust student grants tochoose whatever institution or combination will deliver thebest results.

Creating a Learner-Centered System

1.Get more students to take postsecondary courses whilethey are in high school. Reward institutions that promotea blurring of the well-known bright lines between highschool and college.

2.Recognize that the technology platform is the newarena for learning. Education from start to finish cannotignore how technology has already changed learning.

Welcome institutions eager to embrace this platform.

Give them space for finding the blend of online andface-to-face learning that works best.

Improving PSEO as State Policy

The state is currently working on making its PostsecondaryEducation Options (PSEO) more flexible, offeringparticipation in college courses as early as 10th grade andassuring students that they will earn both college and highschool credit for their work. In addition, there is now ascholarship incentive for those finishing high school early.

A few school districts are active in blending the high schooland postsecondary experience Anoka for several years nowand more recently Staples-Motley. Irondale High School inthe Mounds View district in the northern Twin Citiessuburbs has produced blended programs that attracted avisit from the U.S. Secretary of Education. A group of largeremployers in Mankato and other cities in the southern partof the state are proposing to charter a regional high school(Waldorf Technical Academy) combined with a corporate

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university, aimed at attracting disengaged youthwho could find success in southern Minnesotasmanufacturing sector.

Blurring the lines and blending the model of schooling forthese students offer significant savings to families (and tothe state), but more importantly, raise the likelihood thatstudents will get the postsecondary education they needto participate in the economy.

Even more significant is the apparent effect amongminority students. One recent study by the Center forSchool Change showed that taking a postsecondary-levelcareer-tech course while in high school dramaticallyaffected the high school graduation rate among

African American students.

Making PSEO More MainstreamMinnesotas policy of exposing high school students topostsecondary education early has always been awkwardin implementation. Faculties in the states colleges anduniversities reputedly have mixed feelings about havingyounger students in their classes. Financially, just as airlinescheerfully fill an empty seat, colleges enjoy marginaladditional income by having a PSEO student in a class; butthey lose money if the PSEO demand results in moresections (more flights scheduled). Further, even as severalamendments to the law were enacted in the 2012 sessionto clarify the issue about college credit and extend access

to sophomores for certain courses, the prohibition onmarketing the financial savings to students and familiesremains in effect.

MnSCU leaders say that their only central concern aboutserious promotion of PSEO is that students will find failureat the end of the road of aspirations, and even disqualifythemselves from potential Pell grants. Accordingly, theseinstitutions discourage enrollment by those not consideredready for college success.

So, other than the perfunctory obligation of schooldistricts to provide information, the job of explaining this

opportunity to students and families resides nowhere. Noagency takes any interest in advocating changes to carry outthe policys purpose. The higher education community hasshown little interest in promoting PSEO use. And mostschool districts, despite retaining property taxes and anyexcess levy dollars, thereby increasing their actual revenueper student, appear focused on the dollars diverted fortuition that subtract from their state aid.

Why not then turn to the states remaining capacity forhigher education leadership the Office of HigherEducation? This agency, now entrusted with a complexprogram of financial aid, could also take on the role ofpromoting responsible use of the PSEO policy. The officecould become the go-to source for information aboutPSEO. In addition to keeping utilization records, the officecould pursue relevant research about the effects of theprogram, and advocate for needed improvements in the law.

Online Learning Geared to ProficiencyDocumentation

The monopoly over credentials, cemented in the system ofaccreditation, is showing cracks. New vendors (such as MIT,Harvard and Stanford) are offering certificates or badges(Khan Academy), and while those are not degrees, once

employers and the general culture start recognizing themas valid measures of preparation, the monopoly will beeffectively broken.

Postsecondary education all over the U.S. is growing slowly,except in the online platform. Its been a decade since MIToffered the outlines of its courses online. Today MIT offerssophisticated online courses with a certificate of completionthat says MITx. Straighterline is teaming withEducational Testing Service (makers of the SAT test) toproduce an advanced assessment tool thats outside theconventional university boundaries.

The spring of 2012 saw several of the nations mostprestigious universities make bold statements of intent for

expansive online offerings. Harvard and MIT made a jointannouncement, taking their edX programs to scale, offeringcertificates of completion. University of California,Berkeley, where some professors are early movers withonline offerings, has now decided to align with edX.

Earlier this year two Stanford professors highly esteemedamong colleagues and popular with students offered theircourses online for free. The first course, on artificialintelligence, attracted 160,000 students from 190 countries.Of those students, 20,000 completed the course and got a

8

Even as several amendments tothe law were enacted in the 2012

session to clarify the issue about

college credit and extendaccess to

sophomores for certain courses, the

prohibition on marketing the financial

savings to students and families

remains in effect.

[]


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certificate. Now one of these professors, Sebastian Thrun,has announced that hes done teaching at Stanford; hesfounded the online university Udacity to take his modelto scale.

Another Stanford group has founded the Coursera model,which, as of this writing, has signed up 33 institutions(among the most prestigious in the U.S.) and has enrolledmore than a million students. Old-timers like the Universityof Phoenix and Western Governors University now havecousins and rivals, with names like Minerva and Udemy.

Online learning has been easy for traditionalists to dismiss.Its constantly assailed by critics who see online as inherentlyimpersonal, compared to the regular university classroom orlecture hall. Courses have been available for some 20 years,but only recently has online course content been rising inquality. Many of todays offerings are highly sophisticated,interactive software and web platforms, increasinglyincorporating adaptive, individualized assessment.

Its market, while growing faster than campus enrollments,has been slow to build to consequential levels. But what theskeptics do not see is the classic S-curve that describes nearlyevery innovative breakthrough. Online learning is just now

moving from the slow-change trajectory at the bottom ofthe S-curve to a higher velocity, along with higher quality.So far, since credits as the principal metric are so deeplyingrained, these institutions, while increasingly offeringa learning experience that is profoundly different fromthe traditional college class, are awarding credits asthe credential.

What happens next, in the now faster-paced, inevitabledisruption of the postsecondary education industry? Thegame-changer occurs, as Harvard Business School professorClayton Christensen predicts, when the accreditationgroups accept the reality that higher education has becomeas modular as every other industry. Its like what iTunesdid to albums. The musicians still matter, but the albumis not relevant. And note that as vinyl albums gave way toeight-track tape decks, then cassettes, then CDs and digitaldownloads each stage seemed disruptive but was not; theproducts took different form and got better. The disruptioncame when it became possible to order (download) just thesong you want at a reasonable price. Substitute courses forsongs. While it is risky to compare popular culture behaviorto higher education, one has to ponder how much growthoccurred in the music industry from individualization.

How long will it take before the competency conveyed

by this learning model generates valid acceptance in themarket? Once it does, whats the future of the system ofcredits as the dominant, if not exclusive, means oftracking a students progress?

The key is moving to the proficiency platform. Minnesotashould start down this path and lead the nation in changingthe system of postsecondary education.

9

Online learning is just now moving

from the slow-change trajectory at

the bottom of the S-curve to a higher

velocity, along with higher quality.[ ]


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The history of postsecondary education in Minnesota isone of various stakeholders and the schools they foundedtackling the educational and career preparation needs of afast-changing society. Both the state Legislature and privateinterests have created and generously supported a variety ofcolleges, universities, and other institutions to meet pressingneeds at a given time. These institutions have then beenexpanded and modified, and new institutions have beencreated as needs have changed.

With some institutions even predating statehood,

postsecondary education in Minnesota has included: (1)normal schools, which later became state teachers collegesthen state colleges and universities; (2) private religiouscolleges and seminaries, some of which have evolved intofull-fledged, nonsectarian universities; (3) communitycolleges and (4) technical colleges, both originally extensionsof school districts, later taken over by the state and greatlyexpanded in number and enrollment; (5) private nonprofitand proprietary schools, originally focused on particulartrades or occupations, with several now offering associate,baccalaureate, and even graduate degrees, and a growingnumber with multiple campuses, based in other states andoffering some or all of their courses online; and (6) theUniversity of Minnesota (U of M), the states land grantuniversity, formally authorized by the State Constitutionand with campuses and research stations throughoutthe state.

Other than the U of M, Minnesotas public postsecondaryinstitutions (#1, #3 and #4 above), all began with stronglocal ties and campus-level governance. But, over time, thestate Legislature gradually brought them together as threeseparate multi-campus systems. Then, in 1995, all state,community and technical colleges were brought under asingle board and chancellor as Minnesota State Colleges and

Universities (MnSCU). The University of Minnesota, withits own collection of campuses and research stations acrossthe state, remained independent under its constitutionalmandate and board of regents.

1) Normal schools to state universitiesHistorically, one of the first sets of competenciesidentified as needing postsecondary education wasteaching K-12 students. Most normal schools inMinnesota and other states eventually became state

teachers colleges, and some later added graduateprograms and became state universities. Minnesotasfirst Legislature (1858) passed an act providing for theestablishment of three state normal schools: Winona(1859) was the first normal school west of theMississippi; then Mankato (1868), St. Cloud (1869),Moorhead (1888), Duluth (1895, was transferred to theUniversity of Minnesota in 1947), and Bemidji (1919).Southwest State in Marshall was created as a four-yearundergraduate college, accepting its first students in1967. And Metro State University opened in 1972 as a

college without walls, designed for working adults tocomplete their junior and senior years of college.

2) Church-related, other private colleges, universitiesOf the almost two dozen traditional private colleges inMinnesota, most have origins in the religious and ethniccommunities that founded them. Examples include:Hamline University (Methodist, 1854); Carleton College(Congregational, 1866); Macalester College(Presbyterian, 1874); Gustavus Adolphus College(Swedish Lutheran, 1874); and St. Johns University(Roman Catholic, 1857).

Some of Minnesotas private colleges originally served justmen or women and had affiliated seminaries to trainclergy. Some have retained a strong religious identity, butmost serve students from a variety of religiousbackgrounds. Others, including the Minneapolis Collegeof Art and Design (1886), were originally private, butalso nonsectarian and nonprofit.

Most of the states nonprofit private colleges haveremained four-year liberal arts institutions, with severalestablishing national standing and attracting studentsfrom throughout the country and around the world.

Several, including the University of St. Thomas and St.Marys University of Minnesota, have become multi-campus universities, with large graduate schools orprograms in business, education, and other fields.

More recently, Minnesota has become home to three ofthe nations large for-profit universities, Walden, Capellaand Globe universities, which all offer a variety ofundergraduate and graduate degrees online. Meanwhile,dozens of private, for-profit universities based elsewhere

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A P P E N D I X A

A Brief History of Postsecondary Education in Minnesota*


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have begun offering undergraduate and graduate coursesand degrees to students without having to leave the state.Some, like the University of Phoenix and National

American University, have facilities and faculty in theTwin Cities, while they and most others offer courses anddegrees online.

3) State junior and community collegesMinnesotas first public junior colleges were establishedby the Mayo family in Rochester in 1915 and by fiveIron Range school districts before and after World War I.Their purpose was to make the first two years of collegephysically and financially accessible to local high schoolgraduates. Their academic value and status, however,

were initially dependent on acceptance of transfer creditsby the University of Minnesota, which became a de-factogatekeeper for these institutions. Although juniorcolleges were created by other school districts before and

after World War II, the states role did not expandsignificantly until the state Legislature created a StateJunior College Board in 1967. The number of andenrollments in state junior (later community) collegesthen expanded significantly until they were broughtunder a single board and chancellor with state universitiesand state technical colleges in 1995.

4) State vocational technical institutes, collegesLike community colleges, what became Minnesota statetechnical colleges were originally creations of local schooldistricts. In 1945, the legislation introduced the conceptof area vocational technical institutes (AVTIs). The first

AVTI was designated in Mankato in 1947, and six morefollowed in the next five years.

By 1971, there were 31 AVTIs in Minnesota includingsix in the Twin Cities. The technical colleges wereeventually brought under a state board with their ownchancellor, and then became part of MnSCU in 1995.

5) Private licensed and registered institutionsMinnesotas Office of Higher Education is responsible,under state law, for licensing all private career schoolsdoing business in the state and for registering virtually allprivate two- and four-year degree-granting institutions.

Most career schools are propriety, although a few,including Dunwoody College of Technology (founded in1914), are organized as nonprofits.

There are currently 118 licensed private career schools,including 103 with a campus or office in Minnesota and15 based elsewhere. About 40 percent of these schools donot offer degrees or credits. The other 60 percent offertwo-year degrees or certificates that focus more narrowly

on specific skills, ranging from auctioneering to petgrooming to diesel truck driving.

With some overlap, Minnesotas other large group ofprivate colleges and universities are those that mustregister with the Office of Higher Education if they aregranting two-year, four-year, or graduate-level degrees.Of these 157 institutions, at least 65 are based in otherstates, and all but a handful offer only online coursesand degrees in Minnesota.

Overall, the Office of Higher Education estimated that67,000 Minnesota postsecondary students took at leastone online course in 2010 doubling the number ofonline students in just three years.

6) The University of MinnesotaThe University of Minnesota was chartered by the

Minnesota Territorial Legislature in 1851, with a campusto be located in Minneapolis. With federal passage in1862 of the Morrill Act, creating land grant universities,a second campus was added in 1874 in what was then arural northwest corner of St. Paul. This satisfied theMorrill Acts mandate to create programs in agricultureand the mechanic arts. Today, with 52,500 students, theTwin Cities campus is the nations fourth largest.

Subsequently, the University established campuses inDuluth (a former state normal school) in 1947, Morris in1960, Crookston in 1965, Waseca in 1971 (then closedin 1992), and Rochester in 2006. Total enrollment for all

U of M campuses is now about 69,500, including 44,000undergraduates, 18,300 graduate and professional schoolstudents, and 6,800 non-degree students.

The University also has a significant statewide presencewith 800 extension educators grouped in 18 countyclusters and available to farmers, 4-H youth, and othersin every corner of the state. In addition, the U of M has18 research and outreach centers including anagricultural experiment station in Lamberton, a biologyresearch station and laboratories in Itasca State Park, andthe Minnesota Arboretum in Chanhassen.

Among the more intriguing offerings is the 5,000-acreMinnesota Outreach, Research and Education Park(UMore) in semi-rural Dakota County. UParks vision isto build a sustainable new community of up to 30,000residents over a period of 25 to 30 years.

7) Impact of the MnSCU merger since 1995One of the Legislatures goals in creating MnSCU was toreduce duplication from administrators to courses and

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facilities. Theres just one chancellor and one board, forexample, instead of three of each. Other than the de-factomerger of Bemidji State University and Northwest Tech

College, there seems to be less impact on the four-yearstate universities and their graduate programs.

But for the two-year institutions, there have been majorchanges through mergers of community and technicalcolleges serving the same geographic areas, and theclustering of up to five campuses as one college under onepresident reporting to the Chancellor and board.

As a result, MnSCU oversees the same seven stateuniversities. But there are now 24 two-year collegesoperating 47 campuses. Only 11 of these colleges operate

just one campus, and most of those are the result ofmergers of community and technical colleges in the

same locality.

Overall, MnSCU serves about 277,000 students incredit-based courses and 157,000 more in non-creditcourses. And its colleges and universities produce about34,700 graduates each year.

*Compiled by John Adams, retired professor of geography andformer dean of what is now the Humphrey School of PublicAffairs at the University of Minnesota. Some additions toAdams work, originally done for the Citizens League, weremade by The Centers Jon Schroeder.

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Founded in 1981, The Center for Policy Studies is a

Minnesota-based nonprofit, nonpartisan policy design

organization. The Center designs policies to improve

large public and private systems like health care, K-12

schooling, and postsecondary education and then

works with policy leaders and others to implement its

recommendations.

Regardless of the system, the usual approach blames failings

in system performance on the people and organizations

who run it and work in it. The solution, then, is to

provide financial assistance or regulate the system into

improving its performance. But too often the cause and

results of such an approach are system-level incentives

that do just the opposite by rewarding undesired

performance and punishing performance that produces

the desired results.

Instead of such failed improvement strategies, The Center

seeks to use system-levelredesign to encourage organizations

and individuals in large systems to change and improve

their own performanceon acontinuous basisand in their

own self-interest.

Under its founding president and board chair, Dr. Walter

McClure, The Center initially focused this approach on big

system redesign, urging health care providers, consumers,

and employers to get the incentives right. Later in the

1980s, board member Ted Kolderie added K-12 education

to The Centers policy agenda, playing a major role in

expanding public school choices, including creation of

new, non-district public schools through chartering.

Kolderie and fellow board member Joe Graba created

Education Evolving, a partnership between The Center

and Hamline University, to also expand system-level

redesign in the K-12 district sector. And, most recently,

under the leadership of Dr. McClure and Senior Fellow

and President Dan Loritz, The Center has launched several

new initiatives on major system redesign, including the

working group that produced this report on postsecondary

education and workforce preparation.

For more information about The Centers work

on achieving results through large system redesign,

go towww.centerforpolicy.org. For information on

K-12 education redesign, visit The Centers

www.educationevolving.orgproject website and

its blog, EducationHow.

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR POLICY STUDIES


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325 Cedar Street, Suite 710 Saint Paul, MN 55101 651-212-5128

info@centerforpolicy.orgwww.centerforpolicy.orgwww.educationevolving.org

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