Are There Better Ways to Subsidize Athletics?

The cost of higher education sometimes includes fees that pay for intercollegiate athletics. While sports are a valued part of campus life, what would students select if they were given the choice between sports and tuition discounts?

“I have no idea, but I’ve been pondering this question as I consider the cost of running a sports program weighed against the cost of college to students,” John Warner wrote for a blog post for Inside Higher Ed. “Student-loan debt threatens the future prosperity of a significant proportion of college graduates—not to mention those who get loans, but don’t graduate—and it doesn’t take a crystal ball to see the potential for this to be a larger drag on the economic health of the nation.”

Based on data from USA Today, Warner postulated that erasing athletic subsidies could provide each student a discount of as much as $1,600 each year, decreasing their average student-loan debt by 25%. Research from the Urban Institute found that self-sustaining athletic programs would provide more than 680,000 Pell-equivalent scholarships.

One method that might work is through private donations and additional state funds. Clemson University used that combination to pay for its $55 million football facility, while the University of Alabama-Birmingham saved its football program through private donations.

“I like sports,” Warner continued. “I think schools would be diminished places without athletics, but when so many aspects of our public institutions are already impoverished, I believe we have to put every option on the table.”

Four-Year Degrees at CCs Boost Numbers

One of the arguments against permitting community colleges from offering bachelor’s degrees has always been that doing so would just shift students away from existing four-year schools in the area. However, a new study shows the opposite.

According to a report on the Education Dive site, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) found an overall increase in the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded after community colleges began such programs. The study focused primarily on Florida, which in 2014 gave its community colleges the green light for bachelor’s degrees. As a result, 24 of those campuses now have at least one bachelor’s program.

AERA determined that there wasn’t much negative impact on enrollment or graduation rates at the four-year institutions located in the vicinity of baccalaurate-degree community colleges. In fact, most of the public four-year schools even experienced a rise in graduation numbers, although private schools didn’t get a similar bump.

On the other hand, for-profit schools did see a drop in degree output, which correlated to the growth at the neighboring community colleges.

“Both [two-year and four-year] school types should look to leverage connections in degree access and industrial development to create pipelines where neither campus type is competing with another,” noted the Education Dive report.

OER Benefits Extend Beyond Price

As open education librarian at the City University of New York, Ann Fiddler and her colleagues have been working for the past year to help faculty members integrate open educational resources (OER) into their courses as part of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s $8 million budget investment to provide OER to students at the 21 campuses of the City University of New York (CUNY) and the 64 campuses of the State University of New York (SUNY) system.

In an opinion piece for the education website The 74 Million (a reference to the number of children in the U.S. under the age of 18), Fiddler noted that by this coming fall, CUNY students in high-enrollment classes should have saved $8.1 million through use of OER. However, she added that the impact of open content goes beyond dollars and cents, citing four other powerful effects:

1) Faculty members become reinvigorated about their vocation as they retool their courses for OER, sometimes involving their students in the creation of new learning materials.

2) With OER, all students, no matter their financial situation, have their course materials and are prepared to learn on the first day of class. Previously, because of high textbook prices, some students waited until several weeks into the term to buy some materials or skipped purchasing them entirely.

3) Evidence is beginning to mount that OER can improve student outcomes. Fiddler noted that in one CUNY math course, students using OER scored 10 points higher on the final exam and were three times as likely to pass the course as their counterparts using traditional print materials. While still early days, she said she expects further positive data as OER are expanded to more campuses and more classes.

4) OER foster collaboration, not only within systems and within states but across state borders. SUNY and CUNY are collaborating on the launch of Open NYS, a community to showcase and support use of OER for those just getting started. The group is already sharing best practices with officials in Maryland, while learning from early adopters such as California.

Online Able to Provide High Quality

Some advocates argue that online learning can lead to better outcomes for students, lower costs for institutions, and more access to minorities. A new report concludes all are possible, if colleges and universities do it the right way.

Making Digital Learning Work, a study of digital-learning initiatives at three four-year institutions and three community colleges, found a generally higher retention rate for online students and improved outcomes for Pell-eligible and minority students. It also noted enrollment increases as a result of digital-learning initiatives.

At the same time, the report concluded that online courses do cost less to produce because higher student-to-teacher ratios and less need for classroom space offset the financial investments in course quality. It also suggested that some of the key practices in launching a digital-learning effort include a strategy to meet the needs of different students, support for remote accessibility, and treating faculty members as partners in the process.

“It is clearly important for colleges and universities to adopt a more entrepreneurial approach to digital learning, making innovation a part of their institutional culture and embracing evidence-driven decision-making,” the authors of the report wrote.

Part-time Instruction Short in Other Ways

Two new studies reinforce previous research showing college students are less likely to continue their education if the first courses they take are taught by adjuncts or part-timers, rather than tenure-track faculty.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported one study looked at community college students taking remedial and introductory courses and found that fewer students in adjunct-taught classes moved on to the next course in the sequence. The other study examined students enrolled in STEM courses at four-year schools. More STEM majors switched to other fields after experiencing intro courses led by adjuncts.

Both papers were presented at the American Educational Research Association’s annual conference.

The reason doesn’t appear to be that adjuncts are overall less capable at instruction than full-time faculty. Instead, the findings pointed to the lack of opportunities for adjuncts to assist students individually after class, often because they don’t have time due to a larger teaching load (sometimes at multiple campuses, requiring travel) and they may not have an office. Struggling students who can’t get help from their instructors tend to drop out or shift to an easier major.

“The new papers suggest that providing better support for nontraditional faculty members could make a difference for students,” noted the Chronicle article.

Prevent a Virtual Divide Before It Happens

As new technologies enter the learning landscape, educators need to ensure their introduction doesn’t create a “digital divide 2.0,” wrote Emory Craig, director of e-learning and instructional technologies, College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, NY, in a piece for EdTech: Focus on Higher Education.

Virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are already beginning to offer virtual labs and field trips, interactive storytelling, and immersive world-building experiences. However, the cost of some VR headsets and the computers capable of supporting them can be quite high.

Lower-cost systems so far tend to confirm the truism that you get what you pay for. While Google Cardboard offers an easy-to-use, affordable option, its visual experience is poorer and interactivity is limited by the lack of a hand controller.

Newer, standalone VR headsets that don’t require a smartphone or external computer may prove to be workable solutions. Facebook, which has a stated goal of getting a billion people using virtual reality, plans to release at least two standalone devices this year through Oculus VR. Google and the Taiwanese company HTC Corp. both have standalone VR headsets in the pipeline as well.

Craig suggested that dedicated spaces or events, available to everyone on a campus, will broaden access to VR and AR experiences. “In the near future, we may see VR headset carts, checkout stations, and even lease/purchase initiatives in some academic programs,” he said, adding that institutions could also host events to allow students and faculty to experiment with rented or demo devices.

Maybe Classrooms Should Be Phone-Free

While the debate over smartphone usage in the classroom rages, new research suggested that even having the device nearby can pose an issue. Experiments conducted jointly by the schools of management at the University of Texas, Austin; the University of California, San Diego; and Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, found students who had no access to their phones outperformed those who had the phone on their desk or in their pocket.

“It’s not that participants were distracted because they were getting notifications on their phones,” said Adrian Ward, co-author of the report and assistant professor at UT-Austin’s McCombs School of Business. “The mere presence of their smartphone was enough to reduce their cognitive capacity.”

The study asked students to sit at a computer and take tests that required concentration. The first experiment split students into three groups that either left their phones outside the testing room, placed their phones face-down on their desk, or kept the phones in a pocket or bag. Students who didn’t have access to their phones outperformed both of the other groups on the tests.

The second experiment divided students into the same groups, but asked them to self-report their smartphone dependence when their phones weren’t handy. Students who admitted to being dependent on their phones did worse on the test, but only when the phones were on the desk or in their pockets.

“As educational institutions increasingly embrace ‘connected classrooms,’ the presence of students’ mobile devices in educational environments may undermine both learning and test performance—particularly when these devices are present but not in use,” the final report said.

Virginia Law Mandates OER Guidelines

Virginia is for open educational resources, or at least state legislators there think so.

The governor recently signed into law an amendment directing all public colleges and universities to develop guidelines for adopting and using open educational resources (OER) for their courses. The measure allows institutions to include low-cost commercially published materials in the guidelines, along with free and open materials.

While other states, such as Florida, have passed bills calling on their public institutions to take concrete steps toward reducing the cost of course materials for students, Virginia’s new law is apparently the first to emphasize OER to this degree. Virginia law already requires faculty to be aware of the retail prices of the course materials they choose and encourages them to select used editions when feasible.

Some university systems and individual institutions have set up programs to provide grants to professors for the creation of OER. The Virginia bill doesn’t include any funding for resource development, leaving it up to the schools to figure out how to motivate faculty.

The state’s Department of Planning and Budget, in its impact statement on the law, acknowledged, “It is unknown how many faculty members of Virginia’s public institutions of higher education would embrace the use of open educational resources and low-cost commercially published materials in their courses.”

The law takes effect July 1.

Gen Alpha’s Lifetime of AI

For children just entering kindergarten—the so-called Generation Alpha—interacting with devices driven by artificial intelligence may be among their earliest memories, and will mark the beginning of a lifelong intimate relationship with AI.

In February, the BBC announced it would create a “Listen with Alexa” series of bedtime stories to be read to children by Amazon’s virtual assistant through the company’s Echo and Echo Dot voice-operated smart speakers. Since most voice assistants don’t feature a screen, some observers view their use as avoiding the risks excessive screen time poses to healthy social development.

Giving smart speakers an even bigger role in family life, however, raises concerns about their replacing some necessary and beneficial interactions with parents or guardians. In addition to bedtime stories, AI-powered devices may also take over homework duties. While that could appear a boon to tired working parents, it also presages a significant shift in family dynamics and how children learn to interact with others.

Of course, familiarity with artificial intelligence should also benefit upcoming generations, as AI will continue growing to play a role in nearly every aspect of their lives, from home appliances to transportation to their education and work.

While most Americans remain positive about AI’s impact, nearly two-thirds predict its rising use will eliminate more jobs than it creates, according to a Northeastern University/Gallup survey of almost 3,300 U.S. adults conducted last fall. More than half of respondents said they see it as a greater threat to U.S. jobs over the next decade than immigration and offshoring.

Gen Z Looking at Info on Majors/Minors

Generation Z is often described as pragmatic and cost-conscious. A 2017 study showed just how pragmatic those students are.

EAB Enrollment Services’ The New College Freshman Survey found that 70% of the 4,800 college freshmen surveyed said they visited college websites to find information about majors and minors, up 4% over the results of the 2015 poll. College costs came in a distant second (45%), followed by information on scholarships (25%), financial aid (24%), and general information about the school (21%).

The report also noted that students checking out college ads on social media sites are still very interested in information relating to majors and minors offered at the institutions. Just over 40% of the students said information on majors and minors was the most useful part of their social media search.

Other studies by EAB have found that Generation Z students select majors and minors that will have a stronger impact on their job prospects. That fits with a rise in the number of engineering and business majors that many colleges and universities are reporting. A study by New York University found that 12% of students switched to another field of study when presented data on what majors actually earn once they enter the workforce.

“One ‘so what’ of this New College Freshman Survey finding, and from the return-on-education phenomenon overall for that matter, is that colleges and universities should be thinking more deeply about the enrollment impact of their program portfolio choices,” Anika Olsen, an EAB consultant, wrote in a blog post. “We find that as many schools review their academic programs and make changes, they too seldom and too narrowly factor in market information from enrollment managers.”

Social Sites Serve as Academic Media, Too

Even though most higher education institutions have learning management systems that are intended to provide each class with a platform for communication and content sharing, some students and faculty members are tapping into social media for those purposes.

In the January 2018 Student Panel Survey fielded by NACS OnCampus Research, 69% of the student respondents said they had personally used social media for some type of academic purpose (such as sharing notes or asking questions) and 38% indicated at least one of their professors had incorporated social media into a course (creating a community or posting content, for example).

When asked which social media sites they had accessed for academic reasons, 53% of students named Facebook, followed by YouTube (30%), Snapchat (23%), LinkedIn and Instagram (12% each), Twitter (11%), Pinterest (6%), and “other” (5%), which were mainly document-sharing and messenging platforms.

Facebook probably received the most use because more students have accounts there (89%) compared to YouTube (75%), Instagram (74%), or Snapchat (72%), but it’s not the most popular site with college students. Asked to pick their favorite social media (up to three), more students chose Instagram (51%) and Snapchat (50%) over Facebook (42%), despite fewer students having an account with Instagram or Snapchat.

Facebook could lose more ground with collegians. OnCampus Research data show student accounts with Facebook have remained relatively static since 2015, while other sites have enjoyed substantial growth. For example, just 49% of students had Snapchat accounts in 2015.

Blockchain a Potential New Publishing Model

Blockchain is best known for underpinning the bitcoin cryptocurrency, but the technology is still in its infancy and may grow to be adapted to a vast array of other applications.

Information recorded on “blocks” is linked on a shared, public, and continually reconciled database that isn’t stored in a central location that would be vulnerable to hacking. The data in any block can’t be modified without altering every subsequent block, which would require a consensus of the majority of users on the network.

“The blockchain lets people who have no particular confidence in each other collaborate without having to go through a neutral central authority,” observed The Economist. “Simply put, it is a machine for creating trust.”

In a post updating a 2016 prediction on his Personanondata blog, business strategy consultant Michael Cairns noted that one area where blockchain could be applied is publishing, where it might be employed to identify copyright information and form a new method for buying, selling, and licensing intellectual content.

“Once a transaction occurs,” he wrote, “the user is supplied with a unique key for accessing the content. If the user subsequently wants to sell or lend the item, they pass their unique key to the next person for their use. This process eliminates the ‘residual’ copy issue which arises when someone tries to sell a secondhand e-file.”

He went on to list a host of companies and organizations that are already developing solutions for applying blockchain to publishing, peer review, licensing, royalty accounting, and micro-transaction payments. One of these is Publica, a platform that uses blockchain and cryptocurrency tech to facilitate direct transactions between authors and readers and enable any author, publisher, store, institution, or business to use digital keys to buy, sell, trade, or lend digital books or print on demand locally.

Such a solution could certainly be used for academic course materials, including obvious intersections with the open educational resources movement.