for-profit higher education and community colleges

8/6/2019 For-Profit Higher Education and Community Colleges

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National Center for Postsecondary Improvement Page 1

Thomas Bailey

Director, Community College Research Center

Teachers College, Columbia University

Norena Badway

Patricia J. Gumport

National Center for Postsecondary Improvement

Stanford University

School of Education

520 Galvez Mall, 508 CERAS

Stanford, CA 94305-3084

The work reported herein was supported in part by the Educational Research and Development Center program, agreement

number R309A60001, CFDA 84.309A, as administered by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI),

U.S. Department of Education. The findings and opinions expressed in the report do not reflect the position or policies of

OERI or the U.S. Department of Education. NCPI Technical Report Number x-xx.

For-Profit Higher

Education and

Community Colleges


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Acknow led gements ......................................................................................................... i

Preface ...............................................................................................................................ii

Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1

Goa ls and Ou tline ........................................................................................................ 3

Three Arguments abou t the For-Profits ........................................................................ 4

For-Profit Postsecondary Edu cation: An H istorical Perspective .............................. 7

The Size, Growth , and Characteristics of For-Profit, Public, and Private N on-profit

Postsecon dary Institu tions ......................................................................................... 9

Case Stud ies of a For-Profit College and Public Community Colleges ................. 16

Institutional Missions ................................................................................................ 18Selectivity in Admissions .......................................................................................... 21

Curricu lum Development and Faculty Role ......................................................... 22

Facu lty Hiring ............................................................................................................ 25

Cu rricula and Instruction ......................................................................................... 26

Course Sequ encing .................................................................................................... 29

Student Services ......................................................................................................... 30

Flexibility and Scheduling ........................................................................................ 33

Data Driven Decision making .................................................................................. 36

Facilitating Transfer ................................................................................................... 37

Sum mary .................................................................................................................... 39

Percep tions of competit ion .......................................................................................... 41

Con clusion: Review of th e Three Argu ments ............................................................ 43

The competitive threat of the for-profits ................................................................ 43

Convenient, responsive, and customer oriented edu cation46

Educational Qu ality ................................................................................................... 48

Community college and for-profit stu dent ou tcomes .............................................. 50

Imp lications for Com munity Colleges and Further Research ................................ 52

References ....................................................................................................................... 58

Tables ............................................................................................................................... 61


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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the faculty, adm inistrators, and students w ho gave u s

their time, and information at TECH COLLEGE and the comm unity colleges that w e

stud ied. Much of what is new and valuable in this study comes from the insights that

they so generously shared w ith us.

We also wan t to than k Greg Kienzl for his assistance with th e da ta analysis.

Vanessa Smith Morest, Kathleen Keane, John Jennings and Tina Grid iron also helped us

with the field work. Tia Dole and Gretchen Koball gave u s valuable assistance in the

prod uction of the report.

We presented a d raft of this pap er at the m eeting of the NCPI Board of Senior

Scholars at Stanford in March 2001 and at the Am erican Association of Comm un ity

College Conven tion in Chicago in April 2001 and we benefited from the reactions and

ideas of those wh o pa rticipated in those sessions. Jim Jacobs, Davis Jenkins, Chu i

Tsang, and Bob Zemsky read ear lier drafts and their comments have significantly im-

proved the work.

During h is participa tion in the project, Thomas Bailey has been th e Director of

the Com mu nity College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College Colum bia Univer-

sity. In that capacity he has been able to draw on, for this report, material and field

work gathered by the Center. The CCRC is supported by a generous grant from the

Alfred P. Sloan Found ation.

Finally, we w ant to acknow ledge OERI for fun ding th is project. The work re-

ported herein is supp orted u nd er the Educational Research and Developm ent Center

program, agreement number R309A60001, CFDA 84.309A, as administered by the Officeof Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Departm ent of Edu cation. The

find ings and opinions expressed in this report do not reflect the position or p olicies of

OERI or the U.S. Departm ent of Edu cation.


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Preface

This repor t presents the find ings from a two-year project co-directed by Thomas

Bailey, Comm un ity College Research Center, and Patricia J. Gum port, Stanford Institu te

for H igher Education Research and National Center for Postsecond ary Imp rovement.

The pu rpose of the p roject was todevelop a better und erstanding of how for-profits comp are to public comm unity colleges with respect to their stud ents and pro-

gram s and to evaluate the extent to w hich the for-profit colleges comp ete directly with

commu nity colleges. Our research strategy relied up on an exploratory design, drawing

up on available national data for context and then cond ucting a set of comp arative case

studies.

This report ad dresses contemp orary concerns about the comp etitive threat from

for-profit edu cational institutions, contrasts national data on for-profits with na tional

da ta on private non-profit and pu blic post-second ary institutions, and examines case

stud y da ta comparing a for-profit chain to three public commun ity colleges located near

branches of the chain. The data an alysis suggests that for-profits have only a small

share of enrollmen ts in two- or four-year institutions and the for-profit share of two

year enrollments d id not grow du ring the m idd le part of the 1990s (the latest period for

which we have data). For-profit institutions tend to have a limited range of course

offerings that have strong links to stud ents skill and career aspirations. As a group , the

for-profits are concentrated in a limited number of business and technical fields. Al-

thou gh they may compete w ith comm un ity colleges in those specific areas, the small

size of the for-profit sector w ill limit the overall competitive effect. Moreover, some of

the four-year for-profit institutions target upp er d ivision stud ents and actively recru it

commun ity college grad ua tes, so in this sense, these institutions are complements rather

than competitors to commun ity colleges. Comm un ity college leaders and staff do notperceive for-profits as a comp etitive th reat, characterizing th eir missions as more com-

preh ensive and their curricula as broader in scope. We did find important d ifferences

between the two types of institutions and the comm un ity colleges may find lessons in

for-profit institutions emp hasis on customer service, extensive supp ort for employm ent

placement, and degree completion rate.


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Introduction

In the last five years, the growth of for-profit educational providers has been one

of the m ost watched trend s in h igher ed ucation (Blumenstyk, 2000; Burd , 1998; Selingo,

1999; Strosnider, 1998). During the mid 1990s, public educational institu tions in many

states faced increasing criticism and tight-fisted state legislatures. For example, the

share of state bud gets going to higher edu cation in general and commun ity colleges in

particu lar shrunk from 12.2 percent in 1990 to 10.1 percent in 2000 (National Association

of States Bud get Officers [NASBO], 2000). Like many state system s, the California p ub-

lic higher edu cation system went through a severe bud get crisis early in the d ecade, and

while the economic recovery brough t some imp rovements to state universities and

colleges, that imp rovement d id not keep pace w ith overall economic growth.

Thus in th e early years of the 21st century, as the economy faltered, pu blic higher edu ca-

tion systems in m any stateswere once again un der scru tiny from p ublic officials who

fund them. Urban systems in p articular were criticized for low standard s and poor

performance. The so-called Schm idt Com mission (1999)in New York published a

repor t on the City Un iversity of New York (CUNY) in which the title clearly signaled

the conclusionsAn Institution A drift(Schmidt 1999; Klein and Orlando, 1999). Increas-

ingly, legislatu res in South Carolina and Florida sough t to hold p ublic colleges to higher

standard s by imp lementing accoun tability regulations that tied at least some fund ing to

the performance of the institution (Burke, Rosen, Minassians and Lessard , 2000). Other

states increased the reporting requirements for their pu blic colleges as a step to encour-

age greater efficiency and accoun tability. Influen tial analysts foresee radically chan g-

ing and mu ch more comp etitive higher education landscape in which the traditionalestablished institutions are threatened by burgeoning n ew edu cational providers and

new forms of educational technologies. Thus Frank Newman, the past President of the


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Edu cation Com mission of the States, in an ar ticle subtitled: The End of the Status Quo

and the Rise of the Market in Higher Education argu es that, Comp etition is forcing a

hard reexamination of the pu rpose and effectiveness of every activityfrom how w ell

and often faculty interact w ith students, to w hether expend itures on studen t life actu-

ally create a learning commun ity, to the issue of costs and wise use of resources.

(Newman 2001, p. 9)

The for-profit sector is certainly not the on ly source of new competition in higher

education. Growing comp etition for research fun ding and the fierce battles for US N ew

and World Reportrankings are indications of comp etition am ong th e pu blic and tradi-

tional non-profit p rivate institutions. New technologies are also expected to p lay apivotal role. Nevertheless, the highly publicized grow th of some for-profit institutions

has been an integral part of the d iscussions of the new edu cational environment an d

indeed has generated growing anxiety among both p rivate non-profit and pu blic col-

leges and universities. The University of Phoen ix, which grew from und er 10,000 un -

dergrad uate students in 1990 to abou t 45,000 in 2000 (http:/ / www.phoenix.edu/

factbook/ pg21.htm), has also been the subject of widespread med ia attention. (See for

example Arenson 2000, Blum enstyk 2000, Selingo 1999, Wyatt 1999, Strosnider 1998.)

Tony Zeiss (1998), the President of Piedm ont Com mun ity College in Charlotte, North

Carolina, and a former Presiden t of the American Association of Comm un ity Colleges,

posed a qu estion that identified a core concern: Will our stud ents become theirs? and

he w arned with some u rgency that p roprietary colleges already h ave the jum p on

meeting th e needs and expectations of a broad cross section of commun ity college

stud ents. A 2001 report by the Education Commission of the States (ECS) suggests

explosive growth in the sector by pointing out a 78 percent growth in the nu mber of for-

profit two-year degree gran ting institutions between 1989 and 1999. In the same period,


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the n um ber of for-profit four-year institutions grew by an impressive 266 percent (Kelly

2001). According to the N ational Center for Edu cation Statistics (NCES) data quoted in

the ECS report, by th e end of the 1990s, 28 percent of all two-year degree granting

institutions were for-profits. As we shall see, a more mean ingful, in our op inion, exami-

nation of enrollment patterns presents a d ifferent picture. Nevertheless, these types of

statemen ts are ind icative of the powerful influence that the grow th of the for-profits has

had on the thinking of educators and edu cational analysts.

Goals and Outline

Despite widespread p ublic attention an d growing anxiety in some segments of

the p ostsecond ary enterp rise, considerable confusion remains abou t the size and natu re

of the for-profit sector: Exactly how many stu dents are enrolled in the for-profits? How

mu ch has that num ber grown? Are there differences between the types of studen ts who

enroll in the for-profits and those found in the publics? What are the differences be-

tween the acad emic program s, services, and pedagogy of the for-profit colleges and

other public and pr ivate institutions of higher edu cation? What is the relationship

between public and for-profit institutions? Is there some sense in which one typ e of

institution is more effective or efficient than th e other? There is a grow ing bod y of

research and information on the for-profits (Kelley 2001; Moe, Bailey, and Lau 1999;

NCES 1999; The Futu res Project 2000). We are building on that literatu re both by m ak-

ing a d etailed analysis of available data, especially from th e Integrated Postsecond ary

Edu cation Data System (IPEDS), and throu gh an explicit comparison between a large

and successfu l for-profit institution and potentially comp eting commun ity colleges.The pu rpose of this report is to strengthen th e empirical found ation for an in-

formed d iscussion of the for-profit phenomenon, especially as it relates to pu blic com-


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mu nity colleges. In order to do th is, we first present three common arguments about

the for-profits and their relationship to public institutions of higher ed ucation. We then

provide some background on the h istory and natu re of for profit higher edu cation and

then examine the size and characteristics of the for-profit higher ed ucation sector, using

national data. In the following section, we m ake a detailed comparison between one

successful for-profit institution w ith several branches, and three comm un ity colleges

located near some of those branches. We then present conclusions includ ing responses

to the three broad argu ments that we outlined above and a discussion of stud ent out-

comes for the two types of institutions. We end w ith recommend ations, including

some suggestions about what comm unity colleges can learn from the experience of thefor-profits and some ideas for add itional research.

Three Arguments about the For-Profits

Three broad argum ents are common in the extensive d iscussion of the grow th of

the for-profit sector, and we use these argum ents to organ ize our d iscussion of the for-

profit sector. As we have seen, one influen tial argu men t is that the for-profits are a

competitive threat to community colleges and other sectors of h igher education .

According to the second, the for-profits have developed a more flexible and responsive

system of delivering post-second ary ed ucational services, especially to adu lt students.

And according to the third, the for-profits provide a lower quality training in contrast

to broader education imp arted by the comm un ity colleges and p ublic and non-profit

four-year schools. We have already discussed the competitive threat argum ent, but we

will d iscuss the last two of these argumen ts in more detail in the following paragraph s.This report evaluates all three argu ments, focusing particularly on how they relate to

pu blic comm unity colleges.


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The for-profits provide more flexible, convenient, and responsive education

than community colleges: What is the sou rce of the for-profits poten tial comp etitive

ad vantage? Critics of the community colleges contrast the entrep reneurial spirit of the

for-profits with the su pp osedly trad ition-bound inflexibility of the colleges. The Uni-

versity of Phoenix, for example, appeared to have d eveloped a more streamlined mod el

of education designed to cater to working ad ults. According to this perspective, freed

from the trad itional academ ic sched ules and even from m any of the fixed costs of infra-

structure and expensive facilities, the University is able to offer courses at m ore conve-

nient times an d in more convenient locations (for examp le, malls near the intersections

of interstates). Thus the for-profits are believed to have the ability to respon d to marketshifts and provide services that are attun ed to pa rticular needs of a variety of stud ents.

In addition to their flexibility, the for-profits app ear to have an imp ortant advan-

tage in their access to venture capital (Ortmann , 1998). This capital wou ld allow them

to absorb the large up -front costs needed to design courses and develop the sophisti-

cated web-based systems of distance edu cation. How could pu blic institutions who

have to go either to state legislatures or d irectly to taxpayers (through bond issues) for

their venture capital possibly compete?

Comm unity colleges seem p articularly vulnerable, especially in those states in

which tuition has been rising. After all, community colleges have long prided them-

selves on serving the ad ult, part-time an d returning stud ent, precisely that m arket that

the for-profits appear to be aggressively recruiting and successfu lly serving. Thus, in

this report w e ask whether the for-profits have indeed d eveloped a more convenient,

flexible, and consumer oriented app roach to post-secondary ed ucation.

The for-profits train while community colleges educate: The current

anxiety about the potential competitive threat from for-profits wou ld seem incomp re-


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hensible to education analysts of the 1980s. Propr ietary schools were best known to

mu ch of the pu blic through their advertisements on matchbook covers and subw ays.

The pu blic perceived the schools as institutions set up to take advantage of pu blic

finan cial assistance offering only narrow training at best.

Although the best-know n for-profit institutions today enjoy a mu ch better repu-

tation, many edu cators still believe that the for-profits are less comm itted to the hum an-

istic educational objectives of the broader higher edu cation enterp rise. Critics of for-

profit schools suggest thatMcEducation turns the transmission of know ledge into just

anoth er market transaction that can be priced like any other service, inevitably debasing

the quality of edu cation.

1

They doubt that comm ercial institutions that have to satisfystockholders can do as good a job academ ically as pu blic or non-profit ones. Others

worry that profit-d riven schools place all of higher edu cation u nd er accountability for a

singu lar outp ut measurethe employability of graduates. Thus students may gain

access to short-term occupational rewards at the expense of a solid ed ucational found a-

tion for long-term career developmen t.

The contrast between a broad ed ucation and narrow training is a strong current

that run s through the perceptions of many of the comm unity college faculty and adm in-

istrators we interv iewed for this project.2 For example, one stated that, Theres a

d ifference between training and ed ucation. At commu nity colleges, we focus on long

term goals of the AAS so students are secure for the long term. Anoth er said, Propri-

etary schools exist to do som e skills only. We edu cate much more broad ly. We have a

diverse staff and most of our faculty holds d octorates. They [prop rietary schools] are

arrogant if they think they can comp ete with us. Thus many p eople continue to argue

that for-profit institutions imp art a lower qu ality training.


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For-Profi t Postsecondary Education: An Historical Perspective

The growing positive regard for some for-profit institutions contrasts to the

negative image of the proprietaries that d ominated the d iscussion d uring the 1980s and

earlier. That widespread d isregard and skepticism abou t the for-profits was probably

too negative, as some h igh qu ality for-profit schools did exist in the 1970s and 1980s.

Nevertheless, during those decades, proprietary schools operated u nd er few constraints

in recru iting and training stud ents. The for-profit sector burgeoned in urban areas

wh ere low-income stud ents could qu alify for federal Pell grants and guaran teed stu-

dent loans. By the early 1990s, the m ajority of proprietary schools were referred to as

trade schools, preparing students for a specific craft. Of these, two-thirds offered shorter

programs that were und er one year: one-third of programs were less than six months

du ration and about one quarter were shorter than three mon ths. Nearly two thirds of

prop rietary schools offered tr aining in bu siness, marketing or cosmetology, with cosme-

tology accoun ting for 40 percent of all propr ietary schools and 14 percent of prop rietary

students (Apling, 1993).

When scand als arose over fraudulent recru iting p ractices, high loan d efault rates,

and low completion, placement and wage outcomes, Congress mand ated stricter eligi-

bility requ irements for institutions p articipating in Title IV federal stud ent loan assis-

tance programs.3 The 1992 regulations increased th e minimum length of eligible pro-

gram s, decreased institutional reliance on Title IV fund ing sources, tightened recruiting

and adm issions p rocedu res, and established more stringent accreditation stand ards.

These chan ges resulted in an increase in what w e refer to as Accredited Career

Colleges (ACC). ACCs are for-profitpostsecondary schools that are accredited to awardassociates, baccalaureate, masters, or doctorate degrees. They may be regionally accred-

ited, or accredited by one of two other common accrediting agenciesthe Association


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of Ind epen dent Colleges and Schools (AICS) and the N ational Association of Trad e and

Technical Schools (NATTS). In one sam ple of 2 and 4-year d egree granting p roprietary

schools, Bend er (1991) found that just over one fifth of all ACCs were accredited by

regional accrediting agencies.4 Although the ACCs maintain an emp hasis on ap plied

education for career preparation, they also incorpora te general edu cation into their

technical degree program s, and offer developm ental edu cation, English as a Second

Language, and at times extensive student sup por t services. Many of these reformed

schools have come to resemble their pu blic two- and four-year counterp arts. Thus

accreditation and financial aid requiremen ts pu shed some of the for-profits to increase

offerings of degree program s that incorporated general edu cation and improved stu-dent services and also resulted in chan ging attitud es about the for-profits. Kelly (2001)

characterized this as a change from d isparagem ent to emu lation. Still many of the

attitud es about p roprietary schools are based on influential research abou t the pre-1992

era (Grubb, 1993; Friedlander, 1980; Hanson and Parker, 1977; Wilms,1973, 1974, 1975;

Apling and Alem an, 1990; Lee and Merisotis, 1990).

The Size, Growth, and Characteristics of For-Profit, Public, and Private Non-profit Postsecond-

ary Institutions

In this section, we present na tional data on en rollmen ts, degrees, and tu ition to

prov ide some baseline comp arison among th ree sectorspublic, private not-for-profit,

and for-profit institutions. Each of these sectors are in turn d ivided am ong tw o-year

and four-year institutions. A two-year institution is one in which the associates degree

is the highest degree granted. And institutions granting both a BA and an AA wou ld be

categorized as a four-year institution. The data are from the Integrated Postsecondary

Edu cational Data System (IPEDS), which is collected and maintained by the National

Center for Education Statistics (NCES). According to th e NCES website, completion of


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an IPEDS survey is mand atory for all institutions that participa te or are app licants for

pa rticipation in an y Federal finan cial assistance program authorized by Title IV of the

Higher Edu cation Act of 1965, as amend ed. NCES reports a 90 percent respon se rate

for the survey.

Institu tional characteristics are displayed in Table 1. Several characteristics

revealed in these da ta are worth em phasizing. First, minor ities, especially blacks and

Hispanics, account for a larger share of for-profit enrollments than they do in either of

the other two sectors. The 1999 NCES report on stud ents in the for-profits also found

that blacks and Hispanics were over-represented in the for-profits. Second, wom en are

concentrated among th e two-year, for-profits.

5

This may reflect the large number ofcosmetology programs in this sector, although the accuracy of these da ta may be sus-

pect since many for-profits did n ot report data on gender. Third, most stud ents at the

for-profits, according to these da ta, attend fu ll- time. Indeed, the public two-year col-

legesthe comm unity collegesare by far the most imp ortant provid ers of edu cation

for part-time stud ents. Finally, the for-profits have slightly lower acceptance rates than

the public.6

Table 2 presents d ata on tu ition and financial aid. Not su rprisingly, the average

sticker p rice or the pu blished tuition is mu ch higher for the for-profits than for either

the two-year or four-year public institutions. The for-profit stud ents do get more finan-

cial aid than studen ts in pu blic institutions, but the n et tuition (pu blished tuition m inus

financial aid) is still about $4000 high er for the tw o-year for-profits and over $5000

higher for the four-year for-profits. It is worth noting that the p rivate non-profits have a

higher net tuition, higher income per stud ent, and higher levels of outside financial aid

than the for-profits.

Table 3 presents da ta on en rollmen ts in two-year institutions in the three sectors


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(pu blic, private non-profit, and for-profit) in the 1992-93 and 1997-98 school years. The

pu blic community colleges are in the two-year pu blic category. These data suggest that

the for-profit sector remains only a minor player am ong the two-year institutions.

Moreover, for-profit enrollments actually dropp ed d ur ing this five-year period and

while total enrollmen t among two-year institu tions also fell, the for-profits accounted

for a smaller share of enrollments in 1997 than they d id in 1992. It is also clear from this

table that a large m ajority of the students in two-year for-profit institutions are still in

schools that are not regionally accredited .

Table 4 displays similar da ta on pu blic, private non -profit, and for-profit four-

year schools. Although the for-profits account for less than 2 percent of four-year en-rollmen ts, at least in th is case, total for-profit enrollments and enrollment shares actu-

ally grew between 1992 and 1997. Moreover, in sharp contrast to the two-year for prof-

its, abou t 60 percent of the students in four-year for-profits are enrolled in regionally

accredited institutions.

The grow th rate of the for-profits, especially the four-year for-profits, does give

the imp ression tha t the for-profits present a serious and grow ing competitive threat.

For examp le, the Education Comm ission of the States repor t (Kelley 2001) points out

that for-profit enrollment grew by 59 percent between 1989 and 1999, while enrollment

in the pu blic institutions (both two- and four-year) grew by on ly 6 percent. While this is

certainly a large difference, the grow th of the for-profits started from such a low base

that the 6 percent growth in the p ublic sector enrollmen ts actually represents a larger

nu mber of students (600 thousand) than th e total for-profit enrollment even after the

growth (366 thousand ). An emphasis on the growth rate of the nu mber of institutions is

even more mislead ing, since enrollment trend s give such a different picture. Thus while

the for-profit share of two-year institutions grew from 19 to 28 percent du ring the ten


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year s following 1989 (Kelley 2001), we have seen th at the for-profit share of enrollment

am ong two-year institut ions actu ally fell from 4.1 to 3.9 percent from 1993 to 1998.7

Table 5 presents d ata on d egrees and certificates awarded by two-year institu-

tions in each of the three sectors. For example, it show s that the publics accoun t for 87

percent of the associates and 84 percent of the su m of all associates degrees and certifi-

cates conferred by tw o-year institutions. This table makes clear that certificates are

mu ch more important for the for-profits than they are for the publics. Certificates

accoun t for 232,000 of the 662,000 degrees an d certificates (35 percentnot shown in th e

table) award ed by p ublic two-year colleges, while certificates account for 57 percent of

all degrees and certificates award ed by th e two-year for profits.

8

Although w e do nothave data from IPEDS on enrollments by d egree objective, it is still useful to consider

the enrollmen t data from Table 3 in light of these degree da ta in Table 5. According to

Table 3, the for-profits account for only 3.8 percent of the total enrollmen ts in two-year

institutions, but w e know from Table 3 that the for-profits emp hasize certificates more

than associates degrees. Therefore, we can conclude that the 3.8 percent for-profit

enrollment share is an overestimate of the stud ents pu rsing an associates degree. In-

deed, am ong a ll two-year institutions, the for-profits enroll a very small percent of the

students pu rsuing an associates degree.

A comp arison of data from Tables 3 and 5 can a lso provide a rough sense of the

percent of students enrolled in the d ifferent typ es of institutions who earn a credential

the comp letion ra te. Table 3 show s that the for-profits accoun ted for only 3.8 percent of

the m ore than 5.7 million students enrolled in all two-year institutions in the 1997-98

school year. But Table 5 ind icates that the for-profits accoun ted for almost 13 percent of

the total degrees and certificates award ed by all two-year institutions. The for-profits

accoun ted for 9 percent of the associates degrees even though we argued above that


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they accoun ted for less than 3.8 percent of the stud ents wh o w ere enrolled with th e goal

of earning an AA. This suggests that completion rates for the for-profits are higher than

they are for the public comm unity colleges. One reason m ay be that, as we saw in Table

1, studen ts in the p ublics are mu ch more likely to be attend ing pa rt-time and part-time

stud ents are less likely to complete degrees.

Table 6 presents d ata on degrees and certificates award ed by four-year colleges. It

is clear from this table that th e for-profits account for a very small share of degrees

awarded by four-year institutions. In the 1997-98 school year, they accounted for only

two percent of all degrees and certificates awarded by four-year institutions, and less

than one p ercent of all Bachelors degrees. The most interesting information from thistable concerns the number of associates degrees aw arded by the four-year for-profit

colleges. While abou t 12,000 students received Baccalaureate degrees from four-year

for-profit colleges, those colleges actually awarded over 13,000 associates degrees. Thus

a typ ical for-profit college is mu ch more likely than their pu blic or pr ivate non -profit

counterparts to confer both associates and bachelors degrees.

Data based on the Beginning Postsecondary Student (BPS) survey p resented in

The Futu res Project (2000) report on the for-profits also suggests a higher, or at least a

more rapid completion ra te for both associates degrees and certificates for the for-

profits. For example, three years after enrolling in a certificates program , 31 percent of

those at a for-profit and 40 percent of those at a p ublic institution h ad left without a

degree. But 54 percent of those at the for-profits and only 30 percent of those at the

pu blics had earned their certificate. The rest, 14 percent for the for-profits and 29 per-

cent for the publics, were either still enrolled at th eir first institutions or had transferred.

The da ta give a similar comp arison of experience in associate degrees. After 3 years, 34

percent of stud ents in both types of institutions had left school with no degree. But 40


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percent of the for-profit students and only 10 percent of the public stud ents had earned

degrees. The rest, 27 percent for the for-profits and 56 percent for the pu blics, were still

enrolled a t their first institutions or had transferred (The Futures Project 2000, Figure 8,

p. 11). As we have pointed out, a mu ch larger percentage of the for-profit students are

full-time, and this could explain som e of the faster completion ra tes and after a longer

time period , the pu blic completion rates will p robably partly catch up . Nevertheless,

both the IPEDS data we presented above and the BPS data presented by The Futu res

Project do suggest that more for-profit than pu blic stud ents complete their degrees or

certificates.

What d o the data p resented in Tables 1-6 suggest so far abou t the relationshipbetween the for-profit sector and pu blic commun ity colleges? Given the widesp read

discussion and anxiety about the competitive threat of the for-profits, the enrollment

nu mbers seem low, even if there is a significant u nd erreporting among the for-profits.

Enrollmen ts in two-year for-profit institutions actually fell du ring the middle part of the

1990s, and wh ile enrollment in the four-year for profits did grow, it started from a very

low base. Although the University of Phoen ix has attracted a great deal of attention as

its und ergrad uate enrollment na tionwide grew to over 40,000 in 2000 (www/

phoenix.edu / factbook/ pg21.html). But Maricopa Comm unity College District en-

rolled over 180,000 und ergrad uate stud ents in credit bearing courses in Ph oenix, Ari-

zona alone (http:/ / ww w.maricopa.edu / information/ facts.html). This was over four

times the undergraduate enrollmen t of the University of Phoen ix in the entire country.

But before commu nity college adm inistrators dismiss the for-profit phenom enon as a

media-generated exaggeration, three issues deserve more attention.

The first is that the for-profit two-year institutions account for a much h igher

share of comp leted d egrees and certificates than of enrollmentsthis is a rough ind ica-


18/69


tion that d egree and certificate comp letion rates are higher amon g the for-profits. It is

not clear whether this higher completion rate results from lower stand ards, greater

initial selectivity, or better services. Table 5 ind icates that the institut ions tha t are not

regionally accredited, although th ey are accredited by other agencies, confer most of

these degrees and certificates. Also, a mu ch higher share of the students in the pu blic

two-year schools are enrolled part time, wh ich could accoun t for some of the difference.

Second , comm un ity college administrators and faculty argue that m any studen ts

do not come to community colleges looking for degrees. Rather they are seeking spe-

cific skills that they can learn in courses and shorter certificate programs. Whether or

not this is true, it is clear that the for-profit two-year schools are very significant p layersin the market for shorter-term credentials. This suggests that students in for-profit

institutions looking for a package of skills rather than a fu ll degree may be more likely

to leave with some formal creden tials than they w ould if they enrolled in a pu blic

community college.

Third, it is interesting that the four-year, for-profit sector, wh ich grew dur ing the

mid -1990s, confers as man y associates as bachelors degrees. This may be relevant to the

ongoing discussion in the public sector about whether community colleges should

begin to offer app lied bachelors degrees and wh ether the four-year colleges should

confer associates d egrees. 9

Case Studies of a For-Profit College and Public Community Colleges

How do for-profit institutions and comm un ity colleges compare? Our discussion

will be based on a comp arison betw een TECH COLLEGE, a for-profit college withbranches in several states and three commun ity colleges located near at least one of

TECHs branches.


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At TECH COLLEGE, we interviewed the members of senior management at the

nationa l headquarters including the CEO, the vice president for academic affairs, and

managers responsible for curriculum d evelopm ent in several areas. We also visited tw o

camp uses, interviewing the president and sen ior staff on each campu s. We chose one

camp us, in a large city, and spent three days there. We cond ucted eleven interviews

with administrators and faculty. We observed tw elve classes, and spoke informally with

stud ents in the cafeteria. The college provided us with docum ents, includ ing cata-

logues, curriculum guides, and data on enrollments and student characteristics. The

college is regionally accredited and enjoys a strong reputa tion. It has experienced

significant grow th over th e last few years and is considered both a su ccessful educa-tional and business organization.

We chose to stud y a w ell-respected for-profit organization so that w e could

examine the poten tial of for-profit higher edu cation. Moreover, to the extent tha t the

operation of for-profit organizations h olds lessons for commun ity colleges, those les-

sons are most likely to be found in successful colleges. Thus TECH COLLEGE may not

be representative, and ind eed w e suspect that it is among the higher qu ality for-profit

colleges.

In order to compare this college to commu nity colleges, we stud ied three colleges

that op erate close to branches of TECH COLLEGE. We spent at least one day at each of

these colleges interv iewing ad ministrators, faculty, and stud ents, and observing classes.

One of these was an urban college in a large city with an eth nically diverse enrollment

(73 percent minority enrollment ). A second was a subu rban college with abou t 30,000

stud ents (20 percent minority) near a large city. The third w as in a smaller city and

enrolls approximately 16,000, abou t 32 percent of whom are minority stud ents (US

Departmen t of Eudcation, 1999) We chose these colleges both because they op erated in


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the same markets as the TECH COLLEGE branches, and because they varied in the size

and the make-up of their enrollments. In add ition to information from these three

comparison colleges, we d raw on ou r know ledge accum ulated from research and tech-

nical assistance conducted by the au thors over the last five years at over 50 commun ity

colleges in more than two dozen states.

This section of the rep ort is organized to contrast basic institutional characteris-

tics includ ing m issions, selectivity, method s of cur riculum development, faculty culture,

course sequen cing, stud ent services, course sched uling, transfer fun ctions, and the use

of data in decision making . For each of these dimensions, we comp are and contra st the

characteristics of TECH COLLEGE to those of the comparison commu nity colleges.

Institu tional Missions

For-profit colleges are u sually specialized organizations d elivering a limited

scope of programs. They target stud ents and attr act their greatest enrollment in busi-

ness administration and accounting, computer science, electronics and allied health

(Bender, 1991).

TECH COLLEGE has a similarly limited scope. It offers nine degree p rogram s(both associates and bachelors degrees) in technology, telecommun ications, and busi-

ness (with a strong technology em ph asis). The college catalog offers a straightforward

mission statement:

The mission of [TECH COLLEGE] is to provide h igh qu ality, career or iented

higher edu cation programs in bu siness and technology to a diverse stud ent

pop ulation. These programs integrate general edu cation to enhance graduates

personal developmen t and career potential.

The contrast with the mission statement of one of ou r comparison comm unity

colleges is marked :

The college is committed to offering career, as well as liberal arts and science


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curricula, developmen tal education and transfer p reparation, cooperative edu ca-

tion internships, continu ing edu cation classes, and training program s serving

individuals, business and public agencies.

Anoth er of our comparison colleges stated , our mission is to provide lower d ivision

academic instruction, career p rograms, and continuous workforce improvement to

ad vance [the states] economic growth and global competitiveness.

In these brief statements, the d ifferences in th e target constituencies and the

scope of objectives is clear. The TECH COLLEGE statement emph asizes preparing

students or graduates for careers in a limited number of areas. Both comm un ity colleges,

in contrast, identify career prep aration as one objective among others. Moreover, the

commun ity colleges define their constituen cies in much broader term s, includ ing indi-

viduals, business, and public agencies. One of the commu nity colleges includ es the growth

and competitiveness of the states economy as one of its objectives.

These distinctions become even more obvious in the more detailed elaborations

of each institutions mission published in their catalogues. TECH COLLEGE states that

its goals are:

To offer applications-oriented programs developed by faculty and staff through regu-lar assessment and consultations w ith other edu cators and business leaders.

To offer a variety of schedu ling op tions to accommodate the d istinctive needs of both

traditional and nontrad itional students.

To assist students in realizing their potential by establishing basic skills assessment

and developmental services.

To p rovide student services that contribute to stud ent success and achievement.

To provide career-developm ent strategies and em ploym ent assistance to facilitate

stud ents successful tr ansition to careers.

To p rovide highly motivated and qualified graduates to meet the current p rojected

need of the w ork force.

Each one of these objectives is pu rported to enh ance individualstudent success,

pr imarily career success. This contrasts w ith the d etailed statem ent of the objectives of


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one of the commun ity colleges:

to respond creatively to changes in stud ent pop ulation, technology, and the global

economy;

to provide extensive supp ort services and opp ortunities for a highly diverse stud ent

population;

to uphold high standards through a focus on program assessment and innovative

app roaches to teaching and learning;

to maintain a d edicated, highly qualified faculty and staff, wh ile promoting their

professional development;

to prepare students to become full participan ts in the economic and civic life of the

city, the nation, and the world; and

to cultivate partnerships with business, commu nity group s, governmen t, and p ublic

schools to enhance the economic, social, cultura l, and educational developm ent of [the

city].

Once again, the community college has a mu ch broader set of objectives and

constituencies. Career preparation is hard ly mentioned d irectly, although full partici-

pa tion in the econom ic ... life would certainly cover such preparation. The statement

also emphasizes concurrent p reparation for civic life in the city, nation, and the w orld

as well as a commitment to serve a diverse stud ent pop ulation, and to maintain stan-

da rds that sup port high qu ality and innovation in teaching. The authors of this state-

ment also see the faculty as an independen t constituency, rather than primarily the

means to provide services to stud ents, and th e college, hop es to enh ance the economic,

social, cultura l, and edu cational developm ent of the city in which it is located . Com-

paring this to the more exclusive focus on ind ividu al career preparation found in the

for-profit institution, the commun ity colleges state a mu ch more ambitious and compre-

hensive mission than TECH COLLEGE.

This comprehensiveness is reflected in the services, curriculum , and p rogram s

offered by the commu nity college. As is typ ical of many commu nity colleges, all three

of our comparison colleges offerdozens of AA, AS, AAS, and certificate programs and


23/69


many non -credit offerings. For examp le, one has an extensive program of contract and

customized training. It provides adu lt basic edu cation and GED preparation and it

enrolls many n on-matriculated stud ents in continuing ed ucation an d non-credit

courses. On a head count basis, this commu nity college has as many non-credit as it has

credit-earning stud ents. In contrast, TECH COLLEGE offers nine structu red d egree

programs and limited opp ortunities for electives. It has no customized tra ining, no

continuing edu cation, and n o non-credit offerings.

Selectivity in A dmissions

The d ifferences in overall missions are also reflected in the admissions policies of

commun ity colleges and the for-profits. The IPEDS data presented above reflect a

slightly lower acceptance rate for public comm un ity colleges than for-profit institutions.

Howeverthis is misleading, since stud ents at comm unity colleges are usua lly accepted

on a first-come-first-serve basis up to the capacity of the institution. Thus students are

not rejected based on their qualifications. Moreover, commun ity colleges have an

obligation toprovide services tostudents who are not p repared for college level work

(even if those students cannot matriculate), wh ile the for-profits have no su ch obliga-

tion.

The admissions policy at TECH COLLEGE reflects this app roach. Using a p lace-

ment exam in arithmetic, algebra, reading and writing, stud ents are categorized into

one of three group s. The first group includes those wh o have passed all of these exams.

They are admitted to the regular courses. The second group , developm ental stud ents,

includes those who are deficient in algebra and / or either reading or writing. Thesestud ents are requ ired to enroll in the colleges developm ental edu cation program .

Finally, those who are deficient in m ore than two areas, or deficient in both read ing and


24/69


writing, or deficient in basic arithmetic are den ied ad mission, although the college does

refer stud ents to Adu lt Education or d evelopm ental classes at a local commun ity col-

lege. The TECH COLLEGE staff has concluded th at these deficiencies are so serious

that they cannot be resolved through the colleges developm ental edu cation sequence.

Approximately 25 percent of the app licants at the branch we visited w ere out p laced

in this way. Thus TECH COLLEGE has defined an academic minimum, and their

jud gment is that they cannot successfully work with stud ents who do n ot meet that

minimum.

Public comm unity colleges, in contrast, are open-adm issions institutions; stu-

den ts dem onstrate an ability to benefit from postsecond ary education by holding ahigh school dip loma, a GED certificate, or demon strating academic comp etency

through grades, SAT/ ACT or Advanced Placement Exam scores. How ever, there are

some restrictions. The majority of comm un ity colleges (58 percent) mandate assessmen t

of all stud ents in reading, writing an d mathematics and 75 percent require that stud ents

be p laced in remedial or d evelopm ental edu cation based on the assessment scores.10

Most colleges set limits on the nu mber of times a stud ent may enroll in remediation by

increasing tu ition after mu ltiple attemp ts, restricting students from taking additional

remedial courses, end ing nonfederal student aid, and by limiting the nu mber of times a

student can retake the assessment test. On the other h and , most colleges allow stud ents

to enroll in college-level courses while taking rem edial courses.11

Curriculum Development and Faculty Role

Just as the mission and goals of the for-profits and public comm unity collegesdiffer, so do their approaches to meet them. At all the comparison comm un ity colleges,

individua l instructors make nearly all curriculum and ped agogy d ecisions. The disci-


25/69


plinary d ivision prescribes course content and texts with few exceptions. Individual

faculty control final exams, grad ing scales, stud ent learning assignments and methods

of instruction.

In contrast, curriculum and course content are developed centrally at TECH

COLLEGE. Stand ardized materials guide the content of each course and teaching

meth ods. Stand ard Cu rriculum Gu ides for each course typically consist of a catalog

description, a list of appropr iate topics to be explored, the level within the sequence of

courses, the rationale for the course, teaching su ggestions for using m ultimed ia or other

audiovisua ls, and suggested teaching method s for each of the course objectives. TECH

COLLEGE offers a limited set of programs and similar courses at all of its branch col-leges. This stand ardization affords stud ents the possibility of taking a consistent se-

quence of courses even though they may attend d ifferent branch camp uses or need to

change from d ay to evening classes..

TECH COLLEGE calls on experienced faculty to develop the standard ized cur-

riculum guides Each instructor may d eviate from suggested m ethods as long as the

designated objectives are met. Departmen t heads at TECH COLLEGE suggest that

centralization is a benefit to new and pa rt-time faculty wh o can use this framework to

design stud ent learning activities. Thus the curriculum gu ides become incorporated

into the professional developmen t program for new instructors. During ou r observa-

tions in classes, most instructors were generally adhering to the top ics and methods

foun d in the Curriculum Guides.

It shou ld be noted that, contrary to th e impression that for-profit colleges can

alter curriculum easily and qu ickly, the TECH COLLEGE course developm ent p rocess

takes several months. But the process is likely to be even longer at public comm un ity

colleges. For example, at one of the comparison colleges, the engineering d epartment


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and emp loyers asked for an applied technical algebra course. Once the math and engi-

neering faculty had d esigned the content, the new course had to be app roved by the

math and engineering dep artment curriculum comm ittees, the college-wide curriculum

committee, the academic senate and then th e State Departmen t of Higher Edu cation.

Most new courses encounter these same kinds of hu rdles: a departmental-level ap-

proval process, then a campu s app roval process, then an academic senate app roval, and

then some external review by a state or regional entity charged with avoiding d up lica-

tion or with constraining courses to a catalog of approved content.

On the other h and , comm un ity college faculty members are often imaginative

abou t circum venting som e of these complications. At one of the comp arison colleges,faculty mod ified the content and ped agogy of a course while retaining common course

outcomes without changing the nam e, thereby avoiding the d elay in obtaining state-

level approval.

Centralization of curriculum and other d ecision-making comm on at for-profit

institutionstend s to conflict w ith practices of faculty govern ance tha t characterize

commun ity colleges. TECH COLLEGE does pay attention to faculty developmen t, but

administrators view centralized curriculum development as the m eans to strengthen

quality and gu arantee a standard ized, well-defined service. Stud ents who take a par-

ticu lar course at any of the bran ches know w hat they will be learning, and th e for-profit

colleges in general see this transparency as an ad vantage to consumers (Ortmann,

1998). TECH COLLEGE staff also suggest that this stand ardization helps their students

find emp loyment. As one professor stated,

TECH COLLEGE is a know n qu antity in ind ustry. Employers know wh at TECHCOLLEGE does and they have a good idea what our stud ents know when they

come out. The practical knowledge that we teach is what ind ustry is looking for

and our studen ts have very little trouble finding jobs because of our repu tation.


27/69


Commun ity college faculty saw ad vantages in d ecentralized curriculum devel-

opm ent. At one college, faculty stated that it was both a way to tap th e energy and

enthu siasm of the faculty and a better way to respond to the needs of the commun ity.

Thus one faculty mem ber stated that [college] faculty are encouraged to design courses

that respond to a need , and often the ad ministration w ill allow the faculty member to

generate the enthusiasm and passion around the course. Ind eed, such flexibility and

au tonom y of faculty w ithin commun ity colleges is a major contrast to for-profit institu-

tions.

Faculty Hiring

From the point of view of the college ad ministration, faculty hiring at TECH

COLLEGE is more flexible than a t most comm un ity colleges. Since they are not p art of

a state or regional civil service system and faculty are not un ionized, as they are in

many comm un ity colleges, TECH COLLEGE can make hiring decisions independent of

outside influences (other than federal and state employment law). When TECH an tici-

pa tes the need for hiring p art-time or full-time faculty, it advertises in local new spap ers

and minimizes the nu mber of decision-makers involved. Only one or two staff mem-

bers are involved in the hiring decision. This process is more exped ient than the typ ical

commun ity college practice of shared governance in hiring decisions, in wh ich a team of

instructors and adm inistrators paper screens app lications, determines which candi-

dates to interv iew, conducts a group interv iew process, and then d iscusses impressions

among th e faculty.

But if the process for hiring is d ifferent a t TECH COLLEGE than at m ost publicinstitutions, the requirements for emp loyment are not. To meet regional accreditation

standard s, instructors at the pu blic and proprietary colleges we stud ied mu st hold a


28/69


masters degree in the field in wh ich they will teach. Neither training in ped agogy nor

experience in teaching was formally required a t TECH COLLEGE or the comparison

commu nity colleges. TECH p refers app licants who have had indu stry experience and

an ap preciation for the ad vantages of applied learning.

Curricula and Instruction

For-profit colleges emph asize the practical nature of their curricula. According to

prom otional literatu re and its website, stud ents at one chain of for-profits schools (not

TECH COLLEGE) learn and ap ply, because unlike man y trad itional colleges, wh ere

stud ents spend m ost of their time listening to lectures, [our] stud ents also spend consid-

erable time in the lab where they are encouraged to app ly what w as taught in the class-

room and see for themselves how, wh y and wh at makes things work. The same spirit

seems evident a t TECH COLLEGE.

As we ind icated , TECH COLLEGE starts its articulation of purposes with the

statemen t, To offer applications-oriented program s... One ad ministrator elaborated

what he sees as TECH COLLEGEs special app roach to instru ction:

TECH COLLEGE is d ifferent because of how we teach. TECH COLLEGE pro-vides an ed ucation for students who are not that theoretically oriented to m ath-

ematics but wh o wan t to pu rsue a career in technology. Due to these stud ents

particular orientation, they d o best in a h and s-on env ironment I think p eople

differentiate themselves into d ifferent learning environm ents. Someon e who is

very concrete learns best in a hand s-on env ironmen t We do have theory here,

but w e try to make the theory easier to un derstand through the use of lots of

experimen ts [labs] Stud ents look through our curriculum and they see lots of

labs and they say Oh, I can learn from labs.

Stud ents at TECH COLLEGE perceive this emp hasis as well. As one stated,

TECH COLLEGE is more into it. Some of these teachers w ere actually out in the

field before they became teachers. At some p laces Ive gon e, the teachers just

teach out of the teacher s book. Here they really know accounting.


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Labs are a componen t of nearly every technical course and several academic

courses offered at TECH COLLEGE, wh ereas, in community colleges labs are typically

delayed until the second or third course. For examp le, at one of the comparison special-

ized technical courses some science courses are accompanied by labs, but introd uctory

courses tend to be large, lecture classes which focus on general concepts. At TECH

COLLEGE a lab requ irement accomp anies every technical course in the Electronics

Technician program, as well as all general edu cation courses in Comp osition, Physics,

Quantitative Method s, and Statistics.

TECH COLLEGE instructors also make a p articular effort to tie general edu ca-

tion courses to practical applications. While introdu ctory general education courses areusually taught as stand -alone courses, second-level courses and some electives are

integrated w ith the career fields. These integrated courses include Motivation and

Leadership; Professional, Business, or Technical Writing; Technology and Ethics; and

Social Issues in Technology.

Entries in the Curr iculum Gu ide for an Ethics course illustrate this point. Stu-

dents are asked to carry out the following wr itten tasks:

Given an ind ustrial process, provide descriptions of several alterna tive ways toperform the process and develop a justification for the recommend ed app roach

that includ es both technical and ethical considerations.

In building a p ower sup ply w ith three outp ut voltages (12v DC, 5v DC, 120v DC),

you can choose a d ifferent style of connector for each voltage and eliminate the

possibility of making a m istake in hooking the wrong pow er to a mod ule in the

system, or use identical connectors and get a pr ice break on the connectors by

ordering a larger volume of one style. Justify your recomm end ation.

Many comm unity colleges have also developed integra ted curricula. The website

at one of our comp arison colleges states that the Electronics program emp hasizes

hand s-on learning through experiments that are selected an d paced to reinforce the


30/69


theoretical material. The program offers a low-cost, high-quality edu cation and han ds-

on classes with mu ch personal attention. App lied academ ics and linkages between

academ ic and occupational courses are typical strategies used at comm unity colleges,

neverth eless, research suggests that these are still very mu ch the exception in comm u-

nity colleges.

Although TECH COLLEGE did emp hasize app lications throu gh course linkages

and labs, the specific ped agogy u sed in the classroom is not d istingu ishable from th e

typical teaching styles eviden t at comm un ity colleges. All of the classroom teaching

that w e observed (in both developmental and regular classes) was characterized by

lectures w ith some limited d iscussion based on questions and answerswhat ed ucatorsusually refer to as the chalk and talk m ethod.

Finally, TECH COLLEGE stud ents take a much m ore structured curriculum than

commun ity college students. While stud ents at TECH COLLEGE are imm ersed in

programs with a limited number of electives, at commun ity colleges the selection of

electives is vast and students are permitted, even encouraged, to samp le among them.

In contrast to TECH COLLEGE,curricularcoherence at comm un ity colleges is achieved

through the majors, and students for the most part meet graduation requirements

throu gh a d istribution of credits across a nu mber of d isciplines. Even within m ajors, the

genera l edu cation requirements can be met by taking a wide variety of courses. Stu-

dents also have significant choices within th eir specific occupational fields. In many

community colleges, stud ents are not even required to declare a ma jor. Overall, com-

mun ity college stud ents have greater choice and d iscretion in their course selection than

stud ents at TECH COLLEGE.


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Course Sequencing

TECH COLLEGE sequences courses in such a way as to pu rposefu lly delay gen-

eral edu cation courses that might discourage stud ents. The first two terms are com-

posed of technical courses. This has two ad vantages over emphasizing the general

education courses in the first semesters. First, many students are more likely to be

interested and motivated by the concrete app lied courses, than by the more abstract

academic courses. Second , stud ents who need d evelopm ental level work can comp lete

it while they are taking their introd uctory technical courses. Stud ents wh o arrive with

academ ic deficiencies have mu ch more trouble with the genera l edu cation courses

which generally require composition skills, for examp le. With this sequencing, students

can get started on the ap plied field courses while they strengthen th eir academic skills.

Stud ents enroll in English du ring their third term , which is common ly referred to as the

killer-semester because the failure rate for English is high (as it is among community

college studen ts). By third term, studen ts are heavily invested in the p rogram and more

likely to repeat the course than if they failed it d ur ing their first term.

Overall, the teaching a t TECH COLLEGE and at the comm unity colleges was

similar, particu larly for instruction taking p lace in the classroom. The commitment of

TECH COLLEGE to applied instruction was most evid ent in its greater use of labs and

in its efforts to integra te genera l edu cation and specific occupational courses. Table 7

sum marizes the contrast between instruction at TECH COLLEGE and the genera l

approach to instruction at the comparison colleges.

Student Services

TECH COLLEGE places a great d eal of emph asis on ad missions, counseling, and

stud ent services. Marketing is central to the admissions process. An integrated market-

ing strategy introduces potential custom ers to all areas of the camp us. Recruiters go to

stud ents hom es and m ake presentations to families or school groups. The college also


32/69


has an extensive print marketing program. The colleges emph asis on ad missions is

eviden t in the app earance of the ad missions office. The reception area has a corporate

feel, with matching carpets and sofas and motivational signs on the walls. Admissions

counselors are young, professionally dressed and w ell spoken . In contrast, the admis-

sions process at all of the comp arison comm un ity colleges was more passive.

How ever man y commun ity colleges are becoming m ore active and focusing on

marketing. Following some regulatory changes at the state level in 1995, one of the

comparison commun ity colleges had experienced a decline in enrollment, which

prompted the college to embark on an extensive marketing camp aign that includ ed

expand ed h igh school outreach and the development of pu blications and other market-ing materials.

In the past, for-profit colleges have been criticized for over-aggressive m arketing

to stud ents wh o had little chance of success. This was a possible explanation for the

low completion rates and high loan default rates that were comm on am ong m any for-

profit colleges in the 1980s. To be sure, schools that d epend on tu ition for revenu es do

have an incentive to lower admissions standards. However, TECH COLLEGE did

require initial assessment tests and d id reject stud ents wh o did n ot pass those tests, a

process that prov ided a check to overenthu siastic marketing. Moreover, the passing

scores on the p lacemen t tests had just been raised at the TECH COLLEGE camp us that

we stud ied. Finally, und er some circumstances, the ad missions staff also got bonu ses

based on the completion rates of the students w ho they recruited, giving them an incen-

tive to find better-prepared stud ents. It is also worth noting tha t comm un ity colleges

may be seen as hav ing an incentive to increase enrollments by accepting stud ents wh o

have little chance of success, since FTE enrollments generate tu ition, state, and some-

times local revenu e.


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As part of its marketing strategy, TECH COLLEGE seeks to project a professional

and technologically sophisticated image. One strategy th at it uses involves its state-of-

the-art comp uter laboratory. This highly visible centerp iece of the TECH COLLEGE

camp us houses 300 new PCs in 1500 square feet. The wall between the lab and a

heavily traveled h allway is nearly all glass, so that most students look into or attend

class in th is lab on a d aily basis. The lab is full of stud ents working ind ividually and in

small group s on a m yriad of software and networking p rojects. A num ber of instructors

and student aides move through the lab providing ind ividu als with assistance. In

addition, many of the stud ents converse, comp aring answ ers for p roject assignments

and software challenges. The lab evokes an aura of professionalism and orderliness.Admissions, financial aid, assessment, adv isemen t and registration are closely

linked at TECH COLLEGE, so that stud ents remain und er the same set of administra-

tive practices for the first several terms. Stud ents work w ith financial aid advisors to

complete registration and finan cial aid forms online wh ich smooth es the stud ent entry

experience. Academ ic advisors help stud ents sched ule classes, complete registration

procedures and mon itor their academ ic achievement for the first two terms, after which

the stud ent is assigned to a program area (major) advisor. By smoothing the entry

experience for students, college officials hope to imp rove persistence and achievement.

TECH COLLEGE is proud of its career counseling and job p lacemen t services.

Nationally, the college employs abou t 5 full-time coun selors per camp us wh ose job it is

to help studen ts find part-time employment w hile enrolled and full-time work after

graduation. Every stud ent is encouraged to start their employment search well before

graduation, and alumni can continue to u se the placement services after gradu ation.

TECH COLLEGE prov ides extensive suppor t for the career search of students and

alumn i through a national database of employers, national ad vertising, career seminars,


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and career fairs.

TECH does track the emp loyment experience of its grad ua tes. Indeed , these data

are pu blished on the college website and they ind icate that for gradu ates in 2000, abou t

95 percent of those who looked for work found work in edu cation-related fields within

six months of grad uation. Average starting salaries for the different degrees, includ ing

all taxable compen sation, ranged from $31 to $48 thou sand . The data combine results

from both two and four year programs.

In contrast, admissions, counseling, and placement are far less integrated at

commun ity colleges. In most colleges, stud ents usu ally have to go to d ifferent offices

or people for financial aid , credit transfer, course selection, and career plann ing. Overallcounseling at commun ity colleges is notoriously uneven, with very low counselor to

stud ent ratios (Grubb, 2001). At one of our comp arison colleges, a stud ent interested in

discussing the p ossibility of studying in an information technology p rogram h ad to wait

a week to meet w ith a counselor. The college relied h eavily on its website to answ er

student qu estions. At another comp arison college, an exasperated faculty member

stated:

Some of our students m ight not be w illing to jump through all the hoop s to getinto the College and go through the student services processes. They have to fill

out the ap plication form withou t any help, make an ap pointmen t to go through

adv ising where the counselors try to talk you into taking general education

courses, get sched uled so they can sit through orientation, sched ule a time to take

an assessmen t test, go to another office to pay their fees we make it kind of

d ifficult for stud ents.

Job find ing and p lacemen t is usually a hap hazard p rocess. To be sure, many high

quality commun ity colleges have good relationships with emp loyers, but often this is

not a prom inent institutional commitment as it is at TECH COLLEGE. Instead stud ent

emp loyment placement for a community college is based on a case by case system of


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ind ividual faculty or staff using employment relationships for the students in their

programs. As a result, while some su ccess stories exist, it is more comm on that the

quality of these relationships varies across program s, and the overall placement of

stud ents is inconsistent and sporadic. Id iosyncratic placement services at the periphery,

are un likely to have the typ e of focus and economies of scale that have contributed to

the coordinated services and the highly publicized job placement results for graduates

of TECH COLLEGE. At one of the comp arison commun ity colleges, a faculty member

who had also taught at the local TECH COLLEGE camp us acknow ledged that TECHs

career assistance process was mu ch more extensive and that the comm unity college did

not have the extensive network of contacts and alum ni that TECH could d raw up on injob p lacemen t.

Flexibility and Scheduling

Schedu ling is another area in wh ich TECH COLLEGE hop es to provide some

extra value for their stud ents. For-profits in general tend to have frequen t entry and

exit options, allowing stud ents to blend stud y with work and family responsibilities.

TECH COLLEGE starts program sequen ces three times a year. Faculty are available to

assist studen ts du ring evening and weekend hou rs. Comp uter labs are open seven

days a week and library m aterials are available online. TECH COLLEGE, like many of

its public comp etitors, also has several different weekly sched uling op tions. For ex-

ample, stud ents can attend classes in the morn ing, the afternoon , or two d ifferent

evening time slots.

In ad dition to flexibility, the accelerated time to p rogram completion is an attrac-tive feature offered by m any well-known for-profits. One for-profit college (not TECH

COLLEGE) advertises that by attending class just one night a w eek, you can earn your


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degree years before you could at a traditional un iversitywithout interrupting you r

career! Anoth er states that their year-roun d schedu le helps stud ents comp lete their

education and en ter the workforce sooner. And at TECH COLLEGE, an administrator

said that the single greatest strength of the Electronics Technician p rogram is that

students are able to comp lete the program in a year and eight months.

In order to reach new types of stud ents TECH COLLEGE now offers accelerated

programs for working stud ents who have completed an associates degree. In attemp t-

ing to respond to studen ts desire for more au tonomy an d pow er over their academ ic

careers, TECH COLLEGE designed an accelerated d elivery system for just a few stu -

den ts, the system has become so popular that it has been expan ded to several majorsand is now open to man y high performing, matu re stud ents. Thus TECH COLLEGE

has broadened attendance options, so that stud ents can move from full to part time if

their employment situation changes, and from d ay to evening, thus enabling stud ents to

switch from trad itional to alternative enrollmen t pattern s.

Many community colleges also pride them selves on their flexibility and their

willingness to accommod ate working students. As we have seen, a stud ent at a for-

profit college is far more likely than a comm un ity college stud ent to be attending full-

time. Moreover, if a commu nity college stud ent attend s sum mer school and takes a full

load of courses, he/ she can certainly finish an associates degree in less than two years.

And the staff at one of the comparison commun ity colleges point ou t that, in many

respects, their school had many of the conven ient features of the for-profits. The school

has set up a satellite campu s in ad dition to the main campu s; courses are offered on -line

as well as du ring the day and evening; students get ind ividu al attention from counse-

lors. Another comp arison college also emphasized convenient sched uling, with classes

offered in the m orning, early afternoon, evenings and weekend s.


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But there are three d istinctions between the for-profits and commun ity colleges

concerning sched uling tha t are worth noting . First, most community colleges face more

difficulties than TECH COLLEGE does in developing non -traditional sched ules. For

examp le, the faculty contract in one city p reclud ed the college from offering regu lar

classes on Friday. Anoth er commu nity college cancelled some sum mer vocational

offerings because they ap peared to reduce fall enrollments in th ose classes. Second, as a

result of the restrictions th ey face, many commun ity colleges try to p rovide flexibility

throu gh continu ing edu cation and non-credit courses. TECH COLLEGE offers no such

courses. Although many students may be seeking specific skills that can be most effi-

ciently learned in a non-credit or stand-alone course, such courses are not suitable forstud ents wh o want a degree. Third, while it is possible to accelerate the time to degree

completion at a comm un ity college, an accelerated sequence is the norm at TECH COL-

LEGE where course sequencing an d sched uling is designed explicitly to facilitate accel-

erated graduation.

Data Driven Decision making

An institution can be more responsive to stud ent need s if it has good information

about w hat those needs are. More so than at the comparison commu nity colleges,

TECH COLLEGE monitors data on student p rogress to make curricular and program-

matic decisions. Dur ing one of our interviews at TECH, the entire wall of the meeting

room w as covered w ith graphs of stud ent retention by week across the five terms of an

associates degree program . Because the adm inistrators had identified a d ip in retention

du ring the term in which studen ts traditionally had enrolled for Comp osition (secondterm), the sequence of the p rogram w as shifted so that studen ts wou ld take Comp osi-

tion third term w hen they had d one some writing in technical courses and had devel-


38/69


oped a greater comm itment to the program. Other graphs showed course taking pat-

terns and m ovement among developm ental edu cation and subsequent credit courses.

Moreover, as we have seen, TECH COLLEGE also makes concerted efforts to

track the emp loyment exper ience of their graduates. These data can be used to assess

trend s in th e effectiveness of the college p lacemen t services.

Public comm unity colleges have recently come un der increased federal, state and

accreditation stud ent performance accountability requirements, requ iring increased

data collection. Nonetheless, it is rare for individual faculty to review retention-within-

course and across-program d ata or to use such d ata to change curriculum or sequences

of courses. Moreover, most commu nity colleges do not systematically keep track theemp loyment experience of their graduates. Comm un ity college staff tend to rely on

feedback from local employers and from studen ts to get a sense of the emp loyment

success of their graduates. An institutional researcher at one of our sites argued tha t

the increased reporting burd en resulting from the accoun tability m ovement has actually

diverted very scarce resources away from the type of useful analysis that we saw at

TECH COLLEGE. He stated that cur rently there are only two peop le at the d istrict

level that ad dress the issue of institutional research, and they are overw helmed by the

required man datory reports that must be comp leted for the district. Thus TECH COL-

LEGE had more information than the comparison colleges to evalua te the outcomes of

their programs, and was therefore in a better position to use such information for pro-

gram improvement.

Facilitating Transfer

We have emp hasized that for-profit institutions of higher education offer both 2-

and 4-year d egrees. Indeed , in the last year (1997-98) for which we had data, four-year


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for-profit colleges conferred more associates than bachelors degrees. TECH COLLEGE

is this type of hybrid institution. Combining two- and four- year programs w ithin one

college does facilitate tran sfer. TECH COLLEGE has created articulation between its

Electronic Technician (associate d egree) and Electron ics Engineering Technology (bacca-

laureate degree) programs. Nevertheless, TECH COLLEGE ad ministrators voiced some

of the same frustrations abou t fitting together two and four year programs that one

frequent ly hears at pu blic four-year colleges. That is, it is difficult to convert all of the

courses of a two-year terminal degree into the first two years of a four-year d egree.

Therefore, wh ile the electronic techn ician courses do transfer, this is something that the

college is still trying to improve.The presence of the two-year p rogram at the college does give TECH COLLEGE

more options when counseling app licants for the baccalaureate degree. The associate

degree Electronics Technician p rogram accepts lower placemen t scores than do other

programs, and students wanting to enroll in a program for which they fail the entry

scores are counseled to enroll in the ET program un til they improve their skills suffi-

ciently to apply to one of the higher skill programs.

TECH COLLEGE staff repor t that these stud ents, as well as stud ents who

for-profit higher education and community colleges

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