Editor's Choice: Measuring Outcomes: Is the First-time, Full-time Cohort Appropriate for the Community College?

Abstract

At least until the early 1980s, the most important measure of the quality of institutions of higher education had more to do with the inputs that went into the educational process than the outputs that came from that process. Thus, colleges were of high quality if they had a prestigious faculty, a highly selective student body, good libraries, research facilities, and such. Clearly some outputs were also important. Colleges were proud of their alumni who succeeded in business, medicine, and law. Today, all of these features are still associated with quality, but increasingly more emphasis is being put on measuring the outputs, or outcomes, of the educational process. Outcome measures may be concerned with student learning, counting the number of degrees awarded or measuring up to a variety of other standards of performance. One of the standard techniques used for measuring outcomes is cohort analysis. In measuring graduation rates, for instance, we might follow an entering student cohort for four or more years and then report on that cohort's retention and graduation rates. Such results are usually reported in the college catalog and to various state and accrediting agencies who are required to collect these measures. The cohort most commonly used for outcome analysis is the first-time, full-time student. This paper will argue that this cohort is not very meaningful for community colleges and tends to mask the true nature of their mission. Examples and data are taken from the State University of New York (SUNY) and from Broome Community College (BCC), which is a unit of the SUNY system and, we will argue, is not an atypical example. 42 Measuring Outcomes 001. Dellow and Romano

The Bird’s Eye View of Community Colleges: A Behavioral Typology of First-Time Students Based on Cluster Analytic Classification

“…Additionally, the increasing emphasis on institutional accountability (Bahr et al 2004;Dowd and Tong 2007;Layzell 1999), with a particular focus on the assessment of student outcomes (Dellow and Romano 2002;Dowd 2003;Gillmore and Hoffman 1997), has drawn attention to the need to distinguish students who enroll for differing objectives or desired benefits (e.g., Shulock and Moore 2007). For example, there is an enduring debate in the literature concerning how one may identify a ''transfer-seeking'' student (Bradburn and Hurst 2001;Wassmer et al 2004;Townsend 2002).…”

La inserción laboral de los titulados de la UNED. Formación continua y vías de acceso al empleo = Labour insertion ot UNED graduates. Continuous training and ways to access employment

“…De los diferentes enfoques metodológícos existentes en los estudios sobre la inserción laboral de los universitarios (Cabrera, Weerts y Zulick, 2007) se ha optado por el enfoque de los logros, que considera que este proceso puede evaluarse teniendo en cuenta lo que los uni-versitarios logran en los años posteriores a su titulación (Figuera, 1996;Cajide et al 2000;Delow y Romano, 2002;Rodríguez, 2003;ANECA, 2004;Serra, 2007). Los logros laborales como la inserción en un puesto de trabajo relacionado con los estudios, el tiempo en encontrar empleo y la satisfacción con el trabajo, son indicadores fundamentales en este enfoque metodológico.…”

If Community College Students Are So Poor, Why Do Only 16.9% of Them Receive Pell Grants?

“…Yet, so much of the data released by the U.S. Department of Education still deals with a student population that is more typical of the 4-year than the 2-year college (Dellow & Romano, 2002). For instance, an important recent report released by NCES (Choy, 2004) on how students pay for college, uses only data on full-time, full-year undergraduates who are financially dependent on their parents.…”