Reflections on “Dream School” Presentation at NACAC

At the NACAC Conference in Columbus (OH), I had the opportunity to listen to two amazing authors – Jeff Selingo and Angel Perez – talk about their new books.  This month’s post will be somewhat of a random assortment of thoughts based on one of their presentations.  Next month, I will share thoughts on the other.

During Jeff Selingo’s presentation, he was asked about future considerations or implications for higher education, and what he would recommend to families as they search for colleges that would be a good match for their children.  While I have not finished reading the book, I love how he described that there is not one perfect “Dream School” for a student.   For those of us that do enrollment and admission work, we would affirm this.  Rather, there are series of institutions, with similar enough characteristics and features, that would be a good match for students.  I am finding this now with my own high school senior as he engages in his college search. 

As Jeff concluded his talk, he also talked about how colleges are often measured based on the earnings of recent alums as part of the ROI of the institution and education.  While I understand why, the thought that came to my mind was – how do you index a college based on earnings relative to the desired outcomes of the student?  For example, students with a meaningful percent of alums in STEM fields are going to be higher than those with a meaningful percent who are elementary education majors.  Does that mean the STEM fields college is better than the elementary education college?  Hardly, from my perspective.  Developing a robust alumni earnings index that calculates median salary relative to college major would level the playing field.     

Another way to index or normalize alumni earnings as a means of a college’s ROI would be to look at this figure relative to the median family AGI (Aggregate Gross Income) of its students.  Institutions with students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds would likely have alums with higher earnings figures.  Making this calculation would also serve to level the playing field to some degree.

Another thought that came to mind was, how do you index institutions who overachieve on student persistence as a measure of institutional value?  For instance, highly selective institutions should have higher persistence rates – and in fact, in most cases, they do.  What about those less selective institutions that do great work in the student success space?  I worked at an institution where we admitted nearly 80% of students but achieved a 90% first year persistence rate.  US News does some work in their rankings to normalize this, but it is just a component of the rank.  To me, measuring those institutions that overachieve or hit above their weight in this space as a standalone metric is meaningful as a measure of a college’s value.

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) has always been a little but of a thorn in my side.  I think the intent of the survey instrument is great and somewhat helpful in assessing student engagement.  However, one of the survey’s limitations, from my perspective, is data at the student record level is not shared nor is available to the institution, so they are unable follow up with those students who are less engaged who may be at-risk for attrition.  I also believe similar market position institutions could be segmented and the data made available such that NSSE outcomes could be further indexed or benchmarked or used in a way to help students identify those institutions that score highly or match their interests. 

Similarly, how could you develop an index of colleges where students feel valued to a more meaningful degree such that there is a stronger sense of belonging as a measure of a college’s value?  Jeff’s good point was that those institutions where there is a dedicated first year experience serves to more successfully onboard or transition students to the institution lending to higher student persistence.  Targeting those institutions in the college search would be those that seem to value the student to a more meaningful degree.  While statistics vary, some research reports that as high as 80% of college students change their major.  Those institutions that do not force a student to choose a major or a particular school or college as a freshman, instead letting them pursue or find their passions, lend to higher persistence rates.  To me, the institutions that put greater value on student transitions offer higher overall college value. 

In closing, I just wanted to give a shout out thank you to Jeff for giving me the opportunity to review a chapter for “Dream School”.  Stay tuned for next month when I will share what I learned from Angel Perez’s session at NACAC relative to his book, “The Hottest Seat on Campus”.  Until then, stay resilient while working to find your joy.