How much of a difference does it make whether a student of a given academic ability enters a more or a less selective four-year college? Some studies claim that attending a more academically selective college markedly improves one’s graduation prospects. Others report the reverse: an advantage from attending an institution where one’s own skills exceed most other students.
Using multilevel models and propensity score matching methods to reduce selection bias, we find that selectivity does not have an independent effect on graduation. Instead, we find relatively small positive effects on graduation from attending a college with higher tuition costs. We also find no evidence that students not attending highly selective colleges suffer
reduced chances of graduation, all else being equal.
KEYWORDS: college selectivity, graduation, selection bias, propensity score matching, tuition
Just over 9% of all students attended more than one institution during the 2012-13 academic year.
The postsecondary student mobility rate is the percentage of students, across all levels of study, who enrolled in more than one institution in a single academic year (including summer and concurrent enrollments.) It provides a current indicator of the prevalence of multi-institutional student pathways.
While discussions on the value of education often focus on economic gains, the social returns to education are vast and can be reaped at both the individual level (e.g., better health) and societal level (e.g., lower crime rates).
Based on a combination of new and existing analyses, this paper explores the individual benefits and disadvantages associated with education, focusing on civic engagement; health/happiness; crime; and welfare/unemployment. The findings clearly suggest that investing in education has both individual and social benefits. While no causal link can be made between level of education and the returns examined, it is evident that those with some form of postsecondary education (PSE) often fare better than those with no more than a high school education.
For example, in terms of civic engagement, university graduates are more likely than high school graduates to volunteer and donate money. Higher levels of education also increase the likelihood of voting and other forms of political participation. In terms of health and happiness, university graduates tend to rate their physical and mental health higher than those with fewer years of education and are also less likely to smoke. Finally, happiness and life satisfaction also tend to increase with education.
Educated individuals are less likely to be incarcerated, most notably when comparing high school graduates with those who did not graduate. With that said, certain types of crime are more prevalent among certain populations and individuals with higher levels of education are more likely to commit white collar crimes. Finally, those with more education have lower unemployment rates and fared better during the most recent economic recession. They were less likely to require social assistance and had shorter welfare spells, especially for women.
Spending on research and development (R&D) in Canada's higher education sector increased 2.3% on a fiscal year basis between 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 to $12.1 billion. The higher education sector is composed of universities and affiliated research hospitals, experimental stations and clinics.
When adjusted for inflation, higher education R&D spending rose 0.6% in 2012/2013, the smallest constant dollar increase in a decade. Provincially, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia increased spending
on R&D in the higher education sector in 2012/2013. While Newfoundland and Labrador posted the largest year-over-year percentage increase in spending, Ontario accounted for most of the national gain in 2012/2013.
Total expenditures on R&D are classified into two fields of science: natural sciences and engineering as well as social sciences and humanities. Overall, about 80% of total R&D expenditures were concentrated on natural sciences and engineering, which rose 2.2% from 2011/2012 to $9.7 billion. Spending on social sciences and humanities R&D increased 2.6% to $2.4 billion.
This study investigates the relationship between approaches to studying and course completion in two online preparatory university courses in mathematics and computer programming. The students participating in the two courses are alike in age, gender, and approaches to learning. Four hundred and ninety-three students participating in these courses answered the short
version of the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST). Results show that students demonstrating a deep approach to learning in either course are more likely to complete. In the mathematics course, a combination of deep and strategic approaches correlates positively with course completion. In the programming course, students who demonstrate a surface approach are less likely to complete. These results are in line with the intentions of the course designers, but they also suggest ways to improve these courses. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that ASSIST can be used to evaluate course design.
71% of our StudentVu Panel will be living at home for the summer, without plans for travel (30% simply said ‘no’ to travelling, while 38% stated they didn’t have the money). This leaves a bit of time for relaxing, catching up with friends and, of course, a summer job. We asked the StudentVu Panel about their job plans for the summer, and their answers revealed some interesting
things about the summer job market.
Mental health is a growing concern for all Canadians.
To date, it is estimated that approximately 20% of Canadians will experience some sort of mental illness in their lifetime. It also
remains a pressing issue for students across Canadian campuses as institutions continue to signal a number of meantal health cases.
There is national and international recognition of the importance of innovation, technology transfer, and entrepreneurship for sustained economic revival. With the decline of industrial research laboratories in the United States, research universities are being asked to play a central role in our knowledge-centered economy by the technology transfer of their discoveries, innovations, and inventions. In response to this challenge, innovation ecologies at and around universities are starting to change. However, the change has been slow and limited. The authors believe this can be attributed partially to a lack of change in incentives for the central stakeholder, the faculty member. The authors have taken the position that universities should
expand their criteria to treat patents, licensing, and commercialization activity by faculty as an important consideration for merit, tenure, and career advancement, along with publishing, teaching, and service.This position is placed in a historical context with a look at the history of tenure in the United States, patents, and licensing at universities, the current status of university tenure and career advancement processes, and models for the future.
This report examines the emergence of the Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) and its impact on business schools. Business schools provide a bundle of benefits to students, only one of which is learning specific academic subjects. The focal technology relevant to business schools is not the MOOC but rather a technology embedded within the MOOC — chunked
asynchronous video paired with adaptive testing, a technology we call “SuperText.” The SuperText technology opens up at least three pathways for business schools. Via one pathway, SuperText allows institutions to serve more students better and/or more efficiently.
Via a second pathway, institutions can serve existing students with fewer faculty members. Along a third pathway, the functions of a business school are unbundled and business schools as we know them are substantially displaced by alternatives. These pathways can be thought of as a menu of options for a business school contemplating how to use the new technologies.
Alternatively, these pathways are scenarios that could unfold with or without the active participation of an institution. Although our focus is on business schools, we believe the analysis is relevant to higher education more generally.
This last year has seen a growing number of votes of “no confidence” in institutional leaders. Traditionally targeted at presidents, there are numerous examples of faculty who have taken such steps against provosts, general counsels, deans, and entire administrations (among others).
The increase in such votes is a troubling diagnostic of the state of leadership in higher education. A vote of no confidence doesn’t just happen. It usually results, over time, from poor communication and a lack of meaningful engagement or inclusion. A
no-confidence vote is a sign of low trust and can derail a campus.
How do such toxic situations arise and what can be done to prevent them?
Leaders need to engage with their constituents directly and consistently seek feedback and input. Without access to unfiltered information—honest concerns, suggestions, and ideas—leaders risk being seduced into thinking that they are on the
right path and that everyone is firmly behind them.
Education is a crucial enabler in the modern world, giving children skills that are essential in later life. Parents expect these skills to be learned at different stages of education, with confidence (47%) and competency in the core skills of Maths, Science and English (43%) the most important outcomes of a good primary education.
At secondary school, parents want a good education to deliver skills in core subjects (40%) and in key areas such as problem solving (35%), computer literacy (32%) and analytical thinking (32%). University is seen as a springboard for success. More than two in five (43%) parents around the world say the ability to compete in the workplace is a key expectation of a good university education.
However, parents are united in having high aspirations for their children. Nearly nine in 10 (89%) parents want their child to go to university. Just over three in five (62%) want their child to study to a postgraduate level.
This program has been designed to assist you in your development as an academic leader. More specifically, it has been designed to assist you in acquiring the skills and knowledge needed to perform your academic leadership role more effectively. These roles may have various titles depending on the University within which you work. They may be Program Director or Course Coordinator. Whatever the title, the role is one where you have responsibility to manage the delivery and quality of an academic field of study. For ease of writing, the Academic Coordinator title is used in this book. It is based on the principle that leadership development needs to be tailored to the needs of both the individual and the role, and recognises that you are in an academic leadership role with little or no formal authority or power. This program builds on research on leadership in management as well as research on academic leadership. It utilises critical reflection as a strategy that fosters deep learning. The new understanding will help you to develop your personalised action plans. These will strengthen your professional competence as an academic leader.
Section 2 concerns the ways in which teaching and learning at a distance is being transformed in various international and practical contexts. Arguably, distance education has been characterised by transformation since its earliest correspondence days through to the integration of online media. Tony Bates pursues this latter theme in his opening chapter for the section where the range of new media and their implications and transformative features in distance education and from distance education to mainstream educational practices are discussed.
Distance education, however, is not merely educational which is particularly mediated by communications media; it is also an approach to education in which the educators, designers, support staff and students are engaged differently and often for purposes that have particular social and policy imperatives. As Liz Burge and Jody Polec argue, there are elements of change and consistency for the people involved which can be tracked through the evolution of distance education from its inception. Chère Campbell Gibson explores the ways in which non-formal education in the United States have been transformed by both new technologies and the changing circumstances and needs of the population for non-formal education, especially as lifelong learning.
As a key component of a comprehensive research program on learning outcomes, HEQCO initiated a Tuning project to identify and measure learning outcomes in specific “sectors” of postsecondary education (i.e., life and health science, physical science and social science) in Ontario colleges and universities. The term “Tuning” refers to a process of bringing together individuals from across institutions to articulate common student learning outcomes. Quite simply, it is a bottom-up process by those who are “on the ground” to articulate learning outcomes that are relevant, appropriate and useable.
What will the landscape of international higher education look like a generation from now? What challenges and opportunities lie ahead for universities, especially “global” research universities? And what can university leaders do to prepare for the major social, economic, and political changes—both foreseen and unforeseen—that may be on the horizon? The nine essays in this collection proceed on the premise that one way to envision “the global university” of the future is to explore how earlier generations of university leaders prepared for “global” change—or at least responded to change—in the past. As the essays in this collection attest, many of the pat-terns associated with contemporary “globalization” or “internationalization” are not new; similar processes have been underway for a long time (some would say for centuries).1 A comparative-historical look at universities’ responses to global change can help today’s higher-education leaders prepare for the future.
This study examines which factors underlie the narrowing of wage differences observed between young bachelor’s degree holders and high school graduates from the 2000-to-2002 period to the 2010-to-2012 period and the widening of differences in full-time paid employment rates between these two groups. The study uncovers three key findings. First, while the oil boom seen during much of the 2000s tended to reduce wage differences across education levels for both young men and young women, the remaining contributing factors differed across gender. Increases in real minimum wages and in the relative supply of bachelor’s degree holders tended to narrow wage differences for young women but not for young men. In contrast, movements in unionization rates and in the relative prevalence of temporary jobs reduced the education wage premium for young men but not for young women. The second finding is that increases in real minimum wages appear to have had a dual impact for young women, narrowing wage differences between young female bachelor’s degree holders and high school graduates but widening differences in full-time paid employment rates between these two groups. The third finding is that the narrowing of wage differences between young bachelor’s degree holders and high school graduates employed in full-time jobs was offset by a widening of differences in full-time paid employment rates between these two education groups. As a result, differences in unconditional average weekly earnings or in average annual wages and salaries between young bachelor’s degree holders and high school graduates displayed no trend during the observation period.
Workforce development issues have come to the forefront of national discussions as the country continues its recovery from the Great Recession. In this shifting economy, one way that job seekers, students and workers may improve their opportunities is by earning credentials. Colleges, states and the federal government have traditionally tracked the attainment of bachelor’s and associate’s degrees, but recent research suggests that there are other types of credentials that matter to employers. One-quarter of adults in the United States had a non-degree credential in fall 2012, and full-time workers with these credentials have higher median earnings than those without, according to a report released in January 2014 by the U.S. Census Bureau.1 The report shows that non-degree credentials are an important part of the labor market.
In November 2013, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) asked students to comment on their experience with summer and in-study employment. Of particular interest were: the number of jobs students were working during these terms;
whether or not these opportunities were within a student’s field of study; and whether they positively impacted their academic performance.
Results of OUSA’s 2013 Ontario Post-Secondary Student Survey (OPSSS) were further broken down based on institution and field of study for questions of particular interest. This was done to easily compare the responses from these distinct groups to
see how consistent the undergraduate employment experience was across academic disciplines and universities.
In this white paper, we report on the chronic problem of humanities PhD academic underemployment, develop an argument for the social value of high-level humanities research and teaching, and outline a series of measures for the reform of the PhD in the humanities. We note that most recent thinking about humanities graduate study has focused on the institution of the academy and the academic labour market. While we agree that these are significant focal points, we nevertheless maintain that it is important to develop a wider viewpoint that sees the university as a participant in the political world.
Recognition of the importance of a high-quality system of postsecondary education (PSE) in meeting the demands of Canada’s knowledge-based economy has focused recent media and policy attention on the role of Ontario’s colleges and universities in facilitating the successful transition of postsecondary graduates to the labour market. In particular, there is growing interest in the expansion of postsecondary work-integrated learning (WIL) programs – which include co-op, clinical placements, internships, and more – as a means of improving students’ employment prospects and labour market outcomes.
These programs are also believed to benefit students in other ways, for example, by enhancing the quality of the postsecondary experience and improving learning outcomes. Yet despite assumptions about the benefits of postsecondary WIL programs, relatively little empirical research has been conducted to assess students’ perspectives on the value of WIL and the learning outcomes associated with WIL participation.