New System to Measure College Success

An unkown number of public 4 year institutions have agreed on a voluntary sytem to provide comparative data on: students and families, college student experiences/ perceptions, and student learning outcomes. The new effort is called "College Portrait" and includes some big name systems including Calififornia State University, University of Wisconsin system and University of North Carolina system. These institutions will report to the public on NSSE student surveys as well as an outcome measure like the College Learning Assessment for seniors. But it is unclear how many participants will use the same student learning measure since there are options. Perhaps Secretary Spellings commision had something to do with galvanzing such an open reporting system. In the past, most colleges have kept their assessments of student opinions and outcomes confidential.
This is a very interesting and promising development that hopefully will grow. The University of California system has refused to participate because of the learning assessment test. Moreover, College Portrait will use a six year graduation mesasure which is controversial because many students take longer than six years to complete college.

Labels: College Completion, College Success