Report on higher ed reflects state concerns
BOSTON - State officials say a federal report on higher education underscores problems facing Massachusetts' colleges and universities, including issues of affordability and preparing high school graduates for college.
The report, released Tuesday by U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, contains recommendations for restructuring the entire financial aid system and improving accountability by creating a massive database of information on how colleges are performing.
Stephen Tocco, chairman of the state Board of Higher Education, said the report's finding that, nationwide, tuition rates are climbing faster than both inflation and family income, is of great concern in Massachusetts. The state's high cost of living and its growing number of low-income families and minorities make the rising cost of college an even more urgent issue here, he said.
'Affordability is an important issue because we're in a high-cost state,' Tocco said.
He said more students now require remedial coursework in college, which pushes up costs further and is frustrating for students.
'The MCAS is very valuable, but just passing the MCAS exam does not prepare students for college,' he said.
Tocco said the growing number of MCAS graduates means that more students are applying to colleges in Massachusetts, but many are unprepared for college. 'We're taking a hard look at our higher ed admission standards,' he said.
Nationally, the report found 40 percent of college students require remedial coursework, costing taxpayers an extra $1 billion a year. Although state education officials did not have an estimate for Massachusetts, Patricia Plummer, chancellor of the state's public higher education system, said the amount was 'significant.'
Despite the problems highlighted in the report, Tocco said the state was 'ahead of the curve' on many of the report's recommendations.
The report, 'A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S Higher Education,' was prompted by the recognition that the United States is losing its competitive edge in higher education. A commission comprising members from industry and academia prepared the report.
Secretary Spellings said that although 90 percent of the fastest-growing job categories require higher education, only one-third of Americans have a college degree. In recent years, this country has dropped from first place to 12th in the percentage of citizens with college degrees, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
In the past decade, the percentage of college graduates deemed prose literate (able to read and extrapolate from a complex text) declined from 40 to 31 percent. And the $22,000 average annual cost per student of attending college in 2001 was twice the average of other industrialized countries.
The report offers several recommendations to reform higher education and equip students with skills for the 21st century, including the reform of a 'confusing, complex, inefficient (and) duplicative' financial aid system.
It recommends a federal-state partnership to simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) process. It also suggests new funding for a need-based aid system and providing students with information about aid eligibility before the spring of their senior year in high school to help families plan better.
Plummer said Massachusetts has been a leader in addressing the financial aid system. She said the state's Financial Aid Task Force, an initiative set up two years ago to restructure and simplify aid processes, will submit its findings next month.
'Most of the pieces in the report are already on our agenda,' she added.
Plummer said she was disappointed by the lack of 'wholesale' federal incentives, such as the post World War II G.I. Bill, to encourage people to go to college.
'There's nothing like that now,' she said.