This morning, Emeritus Professor of Economics Lee Hansen released a WISCAPE paper about the "resource costs of minority and disadvantaged student programs at UW-Madison" and in about an hour he will host a brownbag on the topic in the Wisconsin Idea Room at the School of Education. I am on a flight to LA and thus will miss it; therefore I offer my perspective here.
I have a wide range of experience that I can bring to bear on these issues, having analyzed the reports of UW-Madison and UW System myself for nearly a decade, chaired the Undergraduate Recruitment, Admissions and Financial Aid shared governance committee for many years, and engaged in numerous analyses of the costs and benefits of higher education programs throughout the nation. I also know Lee, both personally and professionally. As I offer these thoughts, I want to note the sincere belief that he seeks to improve the ways in which we serve minority and disadvantaged students in this country, and does not seek to exclude them from opportunities. However, on the most effective and appropriate mechanisms through which this should be achieved, he and I disagree sharply.
There are 5 things you should keep in mind in reading his report.
1. It is imperative that more faculty at UW-Madison and UW System get involved in analyzing the practices of our institution. We are key shareholders, the most important and long-standing actors, the educators, and we are smart, critical, and essential. We should support Lee's demands that we be provided with data to facilitate a closer look at how resources are used. There is abundant evidence that they are not being used well.
2. The debate over the public and private benefits of higher education is far from resolved. Lee has staked out one side of that debate for many decades; in fact he led the charge nationally in the late 1960s, along with Milton Friedman, for a move to the private financing of higher education-- with financial aid distributed in the form of vouchers to facilitate choice. We have Lee to thank, in part, for today's system in which students and families bear 2/3rds or more of the costs of attendance, while government picks up an ever smaller fraction. His beliefs in this regard are reflected in the questions he raises about whom the benefits of diversity programming accrue to-- who should pay, he thinks, depends on who benefits. And, he thinks, educational benefits can and should be evaluated in this way too. I sharply disagree-- education is a citizen's right, it is (unfortunately) America's only real effort to ensure equality of opportunity for a decent life-- and as such it should be publicly supported. It has been a political choice to devote little time and resources toward documenting the public benefits of higher education, instead allowing the focus of labor economists like Lee to hammer on the private benefits over and over again.
3. The type of cost-benefit analysis undertaken in the paper gives the aura of science when in fact it is art. Like all social scientists, Lee is relying on numerous assumptions about what should and shouldn't count when accounting for all of the costs. He is including ingredients in his model that obviously the accountants at UW-Madison and UW System left out-- on both side those are choices, but there is no clear right or wrong here. Thus, it is merely political rhetoric on Lee's part to claim that UW has failed to be transparent in its accounting-- the Legislature itself failed in clearly specifying its expectations.
4. The timing of this report release and brown bag reeks of political motives as well, coming just weeks or even days before the pending Supreme Court ruling on Fisher vs Texas, in the midst of UW's diversity planning, and right after UW System was taken to task for another accounting "snafu."
5. The report repeatedly cherry picks evidence on the benefits and costs of diversity, ignoring entirely the recent paper issued by other UW-Madison economists, Bobbi Wolfe and Jason Fletcher, on the consequences of racial diversity.
All that said, I do think Lee is providing one important service: asking us to take a hard look at our activities beyond admissions. As Doug Massey has written, affirmative action programs come in three flavors-- the good, the bad, and the ugly. The best ones generate compositional diversity and leverage that diversity to improve the learning environment for everyone. The bad ones do the former and not the latter. The ugly ones don't succeed at either.
We are currently in the ugly category at Madison. We bring students to campus and throw resources at them but fail to give leaders in this area sufficient stature and power to effect real change. We have segregated classrooms and living spaces, and we tokenize our racial-ethnics.
Since this report is now in the public eye, I make the following recommendations:
1. UW-Madison and UW System should take seriously the contention that faculty, staff, and students deserve greater access and involvement in how resources are spent. I think that a cabinet of social scientists advisors should supplement the UC, and that incoming Chancellor Blank should convene this group. This group should have methodological, disciplinary, and substantive heterogeneity and expertise.
2. A discussion of costs and benefits should be undertaken for all sorts of programs on campus, including Athletics, Greek Life, faculty professional development etc. Minority programming is not our only expense, nor our most expensive.
3. This report should not be merely ignored or dismissed as nonsense by Administration. Use the opportunity to have a conversation about diversity and how we can do better in utilizing it to enhance our educational experiences. Also leverage this chance to have a discussion about public and private goods. A report I will make to the Faculty Senate on Monday about the characteristics of incoming students, developed by CURAFA, should help move that conversation forward.
I wish you all well at today's brownbag, and look forward to hearing about the discussion.
Showing posts with label diversity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diversity. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Choices, Choices, Choices
As expected, the UW Regents moved forward Friday, approving the proposal from the UW-Madison Administration to raise the cap on out-of-state enrollment even though it hadn't been vetted through proper shared governance channels. The cap was moved from 25% to 27.5%, rather than to 30% as requested.
In typical style, everyone involved acted like this represented the wise, informed choice arrived at through careful decision-making. Of course, we have real choices given the "new normal," a context so normalized at this point that the vast majority of our campus intellectuals can't even see that "normal" is a political agenda.
But as I constantly work to help my students understand, there is always a choice. And the lack of careful thought being paid by the state and its universities to this particular choice could easily come at the expense of Wisconsin residents. Sure, there are other options. Let's consider the range of possibilities.
Assumptions
1. Unless explicitly noted, each scenario below works with the previously existing 25% cap on OOS to adjust the student body to achieve greater diversity and/or greater revenue for UW-Madison. You could do the same exercise with 27.5% percent.
2. I illustrate three dimensions of diversity here-- socioeconomic (via %Pell), national geographic (via OOS), and international. Of course there are others, but not knowing, for example, the % of racial/ethnic minorities within each current category of students I couldn't do the modeling (for example, what % of WI residents at Madison are racial/ethnic minority now?) It would help if that sort of thing were publicly available.
3. Since the %Pell is a characteristic often recognized in rankings and accountability metrics, I consider it by applying it to Wisconsin residents only. This could be an error-- if, for example, a sizable proportion of Madison's Pell enrollment comes from OOS. I strongly suspect this isn't the case, however, given that college choices of Pell students tend to be geographically constrained and Pell recipients are more expensive for the university's budget (e.g. because they require more institutional aid).
4. I assume, unless explicitly noted, that MN students count as "residents" when computing the cap since that's the rule.
5. I assume that international students are less expensive than other students because they do not qualify for financial aid.
6. I assume that it is possible to increase the proportion of Pell recipients and international students without diminishing the academic preparedness standards of the institution. This can be achieved in several ways: (a) Waiving the ACT requirement for all or some students -- for example it could be waived for Wisconsin residents. The ACT is predictive of freshman year GPA and very little else-- it is not a useful assessment of how capable individuals are of succeeding at UW-Madison. (b) Recruiting in low-cost ways in a variety of additional countries, rather than focusing on a single nation or small set of nations with a limited pool. Anyone rejecting this contention should be asked to provide evidence to the contrary- -rather hard given the many studies showing the sizable pool of high-ability low-income students currently not in college.
Where things stand now
This is approximately the current distribution of UW-Madison students. The percent Pell is slightly off (around 12%) but it has bumped around in minor ways for years. The main points are that (a) %Pell is well below that of our peer institutions (there's a nice paper by Bob Haveman of LaFollette on this), (b) Wisconsin residents are just 63% of the total now, even with the 25% cap, (c) international students are a small fraction of our allowable OOS enrollment, and (d) MN residents are dramatically overrepresented among U.S. students from outside Wisconsin.
Chart 2 shows that under the existing 25% cap, we could increase diversity and raise additional revenue by (a) reducing the percent of OOS students from the U.S. and increasing the representation of international students and (b) reducing the percent of WI residents who don't qualify for the Pell Grant and increasing the percent of students on the Pell grant (which would require some of the revenue from the international students, and a relaxation of our admissions focus on the ACT score).
Chart 3 shows that the previous cap was insufficiently specified to protect a UW-Madison focus on Wisconsin residents, and the new cap doesn't do this either. The new cap requires 200 additional seats for WI residents but this could be done by expanding overall enrollment-- the proportion WI resident could still decline. Thus, it would be possible for the % Wisconsin (and the %Pell) to decline below 50%, and the % international to fully replace the % OOS-- if Madison so chose.
Of course, the scenario in Chart 3 isn't likely in the near future-- though it is possible. I think that instead we are moving towards Chart 4 by growing enrollment a bit. This is a more diverse campus in that it's more international, and national diversity is increased a bit by trading MN students for WI students, and it raises revenue. But it does nothing to increase the socioeconomic diversity of the institution. (After all, the constituency for that group, I'm told, amounts to me and my friends.) Heck, why not go for 0% Pell while you're at it, and maximize the heck out of students' dollars?
That would lead you closer to Chart 5-- still allowable under the prior and current caps, as long as overall enrollment grows. We can let in more MN students, and cut WI representation, and diversify further through more international enrollment. Nothing really to stop us, especially if we're headed for lots of online classes.
Finally, let me leave you with what I think is fairly close to the optimal scenario. This one does require a change, but it's one that the Regents should like. If the goal of the cap is to protect seats for WI students, then we should count MN students as the out-of-state students they are. We can keep reciprocity while doing this (though one should ask-- why?). But it requires a change to the cap, since MN -- currently not counted-- would count towards it. Under this scenario, we could diversify both in terms of U.S. states and internationally, and use the increased revenue to increase socioeconomic diversity by increasing the %Pell. The current % Wisconsin remains the same. That's a change to the cap that would have made plenty of sense and given Madison administration more wiggle room without endangering enrollment among WI residents.
These are just a handful of options. Each one reflects a different composition of the student body. It is for that reason that any efforts to alter the constraints we face should be fully vetted through shared governance. Constraints both help and hinder us-- they help us focus in the face of temptation, and when badly specified they prevent us from doing actual and real good.
Before Madison administrators sought changes from the Regents, they should have been required to show their cards-- which of these scenarios are they after? Why should we imagine they plan to give primary responsibility for these academic decisions to their faculty, staff, and students-- even though it's specified in Chapter 36.09? After all, remember, they feel they "have no choices."
In typical style, everyone involved acted like this represented the wise, informed choice arrived at through careful decision-making. Of course, we have real choices given the "new normal," a context so normalized at this point that the vast majority of our campus intellectuals can't even see that "normal" is a political agenda.
But as I constantly work to help my students understand, there is always a choice. And the lack of careful thought being paid by the state and its universities to this particular choice could easily come at the expense of Wisconsin residents. Sure, there are other options. Let's consider the range of possibilities.
Assumptions
1. Unless explicitly noted, each scenario below works with the previously existing 25% cap on OOS to adjust the student body to achieve greater diversity and/or greater revenue for UW-Madison. You could do the same exercise with 27.5% percent.
2. I illustrate three dimensions of diversity here-- socioeconomic (via %Pell), national geographic (via OOS), and international. Of course there are others, but not knowing, for example, the % of racial/ethnic minorities within each current category of students I couldn't do the modeling (for example, what % of WI residents at Madison are racial/ethnic minority now?) It would help if that sort of thing were publicly available.
3. Since the %Pell is a characteristic often recognized in rankings and accountability metrics, I consider it by applying it to Wisconsin residents only. This could be an error-- if, for example, a sizable proportion of Madison's Pell enrollment comes from OOS. I strongly suspect this isn't the case, however, given that college choices of Pell students tend to be geographically constrained and Pell recipients are more expensive for the university's budget (e.g. because they require more institutional aid).
4. I assume, unless explicitly noted, that MN students count as "residents" when computing the cap since that's the rule.
5. I assume that international students are less expensive than other students because they do not qualify for financial aid.
6. I assume that it is possible to increase the proportion of Pell recipients and international students without diminishing the academic preparedness standards of the institution. This can be achieved in several ways: (a) Waiving the ACT requirement for all or some students -- for example it could be waived for Wisconsin residents. The ACT is predictive of freshman year GPA and very little else-- it is not a useful assessment of how capable individuals are of succeeding at UW-Madison. (b) Recruiting in low-cost ways in a variety of additional countries, rather than focusing on a single nation or small set of nations with a limited pool. Anyone rejecting this contention should be asked to provide evidence to the contrary- -rather hard given the many studies showing the sizable pool of high-ability low-income students currently not in college.
Where things stand now
Chart 3 shows that the previous cap was insufficiently specified to protect a UW-Madison focus on Wisconsin residents, and the new cap doesn't do this either. The new cap requires 200 additional seats for WI residents but this could be done by expanding overall enrollment-- the proportion WI resident could still decline. Thus, it would be possible for the % Wisconsin (and the %Pell) to decline below 50%, and the % international to fully replace the % OOS-- if Madison so chose.
Of course, the scenario in Chart 3 isn't likely in the near future-- though it is possible. I think that instead we are moving towards Chart 4 by growing enrollment a bit. This is a more diverse campus in that it's more international, and national diversity is increased a bit by trading MN students for WI students, and it raises revenue. But it does nothing to increase the socioeconomic diversity of the institution. (After all, the constituency for that group, I'm told, amounts to me and my friends.) Heck, why not go for 0% Pell while you're at it, and maximize the heck out of students' dollars?
That would lead you closer to Chart 5-- still allowable under the prior and current caps, as long as overall enrollment grows. We can let in more MN students, and cut WI representation, and diversify further through more international enrollment. Nothing really to stop us, especially if we're headed for lots of online classes.
These are just a handful of options. Each one reflects a different composition of the student body. It is for that reason that any efforts to alter the constraints we face should be fully vetted through shared governance. Constraints both help and hinder us-- they help us focus in the face of temptation, and when badly specified they prevent us from doing actual and real good.
Before Madison administrators sought changes from the Regents, they should have been required to show their cards-- which of these scenarios are they after? Why should we imagine they plan to give primary responsibility for these academic decisions to their faculty, staff, and students-- even though it's specified in Chapter 36.09? After all, remember, they feel they "have no choices."
Friday, September 16, 2011
UW-Madison Deans Take the Lead
In the last 24 hours we heard from at least two UW Madison deans, weighing in on the COE debacle. I share their words with you here.
Thursday, 8:59 pm.
CALS students,
I am writing to you in my role as interim dean of CALS to respond to attacks on members of our community by Mr. Roger Clegg of the Center for Educational Opportunity. The center released a report that charges that UW-Madison discriminates against applicants on the basis of race. This conclusion is misleading and unfounded. UW-Madison uses a system based on a holistic, selective, competitive process that includes many factors to determine who is admitted. Most importantly, UW-Madison only admits students who have demonstrated the ability to succeed at Madison. On Tuesday evening, along with over 800 other members of our community, I had the opportunity to witness a debate between Mr. Clegg and Professor Church of our law school. I was deeply offended that Mr. Clegg chose to make his argument with comments that were demeaning and derogatory to members of our student body. Every one of you who has been admitted to UW-Madison has worked hard to get here and you all deserve to be here.
As scholars, I urge you to be on guard for the misuse of statistics for political gain. As Badgers I know you will continue to respect and support all the members of our community.
On Wisconsin!
William F. Tracy
Interim Dean and Director, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
Friday Chair of Vegetable Research
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Friday, 11:32 am
Dear Colleagues,
The School of Education is proud of its long commitment to a diverse faculty, staff, and student body. Moreover, School faculty and staff have been major contributors to the scholarship on issues of educational access and equality. Our research and experience confirm that a diverse academic community enhances teaching and learning, enriches research, promotes vibrant intellectual discourse, and serves the professions and communities for which we prepare our students.
We affirm our conviction that all School of Education students represent the best of our campus—smart, committed, and active individuals who make a difference now and, as alumni, will shape our future. Our students compete vigorously for admission both to the campus and to our professional programs. Our School’s minimum academic requirements are among the highest on campus. For these reasons we reject the recent claims by the Center for Equal Opportunity regarding the quality of our undergraduates.
I call on the School to support and encourage every student; to take this opportunity to engage in critical discussion and analysis about access and equity in education; and to redouble our efforts to create a School that reflects the diversity of our nation and the world.
Julie Underwood, Dean
UW-Madison School of Education
Thursday, 8:59 pm.
CALS students,
I am writing to you in my role as interim dean of CALS to respond to attacks on members of our community by Mr. Roger Clegg of the Center for Educational Opportunity. The center released a report that charges that UW-Madison discriminates against applicants on the basis of race. This conclusion is misleading and unfounded. UW-Madison uses a system based on a holistic, selective, competitive process that includes many factors to determine who is admitted. Most importantly, UW-Madison only admits students who have demonstrated the ability to succeed at Madison. On Tuesday evening, along with over 800 other members of our community, I had the opportunity to witness a debate between Mr. Clegg and Professor Church of our law school. I was deeply offended that Mr. Clegg chose to make his argument with comments that were demeaning and derogatory to members of our student body. Every one of you who has been admitted to UW-Madison has worked hard to get here and you all deserve to be here.
As scholars, I urge you to be on guard for the misuse of statistics for political gain. As Badgers I know you will continue to respect and support all the members of our community.
On Wisconsin!
William F. Tracy
Interim Dean and Director, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
Friday Chair of Vegetable Research
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Friday, 11:32 am
Dear Colleagues,
The School of Education is proud of its long commitment to a diverse faculty, staff, and student body. Moreover, School faculty and staff have been major contributors to the scholarship on issues of educational access and equality. Our research and experience confirm that a diverse academic community enhances teaching and learning, enriches research, promotes vibrant intellectual discourse, and serves the professions and communities for which we prepare our students.
We affirm our conviction that all School of Education students represent the best of our campus—smart, committed, and active individuals who make a difference now and, as alumni, will shape our future. Our students compete vigorously for admission both to the campus and to our professional programs. Our School’s minimum academic requirements are among the highest on campus. For these reasons we reject the recent claims by the Center for Equal Opportunity regarding the quality of our undergraduates.
I call on the School to support and encourage every student; to take this opportunity to engage in critical discussion and analysis about access and equity in education; and to redouble our efforts to create a School that reflects the diversity of our nation and the world.
Julie Underwood, Dean
UW-Madison School of Education
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