Editorial Columns

Student Access Must Be Paramount

Our nation's state universities have some new challenges relating to access to higher education. These challenges focus on affordability and financial aid; diversity and affirmative action; and quality and capacity. We also are keenly aware of concerns being expressed by legislators, the media and parents concerning student access. I believe a new report from the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities may offer a framework for reform in the area of student access and opportunity.

"Returning to Our Roots: Student Access" calls on public institutions to re-examine their admissions requirements, course-credit policies, student support and financial aid programs, as well as relationships with public schools. Above all, we must ensure that new kinds of programs are created to meet the new needs of today's students and tomorrow's.

Student Access is the second in a series of reports from the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges created through a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The first report dealt with the student experience.

Subsequent reports will focus on engaged institutions, a learning society and campus culture. All the reports are being issued in the form of letters to public university officials and are designed to frame a vision for reforming public higher education and outline action steps for change.

The latest report grew out of our dismay about the shape and nature of the current conversation about educational opportunity in the United States. The commission hopes to focus that conversation where it should be -- on the needs of students.

Expanding access to higher education is a moral imperative and also a practical necessity. Democratic tenets of excellence, fairness, justice and equal opportunity demand full and equal access for all. In practical terms, the decisions made on our campuses will be better if they involve the full diversity of opinions, talents and background found in our nation. That is why we particularly welcome comments offered recently by The Patriot, its readers and state officials.

The new report acknowledges three challenges that complicate efforts to expand access to public higher education:

Price: The commission recognizes that while prices at public universities are reasonable, they are nonetheless at a level representing a hurdle to access for many students and families.

Diversity: In addressing diversity issues, the report notes that while Census Bureau projections indicate that the nation's majority population will only be about 10 percent larger in the year 2040 than it was in 1990, growth rates for minorities will be much larger.

Opportunities presented by modern technology: The commission recognizes that rapidly developing technology foreshadows new education and learning possibilities for all Americans.

To underline the need for change, the commission also released a companion working paper, "Access to Educational Opportunity, Data Related to Change." Six questions were addressed in compiling the data:

-- How are high school students preparing themselves for college?

-- What proportion of recent high school graduates enroll in college?

-- Who are the freshmen attending public universities?

-- How do students pay for college?

-- What are the important issues related to access for nontraditional students?

-- What are the implications of these topics for the future?

The data show some interesting trends, including:

In the last two decades, the proportion of recent high school graduates going directly to college increased, from 47 percent in 1973 to 62 percent by 1994. The percentage is even higher in Pennsylvania today. The shift in federal policy from grants to loans is forcing many students to graduate in debt and is mortgaging their future. The fastest growing student population consists of adults who are either enrolling for the first time or returning to colleges and universities after an absence.

The United States and its institutions of higher education have come a long way in the last 25 years in expanding educational opportunity for students and citizens who had not been well represented -- women, minorities, non-traditional students, students with disabilities, older students and the poor. Now we must do more.

To provide access to success, the members of the Kellogg Commission propose seven recommendations:

1. Transform public universities by creating new kinds of programs and services, and if need be, new kinds of institutions to meet the needs of traditional and non-traditional learners.

2. Build new partnerships with public schools by working with specific secondary schools and their feeder schools to increase the number of students matriculating on campus, and also by improving our teacher preparation programs.

3. Validate admissions requirements by insisting on meaningful correlations between requirements and subsequent student success and searching for new ways of judging merit and identifying potential.

4. Encourage diversity by including a broad array of attributes -- for example, socioeconomic status, attendance at a school with history of sending few students to college or being a first-generation college student -- in the admissions process.

5. Clarify course-credit transfer and articulation agreements by improving inter-institutional transfer of credit and simplifying students' progress toward their degrees.

6. Renew efforts to contain costs and increase aid by studying and adopting improved management practices, re-allocating savings to undergraduate teaching and learning, and seeking the assistance of public officials, friends and alumni in maintaining the university's financial support.

7. Focus on what students need to succeed by improving student support services and academic programs to ensure that all students -- particularly those who switch majors -- have a better chance of success, and by encouraging faculty engagement in the task of meeting the diverse needs of students from different backgrounds.

We know good access exists because college attendance is higher than ever, and that is true of enrollments at Penn State. But what we must ensure as a Democratic society is that access to higher education exists for all.

(Graham B. Spanier is president of The Pennsylvania State University and chairof the Kellogg Commission. The entire text of Returning to our Roots: Student Access,including the companion data, is available on-line at NASULGC's Web site: http://www.nasulgc.org.)