U Kentucky shifting away from merit aid

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81

I’d add especially in-state students as that has been the mission popularly advertised by state U institutions to their respective citizens of their respective states.

And another area which causes some consternation among lower-income families as they see wealthy/upper-middle class OOS students being subsidized by their state flagship using funds derived in part from their taxes*.

  • Not only property and income if applicable, but also sales taxes which affect everyone living in the state concerned. Incidentally, sales taxes are sometimes also used to fund K-12 and state universities whether directly or indirectly. Especially in states where there's no official state/local income tax.

The private colleges tend to vary greatly on this as there are students who take 5-6+ years to graduate from private colleges. I knew several classmates at my private LAC who took 5-6+ years due to varying factors ranging from taking leaves of absences to pursue artistic/activist/lobbying activities related to their aspiring career goals, financial issues*, and academic struggles. And the last wasn’t limited to the low-income students.

On the last, there were a surprisingly high number of classmates who came from well-to-do families, graduated from respectable/elite boarding/day schools with costs rivaling those of private colleges, and who graduated with high class rank/academic stats who ended up struggling academically to the point of academic suspension/expulsion.

One such classmate ended up taking 7.5 years to graduate because he was placed on academic suspension and his parents forced him to take another gap year when his academic performance still didn’t really cut the mustard. If he had graduated on time, we’d have never overlapped. Instead, he ended up barely graduating only a semester ahead of me.

Private colleges also vary greatly on changing majors or time limits not only on aid, but also time to graduation. Some elite/respectable private universities strongly discourage/effectively prohibit students from going more than 4 years even if the student is full-pay.

One former colleague was incensed at how he wasn’t able to complete a double major at a private university because once he fulfilled requirements for one of the majors, the private U forced him to graduate even though he was full-pay and only had one course left to complete the math major. One thing’s for sure…his anger was such he vowed to never contribute a cent to that U’s alumni fund.

  • Especially the South Korean students in wake of the late '90s Asian Economic Crisis which pulled the financial rug under many of their formerly well-to-do families. Many who were able to stay ended up working in student jobs most students, especially Americans back then regarded as jobs of last resort such as working as dining hall service staff.
82

<<<
For example, at the University of Alabama in fall 2016, enrollments from https://registrar.ua.edu/student-services/schedule-of-classes/ :

MATH 005 Introductory Algebra: 89 + 102 + 115 = 306
MATH 100 Intermediate Algebra: 120 + 112 + 118 + 121 + 122 + 121 + 122 + 122 + 121 + 120 + 119 + 122 + 3 + 29 = 1472
<<<

I think many/most/all of those classes are online, so not necessarily most/all students who are on-campus.

83

“Might the results not be higher student retention, higher graduation rates, greater percentage of benefits to state residents, and a more educated local populace?”

@Postmodern, no. The results will be an increased dropout rate, increased debt, and higher tuition.

84

And how do you know this?

85

Most of those low remedial math course sections have classrooms and times assigned, and are not marked as non-traditional instruction method sections. In any case, even if on-line, that still makes for a lot of University of Alabama students taking low remedial math courses. High remedial enrollment is common once one gets away from the most selective colleges and universities.

86

This is really dependent on the college concerned and major. For instance, the typical full-time load at my LAC ranges from a low of 12 to 14.

Also some majors such as engineering have far higher minimum college credits required for graduation than others though even this varies by individual colleges.

Very few students except Conservatory and moreso Double-Degree students* take more than 14 on a regular basis. And if you weren’t a Conservatory/Double-Degree student and wanted to go beyond 16 credits in a given semester when I attended, you needed to ask permission from the Dean to override the 16 credit max AND incur extra fees to do so which wouldn’t be covered by FA/college scholarship.

  • And even with 17+ credits routinely taken, it usually takes 5 years to complete a Double-Degree program.
87

Perhaps it should be phrased as needing to take “1/8 of the total number of courses or credits to graduate” each semester, for on-time graduation in 8-semester (4-year) programs.

88

Perhaps, but as cobrat mention, not all degrees require 120 (15 credits a semester) credits. It’s not uncommon for engineering to take 128 to 132 or more credits, and that’s before minors or certificates.

The current UF administration wants to start measuring itself based on it’s 4 year graduation rate; in the past it’s only focused on the 6 year rate. The biggest issue will be getting the universities faculty and student advisors onboard. UF is fairly low cost for in-state students, so advising (especially in engineering) is much more likely to recommend taking 13 or 14 credits, and getting involved in EC’s (clubs, leadership experience, design projects, etc.), than recommending 16 or more credits a semester.

Getting public universities to start focusing on the 4 year graduation rate, isn’t as easy as it first may seem…

89

“Higher income students will always have an advantage because they tend to go to better K-12 and have better access to test prep/tutoring. We can’t remove that advantage thru social eng’g.”

It is social engineering to have subsidized state colleges at all. We can make it a lot easier, or a lot harder, on the disadvantaged kids if we try. See the recent threads about outstanding work at CUNY and Cal State campuses bringing low-income students into the middle class.

90

However, Florida public universities have the required summer session, right? This means a mandatory extra 0.5 semester of school, so a 4-year graduate would be taking and paying for 8.5 (8 regular plus 1 summer) instead of 8 semesters of school, unless the student overloads to graduate in 7.5 semesters (7 regular plus 1 summer).

Seems that public universities have an incentive to get students graduated as quickly as possible (in both number of semesters and number of courses/credits taken), since most students are subsidized in-state students, so any in-state student who stays for longer consumes more of the subsidy. Policies at some public universities appear to be motived by this (e.g. the Texas public university rebate if one graduates after taking no more than the required number of credits plus 3, or the policies at some California public universities of limiting registration after accumulating significantly more credit than the amount needed to graduate and/or enrolling in more than 8 semester after frosh entry or 4 semesters after transfer entry).

91

@ucbalumnus I agree, the university administration has several reasons for switching it’s focus to the 4 year graduation rate. The faculty/advisors, not so much.

The summer requirement does help keep them on target for graduation, but it can be waived, if you travel abroad for a summer, work an internship, etc… It also doesn’t apply to transfer students (who make up about 1/3 of all undergraduate students in the stat’s public universities). Of course, working a Co-op (or spring/fall internships) will push back graduation.

The Florida Legislature implemented, back in 2009, an Excess Credit-hour Surcharge, to encourage students to complete their baccalaureate degrees as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The law requires universities to add a surcharge to each credit hour taken in excess of the total number of credit hours required to complete your degree.

The threshold is set to 115%. So, if your degree program requires 120 semester hours, you would be subject to the excess credit-hour surcharge for any credits taken after reaching 138 semester hours (115% of 120 semester hours).

The surcharge is 100% of the normal tuition rate. For example, one semester hour of credit costs $188.55 (this includes fees); however, if it is subject to the excess credit-hour surcharge, the same semester hour of credit would cost $291.87.

The surcharge is really targeted at those students who really, really, don’t want to graduate. It likely has little impact on 4 year graduation rates, but it does impact 6 year rates.

Fun story, back in the 80’s I had a roommate, at UF, who only graduated because the Dean of the College of Business spent two semesters insuring he took the right classes (“No, you can’t take ancient roman history, take your $$#$ accounting class!”). Every couple of weeks he had to report into her with a grade update. First time I knew a student who was on a first name basis with a Dean. To this day, he wished he could have taken a few more years to graduate…we were having way too much fun.

EDIT: Just pulled up my old transcript. I had 145 hours…but what nuclear engineer doesn’t need to take a class in the “History of Science, from the Renaissance to the Present”, or “Lost Tribes and Sunken Continents”? What well rounded nuclear engineer doesn’t need to take 1/2 dozen anthropology classes?

92

San Jose State University has a policy formalizing this exact thing:
http://www.sjsu.edu/president/directives/pd0905/

93

This is interesting. I’m currently a HS senior from MA. I would most likely be counted among the “wealthy elite” by some/many people. Just saw this on Featured Threads and decided to jump down the rabbit hole.

I really only applied to UK because of the scholarship they offer for NHRP scholars. I’m in a different boat financially than most of my peers as I have no college fund (excluding a couple thousand I made over the past two years), my parents make too much money (and spend it), and my parents may not be allowed to co-sign a loan with me due to their debt. I can get into good schools but there’s just no way I can afford them without GOOD merit money. I’m kinda screwed.

That’s why I’m considering the schools that offer incredibly attractive scholarships like UK’s Patterson and USC-Columbia’s Lieber, although the latter is not as generous. As long as the Patterson is available for the next 4 years for me, I’m happy right now. Might be selfish but that’s what matters most to me right now.

Just a student data point for some of you debating this. I’m sure you can find the rest of my stats on some of my posts if you feel so inclined.

94

@Hanna


[QUOTE=""]
"Higher income students will always have an advantage because they tend to go to better K-12 and have better access to test prep/tutoring. We can't remove that advantage thru social eng'g."
It is social engineering to have subsidized state colleges at all. We can make it a lot easier, or a lot harder, on the disadvantaged kids if we try. See the recent threads about outstanding work at CUNY and Cal State campuses bringing low-income students into the middle class.

[/QUOTE]

I think you may have misunderstood my point. Subsidized higher education has long lifted the lower/working classes out of poverty/lower incomes. The GI BIll after WWII demonstrated that beautifully. My point was that it’s almost impossible to remove all the advantages that higher income kids have. If you think that it is possible, please detail.

I fully support well-subsidized public higher education for all of a state’s students. I don’t think instate tuition should ever be higher than federal Pell max.

95

@crams17

There are MANY students, like you, who despite being qualified for admission to elite schools have to focus on affordable options.

That does not make one screwed! Bloom where you are planted.

96

Instate tuition for a full time student at Florida’s public universities is well under $7,000 per year. The system maintains a variety of campuses that can support the academic requirements of a wide variety of students, including a well regarded public LAC. If a low tax state like Florida can maintain such a system, why can’t other states do the same?

97

^ ^

Adding a bit to @Gator88NE , different colleges/universities may have differences in workload/difficulty and the stipulated numerical full-time load.

For instance, NYU(Mainly Stern & CAS) 16 credit/semester load average most HS classmates/colleagues took was an acceptable full-time load which allowed them to graduate in four years without the workload being too onerous. Especially considering under their system at the time, that’s equivalent to 4 regular courses.

At my private LAC when I attended, 16 credits/semester would be the equivalent of 5 regular courses with a 1 credit lab. While some students may need to load up on 16 for a few semesters if they went with an extreme minimum load of 12/semester, very few who weren’t in the Conservatory/Double Degree programs would regularly load up on more than 12-14 each semester.

There’s also the fact that public colleges in the US charged exceedingly nominal fees adjusted for inflation or were even free for in-state/local area residents some decades past('50s-'60s…and sometimes even into the mid-'70s(CUNY))

And being free didn’t necessarily mean non-selective in admissions or low academic standards as some were exceedingly academically selective and others while not being as selective of in-state residents had a ruthless university wide weed-out process in the first two years which meant sometimes only half the students would make it to the third year.

And back then, even being weeded out would have had far lower costs beyond the loss of the nominal free and 1-2 years one was attending college full-time.

98

Back to how low cost, combine with fairly academically strong undergraduates (say average ACT scores of 25 or so) can impact graduation rates. Lets compare two Florida directionals, UCF and USF with UK and UA. (using 2014 data)

http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/search1ba.aspx?institutionid=100751,132903,137351,157085

2014 6-Year Grad Rate and Underrepresented Minority 6-Year Grad Rate and % Pell Grants/% URM

UCF: 69.7% Grad Rate, 68.5% URM Grad Rate, 31.9% Pell Grant, 31.9% URM
USF: 67.2%, 67.6%, 39.7%, 30.4% URM
UA: 65.7%, 60.5%, 17.8%, 14.5% URM
UK: 60.2%, 45.4%, 26%, 11.2% URM

UCF and USF have higher grad rates, even with a higher % of Low SES students (based on Pell Grants %) and higher % of URM students.

Now lets consider the amount each school spends per student. We’ll use the “Instructional Expenditures/Total FTE” calculation:

UCF: $5,357
USF: $8,758
UA: $9,395
UK: $10,226

UA and UK both out spend UCF/USF, yet they still have lower graduation rates.

Finally, lets compare the students, GPA, Median SAT and Median ACT (still using 2014 data)

UCF: 3.81 GPA, 1,175 Median SAT, 25.5 Median Composite ACT
USF: 3.86, 1,168, 25.5
UA: 3.60, 1,171, 26.0
UK: 3.63, 1,140, 25.0

UCF and USF’s “average” scores are competitive with UA and UK. Low cost, plus competitive students help drive a better graduation rate at these two directionals, even if UA and UK are spending more $ per student.

To be honest, I don’t know if UK can be successful with this switch, as I don’t know if the additional need-based aid will be enough. They may need additional support from the state. Then again, it’s a far easier sale to get the state legislature to help fund in-state need-based aid, than merit based aid (in-state or OOS).

State politicians WANT to be able to say they lowered the cost for their constituents to send their children to college. Especially at the state “Flagship” university…

99

While it is impossible to compensate for all advantages of being born into wealth, or all disadvantages of being born into poverty, for the purpose of aligning college resources to offer the opportunity to attend and graduate college based on individual merit rather than parental income and wealth, different choices (both in amount of resources allocated and how resources are allocated) can affect the relative weighting of parental income and wealth versus individual merit in how available college opportunities are.

Overall in the US, parental income and wealth currently is a very strong factor in a student’s chance of graduating college; see the chart at the bottom of http://www.epi.org/blog/college-graduation-scores-income-levels/ .

100

I don’t understand the obsession with 6-year graduation rates. Good colleges should be willing to flunk out students who aren’t performing at the appropriate level. Perhaps, a low graduation rate should be a point of pride.