Colleges and universities distinguish themselves from one another in lots of different ways– scholarly reknown, the size of the endowment, success on the athletic fields, etc. But the most commonly-used measure is probably the “quality” of the freshman class, as measured by standardized tests like the SAT and ACT. Average incoming SAT scores at University [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'Collegiate Learning Assessment'
More Than Butts in Seats
Education Sector recently completed an extensive process looking at higher education accountability systems in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. In part, we undertook the task to be able to answer comments like this one at the Chronicle of Higher Education:
As a former dean, I was responsible for collecting and reporting [...]
Baylor, the SATs, and "Merit Aid"
In a move that raises the cynicism and gamemanship bar for college and universities across the land, Baylor University is paying freshmen it has already admitted $300 to re-take the SAT and giving them an additional $1,000 “merit” scholarship if they bump their scores up by 50 points or more. Then it reports their higher [...]
Boast Away
Like all good Ohio State University alumni (M.P.A. ‘95), I’ve been preparing to obsessively follow the highly-ranked Buckeyes football team from the pre-season all the way to the traditional blowout loss in the National Championship game on January 8th. But this year my loyalties are divided. I have a new favorite team: the aptly-named Mavericks [...]
The Higher Education Lobby 1, Students 0
When special interests subvert good public policy, they usually try to cover their tracks. While people in the know can guess what really happened, both the influencers and the influencees usually create enough plausible deniability to escape blame.
But sometimes it all happens right out in the open, and that in itself tells you a lot [...]






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