Latest news with #DougShapiro
The Hindu
5 days ago
- Business
- The Hindu
Reimagining higher education: Ecosystem approach can revive enrollment in basic sciences
With an enrollment of more than 41 million students, India has been recognized as the world's second largest post-secondary education system (after China). In the New Education Policy 2020 (NEP), the Government of India projects to increase the enrollment rate to 50%, from its current 27.3%, by 2035. To achieve this goal, India will have to add around 34 million students to the system. South India has been facing a decline in enrollment in Mathematics and Basic Sciences progressively. This can be perceived as due to emerging trends that view the tertiary education space from a utilitarian perspective. If such a notion persists, though, there would be closure of such programmes at many institutions. However, admissions to Engineering programmes (having allied Mathematics as an integral part) in ranked institutions is still progressing well. This indicates that learning Mathematics in isolation as a major subject has been declining owing to the lack of an associated professional training component. Starved of tuition revenue, universities and colleges are considering closing down departments. But, is there an alternative framework to reimagine the tertiary education space? Do colleges need to appropriate the perception of millennials concerning curriculum and pedagogical design, which would facilitate their enrollment? Expectations of millennials Doug Shapiro, the Executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center that curates data from the majority of the institutions in the U.S.A. stated in an interview that 'the longer this continues, the more it starts to build its own momentum as a cultural shift and not just a short-term effect of the pandemic disruptions. 'Students are questioning the value of college. They may be looking at friends who graduated last year or the year before who didn't go, and they seem to be doing fine. They're working; their wages are up.' Millennials in general are inclined to pursue entrepreneurship rather than work for someone else. Secondly, value for money through return of investment is another key perception they have. As per a study cited in a March 2024 article by Inside Higher Ed, it is observed that confidence in colleges is falling, and the perceived value of on-the-job training and shorter-term licensure or certificate programs is on the rise. Further, a survey conducted by the marketing research firm Edge Research and HCM Strategists, a public policy and advocacy consulting firm funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, noted that although 58% of high schoolers and 51% of non-enrolled adults in 2023 believed 'you must have a college degree to earn a 'good job,'' 69% and 65%, respectively, believed certification is enough. To address this complex issue further, we require a whole-of-tertiary education vision and strategy through a systems-thinking approach rather than cherry-picking populist initiatives. We need to envisage new types of institutions with different missions, programmes and modes of study to meet the demands and needs of this diverse cohort of learners and of society. Consequently, to evolve an institutional model from the perspective of reimagining the arts and Science colleges, we can draw insights from Neil J. Smelser's proposition (UC Berkeley) which describes the modern research university as a 'multi-campus network' of inter-related parts and relationships. It can be interpreted that the entire post-secondary landscape could be envisaged as an 'ecosystem' which offers various types of education including skill development leading to professional certification concerning upskilling and reskilling, adult education, continuing education or even lifelong learning, community engagement, and so on. If the tertiary education space is rendered dynamic in design through an ecosystem model by connecting it with the world of work through an interface in the academic institution, it would perpetuate itself by adapting to the changing context. The ecosystem, as a dynamic space, could be envisaged as a system where the number, type, role and responsibilities of providers, individually and collectively, evolve and modify over time in response to the changing environment. Though the ecosystem providers are diversified, flexible and responsive with distinct missions towards societal and economic changes, there would not be an imbedded hierarchy. An ecosystem approach of tertiary education space will keep co-creating the curriculum and pedagogy as it will be constantly communicating and receiving feedback through community and industry engagement. A real-world application The Madras Christian College has embarked on validating this model through the MCC-MRF Innovation Park, where apart from incubating entrepreneurs as its core vision, the innovation park would also focus on creating centers of excellence in domains mapped with programmes offered on the campus. The proposed Centers of Excellence will keep updating themselves with changes happening in the world of work and creating skilled work forces through upskilling and reskilling. In addition to this, hackathons will be conducted periodically curating pain points from industries and involving interns from the campus. The departments within the college, through their association with the centers of excellence, would in turn be sensitized continuously, leading to a dynamic equilibrium between the world of work and the world of education through the interface known as the Innovation Park. If established industries have reservations in setting up their centers at higher education institutions, then budding start-ups would emerge as an alternative option for industry engagement and transform the tertiary education landscape. (Dr. Paul Wilson is currently serving as the Principal and Secretary of Madras Christian College, Chennai, India)
Associated Press
5 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Vast Majority of U.S. States See More Students Who Had Stopped Out of College Now Re-Enrolling
New Report Finds that, for the 2nd Year in a Row, Fewer Americans Are Stopping Out, More Returning to College HERNDON, VA / ACCESS Newswire / June 4, 2025 / The number of students leaving college without earning a credential - or 'stopping out' - has declined for the second year in a row, reports the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The Some College, No Credential (SCNC) report, released today, also found that more students who had previously stopped out are re-enrolling. During the 2023-24 academic year, 42 states and the District of Columbia saw increases in re-enrollment compared to the previous year, ranging from a 0.7 percent increase in Washington, DC, to a 35.2 percent increase in Massachusetts. 'It is inspiring to see that over one million adults returned to campuses last year-the most we've ever recorded,' said Doug Shapiro, Executive Director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. 'They're reviving college aspirations that had been put on hold years before. And states and institutions are working to make it even easier for more students to do so in the future.' Nearly all higher education institution sectors saw fewer stopouts between January 2022 and July 2023 compared to the same period a year earlier-except for private for-profit four-year institutions and primarily online institutions, which saw increases of 17.7% and 1.7%, respectively. Total population of 'some college, no credential' Americans is still growing: Despite the promising trends in the re-enrollments, there are still nearly 43.1 million American adults stopped out of college without a credential, according to the new report. Of these, 37.6 million are under age 65 and of typical working age. Moreover, the total population of working age adults with some college and no credential grew 2.2 percent in the year ending July 2023, as the 2.1 million students who were newly stopped out far outpaced those 'some college, no credential' students re-enrolling in the 2022-23 academic year and the number of those aging out of the working-age population. Some students benefit from policies that award credentials for past credits: Each year, about 1 in 4 of those in the 'some college, no credential' population who earn a first credential do so without re-enrolling. While the data does not identify causes, these credential earners may be the beneficiaries of policies that remove administrative barriers to completion or award credentials based on the number of credits already earned in the past, such as Colorado's new Colorado Re-Engaged (CORE) initiative. The CORE initiative allows public four-year institutions to award associate degrees to those who stopped out in the last decade with 70 credit hours. This year's report finds that, despite having the twentieth-largest 'some college, no credential' population, Colorado had the seventh-highest number of first credential earners this year (2,100, +1,200 from 2022-23), boosted by associate degrees earned by 'some college, no credential' individuals who did not need to re-enroll. The Some College, No Credential report was created with the support of Lumina Foundation. About the National Student Clearinghouse® Research Center™ The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center is the research arm of the National Student Clearinghouse. The Research Center collaborates with higher education institutions, states, school districts, high schools, and educational organizations as part of a national effort to better inform education leaders and policymakers. Through accurate longitudinal data outcomes reporting, the Research Center enables better educational policy decisions leading to improved student outcomes. To learn more, visit CONTACT: National Student Clearinghouse [email protected] SOURCE: National Student Clearinghouse press release
Forbes
5 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Fewer Students Stopped Out Of College Last Year, And More Returned
More than one million Americans who had previously dropped out of college returned to school in ... More academic year 2023-2024. Nonetheless, the number of adults who have left college without earning any credential increased nationally. For the second year in a row, the number of students leaving college without earning a credential has declined, according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Released today, the Some College, No Credential (SCNC) report also found that more students who had previously left college without earning a degree were re-enrolling. More than 1 million SCNC students re-enrolled in the 2023-24 academic year, an increase of 66,000 (+7.0%) over the previous year. The number of students who 'stopped out' of college without a credential also declined from the previous year by about 156,000. The progress was widespread, with 42 states and the District of Columbia realizing increases in the number of students re-enrolling in college compared to the previous year. The gains ranged from a .7% increase in Washington, DC, to a 35.2% surge in Massachusetts. Among states showing a decrease in re-enrollments, Oklahoma experienced the largest decline year-over-year, at 13.8%. 'It is inspiring to see that over one million adults returned to campuses last year—the most we've ever recorded,' said Doug Shapiro, Executive Director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, in a news release. 'They're reviving college aspirations that had been put on hold years before. And states and institutions are working to make it even easier for more students to do so in the future.' The report defines SCNC individuals as people between the ages of 18 and 64 years of age who stopped out of college for at least three terms prior to the start of the academic year and had not earned any credential. At the start of the 2023-2024 academic year, there were nearly 43.1 million SCNC students; of those, 37.6 million were working-age adults. Even with the recent increases in re-enrollment, the report cautions that the improvement represents less than 3% of working-age SCNC adults. So while it's true that fewer students stopped out of college year over year, that has not been enough to stem the overall growth of the SCNC population, which has risen in all 50 states and the District of Columbia over the last three years. Among those SCNC students returning to school in 2023-2024, 4.7% earned a credential — including certificates, associate's and bachelor's degrees — within their first year of re-enrollment, a slight improvement over the prior year; 14.1% did so within two years of their return. More women than men re-enroll in college after stopping out, but men have a slight advantage in the two-year rate of earning their first credential (14.2%) vs. 13.9% among women. Black and Hispanic students return to college after stopping out at equal or greater rates than their Asian and white peers. However, white and Asian returnees earn a credential after returning at higher rates than other racial/ethnic groups. The report recommends that states seeking to increase the percentage of adults with a post-secondary credential focus on two subgroups of students who've demonstrated better re-enrollment and completion outcomes than the SCNC group overall. Those are potential completers and recent stop-outs. Potential completers have already completed at least two years' worth of academic credits in the past decade; they constitute about 2.7 million (or 7.2%) of the SCNC population. Recent stop-outs are newly identified SCNC individuals — those students who have stopped out between January, 2022 and July, 2023; roughly 2.1 million students (about 5.6% of SCNC individuals) are in this group. Across the past three years, potential completers demonstrate a number of advantages in their college outcomes compared to the rest of the SCNC population. For example they are about three times more likely to re-enroll in college than other SCNC students. They are also more likely to earn a credential in their first year of return (8.4%) than the rest of the SCNC group (3.8%), an edge that grows when considering second-year credential rates (22% versus 12.2%). Recent stop-outs are much more likely to re-enroll than students who have been stopped out for a longer period, and they are also more likely to enroll at the same institution they previously attended rather than transfer to another school. This pattern suggests that outreach strategies might be targeted at these relatively recent students, particularly by community colleges, which is the sector to which SCNC students most often return. According to the report, about one out of four SCNC students earned a credential without ever re-enrolling in college. Although it does not quantify the reasons for this outcome, it's likely due primarily to the reverse transfer policies adopted by several states allowing students who've dropped out of two-year colleges to add the credits they later earn at a four-year school and then be retroactively awarded an associate's degree. A similar program is the Colorado Re-Engaged (CORE) initiative, where former students who've completed at least 70 credits towards their bachelor's degree but then dropped out of college are awarded an associate's degree. The report found that, despite having the twentieth-largest SCNC population, Colorado had the seventh-highest number of first credential earners, aided by the large number of associate degrees earned by SCNC individuals who had not re-enrolled. In other cases, colleges have removed barriers that may have prevented awarding degrees to students who've already earned the required credits. For example. some schools have ended their policy of withholding degrees from students who have unpaid fines or tuition bills. The report's bottom line is a mixture of good and bad news. It's encouraging to see an increase in students' re-engagement with college, but in the big scheme of things, that improvement represents only a relatively tiny share of the SCNC working adult population. Fewer students might be stopping out year over year, but their retention and the return of former drop-outs has not been enough to stop the growth of the SCNC population, which continues to rise nationwide. The NSCRC is the research arm of the National Student Clearinghouse. It collaborates with higher education institutions, states, school districts, high schools, and educational organizations to gather accurate longitudinal data that can be used to guide educational policy decisions. NSCRC analyzes data from 3,600 postsecondary institutions, which represented 97% of the nation's postsecondary enrollment in Title IV degree-granting institutions in the U.S., as of 2020. The 2025 Some College, No Credential report, the sixth in a series, was created with the support of Lumina Foundation.
Bloomberg
28-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
YouTube Is Swallowing TV Whole, and It's Coming for the Sitcom
By For two decades, YouTube has tried to convince advertisers that it's the future of entertainment. The pitch has always been simple enough: 'Young people don't watch cable; they watch YouTube.' It doesn't exactly require a PowerPoint presentation. But YouTube has had problems making its case. The first is that the vast majority of videos on the site aren't filmed to Scorsese-like standards. 'The biggest knock against creator content is that it's low quality, s---, crap, slop, garbage,' Doug Shapiro, a former executive at Time Warner, wrote in December. That's sort of inconsequential, he argued, since most people aren't watching random YouTube slop—they're watching the most popular slop. Which leads to YouTube's second issue: The most watched channels haven't always been hospitable to advertisers.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Freshman College Enrollment Actually Increased Last Year, Corrected Report Finds
After correcting for an earlier data error, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) reported last week that college freshman enrollment increased by 5.5% last fall. The new figures are a reversal of the center's preliminary results released in October 2024, which indicated a decline in college freshman enrollment. Initial estimates reported by the NSCRC in the fall report indicated that enrollment of college freshmen had declined by 5% last year, with especially concerning drops at four-year colleges that serve low-income students. The report projected the largest drop in freshman enrollment since 2020. The NSCRC announced a significant correction to that report earlier this month, stating that it had been based on a 'methodological error' that 'caused the mislabeling of certain students as dual enrolled rather than as freshmen,' which skewed the research group's preliminary enrollment figures. The NSCRC's subsequent research, reported in its recently released Current Term Enrollment Estimates, found that freshman enrollment grew by 5.5% in fall 2024 compared to 2023, representing an increase of about 130,000 freshmen. The growth is driven by older first-year students; enrollment of 18-year-old freshmen is still below pre-pandemic 2019 levels, the NSCRC said. Overall college enrollment grew 4.5% in fall 2024 compared to the previous year, a gain of about 817,000 post-secondary students. Total college enrollment is now about 0.4% above 2019's pre-pandemic levels, with undergraduate enrollment at nearly 16 million students and graduate enrollment at 3.2 million students, the report found. In his statement about the error, NSCRC Executive Director Doug Shapiro said the Current Term Enrollment Estimates report published in January provides a more comprehensive view of enrollment trends based on data from nearly all higher education institutions and uses different methodologies to determine freshman enrollees. The 'Stay Informed' preliminary enrollment report published in October 2024 was based on data from half of the colleges and universities that submit data to the organization. 'The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center acknowledges the importance and significance of its role in providing accurate and reliable research to the higher education community,' Shapiro said in a statement. He added that the center deeply regrets the error and is conducting a thorough review to discover its source. Inside Higher Ed reported that the error came to light as researchers were preparing the center's January report and noted the sharp contrast between preliminary estimates and the final numbers, prompting a retroactive review of the October report and the center's November special analysis on 18-year-old freshmen. The research center created the Stay Informed report in the summer of 2020 to provide 'early and real-time enrollment information' to meet the needs of the higher education community at the height of the COVID pandemic. It has continued to produce these preliminary reports each fall, followed by final and complete reporting on enrollment each winter in its January reports. Because the NSCRC has been the go-to source for statistical data on higher education, revelations of the miscalculation shook researchers and higher education leaders and the media outlets that covered the report. The past year has been a challenging one for the higher education sector. Jeremy Cohen, an NSCRC research associate and one of the report's authors, said that there are a number of forces affecting freshman enrollment, including demographic shifts, the projected decline of high school graduates in the U.S. and the shaky rollout of the 2024-25 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The U.S. Department of Education noted a potential issue with the preliminary results as early as October when its financial data showed a 3% increase in students receiving federal aid for 2024-25, with 10% more students on track to receive Pell Grants — figures that didn't match the enrollment declines NSCRC had reported. In a statement last week, the Education Department's former undersecretary James Kvaal said he was 'encouraged and relieved' by the revised assessment, which he said was consistent with what officials were seeing on the financial side. Though the enrollment figures for fall 2024 now tell a different story, suggesting at least a moderate post-pandemic recovery, the revised figures don't change the fact that some steep declines still loom for higher education. According to a recent report from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, the number of 18-year-old high school graduates will peak in 2025 at around 3.9 million and are expected to be followed by a 15-year decline, bringing the projected demographic cliff to reality. Undergraduate enrollment for fall 2024 increased for all racial and ethnic demographics, with Hispanic, Black, Asian and multiracial students' enrollment increasing for the third consecutive fall. White student enrollment grew 1% in fall 2024, the first increase from pre-pandemic levels. The 2024 report saw a continuation of the trend of 18-year-old incoming freshmen reporting their race or ethnicity as 'unknown' or declining to report it at all. Undergraduate enrollment increased across all sectors, with community colleges seeing especially strong growth, a 5.9% increase, or 325,000 additional students. Freshman growth was especially robust at community colleges, with 63,000 freshmen enrolled over the last year. Public two-year institutions with a strong emphasis on vocational programs saw healthy growth for the second year in a row, up 13.6% in the last year. Schools with a high vocational program focus now comprise 19.5% of public two-year enrollment, up from 15.3% in 2019. Undergraduate certificate program enrollment increased for the fourth consecutive year, up nearly 10% in the fall of 2024, placing enrollments 28.5% above 2019 levels. Enrollment in bachelor's and associate degree programs increased slightly but remained below 2019 levels. Enrollment increased across all regions in fall 2024, with institutions in the Northeast seeing a 4.7% increase — the first since before the pandemic. The South and West saw similar gains, with the Midwest seeing enrollment rise by 3.1%.
