Board embraces higher-ed master plan
The state Higher Education Coordinating Board on Friday adopted a long-term postsecondary master plan, the first of its kind since the late 1980s.
Arkansas Department of Higher Education Director Brett Powell unveiled the plan, dubbed Closing the Gap 2020: A Master Plan for Arkansas Higher Education, which seeks in the long run to raise the percentage of adults in the state who have technical certificates or higher to 60 percent by 2025. The department has set a shorter-term objective for the next five years of increasing the number of credentials awarded each year.
“This is not the department’s plan,” Powell said Friday. “This is not the board’s plan. This is higher education’s plan. We realize we can’t tell these folks what to do, but we can coordinate efforts to try to make a difference in the state.”
Arkansas currently ranks 49th in the the nation in the percentage of adults who hold associate degrees or higher. Data show about 28.8 percent of adult Arkansans have that level of education, while the state that’s lowest in the nation — West Virginia — has a 28.4 percent rate. The Higher Education Department estimates about 43 percent of Arkansans hold technical certificates or higher.
“Education and economic development are attached at the hip,” Powell said. “You
can’t have one without the other. If we want to see Arkansas’ economy grow, that happens through jobs. Jobs happen through having a skilled workforce that’s ready to fill [them].”
The Higher Education Department has been working since April to piece together the plan with the help of higher-education leaders. In September, Gov. Asa Hutchinson addressed the leaders of the state’s colleges and universities, calling for an increase in the number of degree holders and, ultimately, those ready to enter the workforce. The master plan mirrors the governor’s intent.
The plan has four goals with seven subsets. They are:
To raise completion and graduation rates of colleges and universities by 10 percent.
To increase the enrollment of adult students, ages 25 to 54, by 50 percent by fall 2018.
To raise the attainment rates of underserved student groups in the state by 10 percent.
To improve college affordability through effective resource allocation.
Friday’s unveiling is just the start. For each of the seven subsets — which include institutional funding and student success innovations — the Higher Education Department created groups, each made up of about 10 college and university leaders, to figure out strategies the schools can implement to improve in those areas.
The leader of each of the seven groups is also part of a steering committee. Implementation of strategies will happen in the coming months and years.
The plan was well-received by the board members, many of whom asked to be kept in the loop for future meetings.
Board member Florine Milligan of Forrest City said she was impressed with the state’s higher-education leaders Friday.
“In my years of education, Arkansas has always been 49th,” she said. “And we used to say, ‘Thank god for Mississippi,’ and now it’s West Virginia.”
Milligan asked whether higher-education leaders had some of the practices that Mississippi implemented to move forward.
Arkansas’ Higher Education Department will track progress toward the goals and has looked at best practices within the state and in other states, Powell said.
For example, he said, some leaders went to Kentucky a couple of months ago to learn more about a program the public schools there ran using federal money set aside for student success programs. They found out that Kentucky schools had designated class time starting in the seventh grade for college preparation and that the preparatory courses continued through the 12th grade, he said.
That effort is one of the ideas on the table to help with another of the seven subsets, college readiness, Powell said.
But there also have been successful efforts in Arkansas, such as the Southwest Prep Academy run by Henderson State University, he said. That program accepts students from area high schools for a two-week summer term and some Saturday sessions during the school year with the aim of getting them ready for college.
Students who are unprepared for college usually take noncredit remedial coursework to get them on par for a credit-bearing course. At times, students take the remedial course several times before passing. The state’s remediation rate has declined through the years but still sits at 41.4 percent of 22,024 students, the data show.
Arkansas State University System President Chuck Welch also commended higher-education leaders for helping to set the “aggressive agenda.”
“It gives us the chance to reshape the conversation related to higher education in our state,” he said. “As a first-generation college student myself, I clearly understand the transformative power of a college education. This plan allows us to illustrate our strategic efforts and measurable results to policymakers and the public.”
He also acknowledged some of the challenges, such as funding and changing the culture inside and outside of higher education, that the institutions will face in getting to these goals.
“Funding some of the innovations needed is always a challenge,” he said. “When dealing with a large number of underserved, first-generation and at-risk populations, it is important to have adequate student support services in place to ensure persistence.”
Underserved groups are those who have lower college-going rates and lower completion rates. That includes minority groups, such as blacks and Hispanics, as well as those coming from families with a lower socioeconomic status.
To break barriers for underserved groups and adults, higher-education leaders are looking to tweak the state’s scholarship programs. Now, the state sets aside only 6 percent — or about $8 million — of a total $134 million in scholarship disbursement for need-based aid, but it is hoping to put down more for students with financial need.
Powell said he is also hoping to get about $10 million for a grant program to help the colleges and universities fund some of the innovative strategies.
“It will be important for that to be additional funding,” he said, adding that higher-education institutions aren’t fully funded now. “They will be more innovative and more willing to take a risk if they are not risking funds that, right now, go to pay salaries of faculty and staff and pay the light bills.”
Part of the plan also calls for a retooling of the funding formula for higher-education institutions in the state. Currently, most of a public college or university’s state funding is based on enrollment, while a small portion is based on certain performance measures, such as the number of credentials awarded.
The performance-based funding model doesn’t provide incentives but could take away from struggling schools that are working to correct certain issues, Powell said. Higher-education leaders are considering a fully outcome-based model and are reviewing different metrics for that, according to the plan.
The Higher Education Department wants to lay out those state funding changes for the coordinating board next July in hopes of getting the matter to the Legislature by the 2017 session.
Powell is hoping to have an outline of some strategies for the other goals by the spring.
The implementation plan will require significant effort, Welch said.
“I believe in the collective efforts of our colleges and universities,” he said. “We have had impressive advances over the past decade, and I have no doubt that will continue. We will need to be innovative, flexible and creative.”