community colleges

Education paths for Iowa GED recipients

Before leaving the Iowa Department of Education, I had the pleasure of working with Andrew Ryder on his dissertation, which studied the pathway from the GED to community college in Iowa. Andrew spent a considerable amount of time looking for a dissertation topic. After some serious contemplation and some dead-ends, he eventually settled on the […]

Agree with the point, but not the logic

Education scholar, Gary Rhoads, was the lead author on a report released by Center for the Future of Higher Education, an organization that Dr. Rhoads leads. The main thrust is the troubling decline in community college funding and it’s impact on student access. Specifically, that the reducing the budget has put caps on programs and […]

Measuring Transitions Into the Workforce as a Form of Accountability

My new publication in November’s IR Applications, which is published by the Association for Institutional Research: This paper explores the relationship between student major and industry of employment and its application to higher education accountability. Data provided by statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDS) have enabled state educational agencies and colleges to follow students into the workforce. While most studies have […]

Visualizing Tuition & Fees

The Chronicle of Higher Education has put together an interactive chart showing tuition and fees at Iowa community colleges. Play through the timeline and you can see tuition and fees becoming a larger share of revenue for the 15 colleges, while state funding declined. There are a couple of notes along the way to highlight […]

Press: Fall enrollment up, decline potentially on horizon

From Mason City Globe-Gazette: A record total of 106,597 full- and part-time students enrolled in community-college courses this school year, a 4.8 percent increase that marked the 14th consecutive yearly rise in the overall student population. Tom Schenk Jr., educational program consultant with the state Department of Education, said this year’s jump followed a 14 […]