“The U.S. needs to increase access to college at a lower cost with greater completion rates and better long-term student success in the workplace,” said Department of Education Under Secretary Ted Mitchell, at AN EDUCATION WRITER'S ASSOCIATION breakfast in Dallas I attended earlier this month. He went on to say, “We can’t do the same thing as we have for the past 100 years. We need to innovate. Our students need to complete and compete.”
Mitchell centered his talk on “the three new truths in higher education today.”
His first truth: There has never been a time in our country’s history when higher education has been more important, and it is crucial that the benefits of education be spread more widely. He stressed that, “higher ed is one of the most significant elevators of both individual prosperity and national prosperity.” It is important to note that Mitchell includes community colleges and technical training in his definition of higher education.
Mitchell’s second truth: We all need to change our mindset about what the college experience is today. Eighteen-year-olds finishing in four years at a residential college is now the atypical experience (less than 50 percent do so). “What we used to call the non-traditional student is the traditional student today,” explained Mitchell. He said the “who” is different, the “when” is different, the “where” is different and, even the “why” (attend college) is different. Colleges need to figure out how to meet the needs of this new kind of student, he insisted.
The third truth: “Access and success are not synonymous,” said Mitchell. “We can celebrate increased access to college for a more (racially and socio-economically) diverse group of students, but graduation rates and long-term success are really most important.”
He added that, “the news here is not great.” Only half of students who start college finish. Among low-income students, only 9 percent earn a bachelor’s degree by age 25. Mitchell pointed to several reasons for this. Colleges have opened their doors to students who aren’t well prepared by their high schools. Placed in remedial classes that don’t count toward graduation (and do cost money), students drop out. Costs have continued to rise and, as state budgets have been cut, families are bearing a greater burden. Finally, at-risk students have not been provided the tools they need to succeed.
Mitchell also touched on the government’s upcoming release of its new college ratings system. Instead of ranking schools largely on reputation, like U.S. News & World Report does, he said the federal ratings will “shine a light on schools that are doing a good job” of access, completion, affordability, innovation and the long-term success of its students.
Addressing specific steps the government is taking to help with this process, Mitchell said the federal student loan form (the FAFSA) has been revised so that it now takes just 20 minutes to complete, far less than in the past. The amount of the average Pell grant has also been increased.
Most interesting, perhaps, is the government’s array of new innovation grants being offered to encourage colleges to try new programs. Mitchell said that the government is trying hard to engage in regulatory reform so that it can get out of the way of great new ideas. “To get where we need to go, colleges are going to need to innovate,” said Mitchell.
Mitchell expressed concern about the tension between higher education and the workplace. Colleges have traditionally focused on content delivery, and employers care less about content and more about critical thinking and problem solving skills.
Students will eventually move through college rewarded for mastery, unrelated to “seat time” in a classroom, predicted Mitchell. He said he hopes specific workplace skills will be offered in modules through open education resources (free and online), as this is a great desire of employers. The end game for everyone involved in higher education, he said, is the long-term success of all students out in the real world. Although there are many ideas, it is still to be determined exactly what that process will look like on any given college campus.
During an interview in Dallas, I learned that Mitchell’s passion for education can be traced right back to Sonoma. Mitchell is close friends with both Dennis Collins and Chuck Young, who both retired to Sonoma after powerful careers in education. Collins and Mitchell worked together when Collins was chair of the board of trustees of Occidental College and Mitchell was president of the college. Former UCLA chancellor Chuck Young hired Mitchell several different times in his career and, speaking of Young, Mitchell said, “Chuck is the reason I am in education today.”
In his current job, Mitchell reports to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and oversees policies, programs and activities related to postsecondary education, adult, career and technical education, federal student aid and diversity initiatives including the Educational Excellence for Hispanics program. His day-to-day charge is to implement President Obama’s goal for the U.S. to have “the best educated, most competitive workforce in the world” as measured by the proportion of college graduates by the year 2020. A native of Marin County, Mitchell formerly served as the president of the California State Board of Education, as president of Occidental College, and vice chancellor and dean of the School of Education at UCLA. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and Ph.D. from Stanford University.
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