The ‘Other’ Transfer of Credit Problem

Original Article

Summary goes here!

==== My comments on InsideHigherEd.com ===
==#1
In addition to "colleges should not have policies that reject a student’s academic credits based solely on the accreditation status of the institution from which he or she earned them" I will add one more "Transfered-in students should be reported as part of the graduation rate." - I understand this will create some technical problem, but it can be worked out.

The idea is to give receiving institution freedom, yet, holding them responsible. By requiring institutions to report the success of transfer students, receiving institutions need look hard to see the impact of accepting a given transfer student. If the student is well prepared, accepting it will simply benefit the school. On the other hand, accepting an ill-prepared students, the receiving college is better prepared to put in extra efforts.

This is an important issue. Opinion welcome.

=== #2
I agree with Math Prof in couple of points.

I taught at community college for a while and I can say that the level required of my students is not as high as I would expected for 4 year college students which, as I said before, could very well caused by students' quality - I can't flunk all my students can I? I do have few students that is independent and is capable of handling high level demands. But quite few of them don't have the adequate reading skill to handle a higher level text book. So. I would say it is important for community colleges to promote students' basic skill and their independence if their students are going to 4 year colleges.

On the other hand, I also agree with points raised by Erika and Jim. My thought on that is that we need more options for students which include new kind of institutions that have different missions.

At this point in time, traditional 4 year colleges are the favorites. People and business seems to give weights on their graduates. However, I believe the trend can change. For IT, with the number of certificates tests available, some business are using them to measure the skill. The difficulty, of cause, is to find measures for other hiring criteria.

=== #3
Anon,

Well. It is just an idea for solving the problem. Personally, I do think all entities are responsible for the society and, therefore, should be regulated by government. However, I don't think it's government's job to get deep control of entities. So the proposal is to address the question raised without heavy regulations.

The question at hand is the protection of students' right - regardless where students obtained their credits. There could be other ways to resolve this problem including heavy hand regulations from government, which I really don't like.

As to the credit transfer within regionally accredited institutions, as far as I know, it seems to be less of a problem than other kind of credit transfer. But even then, there are questions raised by Math Prof.

Like I said before, not all students from the same class of the same community college are equal. The only way I can see fair is to evaluate each of them separately.

As you can see, it will take truck loads of regulations to ensure each student is evaluated separately and fairly.

By the way, I am open to ideas and I am not married to to this accountability thing. It just seems to me that it's a good idea for the problem.

Call to Arms for Private Colleges

Original Article

Summary goes here!

=== My post at InsideHigherEd.com ====
I believe it is wrong for government to go to this depth of interference.

There is no doubt that society had changed. There are jobs that need better education. However, the solution do not need to be higher education per se. A better trained high school graduates could be of help.

Even with higher education, 4 year of traditional college may not be the must - just look at highly motivated Bill Gates, Michael Dell or Jerry Yang.

For a society as a whole, we need to understand that not everyone need to attend traditional colleges. A organization that can provide needed knowledge and skill is what is counted.

The price will come down if we can level the playing field and allow more ways for students to gain knowledge, certificates and jobs. We shall give institutions freedom in operating the organization but insist on objective measure of their graduates. If an institution can produce good graduates that meet employers' need why do you care how they achieving it.

The problem these days is that people insist that the only way to produce good graduates is to go through institutions that operated in the traditional way. This way of thinking killed all possibility of running higher Ed in other possible cost saving ways.

The 5% Non-Solution

Original Article

Summary goes here!

Well. I don't like this. I hope people can come up with better reason and justification in doing this. Otherwise, find a better way to address the problem. I will take time think about this.