2006 Collge Going Rates by In-State and Out-of-State

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CL Higher Education College Going Rate Data Release

CL Higher Education Center just added the 2005-06 in-state and out-state analysis to its College Going Rates by State data set.

The in-state rate is calculated for students who attended colleges in their home state while the out-state rate is for students who went to colleges that is outside of their home state. One interesting fact is that most of the North-Eastern states exhibit high out-state college going rates, which can due to the fact that all these states are close to each other and is well within the comfortable driving distances from each other.

State	Collge Going Total	Stay Total	Out Total
Alabama	72%	64%	7%
Alaska	50%	29%	21%
Arizona	49%	43%	6%
Arkansas	60%	53%	7%
California	63%	57%	6%
Colorado	69%	54%	15%
Connecticut	84%	45%	39%
Delaware	81%	53%	28%
District of Columbia	99%	34%	64%
Florida	71%	63%	8%
Georgia	77%	64%	13%
Hawaii	69%	44%	25%
Idaho	48%	35%	13%
Illinois	69%	51%	18%
Indiana	70%	61%	9%
Iowa	67%	57%	9%
Kansas	72%	61%	11%
Kentucky	68%	61%	7%
Louisiana	83%	74%	9%
Maine	77%	50%	27%
Maryland	78%	49%	29%
Massachusetts	87%	58%	29%
Michigan	72%	64%	7%
Minnesota	75%	55%	19%
Mississippi	86%	79%	7%
Missouri	66%	55%	11%
Montana	62%	46%	16%
Nebraska	73%	60%	13%
Nevada	56%	43%	13%
New Hampshire	76%	40%	37%
New Jersey	82%	47%	35%
New Mexico	77%	60%	17%
New York	89%	72%	18%
North Carolina	71%	64%	7%
North Dakota	78%	57%	21%
Ohio	68%	57%	11%
Oklahoma	67%	60%	7%
Oregon	53%	40%	12%
Pennsylvania	73%	60%	13%
Rhode Island	67%	41%	26%
South Carolina	52%	47%	5%
South Dakota	77%	59%	18%
Tennessee	74%	63%	11%
Texas	60%	53%	7%
Utah	49%	45%	4%
Vermont	66%	28%	37%
Virginia	75%	60%	15%
Washington	53%	41%	12%
West Virginia	63%	55%	8%
Wisconsin	68%	55%	13%
Wyoming	59%	43%	16%
US Total	69%	57%	13%

Again, the data is based on the 2005-06 Common Core Data (CCD) survey, the Private School Survey (PSS) and the Integrated Postsecondary Education System (IPEDS) migration survey managed by the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) of the Department of Education (USDE).

See prior blog entry for detailed info on how these data is processed.

College Going Rates by State - an Analysis

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See Data Release:
College Going Rates by State - 2008 Early Release
College going rates by state 2008 analysis
Estimated US College Going Rates by State - 2005-06

The college going rate ( aka the college continuation rate) data for normal 2005-06 high school graduates went to degree-granting higher education institutions has been tabulated by both Tom Mortenson and Duncan Hsu. The later also includes information on un-normal high school graduates and the non-degree granting higher education institutions. All these tabulations are based on National Center for Education Statistics' (NCES') Common Core Data (CCD), Private School Survey (PSS) and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).

Available reports so far were more interested in the overall degree-granting college going rates by state without looking into other details. Our analysis is aimed to provide a more complete picture.

Let's started with the US averages for college going rate. The average showed that, for normal high school graduates, 61.3% of them went to degree-granting colleges while 1.5% went to non-degree granting colleges. The list of rates are given below.

State	% Dgree-Granting	% Not-Dgree-Granting	% All College Going
Alabama	62.7%	0.3%	63.0%
Alaska	45.7%	2.1%	47.8%
Arizona	44.8%	1.9%	46.7%
Arkansas	56.6%	0.9%	57.5%
California	55.8%	1.2%	57.1%
Colorado	63.0%	1.6%	64.6%
Connecticut	70.4%	2.7%	73.1%
Delaware	64.2%	1.4%	65.6%
District of Columbia	56.9%	8.6%	65.5%
Florida	60.2%	2.8%	63.0%
Georgia	68.2%	1.7%	69.9%
Hawaii	59.7%	0.5%	60.2%
Idaho	45.7%	0.9%	46.6%
Illinois	60.8%	1.2%	61.9%
Indiana	63.5%	0.9%	64.4%
Iowa	61.6%	1.1%	62.7%
Kansas	65.7%	1.7%	67.4%
Kentucky	61.4%	0.8%	62.3%
Louisiana	65.7%	1.4%	67.0%
Maine	64.7%	0.8%	65.5%
Maryland	65.7%	2.1%	67.8%
Massachusetts	71.8%	2.1%	73.8%
Michigan	65.3%	1.3%	66.5%
Minnesota	68.4%	1.4%	69.7%
Mississippi	75.7%	0.7%	76.3%
Missouri	57.1%	0.8%	57.9%
Montana	58.1%	0.9%	59.0%
Nebraska	64.5%	1.0%	65.5%
Nevada	52.1%	1.7%	53.8%
New Hampshire	65.0%	1.1%	66.2%
New Jersey	69.7%	2.1%	71.8%
New Mexico	70.5%	1.0%	71.5%
New York	74.4%	1.6%	76.1%
North Carolina	65.6%	0.6%	66.2%
North Dakota	72.3%	1.0%	73.3%
Ohio	60.1%	1.0%	61.1%
Oklahoma	59.2%	4.4%	63.5%
Oregon	47.3%	1.0%	48.4%
Pennsylvania	62.1%	1.5%	63.7%
Rhode Island	54.7%	2.2%	56.9%
South Carolina	71.1%	0.7%	71.7%
South Dakota	71.9%	0.8%	72.7%
Tennessee	63.5%	2.7%	66.3%
Texas	55.2%	2.2%	57.4%
Utah	46.2%	1.1%	47.3%
Vermont	55.4%	0.8%	56.2%
Virginia	67.3%	1.0%	68.2%
Washington	48.0%	0.9%	49.0%
West Virginia	57.8%	2.8%	60.6%
Wisconsin	61.2%	0.7%	62.0%
Wyoming	58.1%	0.6%	58.6%
US Total	61.7%	1.5%	63.2%

Analyzing the non-degree granting college going rates reveals that most of the states have a rate of lower than 3% while the Oklahoma posted a rate of 4.4% and District of Columbia boasted a rate of 8.6%.



The frequency distribution of the degree-granting college going rates shows that while most of the states have a rate of greater than 54%, there are seven states that are away from the pack. These states are: Nevada(52.1%), South Carolina(49.0%), Washington(48.0%), Oregon(47.3%), Utah(46.2%), Alaska(45.7%), Idaho(45.7%) and Arizona(44.8%).



Diving into the degree-granting college going rate, we found that, in general, the four year college going rate is higher that of the two year college going rate. For the nation, the traditional four year colleges enrolled about 68% of all the degree-granting colleges going students, where the traditional four year colleges are defined as the public four year colleges plus the private non-for profit four year colleges. The overall degree-granting college going rate, separated into type of colleges and ranked by state is presented here.



As we can see from the chart the fractions taken by the traditional four year colleges varies from state to state. Analyzing the fraction, it reveals that the range varies from 35% (Mississippi) to about 95% (Alaska) and, except for on state (Mississippi, 35%), all states have fractions higher than 52%. While Alaska sending almost all of its students to traditional four year colleges, Mississippi sending only 35%. Looking for the Mississippi in the above chart, we notice that Mississippi achieving the highest degree-granting college going rate by sending most of its college going students to colleges other than the traditional four year colleges - noticeably, the two year public schools. District of Columbia(91%) and Vermont (90%) also send high percentage of their college going students to traditional four year schools.



The following chart ranked states by the traditional four year college going rate.



Rounding up the four year schools, we considered the private for-profit four year schools. On average, the college going rate for this sector is about 1%. Checking out the frequency distribution for this sector, it shows that for most of the states, this rate is lower than 1.6% while there are four states that with higher rates: Florida (2.7%), New Mexico (2.5%), New Hampshire (2.2%) and Arizona(1.9%).



For two years-or-less schools, the biggest sector is the public two year schools with an average of 17.7% college going rate. Analyzing the sector, it shows all states except three are confined within 2 to 24%. At the higher ends are Mississippi (48%), Wyoming (27.1%) and New Mexico (27%).



For private two years-or-less schools, the for-profit schools averaged at 0.8% while the not-for-profit schools averaged at 0.2%. The for-profit sector reveals that all states except three are falling within the range of 0.2 to 1.4%. The three at the higher end are Pennsylvania (2.8%), Colorado (2.5%) and Ohio (1.7%). In the not-for-profit sector, majority (25) of the states have a rate of 0.1% with all of them below 1%. The highest two states are Hawaii and South Carolina at a rate of 0.8%.





Rounding up the article, we like to note that there are much more to the college going rates than the overall degree-granting college going rate. Examining together with other factors like in-state, out-state college going rate, the college graduation rates and the industry hiring pattens can reveal even more information.

College Going Rate - Definition, Glossary and clarification

The lowering of US competitiveness in the education have promote thoughts about the 'Education Pipeline'. One of the measures that constitutes the idea of the Education Pipeline is the College Going Rates.

In general, the College Going Rate measures the percentage of high school graduates that went to colleges. However, in practice, the type of high school graduates and the type of colleges took into account could end up meaning different kind of rates.

For the high school graduates, possible variations are: On-Time Graduates, Public High School Graduates, GED graduates, High School equivalent Certificates ... etc. For type of colleges enrollment, the possible variations are: Fall First-Time freshmen enrollment. First-time enrollment within a year of high school graduation, the first-time freshmen that is younger than 19 years old or first-time freshmen enrolled in degree granting institution only.

Here are some of the examples:

1. Normal high school graduates with IPEDS degree-granting Fall first-time freshmen
Reported by CL Higher Education Center, Tom Mortenson, Nebraska CCPE

2. Normal high school graduates with all IPEDS Fall first-time freshmen
Reported by CL Higher Education Center.

3. Other (GED, Equivalent high school certificates) high school with all IPEDS Fall first-time freshmen
Reported by CL Higher Education Center.

4. Normal high school graduates with yearly college enrollment
Reported by Nebraska CCPE. This is done by using the National Students Clearing House data and filtering out students with the enrollment date.

5. With 19 years old limitation
Reported by California CPEC.

The 'Prior Learning' Edge

Original Article

Summary goes here!

For years, I have been advocated on the idea of test-out and evaluation-based transfer. It looks like this is a good supporting research for those ideas.

Personally, I am not surprised by the finding at all. There are plenty of experience of me that support my believes. Through my life, I changed jobs and learned things all by myself - even my school days is of no differences. I also met medical Doctors that are very good at electronics.

I have no intention of emphasizing the standardized test. But I do believe that there are objective measures that can be used to gauge students' ability.

I believe the use of objective measure should be extended for testing-out of classes and also for allowing transfer of credit - remember the fight between the National accredited and the regional accredited over the transfer?

The benefit I see for extending these object measure offering are:
1. Promote the real learning - to learn things to heart, you simply need put the efforts in and study. The instructor is there to help you but not to learn for you. 'Getting credit on you own' will echo the real idea of learning.
2. Lower the college cost: There are plenty of people out there that can learn by themselves, allowing them to test-out will save their college cost - I know this is what the institution don't like. But, to be truthful to the education, I can't see why should an institution deprive students’ right in doing so. This incentive will also promote students to study by themselves and made them more confident and independent.

Estimated US College Going Rates by State - 2005-06

CL Higher Education Center

New: College Going Rates by State - 2008 Early Release

CL Higher Education Center just released the estimated US College Going Rates by State for 2005-06 High School Graduates.

The analysis is based on the 2005-06 Common Core Data (CCD) survey, the Private School Survey (PSS) and the Integrated Postsecondary Education System (IPEDS) migration survey managed by the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) of the Department of Education (USDE).

The CCD and PSS survey is used to estimate the number of high school graduates from a state. The IPEDS migration survey provide the information of how many of those students went to colleges. Since PSS is collected every two year and the number of graduates collected by the 2005-06 PSS is that of 2004-05 academic year. By assuming that 2004-05 number is a good estimate for the 2005-06 number, we can add it to the number of public high school graduates collected by the CCD to produce the total number of high school graduates for a state.

Estimated Number of High School Graduates by State 2005-06

CL Higher Education Center

CL Higher Education Center just released the total Number of High School Graduates by State for the 2005-06 academic year.

The analysis is based on the 2005-06 Common Core Data (CCD) survey and the Private School Survey (PSS) managed by the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) of the Department of Education (USDE). Since PSS is collected every two year and the number of graduates collected by the 2005-06 PSS is that of 2004-05 academic year. By assuming that 2004-05 number is a good estimate for the 2005-06 number, we can add it to the number of public high school graduates collected by the CCD to produce the total number of high school graduates for a state.

The data in these table can later be used to estimate the college going rate for a state when combined with the migration data from the Integrate Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).

Release of Graduation Rate for Private High School By US states

CL Higher Education Center

CL Higher Education Center just released the graduation rate for private high school by state.

The analysis is based on the 2005 and 2007 Private School Survey (PSS) that is managed by the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) of the Department of Education (USDE). The overall graduation rate for private high school is 98.3 for 2004-05 graduates and 98.0 for 2006-07 graduates. The data presented will also be used for estimating the total high school graduates of a state, which can then be used to estimate the college going rate for each state when combined with data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).

Obama Tries New Tack to Collect Student Data

Original Article
Student Data Systems, Unite!

But when it comes education, we need to think about education first, not the research.

Personally, I like this one:

"For it to succeed, it can't be loaded with those who think unlimited data collection is the holy grail of educational reform." by Ms. Flanagan.

Here are couple of my thoughts - comments welcome:
On the onset, people supporting the tracking like to quote the accountability as the reason. But, there is a problem. If you really want accountability, you should know how to delegate responsibility. If state is responsible for educating the K12 students, I see no reason for other people to snoop around on those individual records. All you need to do is knowing how many students come from that state is not performing and leave the task to the state. This concept applies to other smaller entities too. Research is a different issue. Researcher can contract with entities and help them with the task of improving their performance.

The other popular idea/practice behind the tracking is to define students' success on their performance at the next level in their life. Federal Government can then trace back to students' prior encounters (i.e. schools, teachers ... etc) and hold them accountable. This approach is, in a way, very handy for the Federal Government or any big brothers, since they do not need to set the curriculum defined success before hand but can always accuse schools for not setting the curriculum high enough.

For accountability to work, each entities should be targeted/given a clearly determined or agreed-to goals and evaluated against it. If such an objective goal have been set, a high school will already know if they met their responsibility or not. There is no use of the tracking system.

The task of the Federal Government or Colleges is to work with high schools to work out what is the reasonable goal for the high school graduates and to develop suitable objective evaluation methods.

I am a researcher and I love data. But when it comes education, we need to think about education first, which happen to be teaching responsibility, not the research.

Release of 2008 Educational Attainment by State and Age

CL Higher Education Center

CL Higher Education Center just released the state report on Education Attainment.

The analysis is based on US census' 2008 American Community Survey (ACS). The analysis reported the % of population for each education attainment level and age range. In general, the high percentage of graduate degree workforce correlated well with a state's New Economy Index published by The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.

Slipping (Further) Off the Pedestal

Original Article - The article is about a survey of public's perception about the HIGH higher education price.

Quality check is the most important factor in affecting the cost of higher education.

A lot of comments are well received.

I like to point out couple of my points:

Should we really believe the HE is necessary for all/most of our citizen?
Personally, I wouldn't say that just yet until I see our K12 crank out quality students - I am pretty sure a lot of things I do today, I will be able to do it with my high school degree adding some self-improvement.

To me, the quality check is the most important factor in affecting the cost of higher education. Personally, I have no problem with the idea that the lower cost will bring down the quality - as long as the quality is reflect on the price. There are institutions with great faculties and highly qualified students that are well deserved the high price. But there are also institutions with great faculties but not so qualified students. In this case, the high quality faculties is under used and institutions might as well lower the price and hire suitable faculties. The problem is, of cause, at this point, parents and students do not have good information on the quality of college graduates. They can only go for the brand names and, of cause, no one is going to risk their future by betting on cheaper colleges - you can't blame people to believe that, in some way, the price could reflect quality especially when there is no good indicator.

For-Profit Colleges Change Higher Education's Landscape

Original Article
Chronicle of Higher Education falls down on the job

Objective measurement is in no way try to intimidating the 'traditional higher education' but a fair mechanism that protect the public and it happen to be in favor of GOOD old 'traditional higher education institution'.

It's hard to believe that the traditional university and colleges still don't think that an objective measurement of their graduates is not only the right thing to do but also an indicator of their quality. Why are they against it? I can't understand their logic. But I hope it have nothing to do with their fears of comparison. If that is the case, I am afraid that even I will begin to question the quality of the education our kids are receiving.

===== Added on Feb. 20, 2010
It seems that the second article pointed to the problem of quality. That article is written by former Chronicle staff. To my opinion, the Chronicle is more of a 'Higher Education Insider', which, most of the time, defend the value of 'traditional higher education'. I actually wondering if the Chronicle have being actively support the idea of objective measurement of college graduates. At this point, I can only hope some of these people will finally realize that the support of objective measurement is in no way try to intimidating the 'traditional higher education' but a fair mechanism that protect the public and it happen to be in favor of GOOD old 'traditional higher education institution'.

Education Directions - US Education Department

Clash Over Student Privacy
Resistance on Debt Proposal

To be finished ...

Given these two instances, I am beginning to question the direction US Education Department is taking.

My major concerns are 1. The dis-regard of law in the privacy case and 2. The dis-regard of the free-market mechanism in the Debt Proposal case.

In the case of privacy, I understand that data is very useful in UNDERSTANDING possible problems in our education system. But trying to ignore the law and forcing forward with rules? Do they really understand the value of having a democratic government?

I am a supporter of accountability. But I simply can't agree with US ED's way of forcing an organization to accept responsibilities that they do not have adequate control. Besides, how does this take into account the responsibility of the students and parents?

IPEDS college freshmen retention rate - 2008 state level released

Release note at CL Higher Education Center

The CL Higher Education Center just released the 2008 state level college freshmen retention rate data.

The CL Higher Education Center is releasing the 2008 state level IPEDS college freshmen retention rate data.

The data is compiled from the National Center for Education Statistics'(NCES) IPEDS(Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) survey. The release detailed each State's student retention rate for each sector (e.g. Public 4 Year, Public 2 Year, Private non-for profit 4 year ...). The release also separated out rates just for degree-granting institutions.

The college freshmen retention rate, in essence, measures the percent of students that still enrolled in the same institution after one year of their initial enrollment. For official definition, please check out the IPEDS survey site.

Teacher Q | How Should Teachers Be Evaluated?

Original Article

Summary goes here!

Well. I will continue to add idea to this.

For now, how about reverse proportional to the differences between Test_Scores and the Course_Grades?

Why? Personally, I believe teachers should only be held responsible for part of a student's learning. However, if a teacher award a student an A and that student failed a statewide or nation wide objective test, the teacher is definitely failed. On the other hand, if a student do not complete assignments, the teacher should only be held responsible is he or she did not contact parents about the situation. I know there could be loopholes in this proposal. So, don't jump the gun. I simply try to point out that we need first defines what is the responsibility of a teacher.

IPEDS Higher Ed Residence and Migration - 2008 state level Imputed released

CL Higher Education Center

Do you like to know where your high school graduates went to college? What percentage of your high school graduates went to out of state colleges? To what kind of colleges? Private or public? The recent data release from CL Higher Education Center can answer your questions.

The CL Higher Education Center just put forward the state level summaries for the 2008 NCES IPEDS¹ residence and migration survey. This release uses the imputed data which, in theory, provide a better estimate to the real picture.

The report shows that Texas Higher Education as a whole enrolled the highest per cent (94.0) of their own recent high school graduates followed by California (92.5), New Jersey (91.3) and Michigan (90.7). For public 4 year schools, again, the Texas enrolled the highest per cent(95.7) of their own recent high school gradates who went to public 4 year school followed by California (95.3) and New Jersey (93.4).

The analysis also shows that 71.0% of recent high school graduates of District of Columbia who went to 4 year public schools went to out-of-state institutions followed by Minnesota (40.6) and New Jersey (38.7).

The data show that, on average, 16% of high school graduates who went to public 4 year institutions went to out of state institutions. On the other hand, only 3 percent of high school students who went to 2 year public institutions went to out of state institutions. Looking at private 4 year non-for profit institutions, it shows that 47% of high school graduates who attended private 4 year non-for profit institutions went to out of state institutions.

¹The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System is managed by the National Center for Education Statistics of US Education Department.

Making College ‘Relevant’

Original Article

Summary goes here!

Now this is fresh. I had read so many articles that insists on the academic vs. career education. For most part, those articles stress the importance of liberal arts education without been able to quantify the benefit of it. It's not that the liberal art is not important, the problem I have is the passive response from experts in those fields to the question: How can you quantify the benefits of liberal arts? If you can't, how should others, say the employer, trust your work, aka, the students.

For career education, there are usually specific tasks or skill that can be measured and this translated to the verification of skills and, hence, the employment.

Immigrant law faces challenge

Original Article

Summary goes here!

Couple of points I would like to express my opinion on. First of all, the label applied to these kids that was brought to the US illegally. Are they guilty? It seems most people are agreed on this. If this is the case, I think the issue is non-existence. Beside that, I like to point out one thing that I always have trouble with - the argument that we should always consider our citizen's benefit first.

In general, I have no trouble supporting the idea that a government is serving their people's interest. The thing that troubles me is the entitlement mindset that is behind it. I would like people to think about what this attitude have brought down our nation in all fields.

Let's think about the entitlement in the automobile industry for a moment. The idea of Union is a genuine one. But the question is if the considered environment do exist. Do we over protect the employee to the point that it became an entitlement? Is this what failed our domestic auto companies?

Policy makers should keep the entitlement in mind when they make policies. Whenever a grant is proposed, they should think about do we promote our citizen's sense of responsibility or do we promote the entitlement?

For the education, I would like to ask most of our parents: Do we really put our money where we think is important (i.e. education)? Have you try to save every penny for the education? Do you consider big HDTV more important than a bare dial-up to the internet?


As for the general immigration debate, it is a different issue.

Article Links - Nebraska Community College Study (LB340)

New college council would be overkill - LJS 12/16/2009
Report urges more oversight of Nebraska community colleges - LJS 12/10/2009
Foley weighs in on colleges' spat - OWH 12/10/2009
State auditor: Nebraska Legislature should settle community college controversy - LJS 12/10/2009
Metro College files suit - OWH 11/21/2009
Omaha community college sues over state aid - NTV 11/20/2009
Senators need to end college feud - LJS 11/02/2009
Metro will sue other com. colleges - OWH 10/28/2009
Schools turn tables on Metro - OWH 09/22/2009
Metro tax hike blamed on new law - OWH 09/16/2009
Metro board to OK president - OWH 08/25/2009
Community colleges at odds over funding - G.I.Ind. 06/13/2009
Hearings set for community college study - McCook Daily 05/26/2009
Community College May Lose Millions Over Dispute - KETV 02/24/2009
Metro Comm. College Refuses To Pay Dues, Gets Expelled - KETV 02/23/2009

Funding Nebraska Community Colleges (LB340) - An idea

The best part of this model, however, is that the state's responsibility is also made clear.

The State of Nebraska need to provide its citizen a financial vision of the future and layout steps needed to get there including the projected needs for workforces and how these workforces can be developed by the state's educational systems.

As we think about legislation in general, a lot of laws are formed as reactions to issues that occurred. And a lot of them are, therefore, created in a form of responding to the events rather than a form that will address broader and more profound question.

Funding for community colleges in Nebraska is of no exceptions. As the community college evolved from vocational training school to adding academic training, the funding issue is to keep community colleges operational by allowing state aid and local property tax support. But the accountability part of the funding is never tied directly to each funding sources. And because of this, it is becoming difficult in deciding on how much fund should be coming from which funding source and what level of state fund is adequate and, in the center of the issue, who entitled how much of the state fund?

One idea I have is to have state provides the basic infrastructure and oversight, but let institutions run their own business. The principle behind this idea is that state of Nebraska does have interest in providing reasonable resources in educating its residents. However, this investment must be a calculated move - how the state plan to recover these investments? (This should quite the argument of providing education entitlement to citizens who insisted to live in a remote area.)

Based on the population by age data, state can allocate supports for a reasonable amount of classroom and office space and a reasonable number of staff and instructors. The fund can be adjusted based on the local price index. These funds will provide the basic supports for institutions to provide courses to their local communities. Institutions are then required to make sure these facilities are used in an efficient manners.

Institutions are then allowed to use local tax and private funds to extend their operation and should be held responsible to each fund source. For example, courses supported by the local tax need to address the general education needs of the local community. For a manufacture-heavy community, the community may decided to support general machinery courses with the tax fund while the specialized mechanic training may have to be supported by private funds from local companies in a co-operational manner.

In addition to these funding, state can provides strategic funding to encourage institutions to provide special courses that will benefit the state. For example, if a state is planed to attract motor companies and to become a heavy industry state, it makes sense for the state to provide extra fund for automobile related courses.

By tying a institution's operation to individual funding sources, the responsibility of an institution become clear and, therefore, the accountability. The best part of this model, however, is that the state's responsibility is also made clear.

The State of Nebraska need to provide its citizen a financial vision of the future and layout steps needed to get there including the projected needs for workforces and how these workforces can be developed by the state's educational systems.

White House Pushes Science and Math Education

Original Article

The basic of education is the down-to-the-earth sincere. The mind is in a solid pursue of knowledge but the glories.

I think all of these are good additions. But, let's face it. To achieve a science-respected society, it takes much more than that.

We all know that it take a very high level of efforts to learn math and science. The mind is spend in tedious, boring and low rewarding tasks. With a society that adores pop stars, I see difficulties in convincing our kids. The glories of the stars is not necessary their faults, but the media's attention of the superficial of success is a misleading attention.

The basic of education is the down-to-the-earth sincere. The mind is in a solid pursue of knowledge but the glories.

The innovation!

Original Article

Before we are carried away by the idea of innovation, let's work on building the basics.

It's a day at the work place. We were dealing with analyzing data. The feeling I had, at the time, is that most people seems to feel that statistics is such a mystery theory that common sense does not apply.

I am a slow thinker but I do think and it's been part of my training to to create something if it haven't been invented. If we apply our common sense to the statistics, we know that it is simply a way of looking into data. There are all kinds of formula in the fields of statistics. But to derive anyone of them, the first thing you have to have is a mathematics model of the data. To be precise, you should always verify your data against the mathematics model you are going to use. After you have verified the model, the general idea of statistics/probability can be derived to explain and check the data.

I would not go into the detail of what we were doing at the time. But this instance made me to think about the ability to innovation that a lot of educators tout about. My favorites is what Edison said about genius. The way I think about this is that if you have learned/stored enough things in your brain, these knowledge will interfered or be checked while you are searching for solution to problems. The better you understand things, the better you can avoid the unlikely solutions and more focused on the good possible solutions. The point I try to make is that before we are carried away by the idea of innovation, let's work on building the basics.

The Power of Race

Original Article

My opinion is that this issue should be addressed at K12 and the approach should be to provide access to study material for all kids.

Another article about race.


=== My post at InsideHigherEd.com ===

Personally, I know the discrimination exist because I am a victim of it.

Does my experience prevent me to success? Yes. But not to the point that I can't find any White that is gracious and understanding.

Look at the fact that Obama received a great portion of White vote, I have to say this is a great county and that White is, in general, quite open minded.

For Black, Hispanic and Native American to make the case, I think the Asian should be included in the theory.

In an ideal world where all K12 kids are given equal opportunities to access the study material, the Higher Education debate can be simplified.

For family with Internet access, the disadvantage claim can hardly stand.

Probe of Extra Help for Men

Original Article

Summary goes here!

Q: Is this what we really like to do? Adjust our standard and help any groups that seems to fall behind regardless of the causes even at the cost of sending the wrong message about the responsibility?

Do Professors Matter?

Original Article

Professors should engage in high productive activities that others is not capable of and qualify for it and it is administrators' job to provide quality instructors that matches students need at a reasonable price.

Well. I believe the comments to this article said a lot.

Personally, I am very sure that professors matter. However, we should also consider the students or the consumer side of the story. I understand that this article is more about the community colleges, but the general idea is the same for four year schools.

Of cause the professors or even the research professors know a lot than, say, most of the high school teachers. But can they really be a better teacher, defined as raising students knowledge level in average? As described in the comments, the answer may not be a firm 'yes'. Is this the problem with the professor? Probably not. It simply the mis-match of professors and students. But. Does it make sense to have professors teach high school courses? In general, no! Why? Think about it!

I have no doubt that professors know a lot and that they are great resources if students is ready for it. But if students are not, it is simply a waste of professors and students' time and resources. What this implies is that professors should engage in high productive activities that others is not capable of and qualify for it and it is administrators' job to provide quality instructors that matches students need at a reasonable price.