The Tennessee Legislature has passed a new higher education bill with some interesting reforms. Just as my home state of Kentucky is considering legislation that would make transfer from two- to four-year institutions easier, one part of the legislation in Tennessee aims to standardize transfer. I found the most intriguing component of the new legislation, however, a change in funding for public colleges and universities. Funding for institutions will now be tied, in part, to how well they do in terms of retaining and graduating students, as opposed to just the number of students enrolled.
With this move, I think Tennessee has embarked on an approach with both promise and peril. The promise is that the legislation might help nudge the state’s public institutions in a positive and meaningful manner to focus on issues related to student retention and graduation. Of course the danger is that institutions’ concern with graduation rates will result in watered down academic standards in an effort to retain (appease) students.
The challenge for Tennessee public colleges and universities will be to focus on enhancing retention and graduation efforts in ways that align with sound educational practice and promote academic quality. Given the difficult budgetary times in which we exist, however, this may not prove an easy task. Doing things like making sure there are sufficient numbers of academic advisors for students and making improvements to student support services in general may well entail additional costs and also potentially cause friction by challenging entrenched institutional practices. A path of lesser resistance might be for institutions to further cater to the “student as customer” concept that presents some serious challenges for higher education. For instance, instructors may end up feeling increased pressure (especially non-tenured faculty or those working off the tenure track) to avoid failing students or to assign less challenging assignments in order to obtain favorable student evaluations.
I’m certainly not saying that such a situation will develop in Tennessee, and I am an advocate of efforts to improve the educational experiences of students, but a focus on output (graduation rates) does not automatically equate with improved educational outcomes. It will be interesting and informative to observe how institutions in the state respond to this legislative initiative.