Enhancing Accountability Alabama’s Colleges and Universities

Enhancing Accountability in Alabama’s Colleges and Universities In Fall 2018, the state’s college and university presidents working with ACHE and in collaboration with legislative and gubernatorial leadership developed a series of measures that would highlight the efforts of the state’s college and universities. Every institution, public and private, that receives state funds participates in accountability reporting in the following areas: Governance Student Success & Programmatic Quality Financial Health & Stability Responsiveness to State and Local Needs Professional Development for Boards College and University Graduation Rates Investment Grade Credit Rating Employment Outcomes Reporting Economic Impact Reporting University Retention Rates Community College Time-to-Degree Program Accreditation Academic Program Vitality Matrix Cumulative Earned Credit Hour Benchmarks Developmental Education

Professional Development for Boards Newly appointed and re-appointed trustees will be required to complete hours of professional development sessions within two years of the date on which the commissioner/regent/ trustee takes office. The purpose is to instill an understanding of role and responsibilities as specified by SACSCOC, and should include topics such as institutional finance, student success, and human resources management. The reports provided here would identify the content of the training provided and certify that all new trustees met the 10 hour training. To assure the availability of board development opportunities for new trustees, ACHE would assist in this endeavor by providing state-wide trustee events and sanctioning of individual board development activities that would meet the requirements. One hour of ethics law education? Number of hours?

University Graduation Rate

University Retention Rates IPEDS 6 year graduation rate of Full Time Freshman cohort Campuses will be organized by SREB categories

Community College Time-to-Degree Will use the same metric that is being used in the ACCS funding formula

Program Accreditation External reviews of academic programs are a useful and valuable means of protecting quality in higher education. They can generate suggestions for program improvement that are both specific and practical. The accreditation process also provides the impetus for institutional self- examination, which will produce improvements beyond those recommended by the accrediting body. Institutions of higher education provide a report to ACHE identifying all current programs for which individual programmatic accreditation is available and their accreditation status. The first report will be posted on the ACHE website by September 2020.

Academic Program Vitality Matrix Currently on ACHE website. Sample below

Cumulative Earned Credit Hour Benchmarks Academic programs are generally designed to be a certain length: 60 hours for associate degrees and 120 hours for bachelors programs. Some programs are authorized for additional credit hours, if it is required for professional accreditation. Currently all public colleges report cumulative credit hours earned to ACHE as a part of their student data file. Connecting this to the completions file allows a calculation to occur for each academic program. Schools that have graduates in academic programs that exhibit excessive credits (defined as greater than one standard deviation above the mean), compared to similar programs at other Alabama schools, would be required to assess the situation and submit an intervention plan to assure students can graduate in a timely manner. ACHE will provide consulting services to assist institutions in eliminating excessive hours. The first report will be posted on the ACHE website by September 2020. Note: the data currently provided to ACHE looks somewhat disordered for several campuses and campuses will have to review their reporting on this data point before it can be used for this benchmark.

Developmental Education It has long been known that college students who need remediation in math or English are less likely to earn college degrees. The length of time needed to remediate is also correlated with lower success. The goal of this standard is to reduce the time needed to complete remediation, and therefore increase the prospects for degree completion for these students. The metric proposed is the percentage of first time entering undergraduate students who complete first-year, college-level English and math courses. Institutions will report to ACHE the numbers of students who require remediation, and the percentage of these students who complete first year college level English and math within one year of entry. These data for each institution will be compared to in-state peers and national peers if in-state peers are not available. ACHE will provide consulting services to institutions to assist in making improvements.  This measure will require a new reporting process. The first report will be posted on the ACHE website by September 2020. Note: ACHE could easily do the report for this if it collects course grades from the campuses.

Community College Graduation Rates Similar to university report on prior slide

Investment Grade Credit Rating

Revenues Similar charts for other SREB groups To be written

Tuition and Fees

Expenditures Similar charts for other SREB groups

Employment Outcomes Reporting Reports will include % of grads employed in-state 1 yr and 5 yrs after graduation and provide wages by major and degree level. This report could be done by ACHE by connecting to the state’s longitudinal data system currently being developed. The process of identifying graduates could include a development of most recent addresses of graduates, household income information and migration patterns of graduates of various majors. This measure will require a new reporting process (last known address of graduates) and will require implementation of the state longitudinal database. The first report could be posted on the ACHE website by September 2020.

Economic Impact Reporting Such reports help the citizenry of the state and local communities understand how much the existence of a college and university impacts their local, regional and state economies. It could also serve as tool for highlighting the economic value of research activities that have a much higher economic impact than many economic activities. The report also would be able to quantify the value of the extracurricular events such athletics, continuing education, conferences, concerts and other cultural offerings of a university or college. Contingent on state funding being provided for this report, a report could be generated every 5 years.   The first report will be posted on the ACHE website by September 2021.

Accountability information would be posted on the ACHE Web page All of these slides are draft working papers