At a recent faculty meeting, my colleagues and I were reminded once again that improved student advisement and retention will lead us to the Promised Land of improved graduation rates. We’ve been hearing this for some time. The message is always delivered loud and clear.
Enrollment numbers used to drive the bottom line at many of Georgia’s public colleges, but not anymore. Butts in seats just won’t get it done. Once the diktat of Complete College Georgia finally kicks in, there’d better be graduation caps on more heads, or it will be “slim pickins” in the House and Senate appropriations rooms.
(The Complete College Georgia initiative calls for and identifies strategies for the state’s public and private colleges to add an additional 250,000 college graduates — whether by a one-year certificate, an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree — by 2020.)
The message this year, however, took a not-so-subtle ominous turn for the worse. Things must be heating up under the Gold Dome.
The subject was grade point averages and how the relatively small difference between a D and an F can make all the difference in the world of higher education. A graphic example was in order.
Student A takes four classes, fails two and earns a C in the other two. Not only is his GPA an abysmal 1.0, but his financial aid is as good as gone. Without financial aid, he ceases to be a student. To put it another way, without financial aid, he is of no earthly use to us.
But look what happens when those two F’s are magically transformed into Ds: His GPA leaps to 1.5 — good enough to keep financial aid flowing for a little while longer. The Promised Land is still within reach.
The presenter of this graphic example was something of a statistician, schooled in the vagaries of numbers and what they really mean. I considered all the Fs I had awarded over the years and wondered what changing them to Ds would amount to in the grand scheme of things, assuming there is a grand scheme. After all, a D is as bad as an F in many cases because the student must retake the class.
While momentarily flirting with the logic of doing absolutely the wrong thing for absolutely the wrong reason, I experienced what is known as a “sinking feeling.” My stomach felt empty, and my heart felt sick. I was sure others in the audience were experiencing the same thing.
Perhaps sensing that some of the air had been sucked from the room, the presenter was quick to add that the strength and vitality of any institution of higher education is predicated on its integrity. Like all platitudes delivered as an afterthought, this one sounded more than a little hollow.
Then I thought of a student who I recently nominated for an academic award that provides the recipient nothing that goes to his bottom line. It merely serves as a recognition that he has striven for and achieved excellence. It is worth noting that this is a full-time student who also works full time and receives no financial aid.
Working in higher education has its challenges, especially for those of us who happen to be faculty members. Our greatest challenge may be in convincing the powers that be that without us, there would be no college.
But each day, it becomes more apparent that the bottom line in higher education is both a challenge and an ever-present menace with incalculable costs.
