The Knowledge Economy and Postsecondary Education Report of a Workshop (2002) / Chapter Skim
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1 Demographic and Attainment Trends in Postsecondary Education
1 Demographic and Attainment Trends in Postsecondary Education
Pages 11-58
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From page 12... ...
Also, for reasons discussed at the end of the paper, existing national data pnmanly describe "traditional" postsecondary institutions and the attainment of "traditional" postsecondary education credentials. Finally, because of both the reliance on national data and the broad scope of this paper, many topics could not be covered in depth, and many of the complex issues raised by these data received admittedly cursory treatment.
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From page 13... ...
This trend reflects continued increases in the skills required by the labor market and by society in general. Within this world of increasing skill demands, America's public and private postsecondary education institutions have firmly maintained their role and mission.
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From page 14... ...
A number of aspects of postsecondary education are then examined, including trends in postsecondary enrollment levels and rates, the composition of students in postsecondary education, the number and types of degrees awarded, and student financial aid. The chapter then presents a brief overview of trends within the military and the labor market that may influence participation in postsecondary education.
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From page 15... ...
At the same time, the proportion of Blacks increased slightly from 13 percent to 14 percent, the proportion of Hispanics increased from 8 percent to 15 percent, and the proportion of other minorities (Asians and Native Americans) increased from 2 percent to 5 percent (U.S.
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The next sections LISA HUDSON 17
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From page 18... ...
This growth has been fueled by increasing college enrollment rates among high-school graduates and among adults in general (Figure 1-3) , rather than from increases in the number of high school graduates or college-age adults (defined as adults aged 18-24~.
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From page 19... ...
Throughout most of the 1980s, both the relative returns to a college education and young adult enrollment rates increased, suggesting a strong labor market increase in the demand for a college education during that decade. In the l990s, however, the wage premium for a college education leveled off and college enrollLISA HUDSON 19
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From page 20... ...
~ 1.00 . _ 0.50 0.00 _ ~ am, —Grades9-11 in_ _ ,,.%, _ _ _ ~ _ ^_ ~ ~ _ 1 ~ 9 ~ is 9 ~ ~ # A ~9 ~ ~ 4'~ ~ o p of it, sap ~ ~ ~ ~ ,~ 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 Year FIGURE 1-4b Ratio of median annual earnings of female wage and salary workers aged 25-34 whose highest education level was grades 9-11, some college, or a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to those whose highest education was a high school diploma or GED: 1970-1998.
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From page 21... ...
Nonetheless, these trends seem to suggest that labor market demand for a college education was particularly strong during the 1980s and may have leveled off in the late l990s. Enrollments Among Types of Postsecondary Institutions The overall increase in college enrollments in the last three decades has occurred within public institutions, private institutions, four-year institutions, and two-year institutions (see Figure 1-2~.
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From page 22... ...
Over the longer time period from 1970 to 1997, there was a shift within the four-year sector from public nshtubons to private ~nshtubons, resulting In a decline In public ~nshtubons share of four-year enrollments from 74 percent to 65 percent. This relative growth in the private four-year sector is somewhat surprising, since private four-year institutions have had higher tuition increases in the past three decades than have public institutions.
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From page 23... ...
suggest that future college enrollment growth may be concentrated among younger students rather than older students, as was the case during earlier decades. But labor market trends, discussed in a later section, may increase the enrollments of older students, assuming postsecondary institutions are seen as a viable alternative for worker training; this is a more difficult trend to predict.
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From page 25... ...
One might ~ _ ~ _ _ assume that "equal access" implies that male and female college participation rates should now be equal. However, to the extent that the labor market provides good-paying jobs that do not require a college education in traditionally male-dominated fields (such as construction)
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From page 26... ...
In fact, the proportion of Black students enrolled in postsecondary education did not increase until the 1990s, the decade in which their participation rate increased (Table 1-3~. Among other non-Hispanic minorities,7 representation in postsecondary education and participation rates increased 6Since Hispanics were not separately identified in federal data collections until the mid-1970s, data by race/ethnicity cannot be provided for 1970.
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From page 27... ...
However, the nature of the increase varies by racial/ethnic group. Among Blacks, enrollments have been predomiLISA HUDSON 27
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From page 28... ...
Among Native Americans, enrollments have shifted from a fairly equitable sex division to enrollments that are predominantly female. Finally, among Whites and Hispanics, enrollments have shifted from predominantly male to predominantly female, while among Asians the shift has been from predominantly male enrollments to a fairly equitable sex division.
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From page 29... ...
208~. Trends Among Institutions Looking more closely at enrollments in the four basic types of postsecondary institutions helps clarify the nature of the trends noted above.
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However, within the four-year and two-year sectors, public and private institutions enroll roughly equivalent percentages of minority students. This overall enrollment pattern has not changed over time, as increases in minority representation have been roughly equivalent across all four types of institutions.
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236~. LISA HUDSON during both decades, but with an especially large increase in the representation of Hispanics within both public and private two-year institutions (Figures 1-12 and 1-13~.
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From page 32... ...
DEGREES AWARDED Bachelor's degrees made up 52 percent of all degrees awarded by postsecondary institutions in 1997-1998. The next most commonly awarded degree was the associate degree, constituting 24 percent of 32 DEMOGRAPHIC AND ATTAINMENT TRENDS IN POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION
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From page 33... ...
With the exception of doctoral degrees, the proportion of degrees awarded by public institutions compared to private institutions declined as the level of the degree increases. For example, in 1997-1998, public institutions awarded 81 percent of associate degrees, 66 percent of bachelor's degrees, 55 percent of master's degrees, and 40 percent of first professional degrees.
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From page 34... ...
Similarly, the number of master's degrees awarded by public institutions increased 34 percent, compared to 71 percent in private institutions. As a result, public institutions' share of associate degrees declined over this period from 84 percent to 81 percent, and their share of master's degrees declined from 61 percent to 55 percent (Table 1-7)
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From page 36... ...
The different roles of public and private institutions are reflected in the level and types of degrees each awards. As noted above, public institutions granted 81 percent of the associate degrees awarded in 1997-1998.
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From page 37... ...
This shift in degree awards is consistent with the view that the economy is shifting toward an information services economy and with recent growth in the management, technical, and health care sectors of the labor market (see, e.g., Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] , 2000 and "The Labor Force" section of this chapter)
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From page 38... ...
Smaller institutions were also less likely than larger institutions to offer distance education courses. Since private institutions are smaller on average than public institutions, private institutions may be less likely to offer distance education because their smaller size makes them less likely to have the institutional capacity to support this type of instructionor perhaps their smaller size indicates a greater emphasis on a personal approach to education that is inconsistent with the use of distance education.
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From page 39... ...
Thus, as Figure 1-14 shows, in the 1980s, average grant aid and loan aid per (full-time equivalent) student were TABLE 1-10 Average Unclergracluate Tuition and Required Fees Paid by Full-Time Equivalent Students in Degree-Granting Institutions, by Type of Institution: Selected Years from ~976-1977 to ~999-2000 Public institutions Private institutions Year Two-year Four-year Two-year Four-year 1976-1977 $ 829 $1,807 $4,662 $ 7,420 1980-1981 792 1,628 4,886 7,324 1985-1986 991 2,039 5,679 9,467 1990-1991 1,052 2,410 7,111 11,596 1995-1996 1,355 3,114 7,756 13,386 1999-2000 1,336 3,351 8,107 14,690 SOURCE: Snyder (2001, pp.
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From page 40... ...
These forms of aid are even more "needs" neutral than student loans and thus represent a further targeting of student aid away from lower-income students toward middle- and upper-income students. These changes would be understandable if increases in college costs and declines in federal aid had negatively affected the ability of students from middle- and upper-income backgrounds to attend college but, as explained below, there is no evidence that this occurred.
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From page 41... ...
On the surface, the evidence suggests no negative effects college enrollments have been increasing, even as tuition has gone up and grant aid has gone down. Part of the reason for this seeming lack of effect on access may be that the middle- and upper-income families that have traditionally supplied the majority of college students have not been significantly affected by these changes.
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From page 42... ...
high college costs and restricted grant availability more noticeable or widespread than they would otherwise be. Student Debt Burden Concerns have also been raised about the effects of student financial aid on students who can attend college only by assuming a significant amount of student loan debt.
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From page 43... ...
individuals who have foregone college enrollment because of potential debt burden. Second, the study reflects the experiences of students who received financial aid before the 1992 changes in federal student aid policy that resulted in higher levels of student borrowing.
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From page 44... ...
For the most part, however, the military serves primarily as an alternative to entering the labor market, rather than as an alternative to college attendance. As is true for recruitment into any sector of the labor market, the ease of military recruitment depends on the state of the economy.
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From page 45... ...
Thus, although military academies can serve as an alternative college provider for prospective officers, the academies' relatively small size and limited training capabilities (e.g., they do not train military doctors or lawyers) mean that they are a "small-time" competitor for traditional postsecondary institutions.
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From page 46... ...
. Since the end of World War II, the military has offered a "GI Bill" that provides education benefits, including college financial aid, for separating service members.
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From page 47... ...
that can be used to pay for college costs at any time from initial separation up to 10 years after separation from the military. In year 2000, the benefit for those who enlisted for at least three years was $536 per month for up to 36 months, or $6,432 per year, for a total potential benefit of $19,296.~5 (In comparison, the 1999 average Fell grant per recipient was $1,923 and the average federal student loan per recipient was $4,667 ECollege Board, 2000a]
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From page 48... ...
THE LABOR FORCE Like the military, the civilian labor force serves as an alternative pursuit to college enrollment for students leaving high school. As is also true of the military, the labor market often provides incentives for college study by requiring initial or further skill development that can be obtained through postsecondary education (e.g., continuing education requirements for doctors)
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From page 49... ...
In 1998, 7 percent of adults age 25 or 16From 1965 to 2000, women's participation rate rose from 35 percept to 60percent, while men's participation rate dropped from 81 percent to 75 percent. (These labor force participation data are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Web site http://stats.bls.gov.)
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From page 50... ...
lhls perspective shows that while many employers offer tuition assistance, relatively few college students receive it. Using the NCES National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, Lee and Clery (1999)
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From page 51... ...
also used NCES' Adult Education Survey to examine the extent to which adults received employer support for their participation in "credential programs." Because of ambiguity in the definition of this term, credential programs may include vocational training programs and noncredit courses taken to receive continuing education requirements or other formal credentials, in addition to for-credit college enrollments. Among adults in these programs, 24 percent received employer financial support, and 33 percent received some other form of employer support (such as time off from work)
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From page 52... ...
According to the BLS survey, only 17 percent of employers used postsecondary institutions as a training source for employer-provided training (BLS, 1996~. Another perspective on the role of postsecondary education as a provider of adult education and training comes from the 1995 NCES Adult Education Survey.
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From page 53... ...
This finding is inconsistent with NCES student surveys showing that most students are enrolled in degree programs.~7 This inconsistency suggests that a significant amount of continuing education and other noncredit course taking is occurring within postsecondary institutions that is not captured by NCES' regular student surveys. This limitation, in turn, implies that the student enrollment data discussed earlier in this chapter show how postsecondary institutions are used by only about half of those who receive instruction from these institutions.
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From page 54... ...
Increasing college costs may be limiting access for some students, student loan programs may lead to undesirable debt burdens, and business and industry appear to be pushing for credentialing processes that could operate independently of the postsecondary education system. Surveys of employers and adults also show that the majority of adult course taking occurs outside of postsecondary education.
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From page 55... ...
by the Department of Labor and the Department of Education; perhaps a joint Labor-Education survey effort should be attempted. ~ '' Nay, more focused surveys, such as the NCbb surveys on distance education, He needed to monitor emerging delivery systems that cannot be captured in existing surveys.
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From page 56... ...
(1997~. Early labor force experiences and debt burden (NCES 91-286~.
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From page 57... ...
(1999~. Distance education at postsecondary education institutions: 1997-98 (NCES 2000-013~.
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From page 58... ...
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (1999 )
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