Report shows Utah has room for improvement
Utah received high grades in the biennial Measuring Up 2002 report released by The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
The report measures the performance of colleges and universities for each state.
The top grade for Utah was an “A” in preparation, which looks at how well high school students are prepared to move on to higher education or training.
Cecelia H. Foxley, the Utah commissioner of higher education, said in a press release, “[This] is a credit to students and our public education system.”
David Buhler, associate commissioner for the Utah State Board of Regents, said the report also looked at participation, which focuses on the opportunity students have to enroll in higher education. Utah’s “C” grade is an indication of the need for improvement, he said.
The high number of young men who take time off to serve missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints skewed the results for participation, Buhler said.
Utah received a “B” grade in affordability of education for students and their families.
In the completion section of the report, which determines if students are completing degrees in a timely manner, Utah received a “C+.” Students should be completing a 4-year degree in four years rather than five or six.
The last area examined the benefits each state receives as its population becomes more educated. Utah received a “B.”
Buhler said while the grades were good overall, there is still room for progress.
Joyce Kinkead, vice provost for Undergraduate Studies and Research at USU, said, “We’re going to appoint an admissions committee to look at the preparation of [high school] students.”
The average ACT score for entering freshmen last fall was 22.9. President Kermit L. Hall gave the provost office a goal to have that average increase to 24 by 2004, Kinkead said.
However, not just students have room for improvement.
Tammy Madsen, a senior majoring in literary studies, said, “I think [USU] needs to evaluate professors better. Some are extremely good. Others don’t know how to teach. They know the curriculum, but they don’t know how to relay the information to you.”
Megan Sjostorm, a junior majoring in business information systems, said, “I hate it when professors crucial to my field of study fail to perform as they should.”
Kinkead said last year’s freshmen are not performing as well as the university would like in math and science classes. Even though Utah did well in preparation, USU is looking at how well the students do once they get here.
“We’re looking at how to improve the retention rate of freshmen students into their second year,” Kinkead said.
This is why programs like the graduation guarantee, which helps chart a student’s university career to graduation, have been put into place, she said.
Madsen said, “I don’t see the purpose for depth courses when you’ve already taken generals. [These courses] prolong your time at the university, so it makes it difficult to adhere to the graduation guarantee.”
Buhler said the Utah State Board of Education is specifically looking at ways to improve retention by setting up more mentoring programs. It is also trying to get students set up more quickly in academic counseling so they can succeed in education, he said.
“We are looking at ways to help the students connect mentally to their institution,” Buhler said.
Kinkead said USU is also trying to track students’ classes better. The university would like to know the reasons why students cannot take certain classes and are taking longer to graduate.
The university would like to know who has had a bad semester. USU needs to find ways to help discover the problems and solve them so the students can improve and have a good experience at USU, Kinkead said.
“We want to do whatever we can to help the student succeed, especially their first year,” she said.
While studies like this are good indicators of where Utah higher education stands, they “are really helpful for parents and families, so when they’re looking at schools, they can get a better idea of how their state does,” Kinkead said.
Other institutions are faced with the same problems, especially concerning the affordability of tuition. University of Utah student body president Billy Edwards said when administrators say tuition is affordable, they are not looking at the whole picture.
“You have to consider facts like family size and the state’s average household income,” Edwards said. “When families have three kids in college at the same time, it becomes less affordable than if they only had one child.”
-gmk@cc.usu.edu