THECB: High school to college rate declining

With the percentage of high school graduates enrolling directly into college declining, Commissioner of Higher Education Raymund A. Paredes said the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board must take steps to reverse that.

Figures in a Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board news release show that 52 percent of high school graduates enrolled directly into college in 2016; 53 percent in 2015; and 54 percent in 2014.

The state would have to reach 65 percent enrolling directly into college to help meet its 60 X 30 Texas goal of getting 60 percent of 25 to 34-year-olds to earn a degree or certificate by 2030.

Paredes said the decline is being followed closely by higher education officials and they can’t tell yet whether it’s a trend or an anomaly until a couple more years have passed. He said universities have information days because there are “an awful lot of students” in high school whose parents didn’t go to college, so they don’t know a lot about financial aid, community colleges or transferring.

“We need to look at ways in which we can improve the college-going numbers. We’re including students going on to get certificates, not just those who are getting academic degrees,” or transferring from a community college to a four-year institution, Paredes said in a teleconference Wednesday.

“Whatever we do we have to do in partnership with TEA (the Texas Education Agency). We can’t improve high school completion and college going rates without TEA’s involvement. We have to work with state board of education. They’re now going into the final stages of doing the next generation of TEKS standards. We’ve been working with state board of education on those,” Paredes added.

Perception of cost is a real issue in public higher education, he said.

“Poor families typically overestimate the actual cost of public higher education. For example, if they hear that Berkeley is comparable in quality to Stanford, they often assume it costs roughly the same,” Paredes said in a follow-up email.

“Compared with college costs in other states, Texas is among the top three most affordable states when it comes to our public two-year institutions; we are in the mid-range with our public four-year institutions. But Texas must do more to focus on affordability because 60 percent of students in the K-12 pipeline are poor. Socioeconomic status is the biggest predictor of educational attainment. For low-income students of any background, the eighth-grade cohort completion rate is about 13 percent,” he added.

He said the coordinating board wants to make sure there is appropriate rigor in high school courses and encourage community college and universities to work with high schools.

Ector County Independent School District has collaborations with Odessa College and the University of Texas of the Permian Basin for early college high schools, dual credit and other programs.

Paredes said he will testify next week before the Senate Higher Education Committee on the 60 by 30 Texas interim charge.

“We’re on track to meet goals at rates that will ultimately result in achieving four basic goals. We need to improve college going rate out of high schools. It’s about 52 percent of high school graduates right now. We need to be at least 65 percent to meet our goals. We’re well behind,” Paredes said.

Other states have a higher percentage that go straight from high school to college. Massachusetts sends about 70 percent of high school graduates on to higher education; Minnesota, 68 percent; and California, which he said has similar demographics to Texas, sends 60 percent.

Asked about areas like Odessa where students go to work in the oilfield when they finish high school, or drop out or don’t see the value of education, Paredes said the coordinating board knows that occurs.

“That’s one of the reasons that we support strong advisory programs like Advise Texas and some other efforts. We want to make sure whatever students do after high school they know what the job market is like and what their options are,” Paredes said.

“We know that there are a number of students who go to work right out of high school and we know a lot have to. Our job is to let them know what their options are, even under those circumstances. We want students to know in high school that college is an option far beyond graduation,” he added.

Paredes said he’s also optimistic about getting performance bonuses for four-year universities passed in the legislature. The measure is in place for two-year schools, he added. The measure would offer financial incentives for schools that meet certain milestones.

More than 30 states have adopted performance-based funding, he said.

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