oflovefaithhopedream

Over the years, Kevin Carey and I have had our tussles, most recently over whether some of his recent stances on education reform were too faithful to a business model, which I called " neoliberal. "  But throughout it all, I have remained a fan of both Kevin and his shop, Education Sector, since both are known for asking hard, data-driven questions about whether higher education is meeting the needs of students from disadvantaged families.   So I am extremely disappointed to see that Education Sector has been hijacked by the conservative Right, and now clearly represents the interests of business elites, pushing free-market principles on all of education.  Kevin, to his credit, is getting the hell out of there, moving to the New America Foundation , accompanied by his talented colleagues Stephen Burd, Amy Laintinan, and Rachel Fishman. Within a few days the change at Education Sector will be complete.  The leadership includes several consultants to the Romney camp...

The following is a guest blog post by Robert Kelchen, graduate student in Educational Policy Studies at UW-Madison, and a frequent co-author of mine. --Sara I was pleased to see the release of Education Sector’s report, “ Debt to Degree: A New Way of Measuring College Success ,” by Kevin Carey and Erin Dillon. They created a new measure, a “borrowing to credential ratio,” which divides the total amount of borrowing by the number of degrees or credentials awarded. Their focus on institutional productivity and dedication to methodological transparency (their data are made easily accessible on the Education Sector’s website) are certainly commendable. That said, I have several concerns with their report. I will focus on two key points, both of which pertain to how this approach would affect the measurement of performance for 2-year and 4-year not-for-profit (public and private) colleges and universities. My comments are based on an analysis in which I merged IPEDS data with the Educat...