College for What? Understanding Academic and Social Experiences of Recent Graduates

1. Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa November 3, 2014 Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy College for what? Getting a Job, Social Relationships and Civic Participation for a Recent Cohort of Emerging Adults* *We thank the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Lumina, Ford and Teagle Foundations for their generous financial support and the Council for Aid to Education for collaboration and assistance with data collection.

2. An opening vignette

3. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011) Limited academic rigor • 45% students in a typical semester do not have any class with 20 pages of writing • 32% students in a typical semester do not have any class with 40 pages of reading per week • 36% students study alone five or fewer hours per week Limited learning • 0.18 standard deviation growth on CLA performance task first two years of college (7 percentile gain) • 45% students no meaningful gains on CLA performance tasks first two years of college Significant variation • Greater variation within than across colleges • Academic rigor associated with improved learning outcomes • Higher gains in arts and science core of university

4. Aspiring Adults Adrift: Tentative Transitions of College Graduates (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014) Presentation outline: • How do students experience college in terms of their academic and social orientations? • How are recent college graduates faring in transitions to adulthood broadly and in labor market outcomes? How do graduates understand their trajectories? • Are demonstrated generic competencies (i.e., critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing), college selectivity and college major associated with graduate outcomes? • How can higher education more effectively prepare graduates for successful transitions?

5. Data and methods • Determinants of College Learning Data • Longitudinal • College surveys and CLA Assessment: Fall 2005, Spring 2007, Spring 2009 • Post-college surveys: Spring 2010 and Spring 2011 • Large scale, but not national probability study; significant (male and less academically prepared student) attrition • Academically Adrift (2005-2007) - 24 diverse four-year institutions; N=2,322 student • 2009 senior year: N=1,666 students • 2011 post-college follow-up: N=967 respondents • Structured interviews (80 respondents): Summer 2011 • Nationally representative datasets used for historical context: GSS, PSID, Pew Media Surveys, IPUMS-Census, BLS-CPS, etc. • Descriptive analysis: early labor market models include covariates for race, parental education, gender, senior CLA score, institutional selectivity, major

6. Ascendance of college as social, not academic • Aligned with institutional commitment to therapeutic ethic/personnel perspective focused on social adjustment, well-being and personality development. • Aligned with broader cultural norms valuing “other-directed” personality ideal-type focused on sociability and sensitivity to others. • Accelerated by post-1960s change in legal definitions of student rights (Goss; FERPA) and financial models that privileged student consumer preferences (see e.g., Armstrong and Hamilton; Jacobs et. al.). • Increasingly individuals going to college and for greater periods of time embedded in emerging adult sub-cultures, where delays in assuming adult roles are normative and legitimated.

7. Students’ Time Use

8. Academic Commitment Over Time Academic time from 1925-1965 in time diaries relatively constant (39.2 to 34.1); source: Babcock and Marks, 2011.

9. U.S. Academic Commitment in Comparative Perspective Eurostudent 2009-11 data; U.S. AA 2007 Sophomores. SK lower than U.S.

10. U.S. residential student model in comparative perspective Eurostudent 2009-11 data; U.S. HERI 2010 freshmen. SE/NO/FI/DK lower than U.S.

11. U.S. Higher Education Financial Costs in Comparative Perspective Source: OECD, Education at a Glance 2012

12. The centrality of college in the social life (course) of emerging adults • Emerging adulthood: “In the U.S., becoming an adult is achieved when a person takes on a set of socially valued roles associated with finishing schooling, leaving home, starting work, entering into serious relationships and having children.” (Waters et al.) • These milestones are coming later and are becoming less normative. • For middle class students college is a central feature of these changes: increasingly individuals going to college and for greater periods of time embedded in emerging adult sub-cultures. • Higher education legitimates emerging adulthood

13. Academic engagement (student understandings) “I was a very good student. I did all my homework and studied for all my tests.” “Pretty committed. I went to 90- 95% of all my classes and I did all my homework and for the most part the readings.” “Actually, like I put forth a good deal of effort. I was great about going to class. I think I really only missed a handful of classes the entire time I was at college. I studied. Any homework I had to do, I did.” “I was fairly academically engaged in that I tried very hard not to fail most of my classes.” “I was a good student. I did my homework on time. I never missed deadlines”

14. Social engagement (student understandings) “I learned about many different views in the world from many different people then I became a complete individual. I am much more open now to many different things than I was before I went to college. So religious wise and business practices and just– every single aspect of my life has changed. (emphasis added) I think the act of going to social settings that I didn't go to in high school, was really important socially. Again pushing boundaries not because I ended up being a very different person that I was in high school, although I did, but because the act of exposing yourself to new things is going to make you think critically about who you are, who you want to be in ways that you might not have before. It’s about meeting people from different cultures, different backgrounds, being constantly competent, and respectful of other peoples’ story and that’s quite frankly just their simple story of where they’re coming from so socially I was always at all the little events around campus, the socials and hosting events, being the face and the voice of a lot of big events around campus. I’ve learned how to be a better sociable person (emphasis added).”

15. CLA Gains 2005-2009 (performance task) * If test scored 0-100, less than 1 point gain. 0.47 standard deviations – 18 percentile point gain (0.18 sd, 7 percentile points, 2005-2007) No meaningful gains* in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills for 36 percent of the students in the sample (45 percent, 2005-2007)

16. Growth in generic competencies by institutional selectivity

17. Tentative transitions: labor market outcomes Two years following on-time graduation; excludes 30% full-time graduate students

18. Full-time skilled employment

19. Tentative transitions: financial independence Two years following on-time graduation

20. Tentative transitions: civic responsibility

21. Tentative transitions of college graduates Additional questions: • Are these difficulties simply a product of the recent recession? • How do non-college graduates fare in comparison?

23. Living arrangements by education

24. Newspaper consumption by education

25. Tentative transitions understood in context of changing normative environment • Emerging adulthood characterized by delayed school completion, family formation, financial independence and career commencement. • “much of the pertinent action occurs in the early thirties” (Furstenberg et al. 2008); • “the transition from adolescence to adulthood has in recent years become more complicated, uncertain, and extended than ever before” (Waters et al. 2011). • Higher education legitimates emerging adulthood and fortifies graduates with a sense of optimism in the face of difficulties.

26. Perception of life trajectory relative to parents

27. Perception life will be better than parents by employment

28. Looking forward – unbridled optimism “I feel generally confident in it (the direction of my life. I wish I had a little more direction but…” - grocery store cashier, living with parents (M) “I’m feeling okay about the way my life is going, It would be cool if I had a job. I don’t know, I’m like – I tend to look on the bright side because I do what I can to change the things I dislike in my life, but I’m not going to hate on things that I can’t change, because they’re going to stay, so I might as well accept them.” - unemployed, living with parents, deferring loans (F) “I have good ideas and I know what I want to do. I know my path will be positive, but things are moving at a lot slower pace than I expected. If nobody will give me a job, I’ll just go start my own job to do what I want to do…. It will be different [the respondent’s life in comparison to parents]. It depends really on what you mean by ‘better’. I know I won’t be as rich as my parents, but I know that I will be doing something that I like.” - program assistant, living with parents, deferring loans (F)

29. Perception life will be better than parents by education (GSS data)

30. Conclusions • Graduates are optimistic about their futures and sentimentally attached to their collegiate pasts, but many experienced limited academic rigor and are struggling with transitions to adulthood. • Successful adult transitions (particularly employment) are associated with college selectivity, major and CLA performance. • Colleges should provide better support for graduate transitions - particularly through greater institutional attention to student academic engagement, learning, and assessment. • Educators need to lead on improvement of teaching, learning and assessment. Not accountability, but assumption of professional responsibility.

31. http://highered.ssrc.org/ Richard Arum richard.arum@nyu.edu JosipaRoksa jroksa@virginia.edu