Our Views: High hurdles, better hurdlers

To borrow a phrase from computer programmers, higher admissions standards for state colleges is WAD — working as designed.

The state is seeing universities that once were open to anyone with a high school degree now require students to be ready to do college work the day they step on campus.

This is a common-sense policy that is yielding big dividends, even if some students are not able to go immediately to the campus they wish to attend.

Tougher admissions standards have not led to the drastic enrollment declines predicted by some higher education leaders.

This fall, LSU, the University of New Orleans, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Louisiana Tech University were prohibited from offering remedial courses to incoming freshmen who are not quite ready to take regular coursework.

That change will go into effect for the other four-year colleges in 2014.

Are college enrollments not as high as they would otherwise be? Yes, although LSU — the state’s flagship put the new policy in place earlier — remains a strong draw for students.

Obviously, Louisiana needs more college graduates. Lifetime earnings and a better quality of life go hand-in-hand with college attainment.

What the new policy helps is the goal of students actually making it out of college with a degree.

LSU is already seeing the dividends from higher admissions standards. Its graduation rate is the highest in history, above the Southern average, officials reported.

Even so, LSU as the flagship institution of the state’s colleges can do better. But the general lesson is that if a student is ready to do college work, he’s going to be much more likely to finish with a degree in a reasonable amount of time.

This new policy goal — graduation, not just enrollment — will hit harder at the regional universities stressing undergraduate enrollment.

But as the experiences of LSU as well as UL-Lafayette and Louisiana Tech demonstrate, there are ways for colleges to mitigate the enrollment impact. Mostly, it’s a matter of working with potential students ahead of time, urging them to take the right course mix and to achieve more in high school, such as by taking Advanced Placement classes.

One of the problems with the old open enrollment policies was that the pressure was off high schools: If their students were admitted to college, they’d done their job, right?

Well, if those students floundered in college and did not leave with a degree, the cost to the student and to the taxpayer supporting public education could be substantial.

We like the way the new goals for higher education are working, and we hope that this emphasis on preparation for college yields big future dividends in graduation rates.

Comments

1) Comment by bourbon-soda - 14/11/2012

Pat Taylor snookered the state into a welfare for the rich program that is politically untouchable. But the Pell grant is not "crumbs."

2) Comment by Cousin Dave - 14/11/2012

One of the biggest problems with selective admissions is that the universities end up with an extremely high proportion of affluent students who hail from private and parochial high schools. Most of them qualify for TOPS (even though they don't need financial aid), and the poor are left to fight over the remaining crumbs of financial aid at community colleges and the remaining open-admission institutions. That's why Gov. Jindal's "voucher" plan is so vital. It helps to level the playing field for poor students who wouldn't otherwise have a chance to study at a private high school, and allows hem to escape from the pitfalls of Louisiana's failing public schools.

3) Comment by J.R.Madden - 14/11/2012

If parents who pay taxed don't want their children to go down the tubes because of a failing eduction system, how does getting to attend college (which is part of the failing education system) keep the kids out of the tubes? Shouldn't the parents be working to fix the failing education system instead of leaving it to the politicos who keep screwing it up? What would be the next step if students who can't do the work are granted admission to college, any college ... granting them a diploma even though they couldn't do the work. Then, would we give them a shot at medical school? And, then a residency? Mr. T. would you want such a physcian looking after your health?

4) Comment by tradewinns - 14/11/2012

for those not quite ready for college there are the community colleges, where one will be accepted and can redo their High school education that the taxpayer has already paid for, again. learning how to read, write and perform math is acceptable there. college is NOT for everyone. we need to rethink our current "everyone goes to college" attitudes.

5) Comment by bourbon-soda - 14/11/2012

This plan only denies access to the campuses with greek initials and sports factories or wannabe sports factories. There is plenty of access to appropriate level colleges. Aside from that, the next step is to impose some standards on the colleges and frivolous curricula.

6) Comment by Mr. T - 14/11/2012

Leave it to the Advocate to endorse an elitist plan that denies college access to thousands of students coming out of Louisiana's substandard public high schools. Their parents pay taxes too, and don't deserve to see their children go down the tubes because of a failing education system. The public high schools have only gotten worse since the colleges began selective admissions, and will continue to do so.