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NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jeff Landis, PR Director 617.728.4446 ext. 146 (office) 978.473.6346 (cell) jlandis@jff.org FOCUSING MORE RESOURCES AND ATTENTION ON COMMUNITY COLLEGES ONE KEY TO AMERICA’S EDUCATIONAL AND ECONOMIC FUTURE SAYS POLICY EXPERT U.S. Lags Internationally in Sub-Bachelor’s Degree Attainment BOSTON, MA (May 20, 2009) — Countries that have reached the highest overall college degree attainment rates have tended to rely on sub-baccalaureate degree programs to achieve much of their growth, says a new report released today titled Cost, Commitment, and Attainment in Higher Education: An International Comparison. Commissioned by Jobs for the Future and funded by Lumina Foundation for Education, the report was written by Arthur M. Hauptman, an internationally recognized expert in higher education finance, and Young Kim, a research associate at the Center for Policy Analysis at the American Council on Education and a former project manager at Jobs for the Future. “The Obama administration is sending a clear message on education that now is the time for strategies that work,” said Marlene Seltzer, president and CEO of Jobs for the Future. “This report provides clear recommendations that policymakers should pay attention to if the U.S. is to regain its position as the world leader in producing college graduates.” The report examines the extent to which a country’s attainment rates correlate with high cost levels and/or substantial financial commitment to higher education. To do so, it compares and analyzes data on three key indicators of postsecondary education in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries: • Cost: The amount that countries spend per student on higher education; • Commitment: The share of GDP devoted to higher education; and • Attainment: The share of working-age adults holding a higher education degree. The report has two primary purposes: 1) to assess where the United States stands relative to the other OECD countries on cost, commitment, and attainment; and 2) to identify the strategies used by countries that have achieved high levels of degree attainment. It also makes three recommendations for how the United States can improve its attainment performance.   Report Findings Some key findings from Cost, Commitment, and Attainment in Higher Education: An International Comparison: Cost: Only three OECD countries spent $20,000 or more per student in 2005: the United States, Switzerland, and Canada. The U.S. spent more than twice the OECD average of $11,500. In terms of education spending per student, the U.S. figure of $18,600 is more than $5,000 higher than that of the next-largest spender—Canada—and well more than twice as much as the OECD average of $8,000 per student.   Commitment: The United States, Canada, and South Korea have the highest overall commitment to higher education; all devote at least 2 percent or more of GDP to higher education. Nordic and Scandinavian countries tend to have the strongest commitment of public resources to higher education.   Only Canada ranked among the highest five countries in both public and private commitment. Attainment: Canada and Japan are the leaders in overall degree attainment, as well as for the youngest group of workers. This leadership position for both countries is largely a function of their sub-Bachelor’s degree attainment, where they report the highest rates of attainment among OECD countries. Norway and the United States rank at the top of OECD countries with respect to Bachelor’s degree attainment for all adult workers.   Where the United States Stands The report indicates that the United States has a mixed record in higher education relative to other OECD countries. On several key sub-components, the United States has the highest levels of cost, commitment, and attainment among OECD countries. The U.S. ranked highest for education and total spending per student in 2005 and also had the greatest financial commitment to higher education in 2005, with a much heavier reliance on private resources than any other country. The U.S. also had the second-highest level of Bachelor’s degree attainment in 2006 for all adult workers and was sixth among the youngest group of workers. However, the OECD-reported statistics also indicate that the U.S. ranks average to below average in a number of areas. The U.S. spends less per student on research-related activities than the OECD average (15th out of 27 countries measured). And although its overall financial commitment remains the highest in the world, its share of GDP devoted to higher education coming from public resources is below the OECD average (15th). The U.S. attainment rate for sub-Bachelor’s degrees is also about average for the OECD (11th), one key reason that the overall U.S. attainment rate is no longer in the top rank. The U.S. also ranks very low among OECD countries in the difference in attainment rates between the youngest and oldest workers, reflecting the fact that it has a more mature universal system of higher education and that more Americans attain degrees later in their working careers than is true in most other OECD countries. Successful Strategies for Increasing Attainment “Perhaps the greatest value of international comparisons is to learn from what other countries are doing to improve their attainment rates,” says Hauptman. “This learning process often is more valuable than examining the statistics themselves, a process that can be fraught with pitfalls.” Hauptman adds, “A consideration of the experience in countries with high levels or growth in attainment provide clues regarding how and why their attainment rates may have grown more rapidly than others. These comparisons also suggest which strategies may have been most effective in achieving increases in attainment in sustainable ways.” The report categorizes eight strategies that various OECD countries have used to improve their attainment rates and keep them at high levels: Increasing graduation rates (Australia, Denmark, Iceland, Israel) Reducing time to degree (Australia, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom) Expanding sub-Bachelor’s programs (Belgium, Canada, Finland, Japan, Spain) Maintaining a high level of public commitment (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Canada) Relying on the private sector to foster growth (Japan, South Korea, Spain, United States) Increasing enrollments in universities (Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway) Increasing tuition fees in the public sector (Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, United States) Recruiting more students abroad (Australia, Austria, Ireland, New Zealand, Switzerland, United Kingdom) Report Recommendations—Three Strategies to Increase Attainment in the U.S. The report suggests three approaches that the United States should consider to achieve higher attainment rates at sustainable levels of costs and commitment. Focus more resources and attention on community colleges. Shift public resources toward less costly sub-Bachelor’s programs in community colleges, while ensuring that these programs lead more students to successful outcomes, including credentials and degrees of value in the labor market. Pay more attention to developing and implementing strategies to improve completion rates at both two-year and four-year institutions. A sustained U.S. effort in improving degree-completion rates at all postsecondary levels would bring cost, commitment, and attainment more in line with one another. Consider increases in enrollments as a means for moderating costs per student and improving productivity. Thinking about how enrollments might be increased without detracting from quality—both at the system level and by individual institutions—could help raise productivity by driving down spending per student while maintaining attainment at high and increasing levels. For the full Jobs for the Future report, Cost, Commitment, and Attainment in Higher Education: An International Comparison, visit www.jff.org.   About Jobs for the Future Through analysis, action, and advocacy, JFF develops promising education and labor market models, expands successful models in communities across the country, and shapes the policy environment that enables American families and companies to compete in a global economy.