Una nueva iniciativa en USA para valorar la educación superior

El presidente Barack Obama promovió en 2013 un sistema de evaluación de universidades. el College Scorecard, que permitía comparar universidades en términos de coste, tasa de graduación, créditos a estudiantes y tasa de morosidad. Asimismo, encargó al departamento de educación crear un sistema de rankings para la educación superior basado en el valor económico que aportan los estudios universitarios. En un país en que la educación superior representa una inversión grande para los estudiantes, se considera especialmente importante evaluar el coste de educación en relación con el retorno que supone esa inversión.

Con motivo de esta iniciativa, David A. Bergeron, Vice President for Postsecondary Education (The Center for American Progress), señaló:

“Students and families paid more than $154 billion in tuition and fees to attend public, private, and for-profit colleges, universities, and trade and technical schools in the 2011-12 academic year, borrowing more than $106 billion to attend those institutions under the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program. When writing those checks and taking out those loans, few people realize that only 38 percent of students who enter a four-year degree program and 21 percent of students who enter a two-year degree program graduate on time.

President Obama’s plan to offer families new tools with which they can evaluate the feasibility and worth of their education responds to increasing costs and levels of debt associated with higher education.

Additionally, startlingly low graduation rates necessitate that one considers the worth of investing in higher education and where their money is best spent. He believes that educating consumers about their choices for higher education can lead to smarter investments. Universities administrators fear that the data, especially graduates´earnings, offered in these rating systems may not represent the inherent value of lesser-paying Jobs which contribute immensely to society.

Not surprisingly, college and university faculty and administrators have expressed concern that the rating system will include graduates’ earnings, which raises the prospect that higher-education institutions will be judged, in significant part, by the earnings of recent graduates.

These critics argue that the true value of higher education comes not from the amount that people are paid but from the significance and meaning of the work that students do for the nation, their communities, or their employers. So judging institutions based in whole or in part on earnings, they argue, would penalize colleges whose graduates go on to do important but low-paying jobs, such as social work or teaching”.

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*Referencia elaborada por Hannah Taylor y Miguel Ángel Sancho para universídad.