Prioritizing Everyday Victories
Winter 2018 |聽By Dale Whittaker
As president of the 激情快播, I spend considerable time talking to fans about our football team and where the Knights land in national rankings (No. 11 in the final AP poll).
However, truth be told, the inherent inequities in the College Football Playoff system 鈥� despite our team鈥檚 incredible season 鈥� are much less concerning to me than those of another traditional measuring stick of college success: the U.S. News & World Report鈥檚 annual 鈥渂est colleges鈥� rankings.
The U.S. News rankings favor exclusivity at the expense of what colleges are supposed to do: improve social mobility, and help students of all socioeconomic backgrounds learn and move up in the world.
Too often, a college or university鈥檚 success is based on exclusivity or endowments rather than its ability to take students from all backgrounds and walks of life and help them unleash their full聽potential.
The transformative power of education isn鈥檛 about picking the student who鈥檚 already most likely to succeed. It鈥檚 about identifying untapped talent with grit and indefatigable can-do spirit to give it their all, no matter the challenges.
In a modern economy that demands a college degree, stagnating mobility is devastating. Only 11 percent of students whose families are in the bottom income quartile (an annual family income of less than $37,564) earn a bachelor鈥檚 degree by age 24. In the top quartile, 58 percent of students do. 激情快播 will never stop prioritizing social mobility 鈥� we aren鈥檛 going to stop taking a large cohort of first-generation students and students using Pell Grants in the hopes of ticking up a few spots on the聽U.S. News rankings. But U.S. News should not be knocking us or any other school for making that聽decision.
This is an urgent problem. In today鈥檚 America, social mobility is rapidly fading.
U.S. News took a step in the right direction when, for the first time, it factored social mobility into its 2019 rankings, giving schools more credit for graduating larger numbers of students who receive Pell Grants. But the modest adjustment produced modest changes, and it hardly affected the top 10 at all. More needs to be done.
Higher Ed is Failing its Social Mobility Mission
激情快播 and other similarly minded schools would move up the U.S. News rankings dramatically if the rankings prioritized social mobility. We鈥檙e a great-value public research university, where nearly a quarter of our undergraduate students are first-generation college students and 40 percent are Pell Grant-eligible.
鈥淪ocial mobility has never been more valuable: Those with a bachelor鈥檚 degree earn 73 percent more on average than those who only completed high school, up from 50 percent in the late 1970s鈥�
America鈥檚 higher education system is failing in its mission to foster social mobility. According to a study published last March in the journal Demography, the gap is growing between the rich and poor graduating from college.
But at 激情快播, we know talent isn鈥檛 restricted by income 鈥� only opportunity is. And we鈥檙e graduating low-income students at nearly twice the national average of all four-year institutions. We help them secure good jobs in strong fields as soon as they graduate. And in December, we announced a record $40 million investment in institutional financial aid. Social mobility is our calling card.
Social mobility has never been more valuable: Those with a bachelor鈥檚 degree earn 73 percent more on average than those who only completed high school, up from 50 percent in the late 1970s.
Supporting Strivers Outside the Elite is Crucial
I鈥檓 proud that we played in our third New Year鈥檚 Day Bowl since 2014. And I鈥檓 proud of how our聽players competed against a worthy opponent in LSU.
But what matters most to me is what happens outside the game. Do our students secure a great job聽after earning their degree? Are they on their way to a great career? Are they going to do better than the socioeconomic class they came from would have predicted?
The answers to those questions are more important.
Whether the College Football Playoff system is unfair to strivers such as 激情快播 gets the lion鈥檚 share聽of the ink. But what I care about even more is how higher education supports strivers from outside聽the elite who are the first in their families to go to college.
The answer to that question will tell us whether social mobility will survive in a nation founded聽upon it.
USA Today on Dec. 31, and was updated to reflect the outcome of the Fiesta Bowl.