| The
Kansas
Study:
A National Study of Community College Instructional Costs
and Productivity
Johnson County
Community College
|
|
For
years, studies have assessed instructional productivity and costs
by collecting data on institutions. In the past year, Johnson
County Community College began the process of drilling deeper
by initiating a study to benchmark by discipline as well.
The
Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) awarded
Johnson County Community College (KS) $282,000 to develop and
implement a methodology of collecting and reporting on community
college instructional costs, as well as faculty instructional
and service activities, on a national basis. The project was based
on the well-established Delaware Study – a methodology developed
for four-year colleges and universities.
The
Delaware Study is less effective at two-year level than it is
for universities because of fundamental differences in faculty
work and activity across the two sectors. Specifically, university
faculty – the majority of whom are full-time
employees – are expected to engage in three major activities:
teaching, scholarly, research, and institutional and public service.
Community college faculty, on the other hand,
are charged with teaching higher loads. Further, the percentage
of part-time or adjunct faculty is much higher than in universities.
The
Kansas Study, then, aims to address a critical information gap
for community college academic planners, for whom no reliable
source has previously existed. It will result in implementation
of a methodology that will afford community college administrators
the opportunity to identify, define, and report costs, and then
use the aggregated data provided for both internal and external
comparisons and benchmarking. As a result, community college academic
planners and managers will have a reliable set of information
tools designed to maximize instructional resource use and facilitate
cost containment, keeping higher education affordable and increasing
access for students across the country.
Project
Goals
Higher
education has come under increased pressure to become more cost
accountable and to more effectively and efficiently manage human
and fiscal resources. In 1998, Congress created a National Commission
on the Cost of Higher Education, charged with developing recommendations
to guide and inform public policy with respect to cost containment.
The
Kansas Study uses a data-collection methodology and reporting
process that will establish a comprehensive national cost-productivity
database for community colleges. This database will allow colleges
to analyze faculty workload in a way that enables them to fully
describe what types of courses are being taught, what types of
institutional and public service they provide, and how much it
all costs. Moreover, the database will enable institutions to
compare their academic and fiscal resource-use patterns with peer
institutions.
Not
least, the project will provide a new management tool that will
enable community colleges to make more informed resource allocation
and reallocation decisions, while enhancing overall productivity
and cost efficiency. In short, it will permit college administrators
to make more informed decisions at the program level.
Year
One: A Plan and a Pilot
According
to Kansas Study Director Jeffrey Seybert,
a major part of the project is the design and implementation of
an advisory committee. The Community College Instructional Costs
and Productivity Advisory Committee is
charged with identifying and defining data elements, as well as
with devising a reporting strategy. The committee is made up of
community college researchers, chief academic officers who are
the primary users of the data, and representatives of national
higher education policy organizations. Finally, this committee
acts in both formative and summative evaluation of the study.
The
Johnson County Community College (JCCC) Office of Institutional
Research is strategically poised to host the project. The office
was established in 1970 and has a strong history of using data
for planning and decision making. JCCC commits significant resources
annually to research. Seybert, who is
Director of Research, Evaluation, and Instructional Development
at JCCC, is widely regarded as a leader in community college institutional
research. His eight-member staff brings experience and national
credibility that is likely to attract the participation of many
other community colleges in the project.
The advisory committee met three times in Year One to provide
initial design. Assessed objectives are
Successes
and Lessons Learned
According
to Seybert, the first two steps of the
Kansas Study have been accomplished. This past spring, participants
undertook a small pilot study, using data from 10 programs in
each of 12 institutions. The results of that pilot have been studied
“to see what the wrinkles would be, Seybert says, “and there were plenty of wrinkles.” Most of
those had to do with federal codes for Classification of Instructional
Programs (CIP), since many CIPs can
apply to one discipline.
The
advisory committee will meet again in early October to take a
look at the results of the initial pilot. Meanwhile, Kansas Study
participants are gearing up for what they refer to as the Big
Pilot. They are hoping to recruit another 50 to 100 institutions
when they roll the study out nationwide in mid-January of 2004.
“I
think we’ll get 50,” Seybert says, “but
you have to realize, this is not an insignificant reporting task.
It’s going to take a lot of data gathering on the part of the
participating institutions. And the second page of that is cost:
Multiply that by 50 to 70 institutions. They’re going to have
to have the research capability to do that.”
For more information, contact
Jeffrey Seybert
Director of Research, Evaluation, and Instructional Development
Johnson County Community College
Overland Park, KS
(913)
469-8500, ext. 3442
