Papers by Stephen Katsinas
This work brings forward the geographically-based classification scheme for the public Master's C... more This work brings forward the geographically-based classification scheme for the public Master's Colleges and Universities sector. Using the same methodology developed by Katsinas and Hardy (2005) to classify community colleges, this work classifies Master's Colleges and Universities. This work has four major findings and conclusions. First, a geographically-based classification system is possible for the 266 publicly-controlled Master's Colleges and Universities. The publicly-controlled Carnegie classified Master's Colleges and Universities can be classified as 61% rural-serving, 21% suburban-serving, and 17% urban-serving-a percentage breakdown that nearly matches the Associate's Colleges classifications. Second, significant differences exist across all three geographical types by enrollment size, bachelor's degrees awarded, and student race and ethnicity. Approximately 61% of 2,507,879 undergraduate students enrolled in public Master's institutions in academic year 2006-07 were White, with 13% Black, and 11% Hispanic-a finding that has tremendous policy implications. Third, significant differences exist across all three geographical areas with respect to student financial aid and student loan indebtedness. Student loans represent the single largest category of all financial aid awards across all three geographical types of public master's institutions. In total, nearly 45% of all students enrolled in a public master's institution require student loans to finance their educations. Fourth and finally, this classification scheme will allow for community college scholars to more accurately compare MCUs and ACs.
Community College Journal of Research and Practice, Jul 9, 2015
Established in the 1920s, the Education Policy Center (EPC) is the oldest center or institute at ... more Established in the 1920s, the Education Policy Center (EPC) is the oldest center or institute at The University of Alabama. Our work centers on four interrelated areas: (a) access and finance of public higher education, (b) college completion, (c) Pell Grants, and (d) rural community colleges. As place-based institutions with service delivery areas typically assigned by state law/statute or regulations (Friedel, Killacky, Katsinas, & Miller, 2014), given the emphasis on place-based solutions following the 2009 and 2010 White House Memoranda on Place-Based Policies, why haven’t the United States Departments of Education and Agriculture funded research on rural community colleges? As long as the discredited urbanicity definition continues to be used in Washington, America’s 553 rural community colleges will likely operate well below the radar screen, and an important national asset will be underutilized. Since the last major foundation-funded rural community college program ended in 2002 when the Ford Foundation closed its Rural Community College Initiative (Kennamer & Katsinas, 2010), the lack of federal initiatives to illuminate the good works of these institutions is needed even more. If rural community college enrollments are just over a third of total enrollments, every federally appointed commission and study group should include a third of its representatives from rural community colleges.
Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 1999
The word ''varied'' summarizes the organizational development, legal structure, a... more The word ''varied'' summarizes the organizational development, legal structure, and current missions and functions of publicly controlled two - year colleges in the five Midwestern states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The purpose of this article is to introduce readers to the post - high school educational histories of five states that have been members of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools by specifically addressing three questions: (a) What were the key events in the history of the development of public two - year colleges in each of the five states? (b) What is the current organizational pattern of community colleges in each of the five states? (c) What are some of the key issues facing community colleges in each of the five states?
Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy
In his 1982 book, Why Teachers Organize?, education historian Wayne Urban suggested that the emer... more In his 1982 book, Why Teachers Organize?, education historian Wayne Urban suggested that the emergence of collective bargaining among local teacher organizations was an important development that helped faculty work together to establish employment guidelines and increase their overall compensation through the expansion of shared fringe benefits. The impact of collective bargaining has not diminished since its emergence and, in fact, continues institutions to this day. Despite recovery from the Great Recession that began in late 2007, public higher education institutions continue to face financial difficulties of persistently decreasing state funding as a portion of their operating budgets, collective bargaining serves an important role in determining the compensation and benefits awarded to employees at higher education institutions (SHEEO, 2019). Recent studies have examined the number of higher education institutions and their employees who utilize collective bargaining. The 2012 Directory of U.S. faculty contracts and bargaining agents in institutions of higher education (Berry & Savarese) found that, since 2006, two-year colleges added 50,000 members under unionized contracts, as the overall number of agreements increased. These agreements included part-time faculty and graduate student employees. In 2014, Sproul, Bucklew, and Houghton utilized the Union Membership and Coverage Database developed from the Current Population Survey (Hirsch & Macpherson, 2013) to determine that of the 12,781,235 educational service employees, over 31% (4,430,529) were covered under collective bargaining agreements.
Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 1999
Public two - year colleges in the United States were founded historically from the bottom up or f... more Public two - year colleges in the United States were founded historically from the bottom up or from the top down. The former were two - year extensions of high schools maintained in public school districts or in separate districts consisting of multiple contiguous public school ...
In his first address to a Joint Session of Congress in February 2009, President Barack Obama comm... more In his first address to a Joint Session of Congress in February 2009, President Barack Obama committed the nation to dramatically expanding adult baccalaureate degree attainment among US adults, which had fallen from first to eighth among developed nations around the world: That is why, at the start of my administration I set a goal for America: by 2020, this nation will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world….Today, I am announcing the most significant down payment yet on reaching this goal in the next ten years. It's called the American Graduation Initiative. It will reform and strengthen community colleges from coast to coast so that they get the resources students and schools need-and the results workers and businesses demand. Through this plan, we seek to help an additional five million Americans earn degrees and certificates in the next decade. The task of dramatically increasing adult baccalaureate degree attainment requires a substantially greater policy focus on what National Center for Public Policy Center and Higher Education President Pat Callan termed the most understudied sector of US higher education, the nation's public regional universities (2009 unpublished remarks to the Council for the Public Policy of ASHE). Reasons for this include, first, that many of our nation's public flagship universities, including the Universities of California, Illinois, Minnesota, and Texas, all capped their enrollments at the end of or shortly after the "baby boom" that spanned the period 1965 to 1973 (Katsinas & Tollefson, 2009). Second, the largest baby boom since the mid-1960s-what the late Clark Kerr termed "Tidal Wave II"-is presently of college age. Between 2009 and 2012, there will be one million more persons between the ages of 18 and 24 years of age, and 3 million more young adults between the ages of 25 and 34 in the American population than there were in 2009. As Katsinas and DeMonBrun (2011) note, these dramatically higher numbers of collegeage students will occur whether or not our institutions of public higher education are funded to serve them. Third, state tax appropriations for public higher education have not grown to accommodate the record growth in high school graduation class size in many states. In fact, 34 of 46 responding states reported midyear budget cuts in FY2003, and 34 of 48 responding states reported midyear budget cuts in state tax
T his report draws upon National Surveys of Access and Finance Issues for the five years followin... more T his report draws upon National Surveys of Access and Finance Issues for the five years following the end of federal stimulus funding during the Great Recession. What has happed to public education and why? We find the following: The economic recovery following the Great Recession continues: In 2015 legislative sessions, respondents from just ten states report "Recession, producing a decline in state revenues" as a top budget driver, the lowest rating since 2006. As in 2014 7 , during 2015 state legislative sessions, Elementary and Secondary Education and Medicaid were the top two budget drivers. Respondents from just six states report midyear cuts at their public community colleges and regional and flagship universities. But competition continues to be fierce: Public higher education competes with transportation/highways, unfunded pensions, corrections, tax cuts, and health care costs associated with the Affordable Care Act for new revenues. 8 Given the need to fund K-12 teacher and state employee salary increases and long-delayed infrastructure, public higher education faces fierce competition for state tax revenues in 2016. The recovery of operating budgets is slow: State appropriations for elementary and secondary education, community colleges, regional universities, and flagship universities for FY2015-16 are predicted to increase by 3%, 3%, 2%, and 2.5%, respectively. But state appropriations fail to cover the predicted 2.1% Higher Education Price Index 9 (HEPI) 2015 inflation rate for community colleges in 18 states, regional universities in 17, and flagship universities in 16 states. Since the Great Recession, most states have not appropriated at inflation levels. In the five years since federal stimulus funds ended in 2011, just two states appropriated operating funds for public higher education at or above the rate of inflation. Tuition hikes continue due to state disinvestment: States that choose to appropriate operating budgets below the inflation rate force their institutions to raise tuition. In FY2015-16, tuition will rise at community colleges, regional universities, and flagships by 3%, 4%, and 3.5%, respectively. Tuition is predicted to rise above the 2.1% HEPI for community college students in 25 states, regional university students in 28 states, and flagship university students in 26 states. State student aid is not keeping up: In 2015, as in the preceding four years, two out of three states report increasing state student aid below the HEPI inflation rate. Policy alignment exists in just two states: "High tuition/high aid" requires policy align ment, but operating budgets, state student aid, and tuition policies are unaligned in six of every seven states in 2015, and in every year since 2011. Access threats exist in 16 states: Respondents report access threats (enrollment caps, turning away students, insufficient capacity, etc.) for each of the three public higher education sectors. These 16 states enrolled 41% of all students nationwide in Fall 2013. Rural community colleges face the greatest fiscal strain. Over half of respondents predict their urban and nearly half predict their suburban community colleges will face great fiscal strain, but nearly all report their rural community colleges will do so.
Educational Considerations, 2014
Community College Journal of Research and Practice, Nov 23, 2016
ABSTRACT Noncredit community college enrollment accounts for approximately 40% of all enrollment ... more ABSTRACT Noncredit community college enrollment accounts for approximately 40% of all enrollment in the two-year sector, or five million students (American Association of Community Colleges, 2016). Yet, this population is seldom discussed in the higher education literature due to inconsistent definitions, funding, and data reporting at the state level. Many of the structural elements (e.g., funding, enrollment) have not been documented recently or completely. This study used data from the 2015 Survey of Access and Finance Issues, administered annually to the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges. The authors calculated noncredit enrollment by function and frequencies on funding mechanisms, funding by function, noncredit data reporting, and the measures captured at the state level. The study also employed polychoric and polyserial correlations examining the relationships among structural, contextual, and perspective-based items. This was done to capture the national landscape on this important community college function through the lens of state-level community college leaders.
Page 1. Pell Grants and the Lifting of Rural America's Future By Stephen G. Katsinas, The Un... more Page 1. Pell Grants and the Lifting of Rural America's Future By Stephen G. Katsinas, The University of Alabama R. Frank Mensel, The University of Alabama Linda Serra Hagedorn, Iowa State University Janice N. Friedel, Iowa ...
Journal of Adult Education, Jul 1, 2016
Community colleges play a critical role in the provision of a variety of adult-centered learning ... more Community colleges play a critical role in the provision of a variety of adult-centered learning activities. These programs, whether self-funded, industry sponsored, or the result of state economic development funding, cover a broad spectrum of learning opportunities that lead to credentials, diplomas, certificates, employment training opportunities, and increasingly, leisure pursuits. Historically, community colleges have also collaborated with public secondary school systems to offer different types of remedial education, namely adult basic education (Cohen & Brawer, 2008; Voorhees & Milam, 2005).Adult basic education programs range from the increasingly popular English as a Second Language to literacy instruction and depending upon definitions, even high school equivalency programs. As these programs tend to be heavily reliant on individualized or small group instruction, they can be expensive to operate and subsequently, offered at the mercy of funding availability (Grover & Miller, 2014). Such problems have been particularly noted in the public eye with the shift in the General Education Development (GED) offerings, where states pay districts for students who successfully pass the exam and earn their GED, or incorporate testing into formula budgets; however, those payment rates may not equal the actual cost of offering GED instruction and testing. Critical elements for successful testing, for example, include computerized test administration, training of test proctors, etc. The result in some states has been the creation of state-specific high school equivalency testing that a combination of school districts, community colleges, and state agencies offer (Dono & Gelles, 2014).In addition to high school equivalency testing, community colleges have been called upon to deliver a greater range of adult leisure education programs. There is growing demand for these programs as the number of adults over age 65 increases dramatically. With individuals living longer and the increased mobility of mature adults, community colleges are logical agencies to offer quality of life educational programming (Largent & Horinck, 2008).The third dominant area of adult education that community colleges have engaged in is related to job and occupational instruction. For many adults, job training programs can lead to initial employment, but learning throughout a career has become a necessity. In many instances, particularly in rural areas where job training programs are scarce, community colleges are critical providers of such programming (Katsinas & Lacey, 1989; Katsinas, D'Amico, & Friedel, 2012).The rapidly changing nature of adult education in community colleges has been noted in the popular press, but few efforts have been undertaken to define in any quantifiable way the status of these educational programs. Therefore, the current study was designed to explore the changing nature of community college adult education from the perspective of state leaders. By focusing on state directors of community colleges, the interactions of different state agencies and local responsibilities can provide a unique perspective on both the current and future directions of these types of programs.Background of the StudyHigher education generally is at a crossroads. Institutions have begun freely competing with proprietary institutions, increasingly do not consider publicly defined service-areas, and recruit nationally for a student population that is interested in the amenities of the institution as much as they are interested in the academic experience of college. Accrediting agencies and state legislators have attempted to challenge this movement with demands for student learning outcomes (Dougherty, Natow, Bork, Jones, & Vega, 2013; Zumeta, 2011), but such demands have done little to slow the commercialization process of higher education (Giroux, 2007).Community colleges are not exempt from the commodification of higher education, as they, too, have begun a massive movement to increase their beautification and diversity of programs at the expense of their historic mission. …
Students and families are squeezed as tuition is predicted to rise by twice the inflation rate AN... more Students and families are squeezed as tuition is predicted to rise by twice the inflation rate AND 29 states predict flat-funding or cuts in state-student aid programs. Access institutions are squeezed, as most states cut operating budgets for flagship universities, regional universities, and community colleges. High unemployment has exhausted available WIA and other workforce training funds in 21 states. To prepare for economic competitiveness as recession ends, funds are needed to expand high demand programs tied to higher wage jobs in allied health, engineering, and IT at community colleges. Colleges are pushed to offer/ expand "quick" job training in non-credit areas. Access threats are acute in large states with fast-growing minority populations. Predicted operating budget cuts come as enrollments are predicted to rise at community colleges in 2 of 3 states. Funding facilities construction and renovation is identified as a major need in 48 states.
Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy
Shortly after his appointment as President of Columbia University, General of the Army Dwight D. ... more Shortly after his appointment as President of Columbia University, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower reportedly met with a group of senior faculty. As the meeting was concluded, the General thanked them, and told them how much he appreciated their coming to the university to share their concerns. As he flashed his world-famous wide smile, a senior professor reportedly responded, "General, you don't understand; we are the University." This same sense of pride and satisfaction with their role is evident in full-time faculty at community colleges. In fact, a 1989 national survey conducted by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching of 5,000 faculty across all types of institutions of higher education found that faculty at community colleges were more satisfied with their career choice than faculty teaching in any other institutional type. More specifically, a qualitative study of full-time faculty at 16 rural community colleges conducted by Katsinas and his research teams between 1993 and 1995 revealed a high commitment of faculty to rural regions and rural people. A strong majority indicated that, if they had to do their careers over again, they would choose teaching at a rural community college (Ning, 1999). Despite this show of job satisfaction and commitment, America's community colleges are on the verge of a major shortage of full-time faculty. This is due to two simultaneous trends: First, the record enrollments at community colleges are resulting in demands for additional faculty. In just five academic years, from 2000-2001 to 2005-2006, unduplicated headcount enrollments rose by 2.3 million students (Hardy, Katsinas, & Bush, 2007). Second, the
Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy
All Public Regional Universities With Collective Bargaining Without Collective Bargaining Rural S... more All Public Regional Universities With Collective Bargaining Without Collective Bargaining Rural Small 49 32 17 Rural Medium 90 40 50 Rural Large 122 62 60 Rural Average 261 134 127 Suburban Smaller 13 9 4 Suburban Larger 42 32 10 Suburban Average 55 41 14 Urban Smaller 21 13 8 Urban Large 53 31 22 Urban Average 74 44 30 Average, All 390 219 171 Rural Small 100 65 35 Rural Medium 100 44 56 Rural Large 100 51 49 Rural Average 100
under the auspices of the National Rural Scholars Panel of the Rural Community College Alliance. ... more under the auspices of the National Rural Scholars Panel of the Rural Community College Alliance. The goal of RCCA's National Rural Scholars Panel is to bring non-partisan cutting-edge research on key issues of concern to federal and state leaders on community college issues, with special emphasis on rural community colleges.
Journal of Education Finance, 2019
W ithout sustained operating budgets and consistently funded federal and state student financial ... more W ithout sustained operating budgets and consistently funded federal and state student financial aid, can our nation's community colleges be expected to increase graduation rates? In this report we present results of our latest survey of National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges, with 50 of 51 possible responses. The news is not good. Last year, a majority among respondents from 42 states say community college degree completion rates have remained flat or are decreasing. Can American higher education possibly accomplish the "moon shot" needed to restore America to #1 in the world without substantial, sustained federal and state funding? The very titles of our two most recent reports speak to the difficultly of this challenge at the institution level and statewide. Halfway Out of Recession, But a Long Way to Go, the 2013 National Survey of Access and Finance Issues, found 14 states failed to increase their state appropriations in Fiscal Year 2013-14 at levels sufficient to cover the 1.8 percent predicted Higher Education Price Index (p. 9). 1 Our November 2014 study found the situation actually worsened. Recovery Continues, But Competition Is Fierce, revealed 31 states failed to increase appropriations in FY2014-15 to meet the 3.0 predicted HEPI inflation rate. 2 These data are consistent with the recent 2015 "Grapevine" report of Illinois State University and the State Higher Education Executive Officers, which concluded that half the states are appropriating less for higher education than they did five years ago, 3 supporting the thesis advanced by Doyle and Delaney that the duration in bouncebacks from recessionary cuts in appropriations has grown in the decades since the Vietnam War.
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Papers by Stephen Katsinas