Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2004 | 10:53 a.m.
Despite improvements over the past decade, Nevada continues to rank as one of the worst performing states nationwide in preparing, enrolling and keeping students in college, according to a report released this morning.
The nonprofit, nonpartisan National Center on Public Policy and Higher Education gave Nevada several failing grades in its "Measuring Up 2004" evaluation, including a D for its preparation of students for college and Fs for degree completion and affordability. Nevada received similar grades in the 2002 and 2000 reports.
The report compares the most recent educational data available on Nevada to that of other states nationwide as well as to the state's own data from a decade ago. The aim is to evaluate the state's educational system and identify possible areas of improvement, said Jennifer Delaney, a policy analyst with the San Jose, Calif.-based organization.
The report gave Nevada grades in six areas: preparation, participation, affordability, completion, benefits of higher education and learning, with the state receiving no better than a C in any one area. The organization did give Nevada credit for improvement and for participating in a five-state pilot program designed to compare how well students are learning in their college classes.
Despite the state's willingness to assess educational attainment, Nevada residents performed far below the national average in all areas except teacher preparation. Because so few states have a way of measuring educational attainment, the study did not issue a letter grade in that category.
The pilot study found that Nevada students were better prepared to become teachers but less prepared to enter graduate school or other licensed technical careers. The state's community college students also performed below the national average in basic skills such as reading, writing and math.
In the state comparisons, Nevada has the lowest high school graduation rate and the lowest number of students enrolling in college by age 19, which Delaney acknowledged could be due in part to the state's high transient rate and its reliance on the service industry -- which entices students into good-paying but low-skill jobs.
Enrollment at Nevada's institutions has surged over the past decade, Delaney said, but it hasn't outpaced the state's growth. The report said Nevada ninth graders were more likely to enter college by the time they turned 19 than 10 years ago, but the percentage of working adults in school had fallen.
Only 22 percent of the state's population ages 25 to 65 have a bachelor's degree or higher, according to the report, which means that Nevada also lags behind other states in receiving the benefits associated with higher education, such as increased income, increased civic participation and increased literacy rates, Delaney said.
The state's college enrollment rate will continue to decline unless Nevada's higher education policy-makers find ways to improve its educational offerings and provide more access to higher education, Delaney said.
Policy-making officials from the Clark County School District, State Board of Education, the University and Community College System of Nevada and the governor's office said they were disappointed with Nevada's grades, but most said they were not surprised. None had seen the report, which was not officially released until this morning.
Education officials said they have been working for years to combat some of the problems identified in the report, and they have made some significant gains. Still, Nevada continues to fare poorly when compared with other states.
"The key is comparing us to ourselves," Regent Doug Seastrand said. "And if we are not getting better, we need to find ways to improve."
Seastrand voiced the thoughts of several educational officials when he said state policy makers needed to do a better job of working together to develop policies that promoted education from kindergarten through college. Several policy-makers said the state needed to work on communicating the need and importance of higher education to residents -- both to draw students into the institutions and to earn the community's support.
Increasing funding for education from preschool through college was also a major factor cited by policy-makers on how to improve Nevada's scores.
"We have it coming," Regent Mark Alden said of the poor report card, "because we don't support higher education in the state."
But policy-makers also said their efforts to improve Nevada's failing grades should not be overlooked.
The state's higher education system and its individual institutions have made efforts to improve access and retention, they said, pointing to programs such as the Millennium Scholarship, increases in money for advising and counseling students and the University College at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas that officials was created to increase graduation rates.
The national report acknowledged Nevada's gains in improving retention, including having the steepest increase nationwide in the percentage of first-year students at four-year universities returning for their second year, Delaney said.
The number of students completing degrees within six years and the number of minorities completing degrees also improved, but not enough to pull the state's grade up when Nevada's performance is compared with other states, Delaney said. Statewide only about 44 percent of students complete a bachelor's degree within six years, compared with 64 percent nationwide.
Gov. Kenny Guinn began the state's Millennium Scholarship in response to many of the issues raised in the report, spokesman Greg Bortolin said, but specifically to increase accessibility to higher education. More than 13,000 students used the scholarship at Nevada institutions last spring.
Clark County School District officials also said they have made significant strides that are not reflected in the report in encouraging students to go to college and preparing them for the coursework.
For instance, according to the report, only 13 percent of Nevada students take algebra in eighth grade and less than 32 percent take at least one upper-level math or science course. But in Clark County, 70 percent of eighth graders took algebra in 2003-04, and the push to enroll students in algebra earlier has led to an 11 percent increase in those enrolling in other upper math level classes such as geometry, school district officials said.
The school district is also working with students and parents to let them know what opportunities are available in higher education and what they need to do to take advantage of them, Jane Kadoich, director of guidance services, said. The district's Web site, ccsd.net, gives detailed instructions for what parents should be doing starting from kindergarten on, Kadoich said. The district is also paying for all students to take the PSAT college preparation test and is subsidizing low-income students who want to take the Advanced Placement college credit exams.
The school district additionally has increased its Advanced Placement offerings, Kadoich said. About 7,200 students enrolled in Advanced Placement exams in 2004, compared with 2,380 in 2001.
Some officials questioned the center's methods in developing the report, particularly in giving Nevada an "F" in affordability. Nevada's higher education institutions have some of the lowest tuitions in the West, but the national report included the cost of room and board in calculating the affordability and compared that number to family income.
Thus for the 40 percent of the population earning less than $30,000 a year, the $8,000 to $9,000 a year for tuition, room and board represents about 30 percent of their income, Delaney said. Other than the state's merit-based Millennium Scholarship, there are no state-financed programs to help students pay for college, which is why Nevada earned an F in this category, she said.
But the bottom line, education officials said, is that the report reinforces what they say they already knew.
"We have a lot of work to do in the state as far as education is concerned," Board of Regents Chairman Stavros Anthony said.
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