Dive Brief:
- The Association of American Colleges & Universities has released details of a survey of provosts and chief academic officers at 325 member institutions, finding most still use a distribution requirements model — though 68% have added additional features like a capstone experience, thematic required courses, or a core curriculum to the general education format.
- Inside Higher Ed reports that is a 4% boost from the 2008 landscape, and the percentage of institutions that have gotten rid of distribution requirements all together has risen from 18% to 24%.
- Beyond this, the survey found 85% of colleges have a common set of outcomes they want all students to achieve, and across institutions, there are significant commonalities with nearly all respondents saying writing and critical thinking and analytic reasoning skills were key.
Dive Insight:
Outgoing AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider called for consensus among accreditors, colleges, and universities on a core set of learning outcomes to combat the financial metrics for success policy makers seem to be focused on. If higher education institutions and accreditors don’t provide an alternative for holding colleges and universities accountable, metrics like graduate earnings could become most prominent.
Schneider argued, and this survey confirms, there is already significant agreement across institutions about what is important for students to learn. Whether that alignment extends to institutions that are not a part of the AAC&U, however, is an open question.