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This paper argues for a radical restructuring of education for grades 11-14--by erasing the arbitrary dividing line between high school and college--to open opportunities for the learners the current systems leave behind. The authors make the case for an entirely new type of institution--neither high school nor college--designed specifically to better meet the needs of young people after 10th grade and help prepare them to succeed in the world of work. The authors take a hard look at the obstacles that impede more than half of the nation's young people from making successful transitions from high school to postsecondary education to the labor market despite the best of intentions of the many who support them. They identify the four key areas that need transformation: (1) incentives (in accountability and finance); (2) alignment; (3) governance; and (4) staffing. For each, the authors provide examples of innovation--existing policies, programs, and networks--that have made strides toward smoothing transitions. Last, the authors recommend an action agenda of next steps to start pushing closer to the ideal. [For the executive summary, see ED614770.]

The abrupt closing of college campuses this spring due to the spread of COVID-19 upended the lives of students and their families and disrupted the higher education sector. The impact of these closures and the questions of whether and how to reopen campuses this fall have been widely discussed. Less attention has been paid to the potential consequences for the local economies of the cities and towns that depend heavily on higher education. This issue is particularly important in New England, where in many communities, colleges and universities are among the largest employers and make an outsized contribution to the local economy. The absence of students and campus activities is a major blow to local businesses. And while New England schools generally have avoided large-scale layoffs so far, extended campus shutdowns and pandemic-induced enrollment declines could force some institutions that already are on shaky financial ground to close altogether. Continued disruption to the higher education sector could threaten even financially strong institutions. This brief examines the number of cities and towns in the region that are highly dependent on employment and commerce from institutions whose declining enrollments and low endowments make them particularly vulnerable during this period. These are the communities that are most at risk of economic harm due to major pandemic-related disruptions to higher education. [This report was co-published by the New England Public Policy Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.]

As state leaders consider needed updates to the Commonwealth's school funding formula, they should remember just how well the approach taken by Tom Birmingham, former Massachusetts state Senate president, and co-author of the 1993 Education Reform Act worked. Beginning in 1993, Massachusetts' SAT scores rose for 13 consecutive years. The state's scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shot up, too. By 2005, Massachusetts students became the first to score best in the nation in all four major NAEP categories (fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math). Since then, they have repeated the feat on every subsequent administration of NAEP except one. While American students as a whole lag behind their international peers, the 2007 and 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study results showed that Massachusetts students were competitive with their counterparts in places like Japan, Korea, and Singapore. In 2007, the Bay State's eighth graders even tied for first place internationally in science. The current formula for funding K-12 public education calculates a "foundation budget," which is the minimum needed for a school district to provide its students with a quality education. Another formula determines how much each district can afford to contribute, and the state fills the gap between that amount and the foundation budget. Some wealthier districts contribute more than is required, but every district receives a minimum annual state contribution of about $1,750 per student. State funding, known as Chapter 70, jumped by 227.4 percent per pupil between 1993 and 2019, rising from $1.592 billion to $5.212 billion (see figure 1). This rate of increase exceeded the rate of increase in per pupil net school spending by municipalities (excluding Chapter 70 funding) of 156.8 percent, rising from $3.704 billion to $9.513 billion during that time frame. It also exceeded growth in statewide enrollment, which rose by 16.3 percent, from 809,496 to 941,411 over that period. It also exceeded the rate of increase of the consumer price index for all urban consumers in Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA which rose by 83.7 percent over that time period. As legislators contemplate the financial needs of local school districts, they should keep in mind that they face an enormous parallel funding challenge over the next 17 years. Unlike in some other states, the Commonwealth--not municipalities--is responsible for the unfunded liability of two pension funds that serve municipal employees: the Massachusetts Teachers Retirement System (MTRS) and the Boston Teachers Retirement System BTRS). Massachusetts currently faces a combined $41.26 billion unfunded liability for the pension systems of state employees, Massachusetts teachers and Boston teachers. Of that, (figure 5) shows nearly two thirds, or 65.6 percent of the total obligation is attributable to unfunded local teacher pensions. Legislators would be wise to keep these pension and other post-employment benefits (OPEB) obligations in mind as they fashion updates to Chapter 70. As mentioned previously, the foundation funding formula has been revised and updated several times in recent years. Some additional tweaking is warranted, but the fact remains that wholesale changes are not in order. The communities left behind are the older industrialized cities and towns, such as listed in Figure 8, from Worcester and Orange to Springfield and Lawrence. Lawmakers should focus on the fiscal needs of these communities. They should also tie this additional investment to a policy strategy that is most likely to lead to better educational accountability and student outcomes in those key cities and towns. Whatever new funding comes from the state should be tied to reform. Over the last decade, Massachusetts has retreated from some of the key reforms that drove significant progress on student achievement for all students, e.g., adoption of weaker academic standards in English Language Arts (ELA), math, science, and history, the transition to the watered down (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments) MCAS 2.0, the loss of an independent district accountability agency, and the erosion of legislative support for proven school reform innovations, including charter schools. Over that time, the Commonwealth has experienced declining MCAS and SAT scores, and Massachusetts is among a minority of states in which National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) scores have fallen between 2011 and 2017. The opportunity for change that comes with significant new money should not be lost. To ensure that additional resources provide a return on taxpayer investment, Pioneer offers eight recommendations in this report.

In just the last 18 months, Massachusetts has seen the closure of small private liberal arts colleges Mount Ida and Newbury Colleges. The pressures on these types of institutions include technological disruption, changing student demands, and ever-escalating costs. To address this, the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (BHE) and Department of Higher Education (DHE) have proposed creating a new state agency, called the Office of Student Protection (OSP), that would be granted unilateral authority to order colleges to notify students and other stakeholders by December 1st of any academic year where a meaningful risk exists that the college cannot complete the current school year and the next one. Under the proposal, OSP would be empowered to order a December 1st notification even if the college has a current satisfactory Financial Responsibility Composite Score from the U.S. Department of Education, qualifying its students to receive federal financial aid and loans, and even if the college is currently accredited by the U.S. DOE's approved regional accrediting agency, the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE). On March 6, 2019, Governor Baker filed Senate Bill 2183, which proposes giving BHE authority to request information from private higher education institutions "to accurately and fairly determine the institution's financial condition and to monitor such condition over time" and "to impose sanctions on institutions that do not comply in a timely manner." The legislation also proposes giving BHE authority to compel higher education institutions "to prepare and submit to [BHE], for its approval, a contingency closure plan which shall include a process for providing enrolled and admitted students and staff with timely notification of the institution's financial condition" and "arrangements for enabling students to complete their programs of study" if BHE identifies the institution as having liabilities or risks that may result in imminent closure or jeopardize the institution's ability to fulfill its obligations to current and admitted students. Under the proposed legislation, such contingency closure plans would be subject to BHE approval. The proposed legislation would exempt information submitted by institutions of higher education at BHE's request from the Massachusetts public records law. The proposed legislation also directs BHE to establish regulations interpreting and applying this new section of law, following consultation with representatives of public and private colleges and universities. The stated goal of BHE's proposal is to protect students from sudden, unexpected closings such as what happened with Mount Ida College. According to BHE and DHE, their proposal would provide an earlier warning of potential college closures than has historically been provided by USDOE and NECHE. In this report, Pioneer Institute identifies 10 serious problems with the BHE/DHE proposal.

As explored in the first report in this series, the past decade has been a period of tremendous growth for UMass. This growth has taken many forms, including expansion of the school's capital facilities, increased student enrollment, and a growing national profile and public mission. These developments have resulted in innumerable successes for the university, including impressive leaps in national rankings. As the first report discussed, from 2005 to 2014, UMass increased total enrollment by 27.3 percent, far outpacing the average of other New England state universities (1.7 percent), MA private four-year universities (11.8 percent), U.S. public universities (14.4 percent), and U.S. private universities (16.4 percent). UMass' expanding programs have resulted in significant increases in operating expenses over this period, as this report will explore in greater depth. UMass capital expansion and enrollment growth are closely linked. To attract and accommodate more students, UMass undertook a building boom on its campuses between FY2005 and FY2015 with a price tag of $3.81 billion, only $1.38 billion of which was funded by the state. The university funded the balance by itself through increased institutional borrowing, more revenue from tuition and fees, and admitting increasingly higher volumes of out-of-state students who pay more to attend. The institution recently adopted an ambitious $6.98 billion FY2015-2019 Capital Plan that outlines significant additional expansion of the university's five campuses. This report considers the implications of the capital plan on future university and state finances. Findings suggest that UMass' capital plan as currently proposed threatens to exacerbate the budget gap that has been created by capital and enrollment expansion and increase the university's dependence on future state capital and operating funding, tuition and fee revenue increases, along with expanded enrollment of out-of-state students to support the university's growing costs. [For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 1: Is the UMass Enrollment Expansion Plan Sustainable? White Paper No. 145," see ED598651. For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 3: UMass' Growing Dependency on Tuition and Fees and Strategic Recruitment of Out-Of-State Students. White Paper No. 147," see ED598661.]

This paper is the third in Pioneer Institute's "UMass at a Crossroads" series. This report takes a closer look at the university's growing dependency on increases in tuition and fees and expansion of out-of-state and international student enrollment to support continued expansion of the university. The first report examined whether UMass' continuing strategy of enrollment expansion makes sense given forecasts by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education of an 11.4 percent decline in Massachusetts high school graduates over the next twelve years. This study examines more closely the university's strategy of increasing out-of-state and international enrollment as a means of increasing revenue through higher tuition rates paid by this group of students. As this paper explains, UMass-Amherst made offers of admission to more out-of-state and international applicants to its 2015-2016 freshman class than it did to Massachusetts applicants for the first time in university history. Growing out-of-state enrollment is not limited to undergraduate programs at UMass. Overall, in-state students are in the minority in UMass graduate programs, representing 30 percent of the total master's degree student population. This study also examines state funding as measured by state support per full-time equivalent student (FTE), showing that Massachusetts' higher education institutions (including UMass, the state colleges and community colleges) receive the second highest level of state financial support of New England higher education systems by this metric, and also receive more than the national average. Pioneer Institute questions whether UMass' current strategy of increasing out-of-state and international enrollment is consistent with its primary mission of serving in-state students. Furthermore, this report raises the question of whether it makes sense to provide UMass with additional state funding for capital expansion if the intent of the expansion is in large part intended to attract and educate a rising percentage of out-of-state students. The recommendations of this report call for the Governor, state education leaders, the state legislature, and university leaders to consider whether UMass' current strategy of expanding the university's facilities and enrollment capacity in order to serve a growing percentage of out-of-state students serves the financial and educational interest of Massachusetts residents. [For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 1: Is the UMass Enrollment Expansion Plan Sustainable? White Paper No. 145," see ED598651. For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 2: Is UMass' Expansion Fiscally Sustainable? White Paper No. 146," see ED598659.]

This paper is the first in Pioneer Institute's UMass at a Crossroads series. In the opening study, the authors focus on UMass' significant growth in two areas, academic competitiveness and student enrollment, compared to other New England state universities, MA private universities, national private universities and national public universities. UMass has expanded enrollment more rapidly than other comparable university systems in the last ten years. As this paper will illustrate, UMass' enrollment expansion has continued against the backdrop of a projected decline in high school graduates in Massachusetts. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) forecasts that the number of high school graduates will decline by 11.4 percent from 2015-16 to 2027-28. In spite of these projections, the school has continued to grow its enrollment and expand its capital facilities to historic levels. Through the past decade of enormous growth in enrollment, the university has significantly elevated its academic profile. This is evidenced by its rise in rankings--in just five years UMass Amherst, UMass' flagship campus, rose more than 20 in rank in the top 100 of U.S. News and World Report's 2014 rankings of national universities. UMass' rising academic rank and its growing national profile have led to increasingly competitive admissions, which has made it considerably more difficult for Massachusetts students to be admitted. One of the most significant contributing factors to this trend has been the university's admittance of a growing percentage of out-of-state and international students in recent years. While UMass has been accepting significantly higher volumes of out-of-state students relative to in-state enrollees, the school's enormous growth is also reflective of its growing popularity as a higher education option for in-state students. Pioneer raises the question of whether the continued expansion of UMass, based largely on increased enrollment of out-of-state students, is in the best interest of the commonwealth. With a comprehensive examination of trends in enrollment, Pioneer's aim is to illustrate the degree to which UMass' changing priorities in recruitment present a number of a grave concerns for in-state students and Massachusetts residents at-large. UMass is fundamentally changing, and this evaluation of the trends of the last ten years is part of a larger discussion about how the university can best serve the commonwealth while maintaining a sustainable fiscal course. [For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 2: Is UMass' Expansion Fiscally Sustainable? White Paper No. 146," see ED598659. For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 3: UMass' Growing Dependency on Tuition and Fees and Strategic Recruitment of Out-of-State Students. White Paper No. 147," see ED598661.]