Rhodesia McMillian, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of education policy in the College of Education and Human Ecology at Ohio State University.
Ohio State professor Vladimir Kogan is correct that a 90% non-completion rate at Columbus State Community College for Columbus Promise students warrants scrutiny.
That said, he transforms a narrow statistic in his June 9 Thomas Fordham Institute analysis into a sweeping judgment that the data cannot support.
The most telling aspect is his shift from stating there is “no measurable benefit” to Columbus Promise, a tuition-free program that sends Columbus City Schools graduates to Columbus State or an associate’s degree, to claiming there is “harm,” as if the absence of benefit and the presence of damage are equivalent; they are not.
The space between these conclusions is where analysis subtly turns into argument.
The harm he highlights relies on students having experienced a loss, yet his key example of a “wasted year” of forgone earnings depends on a hypothetical that does not exist; a strong job market eager to offer recent high school graduates with no credentials valuable experience and seniority.
Such a labor market is largely a misconception, which is why his own report indicates that most students who left were not displaced from work at all.
The report Kogan cites reveals that most students who left did so primarily because they needed to work, faced an overwhelming academic workload, or a combination of both.
These reasons point to the disadvantages students already face upon arriving at college, rather than harms caused by the opportunity to attend.
Kogan interprets these obstacles as evidence of the Columbus Promise program’s failure, but they are more accurately signs of the challenges that both the program and these students are up against.
The core issue lies in the methodology; he approaches a fundamentally qualitative question, whether an economically disadvantaged Columbus schools graduate’s enrollment in Columbus Promise alters her perception of college and her future, through a purely quantitative lens that only recognizes credentials earned and dollars spent.
Access and aspiration are genuine effects that a simple completion rate fails to capture.
For a student who may be the first in his family to attend college, enrollment itself can redefine what he believes is available to him, an influence no numerical completion column can record, and one that does not disappear if she does not graduate within two years.
Mistaking their absence from data for harm overlooks what was not measured and what did not occur.
The program has room for growth, and a sincere evaluation of those areas would be valuable.
Declaring the promise itself “false” is a conclusion the data never reached, and such a claim only intensifies the debate that Columbus students cannot afford to lose.
Rhodesia McMillian, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of education policy in the College of Education and Human Ecology at Ohio State University, where her research examines education policy and qualitative methodology.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: OSU prof’s ‘false promise’ claim about Columbus Promise an unsupported fallacy | Opinion
Reporting by Rhodesia McMillian, Guest Columnist / The Columbus Dispatch
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By Rhodesia McMillian, Guest Columnist | USA TODAY Network
