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College Gets Cash; Only 19% Graduate: Baker's Students Receive 38% of State's Private Tuition Aid

Posted on: Monday, 17 April 2006, 06:00 CDT

By John Bebow, Detroit Free Press

Apr. 17--Taxpayers are spending millions of dollars to help needy students attend Baker College, Michigan's largest private college, where the chances are about one in five that a student will walk away with a degree.

With more than 30,000 students at nine campuses around the state, Baker College received $20.3 million last year in state-funded Michigan Tuition Grants. That's 38% of the much-debated financial-aid program.

Baker's graduation rate -- 19.2% -- lags behind all but one of the state's 27 other private colleges that reported the figures to the government.

"This cries out for answers," said state Rep. Chris Kolb, D-Ann Arbor. "I think people would be very surprised one college is getting one-third of the money and graduating only one out of five students in a timely manner. We have done zero oversight of this program."

Baker Chief Executive Officer F. James Cummins said last week it's misleading to judge the school on graduation rates because the college attracts many students with "formidable hurdles to retention."

Kolb, who sits on the House's Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee, said last week that he wants a public hearing on Baker's operations. Committee Chairman John Stewart, R-Plymouth, said he will discuss the idea of such a hearing at a separate budget meeting Wednesday at the state Capitol. He also said he will ask the Michigan auditor general to review Baker's operations.

Stewart said earlier this month that he was embarrassed that he didn't know where the Michigan Tuition Grants went.

Last month, Stewart declared the annual tuition grant a cornerstone of the state budget. The program began in 1966, when legislators decided private college students deserved public support. A wide majority of legislators continue to hold that view and have repeatedly beaten back Gov. Jennifer Granholm's attempts to move the grant money to a competitive scholarship program for students at public and private colleges alike.

Last year, 38,000 Michigan students who demonstrated financial need received Michigan Tuition Grants of up to $2,000. The taxpayer-funded grants totaled $53.9 million. Of the students who received grants, 15,200 attended Baker. It costs $6,300 a year to attend the school in 2005-06. The year before, it was $6,120.

Stewart said he assumed most of the money went to private liberal arts institutions such as Kalamazoo, Alma and Albion colleges. Those schools received less than $1 million each in tuition grants last year and all graduated more than 70% of their students.

"We're doing budgets on a surface impression," Stewart said. "I'm embarrassed" that Baker "consumes one-third of the tuition grants."

Why Baker gets so much money

Baker gets the money because Baker gets the students.

About half of Baker's students attend classes part time. Many struggle with poor high school educations, poverty and child care. With no admissions requirement beyond a high school diploma, Baker calls itself a right-to-try college.

One question is whether Michigan's ultra-tight budget can afford to pay for students to try college rather than to finish college. Those who would like to see changes in higher education have said that Michigan should set graduation standards and allocate tax dollars based on specific results.

Pennsylvania, for example, bases a portion of college funding on graduation rates. Georgia and Massachusetts formed task forces to address lagging graduation rates, said Ross Wiener, policy director at the Education Trust, a group based in Washington, D.C., that is pushing for greater accountability in higher education.

Getting what's paid for

In Michigan and many other states, "money is directed at getting people enrolled, rather than getting them degrees," said Joni Finney, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in California. "Michigan is getting the results it is paying for."

Across Baker's campuses, the average graduation rate is 19.2%, according to the most recent federal statistics. That means about one in five of the full-time students enrolled in 1998 completed an associate's degree within three years or a bachelor's degree in six years.

"I'm not happy with it," Cummins said. "I'd like to see it north of 30%."

An average of half the students earned degrees within that time frame at other private Michigan colleges that report graduation rates to the government. Statewide, community college students graduate at a slightly higher rate than the students who attend Baker.

Roughly 20.1% of community college students earned associate's degrees within three years. Numerous Michigan community colleges reported far better graduation rates.

Headquartered in Flint, Baker's roots are as a secretarial and bookkeeping school.

Today, Baker has more than 1,000 full-time employees and campuses across the state.

Baker's course catalog includes many basic computer, office skills, English and math courses. In more advanced programs, such as dental hygiene, teaching and nursing, recent grads had a nearly perfect passing rate on professional licensing exams, Cummins said.

Students said they were attracted to Baker because its curriculum is designed to lead directly to jobs.

With the help of a Michigan Tuition Grant, Leslee Brandenburg, 22, of Oxford plans to earn an associate's degree this spring in the administrative assistant program at Baker College of Auburn Hills.

"I'm here to learn how to do my job better," she said in March.

She balances her classes with a part-time office job at the college and the demands of mothering a 3-year-old daughter. She said her grades in high school were "at the bottom. If you made me compete" for the tuition grant, "I would have been left out."

Administrator's pay also issue

Stewart and Kolb said their inquiry will include a look into Baker's administrative staffing and pay levels.

The most recent available federal tax filings showed that in 2003-04, Baker had more top executives than more complex state universities with similar enrollments. The top 38 Baker executives earned average salaries of $125,544.

Cummins' annual salary was $253,667, according to tax documents. By comparison, the presidents at Western Michigan, Central Michigan and Eastern Michigan universities are paid $225,000 to $269,100 a year.

Cummins said Baker's executive salaries are based on market surveys and are within industry standards.

Baker's administration "is very efficient and cost-effective for the programs we provide and the breadth of communities we serve," he said.

Grants and graduation rates

Students at Baker College, the largest private college in Michigan, get more than one-third of Michigan Tuition Grant money, but the school graduates fewer than one in five students in a timely fashion. Here's a look at statewide tuition grants and graduation rates:

Institution Tuition grants (2004-05) Grant amounts (2004-05) Graduation rate (2004) Adrian College 409 %743,016 47.10% Albion College 351 %661,697 70.50% Alma College 381 %717,577 70.60% Andrews University 297 %515,149 38.50% Aquinas College 719 %1,193,808 51.20% Ave Maria College 13 %23,500 N/A Baker College 15,223 %20,347,315 19.20% Calvin College 422 %761,765 75.90% Center For Humanistic Studies 30 %57,335 N/A Cleary University 170 %228,237 N/A College For Creative Studies 491 %848,134 53.50% Concordia University 221 %371,756 49.10% Cornerstone University 852 %1,391,095 39.60% Cranbrook Academy of Art 16 %32,000 N/A Davenport University 7,127 %8,483,818 23.20% Finlandia University 303 %536,732 92.10% Grace Bible College 70 %123,420 43.60% Great Lakes Christian College 72 %128,690 37.50% Hillsdale College 73 %139,052 N/A Hope College 474 %876,081 73.10% Kalamazoo College 66 %122,152 77.40% Kendall College of Art & Design 2 %3,500 N/A Kettering University 341 %606,495 59% Lawrence Technological Univ. 870 %1,321,102 45.70% Lewis College of Business 186 %253,772 42.40% Madonna University 1,154 %1,725,296 49.70% Marygrove College 1,086 %1,737,537 27.50% Michigan Jewish Institute 24 %40,651 6.10% MSU -- Detroit College of Law 1 %750 N/A Northwood University 859 %1,366,625 53.30% Olivet College 637 %1,160,246 37.40% Reformed Bible College 104 %163,858 N/A Rochester College 332 %502,381 37.80% Sacred Heart Seminary 3 %4,000 N/A Siena Heights University 839 %1,255,716 45.70% Spring Arbor University 1,342 %2,035,619 50.70% University of Detroit -- Dental College 182 %357,250 N/A University of Detroit Mercy 1,687 %2,569,047 52.70% Walsh College 462 %470,425 N/A William Tyndale College 67 %70,447 N/A TOTALS 37,958 %53,947,046 50%

NOTES: -- Graduation rate is defined as the percentage of first-time students who entered college in 1998 and earned associate's degrees within three years or bachelor's degrees within six years. These are the latest figures available. -- The 12 colleges with unavailable graduation rates either had enrollments too small for graduation rates to be statistically reliable, offered only post-baccalaureate degrees and thus didn't have comparable graduation rates, or otherwise did not report the numbers to the federal government. Sources: Michigan Department of Treasury, U.S. Department of Education

To check graduation rates at other private and public colleges, go to http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/ Contact JOHN BEBOW at 313-222-8851 or jbebow@freepress.com.

photo

Jeff Love, above, president of Baker College in Auburn Hills, goes over blueprints last month for a $6-million addition that is under way. It will add new classrooms and a student gathering center. He says the college prides itself on providing a no-frills education. (KIMBERLY P. MITCHELL/Detroit Free Press)

Share your thoughts

The Michigan House of Representatives' Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee meets at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in Room 352 of the Capitol in Lansing.

-- Contact the committee chairman, state Rep. John Stewart, R-Plymouth, at johnstewart@house.mi.gov or 517-373-3816.

-- Contact Gov. Jennifer Granholm at 517-373-3400.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Detroit Free Press

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Source: Detroit Free Press

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