New Jersey Commission on Higher Education

Higher Education Outcomes and High-Tech Workforce Demands:
The Fifth Annual Systemwide Accountability Report

Adobe PDF version of this document

Adopted March 23, 2001

Commission Home Page

Mr. Alfred C. Koeppe
Chairman

Mr. William M. Freeman
Vice Chairman

 Dr. James E. Sulton, Jr.
Executive Director

ACCOUNTABILITY COMMITTEE

John C. Kelly
Chairman

Dr. Cecile Feldman

Dr. Willam J. King

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Executive Summary

II. A Systemwide and Sectoral Profile

A. The Institutions
B. Enrollment, Degrees, Faculty

1. Enrollment
2. Certificates and Degrees Conferred
3. Faculty Characteristics

C. Student Outcomes

1. Graduation Rates: National Comparisons With a New Source
2. Other Outcomes
3. Outcomes and Degree of Urbanization

D. Fiscal Indicators

1. Tuition and Fees
2. Student Assistance: National Comparisons With a New Source
3. Research Funding
5. Capital Expenditures and Funding: a New Analysis

III. Ten-Year Trends in New Jersey's Production of Degrees in High-Tech Fields

A. National Comparisons
B. Trends In New Jersey Degree Production
C. Female Representation in High-Tech Fields
D. Racial/Ethnic Representation in High-Tech Fields
E. Citizenship
F. Implications

IV. Closing

APPENDIX A: Tables on Outcomes and Urbanization

ENDNOTES

I. Executive Summary

Institutional and systemwide accountability are important aspects of New Jersey’s higher education system. State policy makers, students, parents, employers, and taxpayers seek data and information about the state’s higher education system, as well as national comparisons to provide context. Annual institutional and systemwide accountability reports, along with a performance funding initiative for public institutions, provide meaningful information, stimulate improvement, and monitor progress toward statewide and institutional goals.

With the availability of improved data, the Commission has enhanced its systemwide accountability report each year. This fifth annual report updates information on students, faculty, and fiscal indicators, and provides new data on minority faculty, student outcomes and degree of urbanization, and capital funding. Recognizing the intense demand for well-qualified workers in scientific and technical fields, it also provides an in-depth examination of New Jersey’s progress in graduating students at all levels with high-tech certificates and degrees.

Key findings in this year’s systemwide accountability report:

• Full-time undergraduate enrollment increased steadily between 1994 and 1999. However, this positive trend was obscured by a significant decrease in part-time enrollment, primarily at the community colleges, which caused an overall enrollment decline that reached its nadir in 1997. Full- and part-time enrollment increased slightly at the community colleges in 1999, while part-time enrollment continued to decline among the four-year colleges and universities. Although the proprietary and theological institutions account for a very small percentage of overall enrollment, both sectors experienced substantial growth between 1994 and 1999. The projected increase in high school graduates over the next 10 years suggests that New Jersey may need to expand capacity in carefully targeted areas to meet specific needs that are tied to New Jersey’s economic and societal well being.

• Minority student enrollment, particularly among Hispanic and Asian-American students, continues to grow. The overall percentage of white undergraduates declined. Recognizing that New Jersey’s success in enrolling and graduating a diverse student body is critical for individuals and the state, institutions and policy makers must intensify the focus on improving minority student outcomes.

• Six-year graduation rates at New Jersey’s public baccalaureate institutions have improved over time and exceed national averages. Graduation rates at the four-year independent institutions also showed improvement, but the rates at the nondoctoral independent colleges lag behind their national peers. Three-year graduation rates for New Jersey community colleges are also lower than the national average. While broader measures of success for the two-year colleges are more positive, there are no national comparative data to indicate how the New Jersey community colleges stack up against their peers on such measures. Institutions and the state must continually strive to improve these critical student outcomes by enhancing student support and advisement, maintaining affordability, reducing time-to-degree, and fully implementing the state’s new electronic transfer and articulation system.

• While state and local government support for higher education in New Jersey remains higher than the national average, state support per FTE student declined markedly relative to the nation between 1994 and 1999. New Jersey is near the national median in state capital funding for higher education per student. Adequate and predictable funding for higher education is essential to ensure the quality of its colleges and universities and maintain affordability.

• Tuition and fees at New Jersey public institutions continue to exceed national averages. However, recent increases in state aid to the community colleges, resulting in limited tuition increases at those institutions, substantially reduced the gap between New Jersey and the nation in two-year public college tuition and fees. Increasing state operating aid to the senior public institutions and the independent institutions will help to moderate future tuition increases.

• New Jersey continues to lead the nation as a whole in state-funded, need-based student assistance for full-time students. In all sectors the percentage of students receiving state-funded grants and the average amount of such grants exceed national averages. The Commission on Higher Education, the Presidents' Council, and the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority have endorsed the concept of establishing a Tuition Aid Grant (TAG) program for part-time students and relevant legislation is pending.

• Recognizing that demand for highly qualified workers in many key industries exceeds supply, New Jersey colleges and universities need to award more degrees in high-tech fields and to prepare more women and underrepresented minorities for high-tech jobs. Women and most minorities remain underrepresented in most high-tech fields and degree levels, although Hispanics have made gains in computer science. One exception is Asian Americans, whose representation in most high-tech fields exceeds their overall share of degrees granted. Even more dramatically, nonresident aliens are far better represented in high-tech fields (except life and health sciences) at all degree levels than in their overall share of degrees granted. In fact, nonresident aliens received one-half or more of the master's and doctoral degrees in certain high-tech fields.

II. A Systemwide and Sectoral Profile

Many of the indicators reported in this section are updates of data provided in previous editions of the Commission's annual systemwide accountability reports. Some new data sources and approaches to viewing them are also presented.

A. THE INSTITUTIONS

For the purposes of this report, New Jersey institutions are grouped into "sectors" as follows:

B. ENROLLMENT, DEGREES, FACULTY

1. Enrollment

Tracking total headcount enrollment during the last five years reveals a rather dramatic turnaround (Table 1). During the early part of this period, total enrollment declined at New Jersey colleges and universities, driven largely by a significant decrease in part-time community college enrollment. An upswing began modestly in 1998, accelerated in 1999, and is likely to continue during the next several years. Preliminary data for 2000 indicate full-time enrollment at community colleges reached a record high of over 56,000.

An examination of full-time and part-time enrollment (Table 2) reveals that for the system as a whole, full-time undergraduate enrollment increased steadily between 1994 and 1999. Part-time enrollment declined sharply at the community colleges, as well as in all four-year sectors during this time. Although the proprietary and theological institutions account for a very small percentage of overall enrollment, both sectors experienced substantial growth between 1994 and 1999.

Noncredit students, who are especially numerous at the community colleges, are not included in any enrollment tables.

Rebounding enrollment, particularly among full-time students, and a projected increase in the number of high school graduates over the next 10 years suggest that New Jersey may need to expand the capacity of its higher education system in carefully targeted areas to meet specific needs tied to the state’s economic and societal well-being.

 Table 3 shows the distribution of students and instructional faculty among the sectors of the higher education system in New Jersey and throughout the nation. In 1999, New Jersey's community college sector had almost 45% of undergraduate enrollment systemwide, but only 20% of the full-time faculty. By contrast, the public research universities had about 15% of the undergraduate students and 27% of the full-time faculty. To some extent the higher percentage of full-time faculty at the public research universities is attributable to the role of instructional faculty in the institution’s research mission, as well as to the high percentage of postbaccalaureate students at these institutions. Faculty teaching workloads and reliance on part-time instructors also vary by sector. Nationally, there are proportionally fewer undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty at state colleges/universities and more of each at public research universities.

Over 90% of the undergraduates in New Jersey, and in each of the three public sectors, are New Jersey residents (Table 4). Over three-quarters of the undergraduates in the public-mission independent sector are in-state students, which is a higher percentage than is typically found among independent institutions in other states.

 During the last five years the proportions of undergraduates who are black, Hispanic, and Asian American all increased, while the white share fell below 60% (Table 5). The Asian-American percentage of student enrollment was considerably larger at the public research universities than elsewhere. The same may be said of the black and Hispanic shares at the proprietary institutions, although the absolute numbers were much smaller than in most other sectors. The increasing number of students who did not report their race/ethnicity may reflect the growing population that is of mixed race/ethnicity.

2. Certificates and Degrees Conferred

Over 51,000 certificates and degrees were awarded by New Jersey institutions in Fiscal Year (FY) 1999 (Table 6). Since 1994, the public research universities, state colleges and universities, and proprietary institutions increased their number of degrees awarded. While community colleges saw a small increase in the number of certificates awarded, they experienced a decline in the number of associate degrees earned. This trend is likely to change now that enrollment at the community colleges is on the rise. The theological institutions also conferred notably fewer degrees in 1999 than in 1994.

3. Faculty Characteristics

New Jersey colleges and universities showed some progress in making the racial/ethnic profile of New Jersey faculty more representative of the general population and the students, but this progress has been slow. Data are provided on all full-time faculty as well as on newly hired faculty, in order to give a clearer picture of this progress. With regard to total faculty, there were very modest gains between 1995 and 1999 for blacks and Hispanics, and somewhat greater gains for Asian-Americans (Table 7). In absolute terms, institutions across all sectors gained 57 black full-time faculty members, 53 Hispanics, and 135 Asian-Americans. In each case, the percentage share of all faculty increased by less than one percentage point.

An examination of the numbers of newly hired minority faculty in 1999 shows considerable progress since 1995 (Table 8). The number of new black faculty members doubled to 53, and institutions added 34 Hispanic and 64 Asian-American full-time faculty. However, despite the growth in the numbers of newly hired minority faculty, minorities gained only slightly as a percentage of all new hires, and Asian Americans actually declined.