WASHINGTON — Historically Black college and university (HBCU) leaders have long expressed concerns about how the proposed college ratings system will impact their institutions. The President’s Board of Advisors (PBA) on HBCUs met to discuss the ratings system and other issues at the NASA headquarters Wednesday.
The meeting location — the NASA Headquarters — underscored the PBA’s goal of furthering connections with governmental agencies that will lead to new partnerships, as well as better opportunities for students and graduates of HBCUs in STEM careers.
Ted Mitchell, undersecretary of education, spoke at the meeting to reassure those in attendance that the college ratings system would take the unique mission of HBCUs into account.
Dr. William R. Harvey, chairman of the President’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs, wants the group to be consulted when there are major policy changes.
The college ratings system, announced December 19, is still light on details, which has not lessened the PBA’s concerns about the matter. “This is a work in progress,” Mitchell acknowledged.
Mitchell said that the goal of the ratings system is to measure like institutions against like institutions, and to design appropriate “groupings” for different types of colleges. “We want to make sure that we are not measuring community colleges against four-year liberal arts colleges. That would make little sense,” he said. Still, he said that it was not yet clear how groupings would be determined.
Some present at the meeting suggested that groupings might be determined by the number of Pell Grant recipients at a given institution.
