Finishing One Chapter, Starting the Next: Commencement and the Value of a College Degree

It is mid-May, which means there are thousands of graduations going on throughout the country. In order of joy and pride, I think graduation ranks third, just after having children and getting married. Most of the conventional graduations are in a stadium or out on a great lawn, rain or shine. In an increasing number of cases though, students who are attending college online don’t have the luxury of taking time off work and participating in a traditional graduation ceremony. This does not diminish the accomplishment! In fact, in many cases, it is a greater achievement for adult learners who have experienced many ups and down as they pursued their undergraduate or graduate degrees.

I want to make a couple of points with this post. First, I want to highlight the graduating classes from Learning House’s partner schools and the great effort the Learning House team has put in to get these 829 students to the finish line. Second, I want to honor all graduates and wish them the absolute best in their next endeavors. I want to make clear how important the college degree is in our society, despite the many attacks (both appropriate and inappropriate) on the value of a degree.

Learning House’s Spring 2016 Graduating Class

Although Learning House has been partnering with colleges and universities for almost 15 years, it was only around five years ago that we changed how we approached the business of online learning. Today, we not only work directly with schools on instructional design and online course management, but also deal directly with interacting with students from a marketing, enrollment and student success (retention) perspective. In 2012, our first full year of doing enrollment management, our team enrolled approximately 1,000 students across about six schools. This year, we expect to enroll nearly 8,000 students across 20 schools. More relevant to this post, we expect 829 students will graduate or complete a program during the Spring 2016 term. Here are some highlights from this group:

• These students were on average 34 years old when they began their programs. The youngest was 19, and the oldest was 68.
• Almost 70 percent of the expected graduates are women.
• Almost half of the bachelor’s-level students are completing Nursing (22.47 percent) or Business (21.98 percent) programs. Other top bachelor’s programs are Exercise Science (7.9 percent), Criminal Justice (7.16 percent) and Information Technology (6.17 percent).
• More than half of the master’s-level students are completing Education (32.33 percent) or Business (29.04 percent) programs. Other top master’s programs are Criminal Justice (6.85 percent), Psychology (6.03 percent) and Human Resource Management (3.01 percent).
• These students are overwhelmingly located in the United States, and 37 of the 50 states are represented. Eighty-five percent of the students are from the following 12 states: MN, TN, TX, AL, VA, IL, NY, KY, FL, OH, PA and CA.
• Throughout their education, these students have had 95,510 interactions with Learning House — an average of 115 interactions per student. The maximum number of interactions per student was 390 for one of the bachelor’s program graduates.

Every department at Learning House had a huge impact on getting these 829 students across the finish line. I don’t have an average graduation rate specifically for this group, but Learning House’s overall imputed graduation rate is approximately 65 percent across both undergraduate and graduate programs, which is well above the average, especially for online students.

The Importance of a College Degree

I don’t think the college degree is dying, but I do think the definition is expanding. Alternative credentials are getting a lot of press, and for-profit and non-profit institutions are exploring their potential. But all of these alternatives stand on the shoulders of a degree. StraighterLine brings down a student’s cost of education, but is completely dependent on a degree. Where would Coursera be without the University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan and the other 100-plus elite university partners that Coursera has? In short, nowhere. Even Udacity, which has pivoted to serve the corporate training market, still has what seems like a successful partnership with Georgia Tech and its master’s in Computer Science program.

While degrees are shifting, their value is clear. Degrees serve as a standardization of knowledge and a measure of long-term achievement. They can help drive people to work to complete a goal, and they can separate the dilettantes from the serious students. While we are reimagining what education can and should be, I firmly believe the degree will remain the basis of our programs. The question remains, however, how can institutions build the best framework on the foundation?

The Munger Operating System

During this time of year, I like to watch various commencement speeches from years past. Sheryl Sandberg just gave an incredibly moving commencement speech at UC Berkeley, about the power of resiliency and recovering from grief. I am in awe of her bravery. Other favorites include Steve Jobs at Stanford, Sacha Baron Cohen at Harvard (for the shock factor), David Brooks at Dartmouth and my absolute favorite, Charlie Munger at USC Law School. In 2007, Munger opened his speech by saying, “Well, no doubt many of you are wondering why the speaker is so old. Well, the answer is obvious: He hasn’t died yet.” Fortunately for us, Munger has kept on ticking! The commencement speech is an excellent response to the Big Question: How do we live a life that really works? Here are some of the key takeaways that the Farnam Street blog calls the Munger Operating System, but I highly recommend you watch the whole speech.

• To get what you want, deserve what you want. Trust, success and admiration are earned.
• Learn to love and admire the right people, live or dead.
• Acquiring wisdom is a moral duty as well as a practical one.
• Learn to fluency the big multidisciplinary ideas of the world and use them regularly.
• Learn to think through problems backwards as well as forward.
• Be reliable. Unreliability can cancel out the other virtues.
• Avoid intense ideologies. Always consider the other side as carefully as your own.
• Get rid of self-serving bias, envy, resentment and self-pity.
• At the same time, allow for the self-serving bias in others who haven’t removed it.
• Avoid being part of a system with perverse incentives.
• Work with and under people you admire, and avoid the inverse when at all possible.
• You’ll be most successful where you’re most intensely interested.
• Learn the all-important concept of assiduity: Sit down and do it until it’s done.
• Use setbacks in life as an opportunity to become a bigger and better person. Don’t wallow.
• The highest reach of civilization is a seamless system of trust among all parties concerned.

To all graduates, I congratulate you. To those who supported these graduates on their education journeys, thank you. Together, let’s go shape the future.