GatherinG informationMeasurement isn’t sufficient for accountability, but it is necessary. Any legitimate effort to hold

institutions accountable for success must begin with a fair, accurate process for gauging success. Higher education is multifaceted in design and mission—there are many different kinds of institutions serving diverse student groups while working to accomplish a large variety of goals. Accountability systems that don’t examine all facets of an institution risk presenting a narrow, distorted view of success and creating unbalanced or even perverse incentives that are misaligned with institutional missions and larger policy goals.

GEORGIA

BackGround/historyGeorgia, already the ninth most populous state in the union, is expected to have the fifth largest growth rate in high school graduates in the next 10 years. While Georgia has one of the highest high school dropout rates in the country, it retains its high school graduates in-state at public colleges and universities at a slightly higher rate than the national mark.1

The board of regents of the University System of Georgia was created in 1931 as part of a larger reorganization of the state government. It became part of the state constitution in 1943. Today, it governs 35 colleges and universities enrolling more than 282,000 students ranging from four research universities to eight two-year colleges. The state’s flagship, the University of Georgia, is in Athens. Research universities include the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Georgia, the first state-chartered university in America. Emory University, an elite private four-year institution, calls Atlanta home. The Georgia Foundation for Independent Colleges represents 26 other private postsecondary institutions in the state and focuses on lobbying on their behalf. The Technical College System of Georgia is a state agency tasked with oversight responsibilities for the state’s technical colleges, adult education program, and economic and work-force development programs.

Georgia began a national trend in 1993 with the establishment of the HOPE Scholarship, which guaranteed free tuition and fees at any public Georgia college or university to any student who earned a B average in high school and maintained a B average through college. There is only modest evidence of HOPE’s success: Before HOPE, in 1992, Georgia high school students scoring above 1500 on the SAT stayed in-state for college 21.8 percent of the time; in 2001, that number had risen to 29.6 percent.2 Yet, students qualifying for the HOPE scholarship took an easier course load and dropped more difficult courses in fear of losing the financial aid. A significant number of students did not keep the scholarship once enrolled in college. And a 2003 redesign significantly reduced the percentage of public high school students eligible for the program, from 62 percent to 38 percent.3

To curb rapidly rising tuition and fees, Georgia public postsecondary institutions recently enacted lock-in rates for incoming freshmen. The policy first applies to the incoming freshman class of 2008.4

GEORGIA SCORE CARD

= Needs Improvement = In Progress = Best Practice

GatherinG information

student outcomes

Learning

Progression and Attainment

Further Employment, Education, and Life

institutional Practices

Teaching and Engagement

Efficiency and Financial Stewardship

Equity, Access, and Affordability

Alignment With Pre K–12 Education

Scholarship and Research

economic and community development

Degree Production and Economic Impact

Arts, Culture, and Service

Adult Education and Extension Services

overall Quality of information

state- and systemwide information

usinG information

Governance and strategic Planning

funding

transparency and markets

44 HIGHER ED ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT: Georgia www.educationsector.org

GeorGia

Student OutcomesLearning: The University System of Georgia reports the percentage of sophomores reaching 45 credit

hours who are either exempt from or taken and passed the Regents’ Test, a standardized achievement test measuring reading and writing skills of public postsecondary students, by institution. Students must meet this requirement for graduation. Results vary substantially, from less than 50 percent of students passing both tests at some regional institutions to over 95 percent at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Progression and Attainment: The Georgia Governor’s Office of Student Achievement operates an

Education Scoreboard that includes retention and graduation rates for each public postsecondary institution in the state. Users can compare institutional rates with Georgia, national, or Southeastern state averages. It also lets users compare to state averages the percentage of students who enroll in remedial coursework upon entry into an institution and, of those, the percentage who graduate. The University System of Georgia (USG) has an interactive Web site where users can view retention and graduation rates by institution, race/ethnicity, gender, and full- or part-time status. The site allows users to customize the results, including being able to choose between one- and six-year retention rates and four- and 15-year graduation rates and entering cohorts from 1991 to 2007. The USG reports the number of HOPE scholars that keep and lose the scholarship through a six-year period to graduation.

Further Employment, Education, and Life: Georgia does not publicly or systematically release accountability

information on this measure.

Institutional PracticesTeaching and Engagement: The University System of Georgia reports the number and percentage of

professors who are tenured, tenure-track, or non-tenure track. It reports the number and percentage of course sections taught by instructional faculty, graduate teaching assistants, part-time instructors, or other. It tracks the percentage of faculty who have attained, as their highest degree, doctorate, first professional, master’s, baccalaureate, or other degrees. It also reports faculty diversity by race/ethnicity and gender.

The University System of Georgia tracks participation in study abroad. The system conducted general satisfaction

surveys in 1997 and 2001, but does not report any recent survey data.

Efficiency and Financial Stewardship: The University System of Georgia reports expenditures by

classification (instruction, research, public service, academic support, student services, plant operations and maintenance, etc.), but only as state totals.

The University System of Georgia tracks institutional endowment size and investment allocations. It reports how spending out of the endowment is calculated each year, but does not give statistics on annual returns.

The Georgia Governor’s Office of Student Achievement operates an Education Scoreboard that lets users compare the number of course credits graduates earn with Georgia and Southeastern state averages.

Equity, Access, and Affordability: The University System of Georgia reports student enrollment by race/ethnicity,

gender, and age, by institution. It reports enrollment by major, country, U.S. state, and state county, as state totals only.

The Georgia Governor’s Office of Student Achievement operates an Education Scoreboard that tracks the percentage of students who entered college with a Georgia HOPE scholarship and were able to retain it after completion of 90 credits. The rate can be compared to the state average as well.

Georgia has a well-articulated 60-credit general education program with universal course names and numbers, but does not provide accountability data to document its success.

Alignment With Pre K–12 Education: Georgia has been the subject of study for its state and regional P–16

councils, but it does not present accountability data on its successes or failures.5

Scholarship and Research: The University System of Georgia reports total awards received for research or

instructional and public service. The funds are also broken down by source (industry, nonprofit, state and local, federal, other) and by specific federal agency (agriculture, education, defense, environment, health, NASA, National Science Foundation, energy, other), but only as state totals.

Economic and Community DevelopmentDegree Production and Economic Impact: The University System of Georgia has an interactive

45HIGHER ED ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT: Georgiawww.educationsector.org

GeorGia

Web site where users can view degrees awarded by institution, level, academic discipline, race/ethnicity, and gender.

Arts, Culture, and Service: Georgia does not publicly or systematically release accountability information

on this measure.

Adult Education and Extension Services: The University System of Georgia reports the number of programs,

participants, and participant hours devoted to non-degree continuing education services.

Overall Quality of InformationAlthough printed materials from the University System of Georgia’s most recent Information Digest

comes from 2005–06, and the document’s data mostly come from 2004, more current information is available at interactive Web sites online. The digest disaggregates some information by race/ethnicity and gender but nothing by income. Although it presents much of its information by institution (and includes institutions ranging from research universities to community colleges), the data are not presented alongside peers or compared to pre-determined targets. The online, interactive site allows users to customize reports by institution, entering cohort year, race/ethnicity, and gender. Its data are current.

State- and Systemwide InformationThe Georgia Governor’s Office’s Education Scoreboard is designed to look like one from

major sports.6 It begins with statewide measures on achievement by students of all ages. The postsecondary indicators are: bachelor’s degree holders; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees; technical college graduation rate, and university system graduation rate. Users can also look at university system-specific measures (freshmen retention, HOPE scholarship survival rate, remedial coursework participation and success, three- and six-year graduation rates, STEM degrees awarded, and course credits earned at graduation) or technical college-specific metrics (associate degree and diplomas, GED completions, technical certificates, job placement rates, and remedial coursework participation and success). Each of those measures appears alongside national or Southeastern state averages.

usinG informationSimply making information available does not, in and of itself, constitute a well-functioning

accountability system. Measurement is only step one; step two is making the information that comes from measurement meaningful. There are different ways to do this, but they’re all variations on a theme: injecting information about quality into existing processes that college decision-makers care about. These processes can be grouped into three areas: governance and strategic planning, funding, and transparency and markets.

Governance and Strategic PlanningGeorgia does not explicitly tie performance to state goals. The state’s Strategic Plan features six goals

such as “renew excellence in undergraduate education to meet students’ 21st century educational needs” and “increase efficiency, working as a system.”7 The one numeric target, “create enrollment capacity to meet the needs of 100,000 additional students by 2020,” does not indicate how it will be accomplished or which institutions will be called on to enroll how many more students.

FundingGeorgia does not tie funding for higher education to institutional performance.

Transparency and MarketsGeorgia has made an effort at interactivity. The University System of Georgia has an interactive site

for graduation and retention rates.8 Users can create graphs or tables for either of those rates in addition to degrees granted, for cohorts from 1991 to 2003, and can disaggregate by race/ethnicity or gender, and see institution-specific data. The numbers factor in both students who are retained or who graduate at their entering institution as well as other Georgia public institutions. The tables are useful and often have relatively comprehensive information. The interactivity allows users to pull up what information they want when they want it.

Georgia’s Web site for students is run by the Xap Corporation, which also operates identical sites for many other states. It has a “college matcher” application and some brief information on state institutions in addition to a feature allowing students to apply online.

46 HIGHER ED ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT: Georgia www.educationsector.org

GeorGia

accountaBility documents the university system of Georgia

the university system of Georgia strategic Planhttp://www.usg.edu/strategicplan/

reports on students and facultyhttp://www.usg.edu/research/

information digesthttp://www.usg.edu/usg_stats/info_digest/

usG by the numbershttps://app.usg.edu/portal/page/portal/USG123_10G

accountability reporthttp://www.usg.edu/usg_stats/acct_rep/fy2006.pdf

degrees conferred reporthttp://www.usg.edu/research/students/degrees/

annual financial reportshttp://www.usg.edu/usg_stats/annual_fin_rep/

enrollment reporthttp://www.usg.edu/research/students/enroll/

the institute for educational leadershipThe Governance Divide: The Case Study for Georgia http://www.highereducation.org/reports/governance_divide/GA/index.shtml

endnotes1 “Almanac Issue 2008–9.” The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Volume 55, Issue 1.2 Correspondence with Dr. Cathie Mayes Hudson, Vice

Chancellor for Research and Policy Analysis, University System of Georgia, March 2, 2009.

3 http://www.gaosa.org/newsletter/newsletter121207.html 4 “Almanac Issue 2008–9.” The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Volume 55, Issue 1.5 Andrew Venezia, et al. “The Governance Divide: The Case

Study for Georgia.” (Washington, DC: The Institute for Educational Leadership, April 2006).

6 http://www.gaosa.org/score.aspx?PageReq=&FromSection=report&Tab=SB&ScoreBoardId=4&DisplayOrder=2&SY=2007&SchoolID=

7 http://www.usg.edu/strategicplan/docs/strategic_plan2007.pdf 8 http://www.usg.edu/research/students/grad_ret/