The Edge: Transportation Spending Could Rev Up Opportunities for Higher Ed

Will infrastructure-act dollars help close the “wealth gap” and bring mass-transit to more campuses? Also: A new study on students and MOOCs. ADVERTISEMENT [The Edge Logo]( Did someone forward you this newsletter? [Sign up free]( to receive your own copy. You can now read The Chronicle on [Apple News]( [Flipboard]( and [Google News](. I’m Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle, covering innovation in and around higher ed. This week I report on what opportunities the coming boom in transportation spending creates for colleges, and on the findings from one of the few independent studies looking at student outcomes from MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses. Oh and hey. I’ve been getting some great submissions from potential contestants for Shark Tank: Edu Edition, our annual pitch-a-thon returning live to SXSW EDU on March 7, in Austin, Tex. But we’re still open for applications. Will you be there? Got a new venture, or even just a good idea, to improve higher ed? Interested in competing? Please apply using [this quick form](. ADVERTISEMENT SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. Opportunities for colleges in transportation spending. As I expected, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg gave 1,200 community-college leaders some practical advice here in Washington on Monday for how their institutions could tap into a trillion dollars in government spending coming on transit and other infrastructure projects to help develop the “productive capacity of the nation.” Many of the federal infrastructure grants will include five-percent set-asides for education and training. But Buttigieg also elevated the conversation in ways that surprised me: Preparing students for [infrastructure-act]( jobs could help close wealth gaps around the country, he told the audience for the [Community College National Legislative Summit](. He urged college leaders to continue investing in education programs for electric vehicles, drones, advanced materials, and propulsion technologies, but also noted the importance of teaching students the skills to manage change and communicate effectively. The secretary also highlighted the need for mass-transit access to college campuses. When it comes to college, he said, “transportation is perhaps the most important prerequisite.” Buttigieg’s focus on transit access — and his shout-out for [the mapping work]( conducted by the Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation — was especially exciting to me. [I first highlighted this issue (and the mapping)]( in mid 2021, and since then, I’ve been following the foundation’s rollout of specific maps (18 states and D.C. as of this week) to augment its national effort. Only 57 percent of primary community-college campuses have transit stops within walking distance, the foundation found, but an additional 25 percent could be made accessible through low-cost investments to extend existing bus lines. Abigail Seldin, the foundation’s chief executive and co-founder, told me in November that many of the local and state transportation officials she meets with are interested in working with colleges, but the channels of communication aren’t always clear cut. On Monday, Buttigieg urged colleges to seize the moment, and to push for better access, including programs like fare-free transit for students. “If you’re not in touch with your transit agency,” he said, “now is the best possible time.” A reality check in a new study of alternative-credential programs. Two weeks ago I asked if [colleges looking to increase their master’s-level enrollments]( were taking competition from alternative-education providers seriously enough. Readers who responded seemed in sync with me. One wrote that “incumbents are ‘unaware, not bothered, or just too busy on other things’ to realize what is happening to them”; another said colleges’ heads were in the sand. But my satisfaction that people agreed with me was tempered by the findings of a study I’d been anticipating for two years. Finally published this week, it suggests that I might be off base. [The study]( is worth highlighting in its own right, too. After all, big, independent research studies examining the expectations of, and outcomes for, MOOC students don’t come along very often. This one examines the experiences of thousands of students enrolled in two models of alternative-credential programs: a series of short courses leading to six different “specializations” from Coursera, and a longer series of courses that stack into two micro-master’s offered by edX. The study wasn’t designed specifically to assess whether these MOOCs were viable competitors to traditional master’s programs, but some of the findings provide insights in that direction. And as the study’s lead author, Fiona Hollands, told me, if these options pose any competition, it’s minimal. The non-credit specializations seemed “not at all” competitive with grad programs, said Hollands, a senior researcher in the department of education policy and social analysis at Teachers College, Columbia University. “I don’t think they are threatening anybody.” The students who took them weren’t applying for degree programs — or seeking the same outcomes as master’s students. The micro-master’s programs could be more of a threat, at least to colleges’ tuition-revenue goals, because students can fulfill some of their degree requirements that way, for less money, before enrolling in universities to complete their master’s programs. But there aren’t very many micro-master’s programs, Hollands noted. A third of the 60 most-visible programs from five years ago seem to have been discontinued since then, she said. Other alternative-education programs, like [Google Career Certificates]( and industry-approved credentials, could still give master’s degrees a run for their money in the marketplace, but based on this study, these kinds of MOOCs do not. Several findings from this survey of nearly 2,300 students who completed such a course (three-quarters of them outside the United States) are worthy of attention. Here are some: - About a quarter of students anticipated learning something new when they enrolled, but 94 percent said they actually had. - About one in 10 students anticipated their programs would help them get a raise or a promotion, but only about one in 20 saw that result. - More than a quarter of students anticipated their programs would help them land a different job, but only 12 percent said their programs helped them apply for jobs at a different employer, and only 8 percent found their programs were an important factor in their current employer moving them to a different job. So were the programs worth it? On financial grounds, Hollands and her three co-authors raise some doubts. The programs, especially the micro-master’s, they write, “represented a substantial investment of time for which most participants were not compensated.” And programs like these aren’t necessarily expanding educational opportunity, Hollands noted: “They’re educating the educated.” One limitation of the study is that it’s based only on students’ survey responses. Hollands is the first to acknowledge that. “The study that needs to be done would gauge from employers how they are seeing these programs,” she told me. Boy, would I love to read that. And if it also included questions about traditional master’s-degree programs, that reality check would be all the more compelling. Got a tip you’d like to share or a question you’d like me to answer? Let me know, at goldie@chronicle.com. If you have been forwarded this newsletter and would like to see past issues, [find them here](. To receive your own copy, free, register [here](. 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