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President Schill speaks on UO’s role in equal opportunity

Last updated on 01/27/2016

Update: Diane Dietz has more in the RG here:

… Schill noted the earning gap between those with a college degree and those with only a high school diploma. Over a lifetime, the college graduate earns 1.6 times more money. “That’s $1 million on average, (compared with) those with only a high school diploma,” he said. College graduates are happier and healthier, too, he added.

But Schill also identified a performance gap between students whose parents attended college and those whose parents stopped at high school. “Only one-half of all first-generation students graduate,” he said. That’s 14 percent lower than for students whose parents did go to college. Schill said he can relate to first-generation students who struggle. He said his first year at Princeton was rough. He said he felt like “everyone else was in on an inside joke that I wasn’t a part of.”

The college graduation gap is wide for minority students, too. While 50 percent of white students graduate within six years, Schill said, the rate is 48 percent for Hispanic students, 43 percent for Pacific Islanders, 38 percent for blacks and 35 percent for Native Americans, according to national figures.

Schill identified a widening knowledge gap in a country that’s seeing a growing divide between the rich and poor. Nationally, just 9 percent of students in the lower fourth of income earners earn a bachelor’s degree by age 24. The rate soars to 77 percent for the top fourth of income earners. “And the situation is getting worse: This gap between the highest and lowest has doubled in the last four decades,” Schill said. …

The Daily Emerald’s Forrest Welk has a report, here:

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As the economist Ben Franklin once said, “an investment in knowledge pays the best interest”. And thanks to the generosity of UO Trustee Connie Ballmer and Oregon taxpayers, Schill already has some of the money he’ll need to make this work, for low-income Oregonians, by increasing enrollment and graduation rates. Efficient and equitable – how often does that happen?

9 Comments

  1. anonymous 01/27/2016

    “Schill said he will lobby the Legislature for better spending on education, and said the UO College of Education can help school districts perform better.”

    Good luck on the first.

    On the second, I would have to be convinced by real performance. I’d rather see increased involvement among the disciplinary faculty e.g. in CAS. Of course, that seems to be the opposite of the direction UO is moving in, judging from the SEP dustup.

    But maybe it’s worth a try.

    • Dog 02/03/2016

      I strongly suspect there is a lot more K12 involvement via individual faculty (outside the College of Ed) than there is. I for one, do have a Title IIB grant from the State for this; STEMCORE (google that) also is heavily involved (and funded) for this and those are just a couple of examples – there are more. Its not very likely that CAS even knows
      about these efforts.

  2. anonymous 01/27/2016

    On the college graduation gap, I’d like to see a comparison of SAT scores to graduation rates for the various groups. Just comparing graduation rates tells me very little.

    • inquiring mind 01/27/2016

      I think SAT/ACT scores are a poor predictor of anything. Recent literature supports that it is a biased test that does little to indicate success, ability to learn, perseverance, etc. Which is why increasingly private schools are making it optional.

      • anonymous 01/27/2016

        The data I’ve seen show that it’s a pretty good predictor of success, not perfect by any means, but about as good as any single measure.

        In any case, as I stated, I’d be interested to see the comparison I indicated, SAT scores of the various groups vs. graduation rates. Maybe there would be a strong correlation, maybe no correlation. I’d like to see. Saying that one thinks there is no correlation, therefore let’s not look to see if there’s a correlation, doesn’t make much sense to me.

        If these private schools are making the SAT optional, should we look forward to schools like Harvard, Princeton, MIT, etc. not displaying sky-high SAT scores in the future? Somehow, I doubt it.

  3. Big pay 01/27/2016

    How many scholarships would Schill’s $1 million compensation package pay for?

    • uomatters Post author | 01/27/2016

      It’s only $850k, so not as many scholarships as the $940k we paid to get rid of Gottfredson. Sorry, but both look like good investments to me.

      • Schill Too Much 02/02/2016

        That’s triple what Frohnmeyer got. Schill’s getting 8 times what the governor gets. Schill gets as much as 20 Phd instructors at the UO.

        OSU’s prez earns much less and gives back a significant chunk in scholarships. Why not Schill?

        • Why not indeed 02/03/2016

          Schill isn’t the most highly paid UO employee, by a large margin. He also knows he’s on the hook to more than make up his salary in fundraising for the academic side or he’s gone, along with most of the Trustees.

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