It is not surprise to see, one-by-one the so-called for-profit higher education institutions are falling apart. The society now can see how the business models of these institutions are. As the business of education is getting tighter every day, we will read more about their closures. Unfortunately, almost in all cases, the damages have been done, and students as always are the losers. It will be nice if preventive actions can be applied, but this may not be possible. Not until ESCC is established, because DOE may not have the peripherals to do this job.  If it has, it may not effectively in exercising them or perhaps it does not fall under the DOE jurisdiction and scope of its work. The Association has long suggested that the current system does not have an entity that has the power to conduct audit and compliance on both academic and colleges financial condition. Because of these inherent weaknesses, most of the businessmen are able to get away after accomplishing their short-run objective. Take a real example of what has happened to the Corinthian Colleges. Cheaters will always find the ways to escape. All these facts that are happening in the US higher education industry confirmed how difficult it is to clean up these messes. Until then, the students will always be the one who pay the price.

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It is not a celebration, rather a reflection. As professional in both education and in the manufacturing industry, we noticed that the US education industry will not survive given its present practices. In order to make the society aware of the potential problems that the entire US citizens may have to face in the future, we then established the Association of American Education Analytics (AAEA) and to share the new mindset and paradigm to manage US higher education institutions (Institutional Research Intelligence).  When AAEA reveals the problems facing by US Higher Ed and introduced the IRI concept to deal with them, many are skeptical.  But several months later were indirectly confirmed by Harvard University’s VP and CFO, Dan Shore during his interview with Harvard Gazette.  Mr. Shore stressed that the current way to manage US higher education is unsustainable.  Therefore, a new mindset, approaches and paradigms are needed.
In March 2013 we launched AAEA website, since then the number of visitors per day have increased exponentially. We based our analyses on facts, historical data and maintained our independent analyses.  We also introduced the ideas of data-driven decision making process in the industry which may not be widely known prior to AAEA’s existence. Strategic decisions need to be based on research and scientific approaches such as econometrics, statistics and mathematical programming to solve the existing and persisting problems that the industry is facing. All approaches that have been applied by the manufacturing industry such as ABC costing, LEAN, Maket Intelligence, Managerial Economics or Financial Management principles supported by Big Data and Data Scientist capabilities have to be deployed to control the rising colleges’  reckless spending and inefficiency.  Declining enrollment, budget cut and decreasing alumni financial support are several examples of the public’s disapproval of what the US colleges have done in the past and are doing currently. Basically, there are five important changes which shape higher education institutions in the US:
1.Tighter revenue due to less donation money, budget cuts (reminder: Big files, may take awhile to upload) and declining student enrollment.
2. Inappropriate, inefficient pricing decision and reckless decision.
3. Over spending and over-investment.
4. Changes in consumer preference.
5.  An entity such as SEC in the Stock Market is badly needed to deal with current Ineffective compliance and accountability from various players in the industry.  A commission that can impose effective rules and regulations in the education industry needed to deter reckless behaviors.  AAEA has proposed to have ESCC (Education Standard and Compliance Commission) to accomplish such task.

All of the five factors, among others have caused skyrocketed tuition hikes. Some colleges are still BAU and not even understand that they are facing the new landscape of competition. If they know, they think, things will be okay or some of them even denied that there is any problem whatsoever.
However, it only takes a year and a half to see what we have predicted based on our research and intensive studied became realities. Some colleges have to be closed, downsized or got merged as results of less available of resources and increasing consumers’ dissatisfaction across the country. For example the student protests at UC system campuses in the last few weeks. The next questions one might have are that what will be next, what options are available and what needs to be done? AAEA has come out with the IRI paradigm to help ease the challenges. The problem that most US higher education institution is facing can be seen as structural problems in nature. Therefore, the solution to deal with these issues has to be focused on having long-run effects as well. Everything needs to be turned up-side-down in order to make it in order again. However, it may take years for the messes have been piled up during an extended period of time. There is no magic medication. Everyone has to work together to take care of the problem. This is the team work, this is the country problem and it is not just one college issue. It is the whole country problem. Without support from every player in the industry, nothing can be done and students will continue to suffer.

Thank you for your guys’ support on the Association’s missions.  Please click the following Link ===>SURVEY<===

Education budget cut did not just happen in CA, Washington’s Office of Financial Management recently warned the state’s public universities to expect around 15% budget cut.  AAEA will present what the revenue and operating expenses look like for selected state universities and Community Colleges in the state of Washington.  To see the graphs in detail, please click the figure below.

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Administrative or overhead cost is one of the most difficult expenses to manage.  Even in the manufacturing industry, overhead cost is one of the hot button issues for it directly affects the competitiveness of a company. Therefore, intensive research has been done in the areas for decades.  While the manufacturing industry has made important progress to control the overhead cost, the questions one might have if US colleges and universities have tried to  minimize, manage or control such cost?  Most people agree that the overhead cost does  have impacts on the tuition, raising college education cost and the amount of student loans that they have to take.  The Association has completed studies which focus on higher education institutions under the umbrella of UC System.  Please click the US map below to learn more (may take awhile to upload, big file).

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Students across UC campuses are continuing their tuition-hike protests, while the involved parties continued their heated debate. The Association has compiled and studied the student loans issues at selected UC campuses (2000-2010). To see the results, please click here.  Surely the amount of money students have to take is trending up across the schools under the UC system.

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The graph below present the historical picture of how the state of California has allocated and spent their budget in the past years.  Future projections are also shown in the same graph.  Education spending in CA has steadily increased over time. It seems increases in the spending has been taken from other posts such as health and welfare.

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One of the hottest topics discussed in the US national news recently is on UC System decision to increase tuition by 5 percent for the next 5 years.  The pros and cons have their own arguments.  As part of the Association’s commitment toward improving higher education in the US, it shares a study on cost and revenue of universities and colleges in California (2000-2010).  These data show the administrators’ performance on managing their respective institution.  Judge yourself, which side of the argument is supported by the facts and which one isn’t.  Please click the following link to study the facts.

Please click the following link to express your opinion. SURVEY. 

Despite the students’ protest, the UC school system’s governing board voted a 5% tuition increase a year for the next 5 years.   If you are concern about the country education and US higher education system in the future, voice your opinion and participate in the following survey.  Please click the following link to express your opinion.  SURVEY. 

While we, at AAEA have little surprise on what happens in California, we would like to remind the whole country again that tuition increase may happen across campuses in the US.  If you study our previous research results which have been shared to the American public many months ago, then you know what we meant and why tuition hike will be the next reality that the American public has to face.

AAEA launches a new college education cost study through a survey as an effort to understand the American public opinion on current higher education system in the US, including, but not limited to student loans.  Participants will not be identified and this survey is completely voluntarily.  AAEA will present the results along with its statistical analyses as soon as it is available.  This is an independent assessment of how the American public feels about the US higher education system in general, student loans and administrative cost in general.

There are fifteen questions in this survey, and it will only take less than 5 minutes of your valuable time.  It is easy to participate, just click the following link:  Survey of US Higher Education Cost and Student Loans.