We're working on this in a really different way-- inspired by @drob's talk on "Unreasonable effectiveness of public work" (tinyurl.com/ugggdkv) we're posting everything that we do publicly on github. 2/n
Please feel free to comment and suggest improvements or changes! We're working in #rstats, using the #tidyverse as the basis for much of the work. 3/n
In addition, we're making heavy use of the @topepos#tidymodels approach to modeling. It's kind of amazing what's been done to streamline the approach to preprocessing data and implementing different models. 4/n
Our first step in the project was to get something (anything!) up and running using the tidymodels framework. Starting in rmarkdown we downloaded NCES ELS data and did some basic wrangling 6/n
Then we got the data structured for cross validation using mc_cv from rsample, and applied the recipe function from tidymodels using the approach laid out here brodrigues.co/blog/2018-11-2… from @brodriguesco Super helpful! 7/n
The result was a "dataset of datasets" split training/testing, with predictions for the testing datasets. Since we're predicting graduation as 0/1 we used AUC as a measure of accuracy. We generated a distribution of AUC from the cv data (it's not good) 8/n
That's the first iteration. Now we're working on converting the different pieces to functions, so we can create modularized chunks, most of which will be functions. We can then implement a bunch of different approaches to prediction. 9/n
The first goal is to come up with some reasonably accurate predictions of graduation based on student characteristics. The second goal is to simulate what would happen if these predictions were used in different ways by decisionmakers 10/n
Who would benefit when certain decisions are made based on these predictions? Who might be hurt? In many ways this work is inspired by the work of @Irisonhighered and others on the use of predictive analytics in higher ed: tinyurl.com/qssfhry 11/n
I've benefited a ton from others being willing to post their work and explain what they've learned, and I definitely feel an obligation to pay that forward, even if most of what I can share is the mistakes I make along the way. /End
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
3/ Second, I did NOT include required fees in the calculation of median tuition! The updated number is $4,653, the average of WV and OK. Thanks to (you guessed it) @LadermanSophia and @kelsey_kunkle and @david_socolow for this correction as well.
1/ The Biden plan for free community college represents a huge change in how the federal government funds higher education.
2/ For the first time, the federal government will directly fund states to cover the full cost of tuition for students, using a large scale federal-state matching plan that is similar in some ways to how the federal government funds health care or transportation.
3/ Over the last few days I’ve been trying to answer the following questions:
Which institutions in each state will be eligible? How much will the plan provide? How much will states have to pay? What will be the effective subsidy among all college students by state?
The full impact of downturns in the economy take some time to reach higher education. Without action by the federal government to assist states, higher education in most states is facing severe cuts, likely to be larger than those incurred during the Great Recession. 1/N
There is time to act, but the window is closing. State policymakers and higher education leaders are planning now for budget cuts that will reduce student access. 2/N
Why do I think this? I spent the last few days reading state budget guidance documents for Fiscal 2022.
I took a look at the state-level subsidy implied by the Warren plan for free tuition: willdoyle.us/files/2019-04-… 1/6
Bottom line: A few states–Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan— will receive in excess of $6,000 per student, while several large states– Texas, California, Florida– will get less than half that. 2/6
Any plan that guarantees free tuition at public colleges has to grapple with two issues: 3/6
I'm happy to share the news that I've been promoted to full professor.
I've been thinking a lot about how lucky I’ve been to work with so many great people. A partial list follows:
I’m deeply grateful to Pat Callan and Joni Finney for getting me started in this work and providing me with an example of how to be a passionate advocate for increased opportunity for higher education.