A SWNIDish Almanac of Higher Education

Actually, this is our selection of facts from the annual almanac issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. The principle of selection is what interests SWNID.

Here goes:

• The average tuition discount rate for first-time, full-time freshmen is 42.4%. For all undergraduates, it's 37.1%
• Average cost of attendance as an in-state, residential student at a 4-year public is $20,339. At a 4-year private it's $40,476. At a 2-year public as a commuter it's $14,637.
• Professors in theology and religious vocations are paid the least on average. Here are the averages:
• Professor: $74,267
• Associate Professor: $59,593
• Assistant Professor: $52,241
• New Assistant Professor: $50,620
• For private master's-granting institutions in Ohio, average professorial  pay for all disciplines is as follows:
• Professor: $69,261
• Associate professor: $57,170
• Assistant professor: $60,553

• Average compensation for faculty members has over the last five years and the last ten years gone up faster than inflation. Not so for other recipients of graduate degrees or people ages 25 and older. But presidents' salaries have risen even faster.
• IHEs show more diversity in their staffs than in their faculties.
• College presidents are sharply divided when asked whether the purpose of higher ed is to promote intellectual and personal growth or to provide knowledge and training for the working world. Overall, it's about half either way, but for four-year institutions, more than 70%, public and private, name intellectual and personal growth as the main aim.
• 20% of college presidents are older than 65.
• 41% of 18- to 24-year-olds are enrolled at degree-granting institutions. A larger percentage of women are enrolled than men. Hispanics lag other groups in enrollment at 28%. Blacks are enrolled at 38%; Whites at 45%.
• Less than 1/3 of Americans have at least a bachelor's degree.
• In the next 10 years, the number of students graduating from high school in Ohio is projected to decline by 6%. It is projected to rise in Indiana and Kentucky by 4%. Highest rates of decline will be in the northeast. Highest rates of increase will be in Florida, Georgia, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, and the Rocky Mountain and Intermountain regions.
• In the last decade, undergraduate enrollment grew 38%. It grew 21% in private nonprofit colleges.
• Liberty University is by far the largest private, nonprofit, master's level institution in the country, with 46,312 students in 2009. That makes it the largest private institution in the country: NYU has 43k. We infer that most of this is online enrollment, not that there's anything wrong with that. Eight public universities and three for-profits have higher enrollment than Liberty. Liberty grew 342% from 2004 to 2009.
• U of Phoenix had 380k students in 2009 fall.
  
• Four freshmen out of 1000 name the MDiv degree as their eventual goal.
• Fifty-one freshmen out of a thousand name "Church of Christ" as their religious preference. That's less than Roman Catholic, Baptist, Other Christian or None, but more than any other. Really.
• In 2008-09, 8940 bachelor's degrees were awarded nationwide in theology and religious vocations, almost 2/3 to men. At the master's level there were 12,836, with a somewhat less pronounced lean to men. Nearly 1600 doctoral degrees were awarded, and we believe that every one of them asked us for a job.
  
• There were 347k bachelor's degrees given in business.
• In the decade ending in 2009, the number of degrees in theology and religious vocations rose 43%. On average, growth was 33%.
• 19% of college students in Ohio are minorities.
• Blacks and Hispanics had the biggest increase in percentage increase of students receiving degrees in the decade ending 2009.
• For-profit institutions enroll a disproportionate number of black students.
• Per ACT, only 25% of college students are ready for all areas of college study (English, math, reading, science). Only half are ready for the reading.
• Nearly 60% of bachelor's recipients from private 4-years graduate with less than $20k in debt. 28% graduate with no debt. 15% owe over $40k.
• Median debt at 4-year privates doesn't vary much according to the family's income. It hovers a little above $20k. It's over $30k at for-profits.
• College costs have been increasing steadily as a percentage of family income.
• The wealthier a student's family, the more likely the student is to receive a degree.
• On average, grants and loans are roughly equal as sources of financial aid.
• Adults with bachelor's degrees in Ohio = 24%. Indiana =23%. Kentucky = 21%.
• From highest to lowest percentages of students who report using such digital things, here are the digital technologies most used by students:
• library web site
• presentation software
• text messages
• social networking web sites
• course- or learning-management systems (like Moodle)
• spreadsheets
• instant messaging
• graphics software
• internet from a handheld device
• voice over internet protocol from computer (like Skype)
• microblogging (like Twitter)
• contributing to video web sites (like YouTube)
• contributing to wikis
• video-creation software
• contributing to blogs
• audio-creation software
• online multiuser computer games (like HALO)
• social bookmark/tagging
• online virtual worlds
• Nearly 50% of students are on the internet more than 15 hours a week. 9.1% are on 40 hours a week or more.
• Over half of Ohioans are between the ages of 25 and 64.