When I started applying to colleges, I did so with every advantage in the world. My guidance counselor sent me information for schools that aligned with my career interests and level of academic achievement. My mom traveled with me around the country to visit schools, and my older family and friends all shared with me opinions on their almae matres. When I began applying, I did so fully informed about where I wanted to go, what it would take to get there, and how much it would cost me to attend. Today I’m happy with where I chose to go to school, largely because I knew enough to know it would be right for me.
It’s not just for-profit schools where a lack of information is a problem. In a 2012 U.S. Chamber of Commerce report card on the public educational systems in every U.S. state, Illinois was graded a disappointing D in “Transparency and Accountability.” While Illinois has done exemplary work in the K – 12 system with the Illinois Report Card, which outlines how each school, district, and Illinois is doing on several education goals, the U.S. Chamber report card demonstrates that Illinois has room for improvement in providing young adults critical information on higher education in Illinois. This past gap in information has inadvertently held back vulnerable young adults. Fortunately, Illinois is soon launching a higher education report and can learn from other states as it launches this work.
These two programs work together to clearly inform Minnesota’s citizens about the effectiveness of their state’s educational institutions. If Doris from Rochester reads in Minnesota Measures that the percentage of students from her local high school needing to take remedial coursework in college has risen dramatically in the past five years, she has the information available at her fingertips to ask her school district to develop an intervention. And if Tom from St. Paul realizes that alumni from one university begin their careers making much more than those with the same degree from a school down the street, he can use that information to decide which college is best for his career aspirations.
Imagine that the next time you google a university, or even a school’s specific program area, you’re greeted on the right-hand side of your screen with a box showing not just the acceptance rate and enrollment, but also grades for things like recent graduate salaries and loan debt. With the availability of a longitudinal data system, parents and prospective students, from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds alike, could easily understand the effectiveness of potential schools and have access to the underlying data shaping those evaluations.
Now that we’re so close to comprehensively understanding Illinois’s postsecondary institutions, it’s critically important that the public continues to support the development of this report card. Every parent wants their children to succeed, but not every parent has a PhD in Statistics. Despite having developed an amazing system, if the ILDS data is not communicated in a way that’s accessible to everyone, then it will miss a critical avenue for increasing transparency and accountability in Illinois public education. Through public hearings, the state can determine what information parents and students are most invested in learning, and how to ensure it’s best understood by the greatest number of people.
Tyler Washington is a rising senior at Northwestern University.