Pruning

“Why bother cutting that tiny program? It doesn’t affect any jobs. Keeping it doesn’t cost anything!”

If only that were true.

In looking at some programs with very low (or sometimes no) enrollments, I run into this argument regularly. If a given certificate is just a recombination of courses that we teach in other programs already, the argument goes, what’s the harm in keeping it?

The harms are several.

One is the small section problem. When we need to cull small sections to stay within budget, one of the extenuating factors that can save a small section is that someone needs it this semester in order to graduate or complete a program. The more combinations of courses we offer, the more small sections fall into this category. Thin-slicing the same population of students over more options creates more exceptions, each of which brings a cost.

Similarly, a proliferation of options across the curriculum greatly increases overhead in terms of system maintenance, outcomes assessment, program reviews and even just building and keeping the catalog updated. No one certificate does that by itself, but when you have dozens of them, the costs (and confusion) add up.

Speaking of outcomes, I have a substantive concern about producing credentials that have no discernible external value, whether for employment or transfer. Yes, we can manufacture certificates to serve as de facto consolation prizes when someone drops out, but let’s say a student does drop out with one of those and they bring that certificate with them as they look for work. If the real world doesn’t recognize it, what, exactly, have we achieved?

That question is becoming more urgent as the federal administration is talking about withholding financial aid from credentials without discernible market value. If the violations cover more than two years, a college as a whole can lose access to federal student aid. If a few certificates cost us access to Title IV funding, then that’s a catastrophe, and for what?

Locally, we also have a systems issue. Our enterprise resource planning platform, Anthology, allows students to carry only one major at a time. That means that with credentials built on the stackable model: Every time they complete one step, they have to change their major. If they don’t take things in exactly the “correct” order, their financial aid can suffer; aid can only cover courses in the major in which they are registered. Admittedly, that’s a quirk of an unpopular ERP, but we’re stuck with it for now.

That doesn’t mean the pruning process is painless, of course. Students halfway through have a reasonable claim to a teach-out, at least for a while. (If it drags on too long, then you’re right back to the small section problem.) Catalog revisions take some effort. Some people take pruning personally. And there’s the fear of headlines that misunderstand what’s happening and present it in misleading and damaging ways.

In a more perfect world, of course, the stakes would be much lower, and we could treat curricular pruning simply as a matter of tidying up. But in this world, the resources currently spent on bespoke mini-credentials would be better spent shoring up the programs with actual demand. I’d rather do that than pay people for program reviews for programs with almost no students in them.