Performance Report for Ohio Colleges and Universities

The Ohio Board of Regents released its seventh annual Performance Report for Ohio’s Colleges and Universities. Courtesy of The Associated Press, here are some of the findings:

— The average tuition rate for a four-year public university in Ohio is $8,553 — 47 percent higher than the national average of $5,836.

— Higher costs are a problem at Ohio’s two-year public institutions, where the average tuition for the 2006-07 academic year stood at $3,505 compared with $2,272 in the U.S.

— Full-time enrollment at state universities and community colleges jumped 12 percent from 306,256 in 1998 to 351,634 in 2005.

— About 104,500 people received a degree from a public or private college in Ohio in 2005. Just over half were bachelor’s degrees. Ohio ranks below national levels when it comes to higher educational attainment. About 30 percent of Ohio adults have an associate degree or higher, compared with 34 percent in the U.S.

The thing that got me was the price of college. Then I got to thinking about visiting a middle school in Nagoya, Japan, in December 2000. School officials told me public education is free in Japan through 9th grade. If you want to go further, you pay. Some kids drop out, but many find that a 9th grade education doesn't pay much. Some companies have their own high schools to teach their future factory workers what they need to work in those companies' factories.

When I think what it would cost to send my kids to 10th grade here in Cabell County, I'm glad I don't have that worry.

Getting back to the performance report, it's a gold mine of data for folks who want to see what's going on at various campuses in terms of research, state funding, student progress, etc. For example, I found that Ohio University-Southern in Ironton has a student body that tilts heavily female and over age 24, and that most students there are the first-generation college students in their families.