Multi-State Metropolitan Areas Face Unique Challenges and Require Innovative Solutions to Meet National College Completion Goals

Washington, D.C., Nov. 15, 2010—Faced with the aggressive goal of increasing the percentage adults with a postsecondary degree from 38 percent to 60 percent by 2025, policymakers, nonprofits, and the private sector must look toward metropolitan areas as a new educational vanguard. Dramatic demographic, social and economic shifts over the last decade highlight their importance in meeting national college completion goals, but such efforts are being hampered because many states are ill-equipped to effectively manage metropolitan spaces, specifically those that cross over multiple states. In short, multi-state metropolitan areas present jurisdictionally-based challenges that can thwart progress toward critical postsecondary attainment goals, especially for certain racial/ethnic minority, first-generation, and low-income students.

A new report from the Institute for Higher Education Policy, Easy Come, EZ-GO: A Federal Role in Removing Jurisdictional Impediments to College Education, written for the Center for American Progress, examines how educational opportunities in multi-state metropolitan areas are often unaligned with regional economic and social needs due to state-orientated policymaking. The report contends that a continued reliance on a state-based framing of national educational attainment goals is less than ideal for the 44 multi-state metropolitan regions across the United States, as well as offers recommendations stressing the need of the federal government playing a larger role in managing public postsecondary education in these multi-state areas.

“The United States has a college-degree attainment problem—a condition that threatens the nation’s future economic and civic vitality—and historical precedent suggests state-based policy is central to addressing the challenge of increasing the number of Americans with a postsecondary degree,” said IHEP President Michelle Asha Cooper, Ph.D. “Although laudable, state-based strategies for reaching required college-degree attainment goals run the risk of overlooking the critical role metropolitan centers must play in reaching students who oftentimes select the most affordable, public postsecondary education option available based on their place of residence."

Three policy domains exemplify the challenge of state-centered management of public postsecondary education for students residing in multi-state metropolitan areas: (1) state-based financial aid, (2) resident-based tuition policy, and (3) credit transfer. Toward this end, the study puts forth a set of innovative recommendations centered on expanding the role of federal governance in state-level college completion efforts.

Federal Intervention In State-level College Completion Efforts
The study recommends the creation of an Educational Zone Governance Organization (EZ-GO) Commission to provide independent advice and counsel to the authorizing committees and the U.S. Secretary of Education on matters relating to increasing college-degree attainment in multi-state metropolitan areas. The EZ-GO Commission would encourage cross-jurisdictional cooperation within identified EZ-GO areas in support of higher educational attainment goals. Specifically, the EZ-GO Commission would:

Federal Intervention In State-level College Completion Efforts

• Coordinate and incentivize policymaking in specific multi-state metropolitan areas to take a regional approach toward increasing educational attainment;
• Advise federal policymakers on actions to incentivize local actors, such as providing technical support to develop EZ-GO-wide articulation agreements, supporting capital investment to build up enrollment capacity, and assisting in matching postsecondary programming to local labor markets; and
• Reinvigorate current federal policies to incentivize and increase coordination among public, private, and for-profit postsecondary institutions in EZ-GO areas to meet region-based educational needs.

Easy Come, EZ-GO: A Federal Role in Removing Jurisdictional Impediments to College Education is available for free. To download a copy or for more information about IHEP, visit the organization's Web site at www.ihep.org.