The Equitable Big Dance: An Equity and Student Success Bracket
By Will Carroll, Stephanie Murphy and Brenae Smith
It’s that time of year again: the clocks have rolled forward, the weather is warming up (sorry New England…), and, of course, March Madness is underway. As the tournament kicks off, fans across the nation have begun filling out 2023 NCAA Tournament bracket picks. In pursuit of the perfect bracket, people base their picks on strength of schedule, RPI, mascots, uniform colors. Few think, “How about educational equity?” But, here at HCM Strategists, we’re not most people. We’re data nerds. Data nerds who care about educational equity just as much as we care about college basketball.
This year, we’re bringing back our equity and student success index and score — this time with an expanded set of equity measures. As the 68 teams prepare their game plans, we’re researching behind the scenes to assess how well the schools represented in the NCAA Tournament equitably support their students, particularly those historically underserved in higher ed.
While the NCAA Tournament has some clear favorites, in our equity bracket any school can come out on top (regardless of fancy sports facilities or number of NBA-bound players on the team). We scored schools across several measures of equity, including access, completion, and —new this year—value. Knowing that additional spending on instruction is connected to improved student outcomes, we compare the money a college or university spends on things like instruction, academic support, and student services to how much it costs a low-income student to attend. A school that invests in its students while keeping costs affordable for its low-income students is a good value.
Our scoring formula includes the following measures and weights:
● Access (40%) - BIPOC access gap and enrollment of Pell, transfer, and adult students
● Outcomes (40%) - Graduation rate gap and overall graduation rate for BIPOC students
● Value (20%) - Ratio of instructional expenditures to net price for low-income students
● Tiebreaker - Median student debt levels after graduation
Based on our formula, the Final Four turns out to be a battle between the states —Florida and California—in both the men’s and women’s brackets. Three of the eight Final Four teams are from California and five are from Florida. As it plays out, San Diego State and UCLA end up facing each other in the men’s championship game, with San Diego State coming out on top. In the women’s tournament, University of South Florida (USF) and University of Southern California (USC) go head-to-head for the title, but USF wins by a buzzer beater.
Although San Diego State and USF were crowned Equity and Student Success Champions, they came across plenty of worthy opponents along the way:
Bracket Busters (Enrollment): Texas Southern University, a historically Black university, dominated the men’s bracket with 92% enrollment of BIPOC students and 68% of its students receiving the Pell Grant. Grand Canyon University closed out the adult learner and transfer enrollment measures with a whopping 53% and 16%, respectively, but were undone by low BIPOC graduation rates and one of the lowest value scores in the tournament. Historically Black schools led the way on access in the women’s tournament as well, with Southern University and A & M College enrolling 93% BIPOC students and Norfolk State led in the enrollment of Pell Grant recipients at 63%.
Top Defenders (Closing Completion Gaps): As in previous years, negative gaps equal points in our scoring formula. Negative completion gaps show that BIPOC students are successfully completing their degrees at a higher rate than non-BIPOC students. In the men’s bracket, Furman University ranked highest in the completion gap measure, with a BIPOC grad rate 5.9 percentage points higher than non-BIPOC students. Furman was closely followed by UNC-Asheville and Colgate, the only other schools with negative gaps. None of the women’s teams achieved a negative completion gap, but Florida Gulf Coast University and Florida State both had gaps below 1%. In both tournaments, Princeton took a commanding lead on overall graduation rate for students of color at 97%, and a gap of only 1 percentage point.
3-Point Scoring Leaders (Value): A high ratio of instructional spending to costs for low-income students leads to more points in our formula. Some highly-selective private non-profit schools (Stanford, Duke, Princeton, Northwestern) score well by heavily subsidizing costs for low-income students, but they suffer in the overall scoring due to low enrollment of transfer, Pell, and adult students. Stanford, with a negative net price for low-income students, destroyed all of the women’s teams. California and Michigan public colleges also showed they can shoot from downtown. The Michigan State men’s team won by a landslide with a ratio of nearly 185 to 1, while the University of Michigan, UCLA, and San Diego State all had strong showings in value.
You can see the full brackets and data here.
Will Carroll is director of policy and strategic finance for HCM’s postsecondary policy team. With an extensive background in federal education finance and expertise spanning the P16 education pipeline, he provides clients with high-level strategic advice in federal finance policy matters.
Stephanie Murphy is director of state policy and research for HCM’s postsecondary policy team, and is a specialist in research and state-level data analysis. She is dedicated to identifying and eliminating equity gaps in higher education.
Brenae Smith is a postsecondary fellow at HCM. Currently, Brenae is splitting her time between working as a data project manager at the University of Michigan’s Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and her fellowship at HCM.
