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By Beth Roberts
beth@uga.edu
In his annual “state of the system” address to the board of regents at their September meeting, Chancellor Stephen R. Portch said that an anti-intellectual culture and poor academic preparation  continue to thwart Georgia’s efforts to enhance public higher education, despite the considerable gains of recent years.
Portch cited statistics demonstrating that Georgia imports more college-educated workers than any other state, while relatively few native Georgians earn a bachelor’s degree. “The economic imperative to ensure diversity on the campus and in the workplace cannot be ignored,” he said. “We cannot afford to rely on other states to meet Georgia’s workplace needs. We need the brainpower of all Georgians.”
The chancellor reviewed the system’s progress in meeting the goals of the regents’ 1994 strategic plan, stressing that the system’s efforts are strongly influenced by the culture in which higher education operates. He said that Georgia fails at multiple points. High school graduation rates are low: 55 percent in 1995-96. College participation rates are low: 6.85 percent in 1996. And college completion rates are low: 21 percent of Georgians above 25 held a bachelor’s degree in 1998, compared to 24 percent nationally.
“We get some great students out of some fine schools who’ve been taught by inspiring teachers,” he said. “It’s just we simply don’t get enough of them, and we don’t graduate enough of those we do get.”
Educational attainment in Georgia will remain low until everyone in the state--from parents to policy makers, from students to corporations, from pre-K teachers to distinguished scholars--makes a strong effort to improve academic preparation. Citizens and policymakers honestly must face the “pervasive, anti-intellectual culture, not just in Georgia, but nationally,” Portch said.
Georgia’s secondary students do not take enough college-preparatory courses nor enough math and science, he said. The University System’s new admission requirements, which go into full effect in fall 2001, will address this problem by mandating more rigorous academic preparation, and the regents must refuse to back off on the new requirements, he said.
“The greatest long-term contribution to the state we can make is to increase the numbers of students who show up at our doors prepared for college,” he said. “This increases their odds of earning a degree, rather than flowing through a revolving door.”
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