See free MVCAP e-books on college admissions and financial aid for sharing, printing, and downloading at this online resource library: http://issuu.com/mvcap1. White House pushes to extend college tuition credit http://t.co/0sAHzmk
"The tax break, introduced under the government's 2009 Recovery Act and applicable to 2009 or 2010 college tuition, expands the existing Hope Credit to include more lower- and higher-income Americans. Unlike the Hope Credit, the AOTC is also partially refundable and covers more of the expenses associated with sending a child to college, like textbooks and computers. It is available for the first four years of post-secondary education, up from two years under the Hope Credit. More money is also doled out to students and parents under the AOTC. Students with incomes of $80,000 or less qualify for a credit of up to $2,500 a year, an increase of $700 from the previous Hope Credit. If the tax break is made permanent, a student would be able to receive a credit of up to $10,000 over four years."
2. Your Comments on Admissions Essays - http://nyti.ms/d6gPHB
"Several of you wondered whether admissions officers can tell if an essay has been largely written by an adult (presumably a parent or independent consultant), or, at the least, extensively revised in a pass through a grown-up’s computer. I would suggest, having read dozens of essays alongside some admissions officers and interviewed many others, that they can often distinguish the voice of a young person from that of someone who, say, has put a few more miles on the odometer. Some admissions have read upwards of 1,000 essays a year over the course of several decades; they’re critical readers, and, as a gut-check, they might try to compare the writing sample in front of them to everything else they know about the applicant, such as his or her grades in English or what the student’s teachers say. Is it possible to put one over on them? Of course, but is that any way to start a college education?"
3. Higher Power - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/a8pUGo
"Under a typical arrangement with Higher One, a university will require students to go through the company as the processor of financial aid disbursements that go directly to students for expenses -- even if a student ultimately decides to have the company place the money in an account with another bank. In practice, however, most students end up sticking with Higher One. In 2009, for instance, 76 percent of the students at participating colleges chose to bank with the company for financial aid, rather than choosing another bank, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Washington Post called attention to Higher One in a recent article, outlining student disenchantment about banking fees, including a 50-cent charge for using the debit card as, well, a debit card. Customers can avoid that fee by running the card as a credit card during purchases, and the company boasts on its website that “over half” of account holders get stung with the fee only once."
4. Where For-Profit and Nonprofit Meet - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/9P7qk8
"Earlier this year, the Princeton Review signed a deal with Bristol Community College, in Fall River, to offer accelerated health science degree programs to students willing to pay a higher tuition. These programs are offered in hybrid fashion, combining online coursework with in-person lab time. They are taught by Bristol faculty members but delivered by the Princeton Review, which pays for the expensive lab equipment and new teaching facilities. Otherwise, the only difference between these and traditional health science programs at Bristol is that the Princeton Review-sponsored programs can be completed in about half the time, but only if students fork over $100 more per credit hour -- $246 instead of $146. This tuition differential is then given to the Princeton Review."
5. Online Colleges as a Policy Bloc? - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/ccAB9E
"The dominant concern coming from the leaders of online programs at the seventh meeting of the Presidents’ Forum -- a group of institutions that serve adult students primarily online -- was proving they offer quality and value as the U.S. Department of Education and Congress begin roundabout efforts to measure those things. “We need to again use better data to make our case … to tell our story in credible ways,” said Margaret Spellings, who served as secretary of education during George W. Bush’s second term. She is now senior adviser to the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and consults for Education Management Corporation. “We’re seen as wild-eyed, often profit-making, the wild west of higher education, and often don’t get credit for what we do.”
6. The Best College Football Towns (PHOTOS) http://huff.to/cq1xUW Huffpost
"With some help from AP Top 25 voters, the 12 best college football towns:"
7. Confessions of an agent - http://bit.ly/bkJD1Y
"Between 1990 and '96 I'd estimate that I paid more than 30 players. Joel Steed of Colorado; Rob Waldrop, the Outland Trophy winner from Arizona; and Travis Claridge of USC all took my money but signed with someone else, as did many others. When I called those players and asked them why they didn't sign with me, they always had the same line: "Sorry, I gotta do what is best for me and my family. "One of the misconceptions about the agent business is that the kids are victims, preyed on by people like me. When Alabama coach Nick Saban and others rail against the agent business, they don't mention that most of the time the player or someone from his family approaches us. Guys see that one of their teammates has some cash, ask him about it, and suddenly my phone rings. It was rare to find a player who wouldn't take the money. I put $10,000 cash in front of Kansas's Dana Stubblefield, and he wouldn't take it. I tried to pay UCLA's J.J. Stokes and USC's Keyshawn Johnson, and they said, "No...."
8. Student Loan Debt Traps Grads in Dead-End Jobs http://www.nsfreepress.com/story/student-loan-debt-traps-grads-dead-end-jobs
“I don’t know what I expected,” said Lang grad Garret Hurley, who received his B.A. in digital media last December but now, almost a year later, still waits tables. And he may be lucky. A new study by the Economic Policy Institute shows the unemployment rate for recent college graduates up from 5.4 percent in 2007 to 9 percent in 2009. Worse, according to the EPI, these statistics “do not indicate whether they are employed in a job that matches their skill level.” They estimate that grads working outside their field will earn 30-35 percent less. According to Yale economist Lisa Khan, this is a big problem. Those who compromise early can’t shift into better jobs after the economy picks up. Her data suggest that a higher unemployment rate at graduation means lower income immediately after graduation and long afterward. Each 1 percent rise in unemployment will cost students 6-7 percent of their income the first year, and 2.5 percent fifteen years out."
9. The World Changed, Colleges Missed It http://huff.to/bcbuvr Huffpost
"Art Levine, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, sees three major change forces: new competition, a convergence of knowledge producers, and changing demographics. The explosion of online learning from new and existing providers is changing the landscape of higher education. More broadly, everybody is getting into the learning business and providing some kind of instruction: YouTube, iTunes U, the neighborhood library, and closet hackers like Kahn Academy. To make the landscape even more confusing, Levine points out that less than a fifth of higher ed students are traditional -- young adults that went straight to college from high school. The new majority in higher ed are working adults and they view college as just another part of their life. They want a relationship with college like the one with the bank or the electric company -- convenient, service on demand, quality support, and cheap."
10. Will Picture Books Hurt Your Child's Chances for Harvard? http://t.co/Mz2ASmj
"Parents worry that if their children aren’t early readers, they will be far behind other kids when they begin kindergarten. And falling behind in grade school could mean they will some day get rejected by their top college choices.A recent front-page story in The New York Times chronicled this irrational trend. It’s stunning to me that parents of young children believe that ditching wonderful picture books like The Hungry Little Caterpillar and Curious George will give their kids an edge in school. My two kids, who are now in college, loved picture books like Good Night Moon, The Ugly Duckling, The Little Engine That Could and a slew of enchanting books by such authors as William Steig, Jan Brett and Eric Carle. Some of my fondest moments as a mom of young children came when I was sharing picture books with my children. I can’t imagine a better way to fuel a preschooler’s imagination than exploring a picture book."
11. In Harlem Children’s Zone Schools Have Their Own Problems - http://nyti.ms/cIfsUF
"The parent organization of the schools, the Harlem Children’s Zone, enjoys substantial largess, much of it from Wall Street. While its cradle-to-college approach, which seeks to break the cycle of poverty for all 10,000 children in a 97-block zone of Harlem, may be breathtaking in scope, the jury is still out on its overall impact. And its cost — around $16,000 per student in the classroom each year, as well as thousands of dollars in out-of-class spending — has raised questions about its utility as a nationwide model.
Mr. Canada, 58, who began putting his ideas into practice on a single block, on West 119th Street, in the mid-1990s, does not apologize for the cost of his model, saying his goals are wider than just fixing a school or two. His hope is to prove that if money is spent in a concentrated way to give poor children the things middle-class children take for granted — like high-quality schooling, a safe neighborhood, parents who read to them, and good medical care — they will not pass on the patterns of poverty to another generation."
Mr. Canada, 58, who began putting his ideas into practice on a single block, on West 119th Street, in the mid-1990s, does not apologize for the cost of his model, saying his goals are wider than just fixing a school or two. His hope is to prove that if money is spent in a concentrated way to give poor children the things middle-class children take for granted — like high-quality schooling, a safe neighborhood, parents who read to them, and good medical care — they will not pass on the patterns of poverty to another generation."
No comments:
Post a Comment