126. MVCAP fyi

See free MVCAP e-books on college admissions and financial aid for sharing, printing, and downloading at our online resource library: http://issuu.com/mvcap

1. A Time of Urgency, by Freeman A. Hrabowski III - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/bNqGXs

"Many might be surprised that underrepresented minorities aspire to earn STEM degrees at roughly the same rate as other groups. However, only about 20 percent of underrepresented minority students complete undergraduate STEM programs within five years. And while white and Asian American students are more successful, their completion rates are also troubling, with only 33 and 42 percent of those students, respectively, finishing STEM degrees in five years. The country is struggling to remain globally competitive in science and technology. Retaining and graduating undergraduates of all races in STEM fields is clearly an American issue."

2. Learning From For-Profits - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/9yF55R

"While panelists at TIAA-CREF mostly dodged or ignored the inner-Beltway debate, a noted news personality gave her two cents. Speaking at a post-conference dinner in the aristocratic confines of the University Club, Cokie Roberts, senior news analyst at NPR, predicted that Democratic lawmakers, in particular, will be reluctant to take on a sector with such clear ties to one of the nation’s most powerful newspapers. The Washington Post Co., which owns the newspaper, also owns Kaplan University, among other for-profits. “But I have to tell you, the biggest objection to [regulation] has come from the fact that The Washington Post would go out of business if Kaplan went out of business – yes, I see Peter Smith waiving,” Roberts said with a chuckle. “Because The Washington Post money all comes from Kaplan and the Democrats don’t want The Washington Post to go out of business, so I think there are a lot of forces militating against those rules at the moment.”

3. Wising Up on STEM Completion - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/903NgE

‎"According to NSF statistics cited in the AAUW report, despite the fact that women make up the majority of college students generally, only 88,371 of them graduated in STEM fields in 2007, compared to 138,874 of their male counterparts. In 2007, men outnumbered women in science and engineering careers, 73 percent to 27 percent. Gender biases -- conscious and unconscious -- often hinder women’s progress in these fields, the report says."

4. Harnessing Social Media - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/9bNYwW

"But a new study, scheduled to be released next week by the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, suggests that using Twitter in class might in fact lead to greater engagement and higher grades — as long as professors harness their students’ urges to Tweet for “educationally relevant activities”: class discussions, asking questions, getting reminders from instructors, organizing study groups, and so on. The students in the experiment, first-year pre-health majors (and Twitter novices), varied widely as far as how frequently they tweeted over the course of the 14-week semester — the median was 30 times and the mean was 48 — but overall their GPAs averaged half a point higher than those of the non-tweeting control group. "Using Twitter produced a more rich discussion of students' relationships to themes covered in the book than would have been possible during the limited class time,” write the study’s authors, researchers at Lock Haven University, South Dakota State University, and Penn...."

5. College leaders work to increase interest in humanities, by Tracy Jan - http://b.globe.com/bUXKv2

‎"Today, business is the most popular undergraduate degree in the United States; in 2008, 21 percent of bachelor’s degrees that were awarded were in that field, according to US Department of Education statistics. And many colleges, including Brandeis this year, have responded by expanding their majors in preprofessional fields like business. At Harvard, a liberal arts bastion that does not offer undergraduates a business major, the most popular field of study is economics, with more than 700 students choosing that as a major. That accounts for 11 percent of its undergraduates and more than three times the number of English or history majors. And the number of Harvard students who declare science and engineering majors has jumped 27 percent in the past five years — now making up nearly a third of the university’s undergraduates. “That’s a real shift from seeing an undergraduate education as general preparation in a wide range of fields. . . ."

6. Failure to educate, by Junia Yearwood - http://b.globe.com/dz8Hmo

"I knew that most of my students who walked across the stage, amidst the cheers, whistles, camera flashes, and shout-outs from parents, family, and friends, were not functionally literate. They were unable to perform the minimum skills necessary to negotiate society: reading the local newspapers, filling out a job application, or following basic written instructions; even fewer had achieved empowering literacy enabling them to closely read, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate text.However, they were all college bound — the ultimate goal of our school’s vision statement — clutching knapsacks stuffed with our symbols of academic success: multiple college acceptances, a high school diploma; an official transcript indicating they had passed the MCAS test and had met all graduation requirements; several glowing letters of recommendation from teachers and guidance counselors; and one compelling personal statement, their college essay."

7. 5 Student Loan Repayment Tips, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy http://t.co/JsGd7Tk

"The Project on Student Debt just released a list of ways that borrowers can manage their student loan repayments. Here are five of the nonprofit group’s student debt tips:"

8. The Real Price of College: Looking Beyond the Sticker http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/the-real-price-of-college-looking-beyond-the-sticker/27769

‎"Over the decade from 2000-01 to 2010-11, average published tuition and fees at public four-year colleges rose 72% after adjusting for inflation. The 35% increase at private four-year colleges and the 31% increase at public two-year colleges seem moderate by comparison. But after subtracting estimated average grant aid and federal tax credits and deductions received by full-time students, the net price actually declined in each of these three postsecondary sectors. In other words, on average the net tuition and fees students are paying are lower in 2010 dollars than they were a decade ago.So it’s not surprising that there are two very different stories out there about the price of college and college affordability. Why is it so hard for people to believe the numbers about declining net prices?"

9. Going SAT- Free - http://bit.ly/cXwO3e

"Not only do all four-year colleges that require a standardized test—including Harvard and Yale—let applicants choose between submitting SAT and ACT scores (the last school made the change in 2007), but a growing number of competitive institutions including Smith College, Wake Forest, American University, Bowdoin College, Bates College, and, most recently, Virginia Wesleyan, have decided to forgo standardized tests altogether. Today, about 830 of the country’s 2,430 accredited four-year colleges do not use the SAT or ACT to admit the majority of applicants. (Some schools require a test if you have a low GPA or class rank.) “Colleges are trying to increase the number of applicants and diversify their population,” says Kristen Campbell, executive director of college-prep programs for Kaplan Test Prep."