325. College Access and Success News

Here are links to recent news on college access and success.
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Last of 5 Parts: Answers to Your Back-to-School Admissions Questions, by ROBIN MAMLET and CHRISTINE VANDEVELDE: http://nyti.ms/okBdt4 - "Sometimes students want to jump on the early bandwagon because they fear that the early round of admissions fills most of the seats in the freshman class. But this is simply not the case. It sounds incredible, but it’s true that even when half the seats at a college are filled with ED applicants, fewer than half the acceptances have been given out."

2. Help Needed for Student Debtors: http://nyti.ms/qlZmEn - "A substantial part of the problem also lies in the fast-growing for-profit college industry, which accounts for only about 10 percent of students but nearly half of student loan defaults."

3. Major Publishers Join Indiana U. Project That Requires Students to Buy E-Textbooks, by Jeff Young - http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/major-publishers-join-indiana-u-project-that-requires-students-to-use-e-textbooks/33156 - "Slightly more than half of the students surveyed—about 55 percent—said they read less of the e-textbook than they would have read from a printed copy, while 22 percent said they read more from the e-textbook than they would have from a printed copy.Officials were watching closely to see whether students simply printed out the e-books and read from those paper copies. According to system logs, 68 percent of the students printed no pages, while 19 percent printed more than 50 pages."

4. White House details plans for more digital learning, by Greg Toppo – http://usat.ly/nnv0NB#.TnNQdis7Ky4.twitter via @USATODAY - "The center, dubbed "Digital Promise," will aid the rapid development of new learning software, educational games and other technologies, in part through helping educators vet what works and what doesn't."

5. SAT reading scores drop to lowest point in decades, by Michael Alison Chandler - http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/sat-reading-scores-drop-to-lowest-point-in-decades/2011/09/14/gIQAdpoDTK_story.html via @washingtonpost - "For the first time, the College Board said, more than half of all high school graduates — or 1.65 million students — took the exam. That was up from 47 percent in 2010. Test-takers were also more diverse than ever: Forty-four percent were minorities; 36 percent were the first in their family to go to college; and 27 percent did not speak English exclusively."

6. Students say: ‘Pressure? What pressure?’ by Jay Mathews - Class Struggle - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/students-say-pressure-what-pressure/2011/09/14/gIQAdFEaSK_blog.html via @washingtonpost - "My view is that although homework, tests and college admission can be too stressful for some students, the real failing of our high schools nationally is that they apply too little pressure, not too much. . . . U.S. high schools are not in trouble because they are too rigorous."

7. State schools chief sets higher bar for Youngstown board - http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/sep/16/state-schools-chief-sets-higher-bar-for-/?newswatch via Vindicator - "There is little to mistake in the message that Stan W. Heffner, Ohio superintendent of public instruction, brought to Youngstown Wednesday. Youngstown schools must make greater improvements in academic achievement. And if the Youngstown Board of Education and its administrators and teachers don’t show results, it is incumbent on the Academic Distress Commission to use the considerable power that it has under state law to effect change."

8. A+ Colleges For B Students, US News And World Report List - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/16/a-colleges-for-b-students_n_965837.html#s363405&title=Fordham_University_ - "US News and World Report recently compiled a list of the best schools for B students and options are a lot more plentiful than one might think when mired in the hyper-competitive college process."

9. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories about college access and success, via @rottenbornj ▸ http://t.co/x7cmxSo