326. 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. Character Transcripts: Application Components of the Future? by Rebecca R. Ruiz - http://nyti.ms/n8kEKR - "Wouldn’t it be cool, he mused, if each student graduated from school with not only a G.P.A. but also a C.P.A., for character-point average? If you were a college-admissions director … wouldn’t you like to know which ones scored highest in grit or optimism or zest?"

2. What if the Secret to Success Is Failure? by Paul Tough: http://nyti.ms/q3WWSC - "People who have an easy time of things, who get 800s on their SAT’s, I worry that those people get feedback that everything they’re doing is great. And I think as a result, we are actually setting them up for long-term failure."

3. Why We Need For-Profit Colleges, by Joe Nocera: http://nyti.ms/rjHwDU - "All of this obscures what really ought to be the most important fact about the industry: the country can’t afford to put it out of business. On the contrary, America needs it — and needs it to succeed — desperately."

4. How to Stop the Drop in Verbal Scores, by E. D. Hirsch Jr. - http://nyti.ms/peVpj0" - This is very worrisome, because the best single measure of the overall quality of our primary and secondary schools is the average verbal score of 17-year-olds. This score correlates with the ability to learn new things readily, to communicate with others and to hold down a job. It also predicts future income."

5. Hechinger Report Tips for succeeding in your first year of college, by Justin Snider: http://bit.ly/rh3C95 via AddThis - "A little preparation in the summer before school and soon after your arrival on campus can set you on the path to success. Before you start college:"

6. What the Lost Decade of Wages Means for Colleges and Their Graduates, by Jeffrey Selingo - http://chronicle.com/blogs/next/2011/09/18/what-the-lost-decade-on-wages-means-for-colleges-and-their-graduates/ - "First for students, the report underscored yet again the lifetime economic benefits of getting a college degree. The poverty rate for Americans in their 20s with a college degree in 2010 was 8 percent, compared to 23 percent for those in the same age group with just a high-school diploma (the poverty line was set at $22,314 for a family of four in 2010). While the poverty rate for those in their 20s with a bachelor’s degree has increased by two percentage points since 2002, it jumped by six points for those with a high-school diploma during the same time period."

7. The Effect of Liquid Housing Wealth on College Enrollment, by Michael F. Lovenheim - http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.1086/660775 - "I find that households used their housing wealth to finance postsecondary enrollment in the 2000s when housing wealth was most liquid; each $10,000 in home equity raises college enrollment by 0.7 of a percentage point on average."

8. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories about college access and success, via @rottenbornj ▸ http://paper.li/rottenbornj