350. 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. Inside School Research: Study: Adolescents Can See Dramatic IQ Changes, by Sarah D. Sparks - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2011/10/intelligence_quotient_or_iq_te.html via @educationweek - "Yet a new brain-imaging study published this afternoon in the journal Nature finds that during adolescence, a fifth of children can gain or lose as many as 20 points in IQ, suggesting that the score may be less reliable at the same time it is likely being used to make educational decisions about a student."

2. Occupy the Classroom, by Nicholas D. Kristof - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/opinion/occupy-the-classroom.html?_r=1&hp - "But the single step that would do the most to reduce inequality has nothing to do with finance at all. It’s an expansion of early childhood education. Huh? . . . “This is where inequality starts,” said Kathleen McCartney, the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, as she showed me a chart demonstrating that even before kindergarten there are significant performance gaps between rich and poor students. Those gaps then widen further in school. “The reason early education is important is that you build a foundation for school success,” she added. “And success breeds success.”

3. High Demand for Science Graduates Enables Them to Pick Their Jobs, Report Says, by Paul Basken - http://chronicle.com/article/High-Demand-for-Science/129472/ - "Among its findings, the study, from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, shows that science and engineering graduates enjoy high demand in a variety of fields, with a bachelor's degree in a science major commanding a greater salary than a master's degree in a nonscience major.And, the new report says, English-speaking science graduates are much less likely than foreign-born science graduates to take a job in a traditional science career, which American graduates often view as too socially isolating."

4. Community-College Dropouts Cost Taxpayers Nearly $1-Billion a Year, Report Says, by Lacey Johnson - http://chronicle.com/article/Community-College-Dropouts/129475/ - "Students who drop out of community college before their second year have cost taxpayers nearly $1-billion annually, says a report released today by the American Institutes for Research. From 2004 to 2009, the study found, federal, state, and local governments spent almost $4-billion in student aid and appropriations to community colleges that benefited full-time, first-year students who never made it to graduation day."

5. ‘Fair Practices’ in Admissions, by Eric Hoover - http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/fair-practices-in-admissions/29027 - "Some people call them crucial enrollment-management tools for these uncertain times. Others call them big, bloated symbols of institutional priorities gone wild. Either way, more colleges are using them: wait lists. According to the 2011 “State of College Admission” report released today by National Association for College Admission Counseling, 48 percent of institutions surveyed used a wait list for fall 2010, up from 39 percent the previous year. Forty-two percent of colleges reported that they placed more applicants on wait lists last year than they did in 2009."

6. Scariest Student Loan Debt Numbers Ever: $100 Billion, $1 Trillion, by Brad Tuttle - http://ti.me/pK7u0N via @TIMEMoneyland - "For the first time ever, the total amount of student loans taken out last year in the U.S. topped $100 billion. And sometime this year, it’s expected that outstanding student loan debt will hit $1 trillion—also for the first time ever. . . . Students today are borrowing double the amount they did ten years ago—after adjusting for inflation."

7. No Child Left Behind Reaches Senate Floor As Sens. Paul, Harkin, Bennet Spar (VIDEO) - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/19/no-child-left-behind-markup-rand-paul-tom-harkin_n_1020190.html - "Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) then spoke. "The senator speaks of the tragedy of this process," Bennet said, referring to Paul's remarks. "I'll tell you what a tragedy is. The tragedy is that only nine of 100 children living in poverty in this country in 2011 can expect to get a college degree. That's a tragedy." Bennet pointed to "the fact that when I became superintendent in the Denver public schools, on the 10th-grade math test there were 33 African-American students proficient on that test and 61 Latino students proficient on that test."
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