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

2. Special report on Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, Penn State scandal, by L. Jon Wertheim and David Epstein - http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/magazine/11/16/penn.st/index.html - "What they could not possibly have known was that their accounts would help set in motion the most explosive scandal in the history of college sports, one that would make a mockery of the recent drumbeat of NCAA outrages."

3. Penn State case brings other victims forward, by Marisol Bello – http://usat.ly/rYcawT via USATODAY - "It's a collective empowerment for victims," says Jeff Herman, a Miami attorney who specializes in sexual abuse cases. "Many feel isolated and alone. Then they see all this press and all of a sudden, they see victims standing up and taking on institutions."

4. College coaches cash in, by Erik Brady, Jodi Upton and Steve Berkowitz – http://usat.ly/sh5KGr via USATODAY - "Critics find it troubling that this rapid rise for coaches comes at a time when instructional spending at many schools has slowed or declined amid economic struggles and shrinking state education budgets. "Athletics has gotten so disproportionate to the rest of the economy, and to the academic community, that it is unbelievable," says Julian Spallholz, a professor in the department of food and nutrition at Texas Tech, where coach Tommy Tuberville got a $550,000 raise. "This kind of disproportion in the country is why people are occupying Wall Street."

5. Engineering Majors Most Likely to Burn the Midnight Oil, by Rebecca R. Ruiz: http://nyti.ms/rpr1PY - "The average college student, the researchers reported, studied for 15 hours each week. Engineering students fell on the higher end of the spectrum — devoting roughly 19 hours to class preparation — while students with majors in business and social sciences were on the lower end, spending about 14 hours preparing for class. (Meanwhile, the survey found, students of business were more likely to hold a job during the school year.)"

6. Part 4: Answers to Your Questions on Scholarships and Student Loans, by Mark Kantrowitz: http://nyti.ms/tTizgO - "The odds of winning a scholarship, however, are pretty slim. The majority of students, regardless of their race, will not win private scholarships. Even in STEM fields the odds of winning a scholarship are about 1 in 6. Both white and minority students find it difficult to win private scholarships because there are relatively few scholarships. Race has little to do with it, though white students enjoy a statistical advantage over minority students. As documented in a recent student aid policy analysis paper, “The Distribution of Grants and Scholarships by Race,” white students are 40 percent more likely to win private scholarships than minority students."

7. The Early Line on Early Applications for the Class of 2016, by JACQUES STEINBERG and REBECCA R. RUIZ: http://nyti.ms/sC1Nc0 - "The window for applying to many colleges and universities under early admission programs closed late Tuesday night. While it will be some time before a definitive statistical portrait emerges of this early admissions season, The Choice has been dutifully requesting application figures from a range of more than 100 institutions. The chart above, which we’ll be updating regularly as other figures trickle in, represents the equivalent of early returns in an election, with results from two dozen “precincts.”

8. NSSE 2011 measures student engagement by major, by Allie Grasgreen Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/uiKnGX via AddThis - "For example, McCormick said, first-generation students likely haven’t had as much informal consulting or guidance as their peers whose parents went to college. That might be why this year's NSSE survey shows they went beyond the typical student in terms of learning strategies -- while they spent significantly less time preparing for class, they were more likely than their peers to use a variety of strategies, especially the less common ones such as reviewing notes after class and creating their own examples to help them study."

9. Parental Interactions and Child Development, by Daniel Messinger Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/ufQDl1 via AddThis - LISTEN TO THIS!

10. Consumer Protection Bureau Survey on Private Loans Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/vNPZU5 via AddThis - "The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking comments on private student loans from students, families, colleges and loan providers to prepare a report for Congress on private student lending. In a notice published in today's Federal Register, the bureau said it was seeking information on how students use private loans, what types of comparison shopping tools are available, what best practices are for financial aid offices who counsel private borrowers, and other topics related to the private lending industry."

11. 25 college majors with the highest unemployment ratesby Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57325132/25-college-majors-with-the-highest-unemployment-rates/?tag=mncol;lst;9 - "Five of the college majors with the worst job prospects on this list are related to psychology. Ironically, psychology is the fifth most popular college degree."

12. 25 college majors with lowest unemployment rates, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57324669/25-college-majors-with-lowest-unemployment-rates/?tag=contentMain;contentBody - "The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce used U.S. Census Bureau statistics to tease out the unemployment rates for 173 college majors. I looked at the 100 most popular college majors and pulled out the 25 majors with the lowest unemployment."

13. College Bound: Demand for Jobs That Require High School Diploma Declines, by Caralee Adams - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/college_bound/2011/11/glimpse_at_where_students_are_applying_early_admission.html via @educationweek - "For all the talk of the value of a college degree, there are decent jobs for those with just a high school diploma. The problem is there are not enough of those jobs to go around, according to a report released yesterday by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. . . . It found that 37 percent of all jobs in 2018 will be for workers who have either some high school education, a high school diploma, or on-the-job training. This number is down from 72 percent in 1973, 44 percent in 1992, and 41 percent in 2007. In other words, the demand for postsecondary education will increase from 59 percent to 63 percent in the next seven years."

14. Rising College Costs Are Due Largely to Books, Room, and Board, Study Finds -http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/rising-college-costs-are-due-largely-to-books-room-and-board-study-finds/38109 - "The average amount that students paid, after subtracting savings from scholarships and grants, increased by nearly $3,000, while net tuition prices grew by only about $1,000 over roughly the same period. The overall cost to attend a two-year college also grew, by $1,333, despite the fall of net tuition prices by $849."

15. Hey, it's time to Occupy Education, says @arotherham - http://ti.me/tr1PO5 via @TIMEIdeas - "What do I mean by educational inequality? We’re all familiar with achievement gaps between white kids and minorities. But here’s the income-based gap: just 8% of low-income students get a college-degree by the time they are 24 while three-quarters of affluent students do."