379. 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. Young workers getting hired again, by Tami Luhby - http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/01/news/economy/young_workers_employment/ via CNNMoney.com - "Young Americans were hit harder than most other groups during the Great Recession. Dubbed by some as "the lost generation," the unemployment rate for college graduates age 24 and younger hit an all-time high in 2010."

3. Students learn to be better 'digital citizens' by Greg Toppo – http://usat.ly/rClFrM via @USATODAY - "The digital training comes as research shows that Web usage is virtually ubiquitous among kids. Though most students say they generally access the Internet from home, 75% of teens say they go online at school, too. New findings show that even young children spend time online. A national survey released in October by the non-profit Common Sense Media found that 41% of children 8 and younger have access to a smartphone and 13% have spent time on social networking sites and virtual worlds."

4. YSU to offer gas technologies program - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH: http://bit.ly/ssn9r9 via AddThis - "The YSU Natural Gas and Water Resources Institute will provide Bachelor's degree-level courses in science and engineering that will lead to an academic minor in gas technologies."

5. Community college association releases voluntary accountability measures, by Paul Fain Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/sMMB2r via AddThis - "To participate, colleges will need to track two different student cohorts, with start dates in 2005 and 2009. Breakout categories within those cohorts include ethnicity, Pell status and whether students require remedial coursework. The standards measure career and technical offerings, as well as noncredit workforce coursework. Participants will also identify students who enroll in adult basic education and GED courses."

6. Congress, Duncan focus on rising college prices, by Libby A. Nelson Inside Higher Ed: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/12/01/congress-duncan-focus-rising-college-prices#.TtdyShu30Go.twitter via AddThis - "The last federal efforts to make colleges more cost-conscious, including publishing a “wall of shame” of colleges with the highest prices and greatest price increases, as well as mandating a net price calculator so that students and families can more easily comparison shop, seem unlikely to have a widespread effect -- with some colleges even turning their “most expensive” label into a point of pride. And previous proposals to more directly constrain tuition in some way have been rebuffed by colleges and derided as "price controls."

7. Top Performers: Kick-Off, by Mark Tucker - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/top_performers/2011/11/kick-off.html via @educationweek - "We are not the leaders anymore. . . . We are number twelve in the proportion of the population with a high school diploma, fifth in the proportion with the equivalent of a college degree, but have fallen to twelfth in the number of 25-34 year olds with an Associate's degree or higher. Not only are our low-income and minority students doing very poorly, but a growing number of other countries have larger proportions of their students scoring at the highest levels of the international comparative tests than we do. The socio-economic background of students makes more of a difference in academic achievement in the United States than it does in all but a handful of other countries."

8. Florida A&M University Student’s Death Turns Spotlight on Hazing, by LIZETTE ALVAREZ and ROBBIE BROWN: http://nyti.ms/sJLerl - "Punching, paddling, slapping and forcing band members to eat certain things, do certain favors and endure verbal abuse for mistakes is part of the code, carried out by subgroups within each section. . . ."

9. U.S. Education Department Finds Salary Gap in Poor Schools, by Sam Dillon: http://nyti.ms/rDNEMQ - "Its conclusion: Tens of thousands of schools serving low-income students are being shortchanged because districts spend fewer state and local dollars on teacher salaries in those schools than on salaries in schools serving higher-income students."

10. Want to get into college in your state? Might be easier if you move out of state, says @arotherham http://ti.me/tVHM9h via @TIMEIdeas - "It’s about public universities recruiting more and more out-of-state students, who often pay as much as three times what in-state residents do for the privilege of attending the same institution. . . . While admissions officers sometimes dress up their reasons for recruiting out-of-staters (“geographic diversity,” anyone?), the real reason is money. University officials will privately acknowledge the integral role out-of-state tuition plays in making ends meet."