269. Review of College News

Here are some links to today's stories
about 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 via @rottenbornj ▸ http://t.co/UftEiOc

2. Our view: Charter school debate overlooks lessons learned - http://usat.ly/miWolo via @USATODAY - "In the debate over how to improve the nation's educational system, there is typically no middle ground on the value of charter schools. You're either for them or against them. But in their fervor, both sides are missing a more fundamental question: Which charters work, and why?"

3. Opposing view: Rethink the charter experiment, by Richard D. Kahlenberg - http://usat.ly/kGQ22Y via @USATODAY - "After two decades, it's time to fundamentally rethink the charter school experiment. The prevailing charter model isn't working because it is based on two profoundly flawed ideas: that teachers' unions are the biggest problem in education; and that packing poor kids into separate, high-poverty charter schools will produce educational success."

4. District Dossier: Clinton to Charters: 'Keep This Country in the Change Business,' by Mary Ann Zehr - http://t.co/PfbZcDL - "Peter C. Groff, the president and chief executive officer of the alliance, called Clinton an "early champion of charter schools" and "instrumental" to their growth. He observed that Clinton had created in 1994 the federal Charter Schools Program, which is now a $256 million program, to help finance such schools. Over Clinton's presidency, the number of charter schools grew from one in 1992 to 2,000, he said.Now the United States has 5,277 charter schools, which make up 5.4 percent of all public schools, according to the alliance."

5. Many From A-Rated N.Y.C. Schools Need Help at CUNY, by Anna M. Phillips and Robert Gebeloff - http://nyti.ms/mBTNMI - "Of the 70 high schools that earned an “A” on the most recent city progress report and have at least one-third of graduates attending a college of the City University of New York, 46 posted remediation rates above 50 percent, according to reports sent to the city’s high schools."

6. Counseling in an ‘Error-Averse’ Culture, by Eric Hoover - http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/28410/28410 - "Over the last two days here at the annual conference of the Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools, I’ve heard tales of parents threatening to sue schools after their child didn’t get into a selective college. I heard another about a student who publicly blamed her counselor after being denied by her dream school. And I heard one counselor say this: “I spend more of my time counseling parents.”

7. Admissions and the Adolescent Brain, by Eric Hoover - http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/admissions-and-the-adolescent-brain/28400 - "In other words, helping a teenager apply to college is not only an admissions issue—it’s also a developmental issue. As such, there’s much room for teaching. Guilt and punishment typically won’t help a teenager remember to turn in his application materials on time, Ms. Deak said, but helping him develop a plan for remembering to meet such deadlines just might."

8. An Expensive Education: Top 10 Priciest Prep Schools, by Tim Newcomb - http://t.co/KWhhbEm via @TIMENewsFeed - "And you thought spending over $30,000 per year for an Ivy League education was a hefty bill. Private schools throughout the East Coast make Ivy League price tags look like bargains, easily topping $30,000 per year and even passing the $40,000 threshold. And that is just the day-school tuition, which doesn’t touch how high room and board rates soar, sometimes adding as much as $10,000 to the bill."

216.Unstack the Odds--Obstacles to Access & Success

Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by

Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

8. Obstacles to Access & Success

If the odds seemed stacked against some children when it comes to college access and success, what are hurdles they must confront? Harvard professor Bridget Terry Long and consultant Erin Riley summarized the obstacles such students face:
"Although there are many barriers to college access and success for low-income and minority students, most can be grouped into three major categories. The first set of major barriers [emphases added] relates to cost . . . . A second major set of barriers to college enrollment and persistence is academic preparation . . . . The third major impediment to higher education for many students, particularly those from low-income families, is the complexity of the college admissions process and financial aid systems, as well as a lack of accurate information about higher education costs. College attendance is the culmination of a series of steps and benchmarks, and this current landscape is too complex and difficult for many families to decipher and navigate." (Bridget Terry Long and Erin Riley, “Financial Aid: A Broken Bridge to College Access?” Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 77 No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 40-42)

http://www.hepg.org/document/19/ )

Another view of the obstacles students face was expressed in the brief From Access to Success: A Funder’s Guide to Ensuring More Americans Earn Postsecondary Degrees, by Grantmakers for Education. The barriers cited “at the student level” included the following:
Inadequate academic preparation at the K-12 level
Incomplete information about college [and]
Difficulty understanding the costs and accessing adequate financial aid.
(From Access to Success: A Funder’s Guide to Ensuring More Americans Earn Postsecondary Degrees, Grantmakers for Education, 2010, p. 2) http://edfunders.org/downloads/GFEReports/GFE_FromAccessToSuccess_FundersGuide.pdf

Regarding the inadequacy of pre-college academic preparation for some students, a recent article posted by Lisa W. Foderaro illustrated this issue at the City University of New York (CUNY), which must “. . . take every student with a high school diploma or equivalency degree”; as she stated: “About three-quarters of the 17,500 freshmen at the community colleges this year have needed remedial instruction in reading, writing or math, and nearly a quarter of the freshmen have required such instruction in all three subjects. In the past five years, a subset of students deemed “triple low remedial” — with the most severe deficits in all three subjects — has doubled, to 1,000.” (“CUNY Adjusts Amid Tide of Remedial Students,” The New York Times, March 3, 2011.) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/nyregion/04remedial.html?_r=1&hp

156. MVCAP fyi

See free MVCAP e-books on college admissions and financial aid for sharing, printing, and downloading at our online resource library: http://issuu.com/mvcap

1. Is Going to an Elite College Worth the Cost? by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/fczdLB

"The sluggish economy and rising costs of college have only intensified questions about whether expensive, prestigious colleges make any difference. Do their graduates make more money? Get into better professional programs? Make better connections? And are they more satisfied with their lives, or at least with their work?"

2. Early Admissions Decisions Pour In For Class Of 2015 - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/17/early-admissions-decision_n_798239.html

"Thus far, Elon University in North Carolina has accepted the highest percentage of applicants with an 84 percent rate, followed by American University at 72 percent and Dickinson College at 69 percent. The colleges that accepted the lowest percentage of early applications include Stanford University, 13 percent; Georgetown University, 17 percent; and Dartmouth College (25 percent). Duke University accepted 29 percent of its early applicants, a record amount.

Notable for students applying regular decision is that some of the schools reported filling nearly half of the class of 2015 in the early round -- the University of Pennsylvania accepted 49 percent of incoming freshmen, John Hopkins University admitted 42 percent and Dartmouth 40 percent."

3. Even with free tuition, hurdles remain for raising number of college graduates, by David Jesse - Hechinger Report http://t.co/ctzrZe1

"Just 54 percent of the first recipients are either still in college or have graduated, a stark reminder that it will take more than money to achieve the president’s ambitious goal of leading the world in college attainment by 2020. Nationally, getting students through college has long been a challenge: only half of those who start certificate or degree programs at two- and four-year institutions finish within six years, U.S. Education Department data show.

“We took the first hurdle down [not having money for college] and now can see all the hurdles behind it,” said Michelle Miller-Adams, a visiting scholar at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo and author of the first comprehensive study of the initiative."

4. Pell Grants Face Uncertain Future, by Tamar Lewin - http://nyti.ms/hvhhWx

"Earlier this year, Congress passed legislation that provided an extra $36 billion over 10 years to the Pell grant program and increased the maximum grant to $5,550, up from $4,050 five years ago. But with a new Congress arriving in January and determined to cut spending, it is unclear whether that expansion is sustainable."

5. Early admit rate increases slightly, by Emily Wanger - http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/dec/15/early-admit-rate-increases-slightly/#

"Other Ivy League schools that have released their early admissions decisions include Brown, Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell. Brown admitted just under 20 percent of its early applicant pool, a 3 percent decrease from last year, according to the Brown Daily Herald. Dartmouth admitted 4 percent fewer early applicants than it did last year according to the The Dartmouth, with 25.5 percent acceptance for the class of 2015. Penn admitted 26 percent of its early applicant pool, a 5 percent decrease from last year, according to the Daily Pennsyvanian."

6. Representative Kline Eyes Way to Stop Rule Restricting For-Profit Colleges,by John Lauerman- Bloomberg http://t.co/OoxPlei via @BloombergNow

"Kline, a Minnesota Republican who will become chairman of the education committee in January, said he would rather that nonprofit and for-profit colleges be required to disclose graduation rates, costs, and graduates’ debt burdens to all applicants. The so-called gainful employment rule is scheduled to go into effect in 2012, and Kline said he has been looking at ways of “stopping” it."

7. Misrepresenting the GAO's Revision, by Tom Harkin - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/f0K8ut

"We’ve found that 95 percent of for-profit students end up saddled with debt (as compared with 16 percent of community college students), and that 57 percent of students at 16 for-profit schools withdrew without a diploma in a single year. Most recently, we documented a startling increase in the amount of military education benefits flowing into this sector in the last year."

8. Notre Dame Responds To Lizzy Seeberg Controversy - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/17/lizzy-seeberg-notre-dame_n_798126.html

"In response to the Tribune's article, Notre Dame's Vice President of Communications Janet Botz wrote to the university community that because of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the school could not discuss any disciplinary cases."

9. Applying to College: Advice From a Grizzled Senior, by Dan Treadway - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-treadway/advice-on-applying-to-col_b_798350.html

"First things first, do not pick a school strictly because it has one very specific major that you're interested in. I can't tell you how many aspiring doctors I met freshman year that ultimately became passionate art history aficionados, or how many future TV directors that discovered that their true interest lies in history. Once you get to college you'll discover that students usually change their major as often as they change their clothes. Go to a well-rounded school that can offer you a substantive education in several disciplines. Being stuck in a town you don't like, at a school you don't like, in a major that, after investing tens of thousands of dollars, you realize you don't like, is no fun."

10. How Important Is the College You Choose? by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/f3D4nE

"But, as also noted in the article, those studies are more than a decade old — predating the surge in the prices of elite private colleges (at least for those paying full freight) as well the rise in student loan debt. Never mind that the prices of some public universities have been soaring too, especially in struggling states like California."

11. Serious Mental Health Needs Seen Growing at Colleges, by Trip Gabriel - http://nyti.ms/fvllYl

"Stony Brook is typical of American colleges and universities these days, where national surveys show that nearly half of the students who visit counseling centers are coping with serious mental illness, more than double the rate a decade ago. More students take psychiatric medication, and there are more emergencies requiring immediate action."

12. High remediation rates cast doubt on reforms - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/community-colleges/high-remediation-rates-raise-q.html

"Newly released figures show that nearly 75 percent of city high students entering City University community colleges could not pass placement exams in reading, math and writing this year, requiring remediation.That’s up from 71 percent in 2009 but down from 2002, when 82 percent needed remediation, according to the New York Daily News. So after eight years of Klein reforms, the remediation rate has gone from 82 percent to nearly 75 percent.

Not exactly a record to be proud of."

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