383. 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. Column: Yes, college is worth the costs, by Rodney K. Smith – http://usat.ly/soYrAn via @USATODAY - "Concerns regarding student indebtedness and educational quality are legitimate, but we are losing our appreciation for education as an investment and stewardship."

3. Number of students attending charter schools soars - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH: http://bit.ly/vr0mPY via AddThis - "The growth represents the largest increase in enrollment over a single year since charter schools were founded nearly two decades ago. In all, more than 500 new charter schools were opened in the 2011-12 school year. And about 200,000 more students are enrolled now than a year before, an increase of 13 percent nationwide. . . . But their performance so far has been mixed; a 2009 Stanford University study found only 17 percent performed better than regular public schools while more than twice as many - 37 percent - performed worse. Another 46 percent were about the same."

4. For-profits lag behind other colleges in student outcomes, by Paul Fain Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/vNNUb5 via @AddThis - "The research found that for-profits have some competitive strengths, such as in first-year student retention rates compared to community colleges. But the adjusted data showed for-profits lagging behind other types of colleges in areas such as employment outcomes, student satisfaction with academic offerings, debt levels and loan default rates -- gaps that probably cannot be fully explained, the researchers say, by the greater propensity of students at the colleges to have prior risk factors."

5. “The For-Profit Postsecondary School Sector: Nimble Critters or Agile Predators?” by David J. Deming, et al - http://www.frbatlanta.org/documents/news/conferences/11employment_education_demming.pdf

"In this article, we describe the schools, students, and programs in this sector, its phenomenal growth in the past decade, and its relationship to the federal and state governments. The for-profits seem to have forged a highly successful business model. They appear to be nimble critters that train non-traditional learners for jobs in the fast growing areas, such as health care and information technology. But there is a potential dark side. Default rates on the loans taken out by their students vastly exceed those of other institutions of higher education and audit studies have shown that some for-profits have highly aggressive and even fraudulent recruiting techniques. Are the for-profits “nimble critters” or “agile predators”?"

6. What's the matter with high school counselors? by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57332594/whats-the-matter-with-high-school-counselors/?tag=mncol;lst;7 - "The new national survey, which was released by the College Board, detected a huge divide between educational goals and what is actually occurring in the schools. For instance, 85 percent of surveyed counselors agreed that schools should work to ensure that all students complete high school and are ready to succeed in college and careers, but only 30 percent said that this was the mission of their own schools. Among those surveyed, 55 percent believe schools require either a complete overhaul or major changes to improve student success."

7. Dual Enrollment Improves College Going, Under the Right Circumstances, Studies Find - http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/dual-enrollment-improves-college-going-under-the-right-circumstances-studies-find/38887 - "Dual enrollment, in which students take college courses while they’re still in high school, can increase college enrollment and completion, but its effectiveness depends on which classes students take and where they take them, according to two new studies from the National Center for Postsecondary Research. The research, which echoes previous studies, found strong positive effects for students who took the classes on college campuses, but not those who took them at their high schools. It also found similar completion rates between students who took dual-enrollment classes and those who took Advanced Placement ones."

8. Penn State analyzes football program, by Kevin Johnson and Kelly Whiteside – http://usat.ly/rPeYMb via USATODAY - "In his first extensive interview since taking office last month, Penn State President Rodney Erickson said Tuesday that he seeks to transform the university's public face from a football factory to a "world class research institution."

9. Paterno’s Payback? Penn State Football is No. 1 in Academic Bowlsays @kaylawebley - http://ideas.time.com/2011/12/07/paternos-revenge-penn-state-football-is-no-1-in-academic-bowl/ via @TIMEIdeas - "But the more ironic news is that the team that topped the list is Penn State, whose football program coached by the legendary Joe Paterno was recently rocked by a sex-abuse scandal. According to the analysis, Penn State graduates 80% of its football players in six years or less and also shows no achievement gap between its black and white players, which NAF says is extremely rare for Division I football teams. (At LSU, by comparison, the team’s black players are 32% less likely to graduate than their white counterparts.) Winning the top honors in the academic bowl further proves the success of Paterno’s “grand experiment,” which was his idea that major-college athletes could contend for national championships while excelling in the classroom."

10. D.C. schools have largest black-white achievement gap in federal study - by Lyndsey Layton - http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-schools-have-largest-black-white-achievement-gap-in-federal-study/2011/12/06/gIQArNnMcO_story.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost - "D.C. public schools have the largest achievement gap between black and white students among the nation’s major urban school systems, a distinction laid bare in a federal study released Wednesday. The District also has the widest achievement gap between white and Hispanic students, the study found, compared with results from other large systems and the national average."

11. Keeping Score When It Counts: Assessing the 2011-12 Bowl-bound College Football Teams - http://tidesport.org/RGRC/2011/2011_FBS_Bowl_Study[FINAL].pdf - "Lapchick said, “Notre Dame and Northwestern would have played for the National Championship if there was a national championship game for Graduation Success Rates among bowl teams. Both teams graduated at least 94 percent of all football student-athletes and at least 92 percent of African-American football student-athletes. Notre Dame graduated 100 percent of their African-American footballstudent-athletes."

364. 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. South Korean students' 'year of hell' culminates with exams day, by Jiyeon Lee #cnn http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/10/world/asia/south-korea-exams/index.html READ THIS. "Most South Korean students consider their final year in high school "the year of hell." It is when all students are put to the ultimate test. About 700,000 test applicants sat down in classrooms across the country Thursday to take their college entrance exams -- also known as the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT). . . . For many, this one test -- which lasts a good eight hours -- will determine which university they enter. It is considered the chance to make or break one's future."

3. A New Book Argues Against the SAT, by Rebecca R. Ruiz: http://nyti.ms/rMhctr - "That study broke applicants into three socio-economic classes. They found that 29 percent of students from the highest social class scored above 1400 on the SAT, compared to 24 percent of middle class students and 14 percent of lower class students. Turning that pyramid on its head, the study found that those students from lower social classes were more likely to have earned a top high school G.P.A.. . . “High school grades are the single most powerful predictor of college performance,” he said. “High SAT scores over-predict how well a student is going to do in college, and they’re inversely related to academic engagement.”

4. Part 4: Answers to Your Questions on Applying with a Learning Disability, by Marybeth Kravets: http://nyti.ms/uIDMUQ - "In this fourth round, Ms. Kravets addresses the question of physical disabilities that impact learning capacity."

5. Report Finds One in Three College Students Has Taken an Online Class, by Rebecca R. Ruiz: http://nyti.ms/ssMpaB - "Nearly a third of all college students are now taking online courses, so said a new study released on Wednesday by the Babson Survey Research Group and the College Board."

6. L.I. Inquiry on Cheating Now Covers Five Schools, by Jenney Anderson - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/nyregion/sat-cheating-inquiry-on-long-island-expands-to-include-act.html?_r=1 - "At the hearing, representatives of the Educational Testing Service said that about 3,000 test scores were examined for irregularities each year — out of more than two million exams taken — and that of those, 1,000 were canceled, most after test-center supervisors reported irregularities, or because of large jumps from scores on previous tests. Suspected impersonations constituted about 150 of those canceled scores. About 700 people were turned away for questionable identification at test sites."

7. Penn State president and football coach lose jobs amid sex abuse scandal, by Kevin Kiley Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/sav1IK via AddThis - "The Pennsylvania State University Board of Trustees and Graham Spanier have decided that, effective immediately, Dr. Spanier is no longer president of the University," the board said in a statement Wednesday. "Additionally, the board determined that it is in the best interest of the University for Joe Paterno to no longer serve as head football coach, effective immediately."

8. Essay on why smart people make foolish ethical choices, by Robert J. Sternberg Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/t68Gdz via AddThis - "Every time there is a new ethics scandal, whether in a university or some other setting (such as in government or the corporate world), observers wonder how those involved could have been so stupid. Could they really have done the things of which they are accused? If so, what were they thinking? In fact, there are three precipitating factors for ethics scandals that practically guarantee that they will not be going away anytime soon. The three factors are foolishness, the complexity of ethical reasoning, and ethical drift, which I discuss in turn."

9. Survey Finds Pell Grant Support Among Young Adults Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/s8id8n via AddThis - "Adults aged 18 to 34 are overwhelmingly concerned about the cost of college and levels of student debt, regardless of whether they attended college, and oppose cuts to federal student aid programs, according to survey results announced Wednesday by the Institute for College Access and Success, Young Invincibles and Demos: Ideas and Action, three advocacy groups. The survey found that 73 percent of respondents believe college students graduate with too much debt, while only 21 percent described the average debt as "manageable."

10. Digital Education: Blended Learning on the Rise, Report Says, by Katie Ash - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2011/11/blended_learning_on_the_rise_r.html via @educationweek - "The eighth annual Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning, released today at the Virtual School Symposium in Indianapolis, finds that single-district online programs—many of which include blended learning—are the fastest-growing segment of online education this year. (Single-district online programs are created by a district for the students in that district only.)"

11. Community Colleges Open an Online Doorway to Better Grades and Graduation Rates, by Josh Fischman - http://chronicle.com/article/7-Community-Colleges-Try-an/129605/ - "There are two things Clint McElroy knows about community-college students: A huge number of them don't stay in school. And many of them—who are often the first in their families to go to college, and who must juggle work and parenting—don't understand how to balance all those demands while studying at the college level. . . . And just 27 percent of all students graduated within three years of starting community college, according to "What Works in Student Retention," a 2010 report by ACT, the nonprofit education-assessment organization. The survey, of 305 colleges, reported that the leading reasons for attrition were a student's lack of readiness for college-level work, deficient study skills, and money problems."

12. Is an Ivy League education money wasted? by Brad Tuttle http://ti.me/u1FlJq via @TIMEMoneyland - "The college-selection equation today is not unlike shopping for a new car, with some consumers preferring a flashy, eye-catching model, and others seeing more value in a dependable, unexciting product that is cheaper to pay off, and that still gets you where you need to go.Continuing with this metaphor, what we’re seeing is that more students are going with the Honda Civics of higher education, rather than the Porsches and Corvettes. The Wall Street Journal reports on the trend for students to not only question the value of an Ivy League education, but to attend cheaper (or free) public colleges even though they were admitted to much “better” institutions."

13. Did Penn State officials violate the Clery Act? by Jenna Johnson - Campus Overload - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/campus-overload/post/did-penn-state-officials-violate-the-clery-act/2011/11/09/gIQAh0CZ6M_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost - "The Clery Act requires colleges and universities to annually disclose campus crime statistics and, in some cases, to warn the community if a crime poses a safety threat. The education department oversees compliance of the act, and notified the university of its investigation on Wednesday. “If these allegations of sexual abuse are true then this is a horrible tragedy for those young boys. If it turns out that some people at the school knew of the abuse and did nothing or covered it up, that makes it even worse,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement. “Schools and school officials have a legal and moral responsibility to protect children and young people from violence and abuse.”