356. 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. Tips on Finding and Securing Scholarships, by Rebecca R. Ruiz: http://nyti.ms/vLFbCd - "His principal tip was volume. “The trick to winning is to apply to lots of scholarships,” he said. All students – including the “very lucky and very skilled” – will get far more rejections than they will get wins, he said."

3. Your Common Application Essay, Uncut - The New York Times: http://nyti.ms/vmfPUd - ". . . The Common Application now asks that essays be between 250 and 500 words long. That upper limit was reimposed — after four years without one — amid feedback from admissions officers that essays had grown too long. But unlike other parts of the online application, which may cut off students midword when they exceed character limits, the essays are sent to colleges in full, and aren’t even labeled with word counts. Many seniors are pondering: to cut or not to cut?"

4. Pentagon Pledges Not to Change Tuition Reimbursement Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/t1ikrK via AddThis - "The Pentagon on Friday pledged not to change tuition reimbursement policies for active duty military at this time. Cuts in benefits have been expected (and the Marine Corps indicated earlier in the month that it was ready to make cuts), causing concern to many active duty military members who are enrolled in various programs."

5. Schooled in Sports: NCAA Raises Minimum GPA for Incoming Student-Athletes, by Bryan Toporek - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/schooled_in_sports/2011/10/ncaa_raises_minimum_gpa_for_incoming_student-athletes.html via @educationweek - "Starting in August 2015, high school student-athletes who hope to play sports in college will be held to a higher academic standard. While freshmen only need a 2.0 GPA to be eligible for competition now, the new rules require student-athletes to have a 2.3 GPA to have immediate access to competition.
If a student-athlete meets the current 2.0 GPA requirement but falls short of the 2.3 GPA required for competition, the NCAA approved a proposal that will allow him/her to still remain on his/her athletic scholarship. The NCAA is calling this an "academic redshirt" year."

6. More Students Migrate Away From Home, by Eric Hoover and Josh Keller -http://chronicle.com/article/The-Cross-Country-Recruitment/129577/ - "Public universities across the country are engaged in an all-out war for out-of-state students. Deep cuts in support are driving the search for revenue, and in many states, a stagnating pool of local applications has pushed colleges to recruit broadly. The winners, like Arizona State, bring in higher out-of-state tuition and get to skim from a larger pool of prospective students. . . . Randy Hodgins, the former chief lobbyist for the University of Washington, said he once told a joke to his counterpart at the University of California that has more than a grain of truth. "The answer to both of our budget problems is, I take your kids and you take mine, and then they're both nonresidents," Mr. Hodgins said."

7. Where Does Your Freshman Class Come From?http://chronicle.com/article/Interactive-Freshman-Class/129547#id=204796 - "Ohio State University was the 1st most popular in-state university for Ohio freshmen in 2010."

8. Bottom of the Heap - The New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/10/29/opinion/29blow-ch.html?ref=opinion "Selected measures from the report "Social Justice in the OECD--How Do the Member States Compare?" Includes some categories of index ratings and some raw data."

9. Want to earn more money? Study STEM. by Daniel de Vise - College, Inc. - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/want-to-earn-more-money-study-stem/2011/10/28/gIQALikjPM_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via Washingtonpost.com - "Math-science majors can earn more than humanities majors even with a lesser degree. Carnevale believes the economy has shifted over the past 30 years to reward academic fields over educational attainment. In other words: It doesn’t matter how long you have studied; it matters what you study. . . . 63 percent of STEM workers with associate’s degrees earn more than non-STEM workers with bachelor’s degrees."

10. Know Before You Owe: Student Loans - http://www.consumerfinance.gov/students/knowbeforeyouowe/

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."
8. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories on college access and success via @rottenbornj ▸ http://t.co/xt4njNy8

349. 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. How colleges use, misuse social media to reach students, by Umika Pidaparthy - #cnn - http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/20/tech/social-media/universities-social-media/index.html -"For universities competing to attract top students, it's no longer enough to have a glossy brochure and a sleek website. Schools like Johns Hopkins are reaching out to engage with applicants on Facebook and Twitter. They're also finding that a robust social media campaign, along with such creative features as student-run blogs, can lure prospective students while a stale online presence can turn them off. College admissions officers are indeed learning to interact with students where they hang out: online. According to a recent study by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, 100% of universities surveyed use social media to communicate with students, up from 61% in 2007-08. The study found that 98% of the responding colleges have a Facebook page and 84% have a Twitter account."

2. Law aims to give more accurate tally of college costs, by Brandon James Smith – http://usat.ly/plFaea via @USATODAY - "Now, due to a federal law that kicks in on Oct. 29, there's an online tool required on college websites — a net price calculator — intended to to help give students and families a more accurate estimate of real costs."Universities all cost different amounts, so it's hard to know what the family might be responsible for until much later in the process and after they've applied for financial aid. This helps them to find what the real final cost will be early in the process," said Nanci Tessier, vice president of enrollment management of the University of Richmond."

3. Are Too Many Americans Earning Four-Year Degrees? by Rebecca R. Ruiz - http://nyti.ms/pDUsO7 - "The debate, held by Intelligence Squared in Chicago as part of that city’s Ideas Week, featured Peter Thiel, PayPal founder and entrepreneur, and Charles Murray, a political scientist, arguing that the college market is flooded with too many students. Arguing against them were Henry S. Bienen, president emeritus of Northwestern University, and Vivek Wadhwa, a director of research at Duke University."

4. Questions for The Times's Adam Liptak on the Future of Affirmative Action, by Jacques Steinberg and Adam Liptak - http://nyti.ms/oQmbUD - "As things stand now, under the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision, admissions officers may take account of race and ethnicity as one factor among many in a “holistic review” of applications. A hypothetical decision overturning Grutter might forbid direct consideration of those factors but continue to allow consideration of, say, economic hardship or knowledge of a second language."

5. More Applications, More Waiting Lists, by Scott Jaschik - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/qiXSU0 via @AddThis - "Most four-year colleges saw an increase in applications in 2010, and more colleges used waiting lists than they did the year before, with smaller proportions of students admitted off the waiting lists, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. . . . The average selectivity rate (the percentage of applicants who are offered admission) at four-year colleges was 65.5 percent for fall 2010, down about one percentage point from the previous year. So all those reports about the few elite colleges with single-digit selectivity rates (while true) are about as unrepresentative as you could get."

6. Reframing the 'Stem Shortage' Debate, by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/mVCM3B via AddThis - "The country is still producing lots of workers with what the report calls "STEM competencies," including investigative and problem solving tendencies, the authors state. But those skills are increasingly in demand in other non-STEM fields such as health care management and professional and business services, and because those fields typically pay more and often offer some rewards that core science and engineering jobs may not -- such as social or entrepreneurial interests, or a chance to manage other people -- workers with STEM skills are increasingly being "diverted" to non-STEM jobs."

7. STEM full report, by Anthony Carnevale, Nicole Smith, and Michelle Melton - http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/stem-complete.pdf - "We find that the disagreement between those who argue thatSTEM workers are undersupplied and those who argue theyare oversupplied can be resolved by the fact that large numbersof people with STEM talent or degrees divert from STEMoccupations either in school or later in their careers."

8. Lastest Trends in College Admissions: 15 Things You Should Know, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/lastest-trends-in-college-admissions-15-things-you-should-know/6967/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "14. The average public high school counselors spend just 23% of their time on college counseling, while the average private school counselors devote about 55% of their time to college issues.15. Only 26% of public schools have at least one counselor who works exclusively on college counseling issues. In comparison, 73% of private schools have a dedicated college counselor."

9. New report: Dropout rates five times higher for poor students, by Nick Pandolfo - http://p.ost.im/p/eMn2Hx - "According to the report, the “event dropout rate,” which estimates the percentage of high school students who left school between the beginning of one school year and the beginning of the next, is five times greater for low-income teenagers than it is for those from affluent families. The difference in the dropout rate between white and minority teenagers also remains stark. The rate is twice as high for black teens (4.8 percent) as it is for white teens (2.4 percent). It is even higher for Hispanics, at 5.8 percent."

10. Illinois high school test scores fall to a new low, by Diane Rado and Tara Malone - http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-state-test-scores-1020-20111020,0,5375024.story - "About half of Illinois public high school students flunked state exams in reading, math and science this year, the worst performance in the history of the 11th-grade Prairie State Achievement Examination, statewide test results show. The record-low results, scheduled to be released Thursday, come after Illinois closed loopholes that kept academically weak juniors from taking the exams, a practice revealed in a 2009 Tribune analysis. Some local school officials attributed their declines in part to the larger testing pool that included less-prepared students."

324. 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. Rural schools draw support from their communities, by Sally Holland - #cnn http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/13/rural.community.education/index.html?hpt=hp_bn1 -"College enrollment is really low," she said, noting that only 17% of adults in rural communities have a college degree. Studies have shown that children with college-educated parents are more likely to attend college themselves."

2. SAT reading scores fall to lowest level on record - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH: http://bit.ly/p5vt2c via AddThis - "The main message from the College Board was the importance of a rigorous curriculum, which is a strong and perhaps growing predictor of SAT scores."

3. Youngstown News, City schools’ rank is ‘nothing to celebrate’ by Denise Dick - http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/sep/15/city-schools8217-rank-is-8216nothing-to-/ via @vindicator - “It hurts me to look at the data,” Heffner said. “It hurts me to think about those kids.” While there have been improvements, Heffner wants things to progress faster. “Every day you delay is a day you put children at risk for not getting an education,” he said."

4. Part 4: Answers to Your Back-to-School Admissions Questions, by ROBIN MAMLET and CHRISTINE VANDEVELDE: http://nyti.ms/owpLOW - "We are in what I call the financial aid doughnut hole – too many assets to qualify for aid with one in private college now, but too little money to write those big checks without pain."

5. For-Profit Seal of Approval, by Paul Fain - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/ppuioX via @AddThis - "A for-profit-college trade group has released standards of conduct that it hopes will become a Better Business Bureau-style “seal of approval” for colleges that sign them, giving assurance and consumer protection to students. But industry observers say too few for-profit institutions have endorsed the standards from the Foundation for Educational Success to give that seal real power, at least for now."

6. SAT Scores Drop, by Scott Jaschik - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/nlK8Ch via @AddThis -"Gaps are also evident by racial and ethnic group. Asian Americans continue to show gains -- even as this year other groups do not. Over the last three years, the combined average scores of Asian American test takers have gone up by 30 points, while every other group showed declines."

7. Not Marching in Step, Elizabeth Murphy - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/ql6mGn via @AddThis - "As it stands, Brown has maintained an agreement with Providence College to provide Army ROTC services to Brown students, a relationship the committee recommended keeping."

8. Will Saving for College Hurt Financial Aid Chances? by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/will-saving-for-college-hurt-financial-aid-chances/6608/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "Colleges don’t care about any savings that you’ve squirreled away in retirement accounts. A family can stash millions in retirement accounts and it won’t impact their chances for financial aid. Schools realize that parents need to save for retirement."

9. New STEM Schools Target Underrepresented Groups, by Erik W. Robelen -http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/09/14/03stem_ep.h31.html via @educationweek -"While STEM schools historically have tended to target the top math and science students in a state or district, the new wave appears to have a broader reach, with many of the schools aimed especially at serving groups underrepresented in the STEM fields, such as African-American, Hispanic, female, and low-income students."

10. Pay for Only 4 Years of College. Guaranteed. by Alan Schwarz - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/education/15fifth.html?hpw - "Four-year degree guarantees, as they have become known, are being offered at a growing number of smaller private colleges. They work as a marketing tool, giving colleges a way to ease parents’ fears that their children might enjoy college enough to stick around for five or six costly years. And they help to focus attention on the task at hand: graduating in four years."

11. Poor Are Still Getting Poorer, but Downturn’s Punch Varies, Census Data Show, by Jason DeParle and Sabrina Tavernise: http://nyti.ms/neIez9 - “There’s been a suburbanization of poverty,” said Alan Berube, a Brookings demographer, who cited the growth of service, retail and construction jobs that lured low-income Americans to the suburbs before the recession. “The notion of poverty being only in inner cities and isolated rural areas is increasingly out of step with reality.”

12. Continuing Financial Strain Dims Prospects for Public 2-Year Colleges, Report Says,by Jennifer Gonzalez - http://chronicle.com/article/Continuing-Financial-Strain/128995/ - "More importantly, the financial strain threatens to undermine the nation's college-completion agenda and overall economic prospects, the report concludes."

13. Pipeline Into Partnerships offers minority students a chance, by Sarah Garland: http://usat.ly/pnYV7l#.TnIJ_CBq1-Y.twitter via @USATODAY - "Under the program, called Pipelines Into Partnerships, the college's admissions office outsourced much of the responsibility for choosing 17 members of its incoming freshman class to KIPP, the largest charter chain in the country, as well as to a high school in Brooklyn and the Boys and Girls Club of Schenectady, N.Y."

14. What the decline in SAT scores really means, by Valerie Strauss - The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/what-the-decline-in-sat-scores-really-means/2011/09/14/gIQAdUzdSK_blog.html via Washingtonpost.com - "At some point, all of the evidence will start to convince policy-makers that the punitive test-driven reforms won’t improve academic achievement, especially among the growing numbers of first-generation students and English language-learners."

15. Marriage, College, Job Won't Ward Off Bankruptcy, by Eric Morath -http://on.wsj.com/qqCaw0 - "The study found that those holding a bachelor’s degree accounted for 13.58% of filings last year, up from 11.2% in 2006—a 21% increase. Those holding high school degrees still accounted for the largest percentage of filers, 36.27%, but their proportion of all filers fell by 8.6%."

16. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories about college access and success, via @rottenbornj ▸ http://t.co/x7cmxSo

151. 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. The 'Real World' Skills You Acquire During the Admissions Process, by Ann Derry - http://nyti.ms/fXKjFn

"In short, applying for college isn’t just a hideous process to be endured. It is excellent preparation for the rest of your life — a step into the “adult world” when you acquire basic skills like writing a résumé, setting goals, doing research, organizing your thoughts and your time, persevering to get what you want, following through."

2. The President Just Saved You $2,500 In Tuition, by Kalpen Modi - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kalpen-modi/the-president-just-saved-_b_794952.html?ir=College

‎"Political pundits and talk show hosts who have reported on the tax deal (which includes extending tax breaks for all Americans) have overlooked the president's fierce advocacy on this issue of college affordability and have even suggested that he has made a deal that ignores young people. This couldn't be further from the truth."

3. The BEST Gifts For College Students - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/10/student-gift-guide_n_794694.html#s203192

"Below, check out our top picks for student gifts this holiday season, as well as some suggestions offered by HuffPost readers."

4. Are Ivy League Professors Good Teachers? by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/natO40I

"When I recently wrote a post on the 25 colleges and universities with the best professors, none of the Ivy League schools made the list. In fact, the eight Ivy League schools were nowhere to be seen even among the top 100 schools on the best professor list."

5. China’s Army of Graduates Faces Struggle, by Andrew Jacobs - http://nyti.ms/eMPsYd

“College essentially provided them with nothing,” said Zhang Ming, a political scientist and vocal critic of China’s education system. “For many young graduates, it’s all about survival. If there was ever an economic crisis, they could be a source of instability.”

6. Students Know Good Teaching When They Get It, Survey Finds, by Sam Dillon - http://nyti.ms/fxurdm

"Classrooms where a majority of students said they agreed with the statement, “Our class stays busy and doesn’t waste time,” tended to be led by teachers with high value-added scores, the report said. The same was true for teachers whose students agreed with the statements, “In this class, we learn to correct our mistakes,” and, “My teacher has several good ways to explain each topic that we cover in this class.”
The questionnaires were developed by Ronald Ferguson, a Harvard researcher who has been refining student surveys for more than a decade."

7. Education Secretary Arne Duncan Rethinks His Goals, by Sam Dillon - http://nyti.ms/eEQQi6

"But with Republican deficit hawks taking control of the House next month, Education Secretary Arne Duncan will no longer have billions of dollars to use at his discretion."

8. Online And For-Profit Colleges Face Aid Audits by Education Dept, by Goldie Blumenstyk - http://chronicle.com/article/OnlineFor-Profit-Colleges/125705/

"The department, which has been beefing up the compliance-office staffing in its Office of Federal Student Aid, expects to conduct about 300 program reviews of student-aid operations next year, in contrast to about 200 this year."

9. Is an internship the new entry-level job? by Natalie Avon - http://bit.ly/glFFX7 #cnn

"Full-time employment has dropped 9 percentage points among 18-to-29-year-olds since 2006, leaving only 41 percent of millennials with full-time jobs, according to "Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next," a report released by Pew Research Center in February. These statistics hit home for the 1.5 million students preparing to graduate with a bachelor's degree."

10. Kick start: College in High School, by Virginia Shank - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH - http://t.co/nCTZOj1

"YSU initiated its College in High School program in 2007 with a handful of area school districts through a grant from the state education department's Educational Service Centers. The purpose was to encourage dual enrollment classes in math and science for high school students. YSU started by offering calculus in six Mahoning County districts, but the university expanded the program to include school districts in Trumbull County as well. This year some 27 in the area are participating, explained Marla Carano, program coordinator at YSU."

11. Souring on Business? by Dan Berrett - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/i04XGn

‎"But as the current economic downturn drags on and hiring continues to lag, interest in business among undergraduates appears to be static, even flagging in some circles, according to federal and college data and a nationwide survey of incoming freshmen."

12. A Lack of Leadership, by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/ec9Ne6

"For too long, policymakers and higher education leaders have engaged in a 'we need to change, but you go first' conversation," the three write. "Meanwhile, costs have skyrocketed, attainment has stagnated, and the public has grown skeptical. Failing to act will not result in catastrophic failure in American higher education, but a slow and steady erosion of confidence, investment, and quality."

13. Shortage of Math and Science Graduates Is a Myth, by Walt Gardner - http://t.co/K0ouJ3g

"A record 49,562 doctorate degrees were awarded in the 2008-09 academic year, representing a 1.6 percent increase over the 2007-08 year. According to the foundation, the growth was largely due to increases in the number of degrees in science and engineering. In 2009, 67.5 percent of all doctorates were in these two fields, a 1.9 percent increase over the previous academic year. Yet despite this growth, companies continue to insist that they need to recruit abroad because of a shortage domestically. The more likely explanation is that they prefer looking overseas because H1-B visa holders are willing to work for below-market wages."

14. No Jobs? Young Graduates Make Their Own, by Hannah Seligson - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/business/12yec.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=homepage&src=me&adxnnlx=1292245263 -

"In October, Mr. Gerber started the Young Entrepreneur Council “to create a shift from a résumé-driven society to one where people create their own jobs,” he says. “The jobs are going to come from the entrepreneurial level.”

15. Colleges Lock Out Blind Students Online, by Marc Parry - http://chronicle.com/article/Blind-Students-Demand-Access/125695/

"Roughly 75,000 students at colleges and trade schools are visually impaired, according to Education Department figures. Barriers to access could deny them equal learning opportunities. And colleges are finding that the problems are lawsuit bait, generating litigation and complaints."

16. Senator concerned about colleges' treatment of vets, by Mary Beth Merklein - http://usat.ly/hSmWQB - RT @USATODAY

"The report found soaring enrollments — and revenue — at 30 for-profit colleges by students whose education is covered by the Defense Department or by the Post-9/11 GI Bill, passed by Congress in 2008 to ensure that Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans could attend college at no cost. Enrollments increased from 23,766. in 2006 to 109,167. last year and reached 100,702. by the first half of this year."

17. When Will Black Churches Start Their Own Schools? by RiShawn Biddle - http://dropoutnation.net/2010/12/10/black-churches-start-schools/

"If education is truly the most-important civil rights issue of this era, it means that black churches must play their part in ensuring that every child in the pews and communities they serve are educated in cultures of geniuses. It is as important for them to step up and embrace school reform as it was for them to combat Jim Crow segregation fifty years ago. For these churches, they can learn this important lesson from another civil rights movement — the effort by Catholics to receive equal treatment in public schools: You must take education into your own hands and start your own schools for the children in your flock."

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140. 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. Report on College Attendance Crisis for Black Males Exaggerated - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/achievement-gap/report-on-college-attendance-c.html

"The article also referred imprecisely to the significance of the number of black men in college. While black men made up “just 5 percent” of college students in 2008, that figure did not represent one of the areas in which blacks showed a lack of achievement, given that black men make up only about 6.5 percent of the general population."

2. University report: Class of '11 will see slightly better jobs outlook, by Andrew Katz - http://bit.ly/ifypLZ #cnn

"The Recruiting Trends 2010-2011 survey, released November 17, found that overall hiring is expected to grow by 3 percent over last year to provide 122,000 opportunities for graduates across all degree levels. In fact, nearly 72 percent of those positions could be filled at the bachelor's degree level alone, as the entire college labor market is leveraged by an expected 10 percent increase in the hiring of those degree holders, the survey of 4,600 employers says."

3. California State campuses raise tuition in middle of school year, by Michael Martinez - http://bit.ly/9kN1W3 #cnn

"The 5 percent increase will raise tuition from the current $2,115 to $2,220 for the spring semester for full-time undergraduate students. Next fall, full-time undergraduate tuition rise from $4,440 to $4,884 per year. Trustees sought to soften the blow by stating that about half of its undergraduates -- about 180,000 students -- will be fully covered for the tuition increases through financial aid."

4. Experts give tips to college grads seeking first job, by Christine Dugas - RT @USATODAY - http://usat.ly/hpzZSr

"The unemployment rate of Americans ages 20 to 24 has climbed from 8.5% in 2007 to 15% this year at a time the overall unemployment rate hovers just below 10%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Adding to the pressure to get a job, graduates on average are starting out with $24,000 in student loan debt, according to a new report about 2009 from The Project on Student Debt."

5. Students can make up credits online, by Susan Sawyers - RT @USATODAY - http://usat.ly/hxMzAT

"The classes are part of a widening phenomenon called credit recovery — a term that sounds more about erasing debt than advancing education but actually enables troubled students to get credit for classes they've previously failed or didn't complete."

Here are some articles that were posted earlier:

6. Unready and Unsuccessful, by Joanne Jacobs http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanne-jacobs/unready-and-unsuccessful_b_775668.html

"Seventy percent of California's degree-seeking community college students failed to earn a credential or degree -- or to transfer to four-year universities -- within six years, concludes a new study. Most students drop out quickly, reports the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy. . . ."

7. Failure to educate, by Junia Yearwood - http://b.globe.com/dz8Hmo

"I knew that most of my students who walked across the stage, amidst the cheers, whistles, camera flashes, and shout-outs from parents, family, and friends, were not functionally literate. They were unable to perform the minimum skills necessary to negotiate society: reading the local newspapers, filling out a job application, or following basic written instructions; even fewer had achieved empowering literacy enabling them to closely read, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate text. However, they were all college bound. . . ."

8. Wising Up on STEM Completion - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/903NgE

"According to NSF statistics cited in the AAUW report, despite the fact that women make up the majority of college students generally, only 88,371 of them graduated in STEM fields in 2007, compared to 138,874 of their male counterparts. In 2007, men outnumbered women in science and engineering careers, 73 percent to 27 percent."

9. A Time of Urgency, by Freeman A. Hrabowski III - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/bNqGXs

"Many might be surprised that underrepresented minorities aspire to earn STEM degrees at roughly the same rate as other groups. However, only about 20 percent of underrepresented minority students complete undergraduate STEM programs within five years."

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128. 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. How Do You Advise Your Child to Slow Down, and Wait? by Caren Osten Gerszberg - http://nyti.ms/aQlOF2

"How do you advise your child to slow down, wait and not feel the pressure, when you are running around, simultaneously juggling obligations and trying to stop and take some deep breaths yourself? As the parent, I try to be the voice of reason, to set an example, to keep balance in my life and for my family. But at times, I get caught up, too."

2. Congressional Chaos? - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/bgzzwC

"Most of the conversation focused on the potential reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, but when talk turned to higher education, the discussion was almost exclusively about the U.S. Department of Education’s regulations on “gainful employment” and other financial aid issues, and on Senator Tom Harkin’s (D-Iowa) continued push to investigate for-profit colleges as chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Bethany Little, chief education counsel for the HELP committee, said that Harkin was determined to continue to scrutinize for-profit colleges. “What is going on for Americans who are in some cases being duped by these schools and being left with significant debt and no opportunity to pay it off because their diploma is either nonexistent or worthless is something [Harkin] cares deeply about,” she said. The senator, she added, “is not going to back away from an investigation that has brought to light really startling things.”

3. Washington Post’s Kaplan Faces Growing Scrutiny, by Tamar Lewin - http://nyti.ms/9VWFxd

"Over the last decade, Kaplan has moved aggressively into for-profit higher education, acquiring 75 small colleges and starting the huge online Kaplan University. Now, Kaplan higher education revenues eclipse not only the test-prep operations, but all the rest of the Washington Post Company’s operations. And Kaplan’s revenue grew 9 percent during the last quarter to $743.3 million — with higher education revenues more than four times greater than those from test-prep — helping its parent company more than triple its profits. But over the last few months, Kaplan and other for-profit education companies have come under intense scrutiny from Congress, amid growing concerns that the industry leaves too many students mired in debt, and with credentials that provide little help in finding jobs. Reports of students who leave such schools with heavy debt, only to work in low-paying jobs, have prompted the Department of Education to propose regulations that would cut off federal financing to programs whose graduates have high debt-to-income ratios and low repayment rates."

4. The Most Beautiful College Libraries (PHOTOS) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/09/the-most-beautiful-colleg_n_778614.html#s174271

"Campus Grotto compiled a list of the ultimate breathtaking study spots in America. Click through to see if yours ranks in the top 10 -- and check out Campus Grotto for the full list."

5. The Tuition Is Too Damn High, by Dan Treadway - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-treadway/the-costs-of-unaffordable_b_780803.html

‎"As I sat in the back of the room in one of my classes and listened to a fellow student drone on about how her family's summer trip to the Ozarks somehow related to media theory, I let out a sigh. As she stumbled on her point about listening to Glen Beck on the radio while driving through Oklahoma, I pulled out my calculator and began doing a little math. Lets see, the cost for Fall tuition for my major was $4,646. Divide that by the four classes I'm taking, then divide that by the 27 class meetings in a semester. The number I came up with was $43.01. That was the amount of money I spent to attend that particular class session. Even more troubling, after prorating that number I realized that I was paying about $5 to listen to the girl conclude that Glen Beck was biased. My only solace was that I qualified for in-state tuition."

6. Black Male Achievement in a 'State of Crisis,' Study Says, by Dakarai Aarons - http://t.co/1wmZtp2 via @educationweek

"As a study this summer by the Schott Foundation for Public Education pointed out, fewer than half of black males graduate from high school on time. "At almost every juncture, the odds are stacked against these young men in ways that result in too much unfulfilled potential and too many fractured lives," writes Michael Casserly, the council's executive director. The council's report suggests that the underperformance of black male youths is nothing short of a national emergency, and it calls for the convening of a White House conference."The previous efforts to ring the alarm bell have too often fallen on deaf ears, and we thought that a White House conference would help both raise the visibility of the issues and aide in attempting to martial the public will to tackle it," Casserly said in an interview."

7. Education Week: Study: Fewer Than Half of Black Males Graduate on Time, by Dakarai I. Aarons - http://t.co/925xfix via @educationweek

"John H. Jackson, the foundation’s president and chief executive officer, said the low national graduation rate for black males is something the country cannot afford to let persist if it is to reach President Barack Obama’s goal of leading the world in the percentage of college graduates by 2020. “It just seems to be that the U.S. is systemically failing black males,” he said, yet policymakers and educators “aren’t making the choice and the tough decisions to provide all students the opportunity to learn.”“It’s absolutely a lack of political will,” he said."

8. New Haven Offers Its Students Free College Tuition, by Winnie Hu - http://nyti.ms/9e6auW

"City and school officials announced on Tuesday that a new program, called New Haven Promise, would offer to pay eligible students’ way through any public college or university in Connecticut. The program will also pay up to $2,500 a year to those who attend a private college in the state. The program — to cost $4.5 million a year, financed primarily by Yale University — is open to students who live in the city and have attended its public schools, including charter schools, since at least ninth grade, regardless of family income. Students must also have at least a 3.0 grade point average and a 90 percent attendance rate. About 200 of the 1,000 graduates last year would have qualified, city officials said."

9. Veterans and Colleges Like New GI Benefits, Despite Rough 1st Yr, by Kevin Kiley http://chronicle.com/article/Start-Up-Woes-for-New-GI-Bill/125322/

Congress passed the Post-9/11 GI Bill in 2008, and the benefits were made available August 1, 2009. The program is designed to cover tuition expenses for veterans up to the cost of the most-expensive public university in their state of residence. The Department of Veterans Affairs pays that money directly to an institution instead of to the student, as it had done under previous laws. The bill also provides stipends for books and a monthly living stipend, and those amounts are paid directly to the student.Another benefit under the bill, known as the Yellow Ribbon Program, helps cover the costs of private institutions, matching any financial aid those institutions offer above the basic tuition benefit provided in that state."

10. In STEM Fields, How Hispanic Students Pay for Ed Affects Success, by Elyse Ashburn http://chronicle.com/article/In-the-STEM-Fields-How/125318/

"The report, "Tapping HSI-STEM Funds to Improve Latina and Latino Access to STEM Professions," argues that the Hispanic achievement gaps at the baccalaureate, master's, and doctoral levels exist in large part because of finances. "A lot of discussion about participation hasn't acknowledged that fact," said Lindsey E. Malcom, one of the co-authors and an assistant professor at the University of California at Riverside.Hispanic students are more likely than their peers to come from low-income families—and that affects not only the competing demands on their time and money but also the types of institutions they are most likely to attend. Such students disproportionately start their college educations at community colleges and Hispanic-serving four-year colleges, which typically have lower costs. In turn, the researchers say, those institutions tend to have fewer resources, often leaving them less equipped to support students and to prepare them for graduate work."

11. Student's Calling: Help Peers Spend Responsibly - http://chronicle.com/blogs/postcards/a-student-finds-her-calling-helping-others-spend-responsibly/73

‎"She said Central Michigan students have an average of $27,000 in college-loan debt—$7,000 more than the national average. What bothers her is seeing some students use loan money for spring-break trips or tanning-salon visits—especially if they’re racking up credit-card debt at the same time. The average college student has $4,000 in credit-card debt, she told me. “You spend so much more money with a card than if you use cash”—when you use a card, you don’t see the money leaving your hands. Students, she said, don’t worry about establishing a good credit history because they don’t understand how important it will be to them in the future, and most students never even bother to check their credit reports. Which is crazy, she said. “How would you like it if you went through school for four years and didn’t know your GPA?”

12. Best Jobs For College Students Unigo http://t.co/9GegVLD

‎"Consistently keeping a few extra Andrew Jacksons in your wallet will require some work on your behalf, though. And by work, we mean an actual paying job. Don’t fret; lots of students have to supplement their income with a part-time post. Whether you take an on- or off-campus job, one thing is certain: not all jobs are created equal. Not only will a job enable you to purchase the most useless and random of gifts for yourself, but it can actually be a worthwhile and enjoyable experience. Without further ado, our slate of top jobs for college students."

13. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily for today's top stories on college admissions/financial aid in newsletter form - http://paper.li/rottenbornj

126. 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. A Time of Urgency, by Freeman A. Hrabowski III - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/bNqGXs

"Many might be surprised that underrepresented minorities aspire to earn STEM degrees at roughly the same rate as other groups. However, only about 20 percent of underrepresented minority students complete undergraduate STEM programs within five years. And while white and Asian American students are more successful, their completion rates are also troubling, with only 33 and 42 percent of those students, respectively, finishing STEM degrees in five years. The country is struggling to remain globally competitive in science and technology. Retaining and graduating undergraduates of all races in STEM fields is clearly an American issue."

2. Learning From For-Profits - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/9yF55R

"While panelists at TIAA-CREF mostly dodged or ignored the inner-Beltway debate, a noted news personality gave her two cents. Speaking at a post-conference dinner in the aristocratic confines of the University Club, Cokie Roberts, senior news analyst at NPR, predicted that Democratic lawmakers, in particular, will be reluctant to take on a sector with such clear ties to one of the nation’s most powerful newspapers. The Washington Post Co., which owns the newspaper, also owns Kaplan University, among other for-profits. “But I have to tell you, the biggest objection to [regulation] has come from the fact that The Washington Post would go out of business if Kaplan went out of business – yes, I see Peter Smith waiving,” Roberts said with a chuckle. “Because The Washington Post money all comes from Kaplan and the Democrats don’t want The Washington Post to go out of business, so I think there are a lot of forces militating against those rules at the moment.”

3. Wising Up on STEM Completion - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/903NgE

‎"According to NSF statistics cited in the AAUW report, despite the fact that women make up the majority of college students generally, only 88,371 of them graduated in STEM fields in 2007, compared to 138,874 of their male counterparts. In 2007, men outnumbered women in science and engineering careers, 73 percent to 27 percent. Gender biases -- conscious and unconscious -- often hinder women’s progress in these fields, the report says."

4. Harnessing Social Media - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/9bNYwW

"But a new study, scheduled to be released next week by the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, suggests that using Twitter in class might in fact lead to greater engagement and higher grades — as long as professors harness their students’ urges to Tweet for “educationally relevant activities”: class discussions, asking questions, getting reminders from instructors, organizing study groups, and so on. The students in the experiment, first-year pre-health majors (and Twitter novices), varied widely as far as how frequently they tweeted over the course of the 14-week semester — the median was 30 times and the mean was 48 — but overall their GPAs averaged half a point higher than those of the non-tweeting control group. "Using Twitter produced a more rich discussion of students' relationships to themes covered in the book than would have been possible during the limited class time,” write the study’s authors, researchers at Lock Haven University, South Dakota State University, and Penn...."

5. College leaders work to increase interest in humanities, by Tracy Jan - http://b.globe.com/bUXKv2

‎"Today, business is the most popular undergraduate degree in the United States; in 2008, 21 percent of bachelor’s degrees that were awarded were in that field, according to US Department of Education statistics. And many colleges, including Brandeis this year, have responded by expanding their majors in preprofessional fields like business. At Harvard, a liberal arts bastion that does not offer undergraduates a business major, the most popular field of study is economics, with more than 700 students choosing that as a major. That accounts for 11 percent of its undergraduates and more than three times the number of English or history majors. And the number of Harvard students who declare science and engineering majors has jumped 27 percent in the past five years — now making up nearly a third of the university’s undergraduates. “That’s a real shift from seeing an undergraduate education as general preparation in a wide range of fields. . . ."

6. Failure to educate, by Junia Yearwood - http://b.globe.com/dz8Hmo

"I knew that most of my students who walked across the stage, amidst the cheers, whistles, camera flashes, and shout-outs from parents, family, and friends, were not functionally literate. They were unable to perform the minimum skills necessary to negotiate society: reading the local newspapers, filling out a job application, or following basic written instructions; even fewer had achieved empowering literacy enabling them to closely read, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate text.However, they were all college bound — the ultimate goal of our school’s vision statement — clutching knapsacks stuffed with our symbols of academic success: multiple college acceptances, a high school diploma; an official transcript indicating they had passed the MCAS test and had met all graduation requirements; several glowing letters of recommendation from teachers and guidance counselors; and one compelling personal statement, their college essay."

7. 5 Student Loan Repayment Tips, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy http://t.co/JsGd7Tk

"The Project on Student Debt just released a list of ways that borrowers can manage their student loan repayments. Here are five of the nonprofit group’s student debt tips:"

8. The Real Price of College: Looking Beyond the Sticker http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/the-real-price-of-college-looking-beyond-the-sticker/27769

‎"Over the decade from 2000-01 to 2010-11, average published tuition and fees at public four-year colleges rose 72% after adjusting for inflation. The 35% increase at private four-year colleges and the 31% increase at public two-year colleges seem moderate by comparison. But after subtracting estimated average grant aid and federal tax credits and deductions received by full-time students, the net price actually declined in each of these three postsecondary sectors. In other words, on average the net tuition and fees students are paying are lower in 2010 dollars than they were a decade ago.So it’s not surprising that there are two very different stories out there about the price of college and college affordability. Why is it so hard for people to believe the numbers about declining net prices?"

9. Going SAT- Free - http://bit.ly/cXwO3e

"Not only do all four-year colleges that require a standardized test—including Harvard and Yale—let applicants choose between submitting SAT and ACT scores (the last school made the change in 2007), but a growing number of competitive institutions including Smith College, Wake Forest, American University, Bowdoin College, Bates College, and, most recently, Virginia Wesleyan, have decided to forgo standardized tests altogether. Today, about 830 of the country’s 2,430 accredited four-year colleges do not use the SAT or ACT to admit the majority of applicants. (Some schools require a test if you have a low GPA or class rank.) “Colleges are trying to increase the number of applicants and diversify their population,” says Kristen Campbell, executive director of college-prep programs for Kaplan Test Prep."