348. 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. Student loan debt hits record levels, by Dennis Cauchon – http://usat.ly/neJ8xx via USATODAY - "The amount of student loans taken out last year crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time and total loans outstanding will exceed $1 trillion for the first time this year. Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards, reports the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Students are borrowing twice what they did a decade ago after adjusting for inflation, the College Board reports. Total outstanding debt has doubled in the past five years — a sharp contrast to consumers reducing what's owed on home loans and credit cards."

2. For-profit colleges focus of student loan issue, by Dennis Cauchon – http://usat.ly/nz5mEp via @USATODAY - "The federal government has promoted and subsidized loans as a way to help young people and workers get the education needed to succeed in a troubled economy. The government made or guaranteed more than 80% of the $1 trillion in loans outstanding and backed more than 90% of new loans this year. For-profit schools such as the University of Phoenix, DeVry University and hundreds of smaller institutions have been particularly successful in winning students and their federal aid by offering courses that focus on specific careers, often taught online and aimed at older, non-traditional students."

3. How to avoid defaulting on your student loans, by Sandra Block – http://usat.ly/oBR9h8 via @USATODAY - "While defaulting on any loan will trigger a lot of unpleasant consequences, defaulting on your federal student loan debt could be disastrous. Your wages may be garnished and your tax refunds withheld. Your credit score will be ruined, which will make it more difficult to borrow for a house or a car."

4. The Rapid Rise of Merit Aid, by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/nV3X6m via @AddThis - "Many institutions – particularly those that are moderately selective – have embraced merit-based financial aid out of the belief that offering partial scholarships will help them attract paying students away from higher-profile peers. Numerous states, especially in the South, have put in place hefty aid programs based on academic merit to try to keep academically qualified students within the state’s borders for college. But many student aid experts roundly pan the approach for abandoning the historical goal of using financial assistance to draw into higher education those who would have been unlikely to attend otherwise."

5. It's Not Me. It's You. by Kevin Kiley - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/pBbRh1 via AddThis - "Since the economic recession began in 2008, state revenues have not kept pace with state funding obligations, resulting in budget shortfalls in most states and cuts to most state services. When states cut appropriations to higher education institutions in the past, colleges and universities made up the difference through tuition hikes and belt-tightening. Both lawmakers and university leaders kept quiet, knowing that appropriations would return and that large tuition increases would likely be followed by smaller hikes."

6. Tuition assistance slashed by 75 percent for Marines, by Travis J. Tritten - Marine Corps - Stripes: http://1.usa.gov/n9E4nC via @AddThis - "The Marine Corps announced Tuesday it has slashed tuition assistance by 75 percent for servicemembers who take classes on their off-duty time. The change went into effect immediately and reduces the maximum education assistance available from the Department of Defense standard of $3,500 per year to just $875 per year for Marines — about enough to cover two university courses, according to a service-wide bulletin.The Marine Corps said the new rate is equal to the average class load taken on by Marines who use the tuition assistance program and is a more focused use of the service’s tuition funds."

7. 8 Ways to Search for Great Colleges, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/8-ways-to-search-for-great-colleges/6949/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "1. Decide whether you want to attend a college or a university. Choosing between the two main types of schools will significantly narrow your search. Here are posts that can help you understand the difference between these institutions:"

8. Questions Raised About 'High-Flyers' Study, by Nirvi Shah - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2011/10/are_high-achieving_students_be.html via @educationweek - "In this massive study of tens of thousands students, children who performed in the bottom third in reading or math in grade 3 had less than a 1 percent chance of being high achievers by grade 8. Even average students in grade 3, (between 40 and 60 percentile) had less than a 5 percent chance of becoming high achievers later," they wrote recently on their blog. A high achiever in grade 3 math was 17 times more likely to be a high achiever in grade 8 than your average grade 3 student, and 142 times more likely than someone who was performing in the bottom third of students in grade 3. The results were broadly similar for reading."

9. States, Districts Move to Require Virtual Classes, by Michelle R. Davis - http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2011/10/19/01required.h05.html via @educationweek - "The goal is to make sure students get an online-learning experience in a low-risk, supportive environment, Airhart says. “The reality is, when a student leaves us, whether they’re going to a four-year college, a technical college, or going into the world of work, they’re going to have to do an online course,” she says. “This helps prepare the students.” More districts and a handful of states are starting to agree with this notion. They’re requiring students to get some form of online learning on their résumés before leaving high school."

10. Parents Urged Again to Limit TV for Youngest, by Benedict Carey - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/health/19babies.html?hpw - "Parents of infants and toddlers should limit the time their children spend in front of televisions, computers, self-described educational games and even grown-up shows playing in the background, the American Academy of Pediatrics warned on Tuesday. Video screen time provides no educational benefits for children under age 2 and leaves less room for activities that do, like interacting with other people and playing, the group said."

11. Out With Textbooks, in With Laptops for an Indiana School District, by Alan Schwarz - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/education/19textbooks.html?hpw - "Unlike the tentative, incremental steps of digital initiatives at many schools nationwide, Munster made an all-in leap in a few frenetic months — removing all math and science textbooks for its 2,600 students in grades 5 to 12, and providing a window into the hurdles and hiccups of such an overhaul. . . . Munster is hardly the first district to go digital. Schools in Mooresville, N.C., for example, started moving away from printed textbooks four years ago, and now 90 percent of their curriculum is online."

12. Will new NCLB law be less test-obsessed? by Monty Neill - The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/will-new-nclb-law-be-less-test-obsessed/2011/10/18/gIQAmIx5vL_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive - "Statewide tests will continue in grades 3-8 and once in high school in reading and math, and science once each in grades 3-5, 6-9 and 10-12. The bill would pave the way for multi-state consortium tests. Based on the consortium’s applications, the “new” exams will remain mostly multiple-choice and short answer, meaning they will trivialize teaching and learning just as current NCLB tests do."

13. Ravitch: Why ‘miracle schools’ aren’t really miracles - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/ravitch-why-miracle-schools-arent-really-miracles/2011/10/18/gIQAM62RuL_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive - "The lesson in all this debunking is not that poor kids can't learn. Of course, they can. Let me say that again, slowly: Yes, poor kids can learn and excel. But whether or not children are poor, education is a slow, incremental process. While it is true that a student may have a remarkable change in attitude and motivation and demonstrate large test-score gains in a short period of time, it is rare indeed when an entire school or district experiences a dramatic increase in test scores. Any huge change in scores for a school or a district in a short period of time ought to provoke skepticism and a demand for evidence, not a willing suspension of disbelief."

14. Miracleschools site, by Gary Rubinstein and Noel Hammatt - http://miracleschools.wikispaces.com/ - "Informally, a 'miracle' school is one that is significantly outperforming the nearby schools in its neighborhood despite working with the same student populations and the same limited resources. More formally, we think that a true miracle school would have the following eight characteristics:"

15. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily on http://paper.li/rottenbornj

342. 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 to avoid defaulting on your student loans, by Sandra Block – http://usat.ly/oBR9h8 via @USATODAY - "Some 8.8% of borrowers whose first payments came due between Oct. 1, 2008, and Sept. 30, 2009, defaulted on their loans, according to a recent report from the Department of Education. For every student loan borrower who defaults, two others are delinquent, according to a study by the Institute for Higher Education Policy."

2. Dream Act Becomes Law in California, by Rebecca R. Ruiz - http://nyti.ms/q66LLA - "The legislation allows illegal immigrants who graduate from high schools in California to apply to the state’s public universities as residents, granting them a reduced tuition rate. (Students must prove themselves to be “on the path to legalization,” meaning that if they are undocumented, they must apply for lawful immigration status or swear to do so.) The law also affords such students the right to both private loans and public aid to help in paying for their education."

3. Moneycollege, by Ryan Craig - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/nM2IfM via AddThis - "With the right data, dozens of would-be Billy Beanes will spring up across the country arguing what the on-base percentage equivalent for higher education is, coalescing on persistence and completion metrics that are meaningful for all students (i.e., traditional/adult, full-time/part-time, on-ground/online) and helping their institutions reform and restructure to increase “wins.”

4. 25 Colleges With the Happiest Freshmen, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/25-colleges-with-the-happiest-freshmen/6873/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "What you’ll find here is the list of the 25 colleges and universities with arguably the happiest freshmen. These schools enjoy the highest freshmen retention rates, according to the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, an education think tank, which collected the figures when compiling the college rankings for Forbes Magazine."

5. Ohio universities to drop most remedial classes, by Christopher Magan - http://www.middletownjournal.com/news/middletown-news/ohio-universities-to-drop-most-remedial-classes-1266589.html?cxtype=ynews_rss via @middjournal - "The nearly 40 percent of college freshmen in Ohio who are not ready for college-level work will take most of their remedial courses at community colleges under a statewide plan that dramatically changes how four-year schools provide instruction to those needing extra help."

6. Advocates Worry ESEA Rewrite May Weaken Law, by Alyson Klein - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/04/01/27esea.h30.html via @educationweek - "Subgroup accountability is an especially complicated piece of the already very complicated NCLB law, which requires that public schools test their students in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school. Schools first are required to break out student-achievement data to show how racial and ethnic minorities, students from low-income families, English-language learners, and students in special education are doing relative to their peers."

7. Jobs's Wife Backs Education Causes, by Geoffrey A. Fowler and Jessica E. Vascellaro - http://on.wsj.com/oMmn8U via Wsj - "Ms. Powell Jobs's charitable activities date back at least to the mid-1990s, when she mentored high-school students in East Palo Alto, Calif. In 1997, she co-founded the nonprofit College Track, which helps low-income students prepare for college through intensive academic and extra-curricular programs. Founding and running College Track involved "significant" financial donations from the Jobs family, according to a person familiar with the organization. Ms. Powell Jobs thought "this is important enough that I am not going to just write a check—I am going to build with my own hands an infrastructure that can help students go to college," Mr. Watson says. The program has trained more than 1,000 students, he says, 90% of whom went on to a four-year college."

8. The Spillover Effect: Beware the Explosive Teen, by Jeffrey Kluger - http://healthland.time.com/2011/10/10/the-spillover-effect-beware-the-explosive-teen/ -"The researchers' findings, which were published in the September-October edition of the journal Child Development, showed that fights or other conflicts with peers raised the risk of similar outbreaks of hostility in the home for at least a full day after. Conflicts inside the home had an even more persistent spillover effect, increasing the odds of fights with friends for an average of two full days. The effect was evident in both genders, though for girls it was more pronounced than it was for boys. Regardless of the sex of the teen, the phenomenon may also have a spiraling effect, with a fight in the living room leading to a fight in the schoolyard, which leads to another fight in the home and so on."

9. College sticker shock: Is $55,000 the new $50,000? by Daniel de Vise - College, Inc. - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/college-sticker-shock-is-55000-the-new-50000/2011/10/10/gIQAw10zaL_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost - "Nineteen colleges now charge $55,000 or more in annual tuition, fees and living expenses, according to the latest survey of most expensive colleges from CampusGrotto. Back in 2007, by contrast, $50,000 was the upper limit of college sticker price and only one university — our own George Washington University — had reached it."

10. When the Best is Mediocre, by Jay P. Greene and Josh B. McGee: Education Next - http://bit.ly/rd1zVQ via @AddThis - "Even the most elite suburban school districts often produce results that are mediocre when compared with those of our international peers. Our best school districts may look excellent alongside large urban districts, the comparison state accountability systems encourage, but that measure provides false comfort. America’s elite suburban students are increasingly competing with students outside the United States for economic opportunities, and a meaningful assessment of student achievement requires a global, not a local, comparison."

325. 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. Last of 5 Parts: Answers to Your Back-to-School Admissions Questions, by ROBIN MAMLET and CHRISTINE VANDEVELDE: http://nyti.ms/okBdt4 - "Sometimes students want to jump on the early bandwagon because they fear that the early round of admissions fills most of the seats in the freshman class. But this is simply not the case. It sounds incredible, but it’s true that even when half the seats at a college are filled with ED applicants, fewer than half the acceptances have been given out."

2. Help Needed for Student Debtors: http://nyti.ms/qlZmEn - "A substantial part of the problem also lies in the fast-growing for-profit college industry, which accounts for only about 10 percent of students but nearly half of student loan defaults."

3. Major Publishers Join Indiana U. Project That Requires Students to Buy E-Textbooks, by Jeff Young - http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/major-publishers-join-indiana-u-project-that-requires-students-to-use-e-textbooks/33156 - "Slightly more than half of the students surveyed—about 55 percent—said they read less of the e-textbook than they would have read from a printed copy, while 22 percent said they read more from the e-textbook than they would have from a printed copy.Officials were watching closely to see whether students simply printed out the e-books and read from those paper copies. According to system logs, 68 percent of the students printed no pages, while 19 percent printed more than 50 pages."

4. White House details plans for more digital learning, by Greg Toppo – http://usat.ly/nnv0NB#.TnNQdis7Ky4.twitter via @USATODAY - "The center, dubbed "Digital Promise," will aid the rapid development of new learning software, educational games and other technologies, in part through helping educators vet what works and what doesn't."

5. SAT reading scores drop to lowest point in decades, by Michael Alison Chandler - http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/sat-reading-scores-drop-to-lowest-point-in-decades/2011/09/14/gIQAdpoDTK_story.html via @washingtonpost - "For the first time, the College Board said, more than half of all high school graduates — or 1.65 million students — took the exam. That was up from 47 percent in 2010. Test-takers were also more diverse than ever: Forty-four percent were minorities; 36 percent were the first in their family to go to college; and 27 percent did not speak English exclusively."

6. Students say: ‘Pressure? What pressure?’ by Jay Mathews - Class Struggle - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/students-say-pressure-what-pressure/2011/09/14/gIQAdFEaSK_blog.html via @washingtonpost - "My view is that although homework, tests and college admission can be too stressful for some students, the real failing of our high schools nationally is that they apply too little pressure, not too much. . . . U.S. high schools are not in trouble because they are too rigorous."

7. State schools chief sets higher bar for Youngstown board - http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/sep/16/state-schools-chief-sets-higher-bar-for-/?newswatch via Vindicator - "There is little to mistake in the message that Stan W. Heffner, Ohio superintendent of public instruction, brought to Youngstown Wednesday. Youngstown schools must make greater improvements in academic achievement. And if the Youngstown Board of Education and its administrators and teachers don’t show results, it is incumbent on the Academic Distress Commission to use the considerable power that it has under state law to effect change."

8. A+ Colleges For B Students, US News And World Report List - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/16/a-colleges-for-b-students_n_965837.html#s363405&title=Fordham_University_ - "US News and World Report recently compiled a list of the best schools for B students and options are a lot more plentiful than one might think when mired in the hyper-competitive college process."

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

322. 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. California weighs college aid for illegal immigrants, by Alan Gomez: http://usat.ly/o0dN4x#.Tm9FcqvaMLc.twitter via @USATODAY - "The bill, passed Sept. 2 by the Legislature, would give illegal immigrant students about $40million in financial aid and fee waivers."

2. Part 2: Answers to Your Back-to-School Admissions Questions, By ROBIN MAMLET and CHRISTINE VANDEVELDE: http://nyti.ms/qQaygR - "Q: ACT or SAT? Is there really any preference among top colleges like Vanderbilt and Emory or should a student just take the test they are better suited for?"

3. Forget Who's No. 1 or No. 138: How to Use the U.S. News Rankings, by Jacques Steinberg: http://nyti.ms/oghZBd - “So buyer beware,” Mr. Reider concludes, “but it’s potentially of value, if you use it intelligently.”

4. Default Rates Up Again, by Libby A. Nelson - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/na4O2g via @AddThis - "The two-year "cohort" default rate, which represents the proportion of federal loan borrowers who entered repayment between October 2008 and September 2009 and had defaulted on their loans by the end of September 2010, increased to 8.8 percent, the highest such rate since 1997. The rate increased 1.8 percentage points from fiscal 2008. And while students in all sectors were likelier to default on their loans than they had been the previous year, defaults increased the most at for-profit colleges: 15 percent of borrowers from those institutions defaulted in 2009, compared with 11.6 percent in 2008."

5. 'Imagine HBCUs Differently' by Kevin Kiley - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/oJp2hd via @AddThis - "Since becoming president in January, Brown has launched a series of initiatives designed to tackle some of the largest problems threatening Alcorn State and some other historically black colleges and universities, such as stagnant enrollments; low retention and graduation rates, particularly among black males; financial instability; and a lack of student interest in what such institutions tend to offer."

6. Report: Top college athletes worth 6 figures, by FREDERIC J. FROMMER -http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g0a73PgzYlJtmqQdAE2aR7kWjsbw?docId=1546da5da23a4997b2c516cd64c3cdb1 -"A national college athletes' advocacy group and a sports management professor calculate in the report that if college sports shared their revenues the way pro sports do, the average Football Bowl Subdivision player would be worth $121,000 per year, while the average basketball player at that level would be worth $265,000."

7. Out-of-State Universities: Finding Bargains, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/out-of-state-universities-finding-bargains/6581/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "Typically outsiders need to be stellar students to receive scholarships from flagship universities, but many other state universities will give nonresidents, who are smart, but not at the top of the academic heap, a cut in price."

8. Inside School Research: U.S. Postsecondary Edge Shrinking Among G-20 Countries, by Sarah D. Sparks - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2011/09/us_postsecondary_edge_shrinkin_1.html via @educationweek - "The United States still leads the world in having a college-educated workforce, but it is the only country among the G-20 members whose incoming workers are less educated than those retiring, according to a study released this morning by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development."

9. Student Loan Default Rates Rise Sharply in Past Year, by Tamar Lewin: http://nyti.ms/oJIw9Z - "At public institutions, the rate was 7.2 percent, up from 6 percent, and at not-for-profit private institutions, it was 4.6 percent, up from 4 percent. . . . Although for-profit colleges, which typically serve low-income students, enroll only about 10 percent of the nation’s undergraduates, Mr. Kvaal said, their students made up 150,000, or almost half, of the defaults."

10. For-Profit-College Group Releases Code of Conduct With Protections for Students, by Kelly Field -http://chronicle.com/article/For-Profit-College-Group/128963/ - "The standards, which will be enforced by a foundation created by the coalition, require colleges that sign on to the voluntary program to provide prospective students with "clear and accurate" information, in writing, on program costs, completion rates, employment outcomes, and student-loan default rates. The standards also require colleges to disclose whether a program provides industry certifications or qualifies students for professional licensing exams."

11. U.S. News & World Report's Shocker-Free 2012 College Rankings, by Kayla Webley - http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/09/13/u-s-news-and-world-reports-shocker-free-2012-college-rankings/ via @TIMENewsFeed - "Nevertheless, here are this year's 10 Best Colleges in the Nation:"

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

285. Summer 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. Loans and the Deficit, by Libby A. Nelson and Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/qeubRC - "The federal government is making a lot of money on students and on parents," says Becky Timmons, assistant vice president for government relations at the American Council on Education. "There’s a risk of almost treating students like an ATM machine."

2. More Default Danger Ahead, by Libby A. Nelson - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/nsoXw0 -"While they recommended several strategies, including financial literacy classes, advising students to borrow as little as possible and requiring counseling sessions for those who are borrowing a large amount of money, they also said that many of the factors that go into defaults are ultimately outside of institutions’ control -- except for one. Students who complete college are far less likely to default than are those who drop out, said Jacob Gross, policy and planning research analyst at the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission. “The most important thing we can do to help students not default is to help them finish their credential,” Gross said at one of two default-rate sessions Sunday."

3. At Two-Year Colleges, Less Scrutiny Equals Less Athletic Equality, by Katie Thomas - http://nyti.ms/r6ujU1 - "Even as they play an increasingly vital role in American higher education — enrolling more than eight million students nationwide last fall, a 20 percent jump since the fall of 2007, just before the start of the recession — community colleges are routinely failing to provide enough athletic opportunities to women, as required under Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in education. Many community colleges offer an array of options for men but just a single team for women. And dozens of colleges over the years had no women on their athletic rosters, according to federal education statistics."

4. Law School Economics - Job Market Weakens, Tuition Rises, by David Segal - http://nyti.ms/nxcd2n -"Legal diplomas have such allure that law schools have been able to jack up tuition four times faster than the soaring cost of college. And many law schools have added students to their incoming classes — a step that, for them, means almost pure profits — even during the worst recession in the legal profession’s history. It is one of the academy’s open secrets: law schools toss off so much cash they are sometimes required to hand over as much as 30 percent of their revenue to universities, to subsidize less profitable fields."

5. After The Recession, Students Borrow Reluctantly, by Lisa Lambert - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/18/after-the-recession-stude_n_901381.html - "To cope, many students turn to federal loans. In the 2009-10 school year, 35 percent of all undergraduate students took out a federal Stafford student loan, compared to 23 percent 10 years before, Draeger said. Students may also use private loans and parents can take federal "PLUS" loans. Paying for college has usually involved many parties, Draeger said, including universities themselves pitching in."We're seeing this gradual shift in the burden for paying for college to individual students and families and the way that students do this is through loans," he said."

6. Concern grows about default rates on student loans in Kentucky - http://www.kentucky.com/2011/07/17/1814399/concern-grows-about-default-rates.html - "They quit school last year because of day care problems with their son and defaulted on the loans. That buried them in debt. They haven't filed for bankruptcy, in part because changes to bankruptcy law make it difficult to erase student loans. Daymar College financial aid officials "signed us up" for the loans and controlled access to the accounts, Donald Lee said last week as he prepared to start another shift washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant."It's an awful lot of money for just two years at this little school," he said. "When the loan papers came in, they just handed them to us, told us to sign them and took them back. We never saw them again."

259. 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. Minority kids spend most of their waking hours plugged in, by Mary Brophy Marcus - USATODAY.com: http://usat.ly/k0H7sd - "Among 8- to 18-year-olds, Asian Americans logged the most media use (13 hours, 13 minutes a day), followed by Hispanics (13 hours), blacks (12 hours, 59 minutes), and whites (8 hours, 36 minutes.)"

2. Another Round, by Libby A. Nelson - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/m5ugDp - "This hearing, 'Drowning in Debt: Financial Outcomes of Students at For-Profit Colleges,' the fifth from Senator Tom Harkin’s committee, focused on the debt that students at for-profit colleges accumulate and how frequently they default on loans."

3. School Network Readies Students for College and Career, by Catherine Gewertz - http://t.co/PKBCm7Q via @educationweek - “We want to make sure that everyone is college- and career-ready, that we don’t end up with a blue-collar track and a college-prep track,” says John Snavely, the superintendent of the 13,000-student Porterville Unified School District, which has developed nine career pathways at five of its high schools here."

4. Popularity Offers Challenges for Community Colleges, by Caralee J. Adams - http://t.co/swsIdXa via @educationweek - "More students than ever are going to community colleges—and their numbers account for nearly half of all the college undergraduates in the country."

5. College Bound: Democratic Senators Rail About Debt Load of For-Profit Students, by Caralee Adams - http://t.co/TPtkZkM - "What does it say to you, Madame Secretary, that after the rules were published last week, stock prices of these larger, for-profit schools soared?"

6. At New York’s Private Schools, a Tutor for Every Class, by Jenny Anderson - http://nyti.ms/jUfvFZ - “There’s no family that gets through private school without an SAT tutor,” said Sandy Bass, the mother of two former Riverdale students and the founder of the newsletter Private School Insider. “Increasingly, it’s impossible to get through private school without at least one subject tutor.”

257. 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. Redefining Community College Success, by David Moltz - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/k3IPFg - "This discussion was influenced heavily by the Education Department’s recently released “gainful employment” regulations, which will hold many programs at for-profit colleges and certificate and vocational programs at nonprofit institutions to a new federal standard on student debt and employability."

2. Paying for College, by Jill Schlesinger, CBS MoneyWatch.com - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/video/paying-for-college/6238758/?tag=video-roto-2;slide-cover - 3 tips are provided.

3. Hechinger Report For-profit universities: By the numbers, by Sarah Garland and Sarah Butrymowicz: http://t.co/XQyPOqs - "Below is a chart looking at federal loan repayment rates for Kaplan University, the University of Phoenix, Capella University, ITT Technical Institutes, and DeVry, along with several private and public universities for the sake of comparison."

4. Stopping Fraud at Trade Schools, editorial of 6/5/11, The New York Times - http://nyti.ms/kLUozr - "In one case, city officials say, students who paid to attend a truck-driving school spent the entire course in the classroom and were never taught to drive. At other schools, students say they were promised jobs or business contacts that never materialized."

5. How to Regulate For-Profit Colleges - The New York Times: Room for Debate, 6/5/11 - http://nyti.ms/kJQKgI - "Should the federal government block loans to borrowers who want to study at such schools? Are there other ways to discourage students from pursuing what may be a money-losing degree, or to reduce the risk of federal loan losses in these programs?"

6. For-Profit Recruiters and the 'Pain Funnel,' by Jack Conway - The New York Times: Room for Debate, 6/5/11 - http://nyti.ms/iSlcXP - "Namely, we are asking four questions about for-profits: Do they accurately represent transferability of credits? Do they adequately inform students that their cost often far exceeds that of public institutions? Do they fraudulently advertise expectations of future employment while hiding default rates? And finally, do they properly respond to complaints?"

7. For-Profit Colleges Take Advantage of the Poor, by Gaye Tuchman - The New York Times: Room for Debate, 6/5/11 - http://nyti.ms/lUlOiP - "Roughly 25 percent of today’s college students are following the traditional pattern of attending a residential college in the years just after high school. The rest commute from home, are often older and frequently attend part time because of jobs and family responsibilities."

8. The New Rules Don't Go Far Enough, by Osamudia R. James - The New York Times: Room for Debate, 6/5/11 - http://nyti.ms/mAuyD9"The real question is not whether for-profit graduates make too little money relative to their debt levels, but whether the profit-maximizing motive encourages institutions of higher education to provide a sub-par education, preying on both students and the public in pursuit of shareholder benefit."

9. Gainful Employment Rules Play Favorites, by Daniel L. Bennett - The New York Times: Room for Debate, 6/5/11 - http://nyti.ms/ijWKXG" - As matter of policy, we should limit the risk exposure to which we subject the taxpayer, but the focus of gainful employment regulations is too narrow and plays favorites. We need to hold all institutions accountable to provide educational value, regardless of tax status."

10. OSU will get through scandal, experts say, by Encarnacion Pyle, The Columbus Dispatch - http://t.co/6C5Gl7C - "For this coming school year, Ohio State received 10% more applications than last year, for a total of 29,243, Freeman said. Last year, the university also saw a 10% increase in applications.Ohio State's student body has grown steadily for years, reaching a record 64,077 students this past fall, she said. The campus anticipates it will welcome a slightly larger freshman class of 6,800 to 6,850 students in September."

11. Knowledge of financial aid is key to affording college, by Rob Jenkins - http://bit.ly/kO7Mau - “You can absolutely afford college, as long as you make smart decisions about money,” said Jared Smith, director of financial aid at Georgia Gwinnett College. “You might not be able to go to your No. 1 school, but there are plenty of affordable options for you to get a degree.”

12. Loan defaults put local colleges at risk, by cmagan@coxohio.com - http://m.daytondailynews.com/dayton/db_101691/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=FzKYxMcl&detailindex=0&pn=0&ps=8&full=true#display - "Serious students call them “check babies,” students who enroll in college or trade school just long enough for their financial aid stipend checks to clear. “Some of these kids come in here for the checks, and that’s it,” said Cheryl Davis, a health sciences student at Lincoln College of Technology in Dayton. “They get their checks and they don’t come back. They figure they can get away with not paying it back.”

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1. Student killed in shooting near Ohio university - http://bit.ly/gQdh1S #cnn

"Hughes said the shooting is a surprise. "It's sad because young people here are trying to turn around a lot of things," he said. "That campus is a bright shining star."

2. Tragedy at a Party, by Scott Jaschik - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/fu8HZF

‎"A statement from Youngstown State said that university police believe that there is no threat to the campus, but that security there has been heightened as a precaution. Cynthia E. Anderson, president of the university, went to the local hospital where shooting victims were treated to talk with students and their families. In a statement, she said that the "tragic act of violence" made Sunday "a sad day for the YSU family."

3. Bad Apples or More? by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/g3gqjx

"The review finds that 53 of the 120 universities in the NCAA’s top competitive level, the Football Bowl Subdivision, were found by the NCAA's Division I Committee on Infractions to have committed major rules violations from 2001 to 2010. That number appears to have held largely constant from the previous two decades, but the 2000s show that the number of colleges that committed serious violations of the association’s academic rules nearly doubled, to 15 from 8 in the 1990s."

4. Toughen NCAA Academic Rules, by Gerald S. Gurney - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/gQnAHI

‎"A more critical analysis suggests that the recent patterns of serious institutional involvement in academic fraud may be related to predictable consequences of changes in the 2003 NCAA initial eligibility legislation that certify woefully underprepared athletes as qualified to compete in the college classroom."

5. New Data Show Students at For-Profit Colleges Twice As Likely To Default On Loans - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/03/for-profit-students-default-loans-new-data_n_818507.html?ir=College

"In addition, students taking out loans at for-profit schools were responsible for nearly half of all federal student loan defaults within the three-year timeframe, even though students enrolled at such institutions made up less than 15 percent of college students nationwide."

6. What to Expect From the Revised AP U.S. History Program, by Erik Robelen: http://t.co/qaMEpuR

"Unlike the current AP U.S. history course, the new curriculum framework lays out clear expectations for what students need to understand about different periods in American history," he writes. "These understandings are written at a high conceptual level in order to allow teachers to illustrate them with appropriate examples of historical actors and events drawn from each period."

7. A Letter to My President—The One I Voted for... by Paul Karrer: http://t.co/7mGX0dN via @educationweek

"It’s not bad teaching that got things to the current state of affairs. It’s pure, raw poverty. We don’t teach in failing schools. We teach in failing communities. It’s called the ZIP Code Quandary. If the kids live in a wealthy ZIP code, they have high scores; if they live in a ZIP code that’s entombed with poverty, guess how they do?"

8. Best college essay ever? by Valerie Strauss - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/college-admissions/best-college-essay-ever.html

‎"After receiving it again recently, I found the the author, a writer named Hugh Gallagher, to find out the real history of the piece. Gallagher told me that he wrote the essay when he was 17 for a high school writing contest. He won (and the essay was published in Harper's Magazine). He did then use the essay as part of his applications when he applied to five colleges about two decades ago. He attended New York Univ. . . ."

9. Financial Aid Fundamentals: File the FAFSA Now! -

http://www.top-colleges.com/blog/2011/02/05/financial-aid-fundamentals-file-your-fafsa-now/

‎"That means it is critically important for students – those that are college bound or already enrolled in degree programs – to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as soon as possible. Almost all forms of financial aid – including scholarships, grants and student loans – use the FAFSA as the foundation for award decisions."

10. College search would end with Harvard’s ‘yes,’ by Richard O. Jones - http://t.co/EHUnnOk via @oxfordpress

"Although he’s applied to 17 colleges — large and small, near and far — if Badin High School senior Raymond Dong gets the acceptance letter he most wants, he’ll be heading to Harvard next fall."

11. Are football stars really heroes, or just famous? by Sharon Jayson -USATODAY.com http://t.co/MCFwnMm

"But are the players on the field really heroes, or just celebrities?
Those who study heroism say there is a tendency to confuse it with fame or celebrity worship, which has sparked some researchers to take a closer look at just what makes a hero in the 21st century."

12. Footballer: 'Are you OK with destroying a kid's brain for this game?' by Stephanie Smith - http://bit.ly/fakTTc #cnn

‎"Can you ever make football so that no one gets hurt? No. People are going to get hurt," said Nowinski, president of the Sports Legacy Institute. "But you can eliminate certain drills, you modify certain drills, minimize certain drills...eliminate dumb things like 'bull in the ring.'"

13. To Close Gaps, Schools Focus on Black Boys, by Winnie Hu - http://nyti.ms/gh0mHj

“I think this is a form of racial profiling in the public school system,” said the coalition’s executive director, Michael Meyers. “What they’re doing here, under the guise of helping more boys, is they’re singling them out and making them feel inferior or different simply because of their race and gender.”

14. New NAEP Science Scores Reveal Significant Achievement Gaps, by Jasmine Harley - http://www.civilrights.org/archives/2011/02/1140-naep.html

"Black 4th-graders and 8th-graders scored on average 36 pts lower than their White counterparts and Black 12th-graders scored on average 34 pts lower than their White counterparts; Hispanic 4th-graders scored on average 32 pts lower than their White counterparts. The gap decreases to 30 pts in 8th grade and to 25 pts in 12th grade. . . ."

15. Why the stakes are so much higher now, by Audrey Kahane - NorthJersey.com http://t.co/CNn1zIg via @NorthJerseybrk

"The college admission process wasn't nearly as anxiety-producing 30 years ago. As I often tell parents, we probably wouldn't be admitted if we had to apply to our alma maters today. Parents have heard enough stories from friends and relatives whose high-achieving children have been turned down by schools that would have been considered "safe" 30 years ago to know that this is true, but they still don't understand why things are so different now."

16. What Is The Achievement Gap? Education Equality Project: http://t.co/64ElJ3h

"The huge difference in academic performance between students from different economic circumstances and racial/ethnic backgrounds is what we call the achievement gap."

17. Educators missed lesson on segregation, by Tony Norman - http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11035/1122872-153.stm

"At McCaskey East High School in Lancaster, 11th-grade black students were placed in separate homerooms with black teachers for six minutes a day, starting in December. The theory was that black students are more likely to take education seriously if they have a mentor who shares their racial background."

18. The Harvard Effect, by Timothy Noah - http://www.slate.com/id/2283744/

"At the end of 2007, Harvard announced that it would limit tuition to no more than 10% of family income for families earning up to $180,000. (It also eliminated all loans, following a trail blazed by Princeton, and stopped including home equity in its calculations of family wealth.) Yale saw and raised to $200,000, and other wealthy colleges weighed in with variations."

19. 8 Big Changes to College Admissions in 2010 and 2011, by Kim Clark - US News and World Report: http://t.co/uVIryt4

"Interviews with admissions officers at some of the nation's most popular colleges reveal recent and important shifts in the weighting of traditional admission factors. . . . College officials outline 8 major changes to their admissions practices that will affect applicants from now on:"

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1. Plea to Expand Enrollment at Top Colleges, by Jacques Steinberg- http://nyti.ms/dOMLs9

‎"Twenty of the wealthiest, most selective private colleges enroll a total of about 20,000 first-year students each year. If they enrolled 30,000, there would be a significant reduction in the number of rejection letters sent to highly qualified students."

2. Ready for the Transfer Wave? by Marc Cutright - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/hrOgya

"These new community college students, however, still intend to get the bachelor’s degree, even if there’s an unanticipated detour on the route. So it is likely that we’ll see even stronger growth in demand for transfer credit acceptance. The issue is that students entering higher education through community colleges generally have not been as successful at getting four-year degrees."

3. College Affordability A Top Priority, New Study Shows - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/03/college-affordability-a-t_n_818273.html

"Reducing college costs -- which was picked as the best means of helping Americans with financial woes by 63 percent of the nationally representative 1,004 Americans surveyed -- beat out social security (58 percent) and cutting taxes (48 percent) as well as "reducing the deficit" (40 percent), "providing financial help to people whose owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth" (22 percent) and others. . . ."

4. Study Finds Social-Skills Teaching Boosts Academics, by Sarah D. Sparks - http://t.co/ZtGPwvp via @educationweek

"In the report published today in the peer-reviewed journal Child Development, researchers led by Joseph A. Durlak, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Chicago, found that students who took part in social and emotional learning, or SEL, programs improved in grades and standardized-test scores by 11 percentile points compared with nonparticipating students."

5. For-Profit Colleges and Foes Await U.S. Rules, by Tamar Lewin - http://nyti.ms/i97XKt

“The for-profits want to underscore the importance of the needy population they serve. Critics want to undermine the sector. It’s very hard to separate fact from fiction, given all that’s taken place.”

6. Loan-Default Percentage at For-Profit Colleges Would Double Under New Formula, by Goldie Blumenstyk - http://chronicle.com/article/Loan-Default-Rate-at/126250/

"According to the department's figures, of the nearly 3.4 million students entering repayment status in 2008, 466,000 would be considered in default under the three-year measurement, while just under 239,000 were in default under the two-year calculation. About 222,000 of the defaulters in the three-year calculation attended for-profit colleges, 186,000 attended public colleges, and about 58,000 attended private nonprofit colleges."

7. Teens Answer: Why I Had a Baby, by Belinda Luscombe - http://t.co/9sIx0bg via @TIMEHealthland

"It is real hard being a single mother. I'm no longer with their father. Teenage males aren't looking for responsibilities at a young age. My mother and sister were also teenage mothers. It's hard for me to get a job, so now I'm being supported by my mother. . . . If I had a chance to wait 'til I was stable I would take it."

8. Default rate for repayment of for-profit college loans hits 25 percent, by Nick Anderson - http://t.co/waGrtOW via @washingtonpost

‎"The 25% default rate in the for-profit sector, part of an Education Department report to be published Friday, was up from a 21% rate estimated in December 2009. Loan defaults are on the rise throughout higher ed because of economic troubles. The three-year default rate for public colleges is now about 11%, up from about 10% in the previous report. The rate for private nonprofit colleges is about 8%, up from about 7%."

9. BBC News - Rich-poor pupil gap 'not closing,' by Sean Coughlan: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12344501

"But this study from the University of Manchester says schools alone are not going to be able to bridge this divide. It says that previous attempts to narrow the gap have not made "substantial sustained improvements". The review, published by the British Educational Research Association, says schools can make a big difference to some individual pupils - and individual schools in disadvantaged areas can have high results.
But overall it suggests that schools have struggled to break the stubborn link between a poor background and low academic achievement."

10. 13 reasons I applied to 13 colleges, by Mackenzie Mennucci - http://t.co/gqnbjJj

"On that sunny September afternoon, somehow I came to the conclusion that it would be a bloody brilliant idea to apply to 13 colleges. I’m still trying to figure out why."

11. 6 Steps to Beating the Shortage of Financial Aid, by Kim Clark - US News and World Report: http://t.co/2NYtoq1

‎"Although nearly every college student wants a scholarship to help pay tuition, only about 50 percent of college students are expected to receive free money in 2011 and 2012. And the shortage of scholarships is expected to be especially severe in 2011 and 2012. But financial aid experts say there are six steps students can take right now to improve their odds of being in the lucky 50 percent:"

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1. How Will Students Communicate? by Steve Kolowich - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/gNpFbe

"If students are in fact moving away from e-mail in their personal lives, institutionally provided student e-mail accounts will probably diminish in popularity over the next few years, campus technologists say, and that could force colleges to rethink the most reliable ways to stay in touch with their students."

2. 'Living as They Live' by Dan Berrett - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/ed9NMj

"In recent years, however, a small but growing number of public universities -- from the University of California at Berkeley to Appalachian State University -- have installed faculty members in residence halls to live among students."

3. The iPad in Higher Ed, by Corey Angst - http://www.insidehighered.com/audio/academic_pulse/the_ipad_in_higher_ed

"In today’s Academic Minute, the University of Notre Dame's Corey Angst explains how use of the iPad is evolving and becoming increasingly relevant in higher education."

4. Government Cashes In On Defaulted Student Loans - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/05/government-cashes-in-on-d_n_804582.html

"Mark Kantrowitz, the publisher of FinAid.org, provided the Journal with an example of how the government profits from defaults: According to Kantrowitz, the government stands to earn $2,010.44 more in interest from a $10,000 loan that defaulted than if it had been paid in full over a 20-year term, and $6,522.00 more than if it had been paid back in 10 years."

5. No Jobs for College Graduates, by John M. Eger - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-m-eger/no-jobs-for-college-gradu_b_804877.html

"Let's be honest. The University majors that exist today are not necessarily job related. More importantly, a degree of any kind is no guarantee of a job. What is important is that young people "learn how to learn" (acquire genuine thinking skills) in college; and if possible, find out what they can be passionate about."

6. 3 Ways Applying for Financial Aid Will Be Easier in 2011, by Kim Clark - US News and World Report - http://t.co/k4tcwJt

"But at least it will take less time to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which is the form that qualifies students for federal student loans and grants, as well as most other scholarships and aid. Three factors are making the FAFSA less ulcer-inducing:"

7. Another Look at PISA, by Diane Ravitch - http://t.co/MtR3wTT

"Researchers for the National Association for Secondary School Principals disaggregated the PISA results by income and made some stunning discoveries. Take a look at this link ("PISA: It's Poverty Not Stupid"). It shows that American students in schools with low poverty rates were first in the world when they were compared with students in nations with comparably low poverty levels."

8. PISA: It's Poverty Not Stupid, by Mel Riddile - http://nasspblogs.org/principaldifference/2010/12/pisa_its_poverty_not_stupid_1.html

"Schools in the United States with less than a 10% poverty rate had a PISA score of 551. When compared to the ten countries with similar poverty numbers, that score ranked first."

9. Auburn Is First in One Ranking, 85th in Another, by Pete Thamel - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/sports/ncaafootball/06auburn.html?_r=1&hp

"The decline came after the university closed several academic loopholes following a NY Times article in 2006 that showed numerous football players padded their grade-point averages and remained eligible through independent-study-style courses that required little or no work."

10. At Elite Colleges, Legacy Status Counts More Than Previously Thought, Study Show, by Elyse Ashburn - http://chronicle.com/article/Legacys-Advantage-May-Be/125812/

"A researcher at Harvard University recently examined the impact of legacy status at 30 highly selective colleges and concluded that, all other things being equal, legacy applicants got a 23.3-percentage-point increase in their probability of admission. If the applicants' connection was a parent who attended the college as an undergraduate, a "primary legacy," the increase was 45.1-percentage points."

11. How Do Grad Rates of Division III Athletes Measure Up? Quite Well, NCAA Says - http://chronicle.com/blogs/players/how-do-grad-rates-of-division-iii-athletes-measure-up-quite-well-ncaa-says/27966

"Using the federal graduation rate calculated by the Education Department, 66 percent of Division III athletes finished college within six years of enrolling, compared with 63 percent of the overall student body."

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