340. 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. 'Flipped' classrooms take advantage of technology, by Greg Toppo – http://usat.ly/pZBzkm via USATODAY - "Pressed for time and struggling to reach a generation raised on YouTube, Roshan, like a growing number of teachers, digitally records her lessons with a tablet computer as a virtual blackboard, then uploads them to iTunes and assigns them as homework. In class the following day, she helps students work out exercises and answer knotty questions. It's the latest way technology is changing teachers' jobs — in this case it's literally turning their workday upside-down. But teachers say flipped, or upside-down, classes offer greater control of material and more face time with students."

2. Should universities move more aggressively into online education? by Rebecca R. Ruiz - http://nyti.ms/oaczIp - "The authors emphasize that expanding online course offerings at public institutions would expand the supply of seats – the number of students a university might accept – and expand that university’s revenue. But would such an increase in class size – not to mention the challenge of teaching and learning online – demean the quality of instruction?"

3. 25 Colleges With the Worst Professors in 2011, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/25-colleges-with-the-worst-professors-in-2011/6830/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "According to an analysis of millions of RateMyProfessors.com evaluations by an education think tank, the following 25 schools have the worst professors among 650 top schools that were surveyed."

4. Apple's Steve Jobs Was a Pioneer in Ed Tech, by Ian Quillen -http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2011/10/apple_founder_steve_jobs_passe.html -"In the less than two years since Jobs stood on stage in his characteristic black mock turtleneck and blue jeans and introduced the iPad, Apple's tablet computer has exploded on the educational scene. In the third quarter of fiscal year 2011, the iPad surpassed all of Apple's educational Mac desktop and laptop computer sales combined. Its popularity with classroom teachers, educators have said, is due to a combination of its portability, long battery life, and intuitiveness of use, especially for young students and students with disabilities such as autism."

5. For Children at Risk, Mentors Who Stay, by David Bornstein - http://nyti.ms/pCGmmd - "Samuel was out of control. He cursed at his teacher, refused to do school work, attacked other kids in the schoolyard — and Samuel was still in kindergarten. His home life was chaotic. He’d never met his father. His mother had emotional and drug problems and was unable to care for him. His grandmother did her best. His older brother was involved in violent crime and had been in and out of jail. He taught Samuel to smoke marijuana when he was 6 years old."

6. Steve Jobs's Legacy to Higher Education, by Marc Prensky -http://chronicle.com/article/Steve-Jobss-Legacy-to-Higher/129297/ - "But what we can't argue about is that as a result of Steve Jobs our environment has permanently changed. His genius in making devices that are beautiful, fun, useful, and that—most of all—students and others wanted to have, essentially remade our institutions of higher learning."

7. Steve Jobs told students: ‘Stay hungry. Stay foolish.’ by Valerie Strauss - The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/steve-jobs-told-students-stay-hungry-stay-foolish/2011/10/05/gIQA1qVjOL_blog.html via @washingtonpost - “My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: ‘We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?’ They said: ‘Of course.’ “My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.“And 17 years later I did go to college."

8. 'Net Price Calculators' Give Clearer Picture On College Cost, by Justin Pope - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/net-price-calculators-giv_n_998585.html - "It sounds like a simple question: How much is a college actually going to cost?In fact, it's a slippery one. But thanks to a federal mandate, a new tool to help students and families pin down an answer is finally arriving this month: a fairly simple online calculator to estimate what you can expect to pay to attend any college in the United States."

188. 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. Fraternity official reacts to shooting - TribToday.com - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH: http://t.co/ACjh8AU

"This senseless act of violence has stunned the fraternity, the collegiate community and all who respect civility in our nation. The weight of this tragedy strengthens our resolve to uplift humanity at every station in life as we carry the hope and promise of our Brother, Jamail Johnson," Ray said."

2. Jamail Johnson, YSU Shooting Victim, Died Trying To Save Others - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/jamail-johnson-youngstown_n_820296.html

‎"As gunfire rang out and people ran for their lives, 25 year old Jamail Johnson ran toward the shooters. Johnson pushed them out of the fraternity house, potentially saving dozens more people from injury or death.Johnson continued on, even after being shot, eventually losing his life trying to protect others."

3. College Warns Accepted Applicants: Keep ‘Shoulder to Wheel’, by C. O. Gerszberg - http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/mom-u-02-08/#more-27735

"To be more specific, we expect you to continue the courses that you committed to take, to maintain achievement commensurate with your ability, and to sustain your extra-curricular commitments and leadership."

4. Left in the Hall, by David Moltz - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/hCVUNY

"Even the 22 percent of community college students who took placement tests had difficulties enrolling in the courses in which they placed. Nearly 30 percent of students who took English or mathematics placement tests were unable to enroll in all of their recommended courses last semester."

5. Classroom Matters, by Steve Kolowich - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/fAxDIg

“The majority of students who had Spanish in high school found it helpful,” says Glynis Cowell, director of the Spanish program there. However, she added, “For the true beginner it probably wasn’t as smooth a transition.” The university attracted a lot of attention a year and a half ago when it announced it was going to start teaching entry-level Spanish only on the Web."

6. Harkin Calls On For-Profit Colleges To End Deceptive Recruiting Practices - http://help.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?id=068bd7c1-0311-447a-97b3-66eb01337012&groups=Chair

“Rather than offering students a better life, these types of strong-arm, emotionally abusive tactics are all too typical of schools that have little or no interest in providing students the academic help and support they need to succeed," Harkin said. "When these types of deceptive and exploitative tactics are used to enroll students, we should not be surprised to see high drop out and high default rates . . . .”

7. AdmissionSplash: Facebook Application Predicts Likelihood of Getting Into College - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/facebook-application-pred_n_820277.html

‎"AdmissionSplash asks students to submit a short or long personal profile including quantitative and qualitative characteristics, such as test scores, grades and extra-curricular activities, which colleges consider when making admissions decisions. The program then uses this information, along with public admissions statistics, to predict the student's chance of getting into any of the 1,500 colleges . . . ."

8. Perry to Push Texas Colleges to Offer $10,000 Degree, by Ross Ramsey - http://t.co/rHjvyd6 via @TexasTribune

"Gov. Rick Perry will challenge the state's colleges and universities to offer a $10,000 bachelor's degree, including books, in his State of the State speech later this morning, according to sources familiar with some of the proposals. Perry also wants lawmakers to consider outcome-based financial support for those schools . . . ."

9. 25 Private Colleges With the Best Graduation Rates, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/kXyrCi5

‎"The schools that enjoy that nation’s highest graduation rates are among the country’s most elite private universities and liberal arts colleges. The students who attend these schools are high achievers and the institutions are among the wealthiest, which permits them to offer an abundance of resources to their students."

10. Big, Big Money Problem: Finding Funds for Pell Grants, by Alyson Klein - http://t.co/kITZzHc

‎"There is a major, major shortfall in the Pell Grant program, which finances scholarships to help low-income students attend college. . . . That means that in order to keep grants at their current levels (the maximum is $5,550), Congress will have to find more than $5 billion in fiscal year 2011. Part of that money was included in the stop-gap measure that's currently funding the entire federal government . . . ."

11. 'Achieving the Dream' Produces Little Change at Community Colleges, by Jennifer Gonzalez - http://chronicle.com/article/Achieving-the-Dream-Produces/126304/

‎"Most of the original 26 colleges in the Achieving the Dream project have relied on data to drive strategies designed to increase student achievement—for example, the introduction of learning communities and courses in how to succeed in college. But those efforts have not resulted in more students' completing developmental courses, a necessity for the many underprepared students who hope to complete degree or certificates. . . ."

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157. 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. Me, in 500 Words or Less, by Michael Campbell - http://nyti.ms/eqkrD4

‎"The essays are my chance to reveal myself as an individual with substance beyond scores and merit beyond my transcript. If I fail to do so, I will become little more than a statistic in the eyes of admissions. If I succeed, I may prove myself a worthy candidate for acceptance."

2. Goodbye DADT, Hello ROTC, by Dan Berrett - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/hZMcLE

"It also effectively ends what has been a vexing problem for higher education, including at Columbia -- given our desire to be open to our military, but not wanting to violate our own core principle against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation," continued Bollinger. "We now have the opportunity for a new era in the relationship between universities and our military services."

3. Spare the Rod, Pay the Prof, by Steve Kolowich - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/ig5ERr

‎"Instead, the university is offering to share tuition revenues from online students with colleges and departments that accommodate them. In the College of Arts and Sciences, professors — who are not generally given bonuses for developing new courses — are offered $5,000 to adapt a course to the online medium."

4. 'The Global Auction' by Scott Jaschik - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/fByZ2t

‎"Start asking hard questions about your reasons for going to college, which college is likely to offer you a high-quality education, and what your chances are of finding a job that meets your expectations after graduation. If you’re aiming high, be prepared for a long and intense competition that doesn’t end when you enter the job market. If you do not see yourself at an elite university, is it better to go for a two-year rather than four-year college education and then opt for further training while employed?"

5. Top College Role Models Of 2010 - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/20/top-college-role-models-o_n_799011.html#s201958

"They showed their true selves. And in 2010, they accomplished monumental things. Below, see 11 inspiring college students, campuses, groups and professors who lead by example this year -- and may renew your confidence in younger generations."

6. 100-Headed Monster That Digests College Applications! by Ruth Starkman - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ruth-starkman/100headed-monster-digests_b_798907.html

‎"At large universities additional temporary readers, usually 100 or so, are hired on for the reading season from December to February. They are the first line of people reading your applications. These "external" temporary readers undergo several weeks of training before the reading process and continue to receive support from the fulltime admissions personnel after the reading starts. External readers are a hugely mixed group of people from high school academic counselors to alumni to retired or part-time faculty from many different universities."

7. Why Don't Professors Like to Teach? by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/ThEkjhK

"The reason is simple, according to a policy paper by the Center For College Affordability and Productivity. Professors are rewarded for staying out of the classroom. The big money in the higher-ed world is in research. It’s definitely not in teaching a bunch of undergraduates Psych 101 or holding office hours."

8. Cutbacks Force Some Early Colleges to Close Down, by Mary Ann Zehr - http://t.co/ThIN94j via @educationweek

‎"Over the past two-and-a-half years, two such schools have closed in Georgia, and a District of Columbia high school greatly scaled back its school-within-a-school early-college program. In Ohio, Youngstown State University is transferring responsibility for an early-college high school on its campus to the nearby Eastern Gateway Community College because it can no longer afford to sponsor it."

9. Early Decision Up, Yet Still Small Part of Admissions Pie, by Caralee Adams - http://t.co/Qr19mFc

"Early decision is when a student applies to his first-choice school and, if accepted, the decision is binding. Early action is similar to early decision, but the student doesn't have to commit immediately. She can still apply to other colleges and wait to make a decision until spring. About 18 percent of colleges offer early decision and 24 percent have early action plans, according to the 2010 State of Admissions Report by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). These plans are more common at private colleges."

10. Families Struggle To Compare Financial-Aid Offers, Survey Finds - http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/many-families-struggle-to-compare-student-aid-offers-survey-finds/27748

"Nearly two-thirds of respondents said the contents of individual award letters were clear and easy to understand, but more than half said that letters from different colleges were hard to compare. Almost seven-eighths of respondents said award letters should be standardized."

11. 30 Ways to Rate a College - by Alex Richards and Ron Coddington - http://chronicle.com/article/30-Ways-to-Rate-a-College/124160/

‎"That indicates a lack of agreement among them on what defines quality. Much of the emphasis is on “input measures” such as student selectivity, faculty-student ratio, and retention of freshmen. Except for graduation rates, almost no “outcome measures,” such as whether a student comes out prepared to succeed in the work force, are used."

• Follow the most important stories on college admissions and financial aid on Twitter at http://twitter.com/rottenbornj


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

132. 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. Educate black men now, or we'll all pay later, by DeWayne Wickham http://usat.ly/9Q00JS - RT @USATODAY

"Black males continue to perform lower than their peers throughout the country on almost every indicator," the Washington-based Council of the Great Schools, which represents the nation's 66 largest urban public school systems, said in a recent report.While much of the news coverage of the council's gut-wrenching report has focused on the failure of nearly all fourth- and eighth-grade black males to read and do math at proficiency levels, less attention has been paid to its conclusion that educational improvements alone won't fix this problem. What's needed, the council said, is a "concerted national effort to improve the education, social and employment outcomes of African-American males. "If you think that's just a warmed-over pitch for more funding of a liberal agenda, you're being shortsighted. In 13 years, minorities will be a majority of this nation's children younger than 18. In just 29 years, most working-age Americans will be black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American."

2. Survey: More college presidents make millions - http://usat.ly/cgoi7x RT @USATODAY

"According to the College Board, average tuition and fees at private colleges and universities have risen almost 35% in the past decade, to $27,290. Many students, though, pay much less because of grants and tax benefits. The average net price at private schools was $11,320 this fall, less than what students paid on average a decade ago.Public college presidents generally earn less than their private counterparts. Only one public university president topped $1 million in 2008-09 —Ohio State University president Gordon Gee brought in $1.5 million. Then there are for-profit colleges, which are under fire for their heavy reliance on federal student aid money and high student loan default rates. Strayer Education Inc. paid chairman and CEO Robert Silberman $41.9 million last year, according to a Bloomberg report last week."

3. Bracing Students, and Parents, to Hear 'No', by Sue Biemeret - http://nyti.ms/caWafM

"I often worry about the student who compiles a long list of colleges where admission is iffy for every single school except for the one they have deemed their “safety school.” And I also worry that this same student knows every statistic about those hypercompetitive schools, but nearly nothing about that “safety,” which could very well be home for the next four years. Truly amazing students get rejected from equally amazing colleges every single year through no fault of their own. For some of these young people, it’s the first time they’ve been denied, and that can unearth their stability. All that self-esteem can come crumbling down in April."

4. Headed to College? Be Prepared to 'Click,' by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/aAPEOq

"In an article on The Times’s Web site, I write about an undergraduate course on “Organizational Behavior” at Northwestern University where all 70 students have been given clickers by the professor. Multiple choice quizzes are given via the devices, always just a minute into class, and the results count for nearly 20 percent of the students’ grade. The devices also record absences automatically. If readers of The Choice have encountered these devices, we’d like to hear what you thought of them. You can use the comment box below to tell us."

5. Speeding Toward a Slowdown? - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/aqX0Rh

"Nearly one million more students took an online course in fall 2009 than in the previous year, according to the new survey, which drew responses from 2,583 academic leaders at both nonprofit and for-profit institutions across the country. That is the biggest numerical increase in the eight-year history of the report, and the largest proportional increase (21.1 percent) since 2005. Online enrollments have grown at more than nine times the rate of general enrollment since 2002. Almost a third of all college students in the country take at least one course online."

6. So Far, 12 Schools See Increase In Early Applications http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/15/early-decision-colleges_n_783775.html#s182529

"Among them are the University of Pennsylvania, which experienced a 17 percent increase in early applications. Duke saw a 14 percent increase, and its admissions director Christoph Guttentag told the Duke Chronicle that he had never seen interest so high in his 28 years working in college admissions. Overwhelmingly, schools who have calculated changes have seen an upward trend. This may be because early applicants have a better chance of being admitted than those students who choose to apply regular decision. Deadlines still loom, however -- Nov. 15 for some schools and Dec. 1 for others and early decision/action II. Check out which schools got more early decision (which is binding) and action (which is not) applications this year than last."

7. Highest-Paid College Presidents (PHOTOS) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/15/the-highest-paid-college-presidents_n_783236.html#s183035

"The Chronicle evaluated 448 private institutions to determine who were the top earning executives in the 2008-2009 school year. At the head of their list was the late Bernard Lander, founder and president of Touro College, who earned a whopping $4,786,830 in 2008 (including $4.2 million in retroactive pay and retirement benefits). Other top earners who are no longer affiliated with their institutions include Trinity University's John R. Brazil, USC's Steven B. Sample, Drexel University's Constantine Papadakis (deceased), Stevens Institute of Technology's Harold J. Raveche, Baylor University's John M. Lilley and Northwestern University's Henry S. Bienen. The university leaders left for a variety of reasons, including term endings and retirements, which in some cases help to explain their hefty salaries."

8. There Is No College Cost Crisis, by Stanley Fish http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/there-is-no-college-cost-crisis/

"The causes of the increase in college costs (an increase that has not, they contend, put college “out of reach”) are external; colleges are responding, as they must, to changes they cannot ignore and still provide a quality product. Chief among these is the change in the sophistication and cost of the technology that has at once transformed the setting of higher education and become one of the areas of knowledge higher education must impart to students. Students expect to be instructed in the new technologies, and that instruction requires their installation, and then as new refinements emerge, their re-installation. “[A] modern university must provide students with an up-to-date education that familiarizes students with the techniques and associated machinery that are used in the workplace the students must enter.”

9. Graduation Percentages for Basketball Players Trail Those of Students in General - http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/graduation-rates-for-basketball-players-trail-those-of-students-in-general/28341

"The graduation rate for men’s basketball players in the NCAA’s Division I is 20 percentage points lower than the rate for full-time male students in general, according to a new report from the College Sport Research Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The gap is even greater in the top-ranking conferences—30.8 percentage points. Women’s basketball players fared better in the institute’s report, but their graduation rate still fell below that of their peers. The gap was 6.2 percentage points on average, and 14.6 percentage points in the top-tier conferences."

10. Be careful of 'snap apps' in college admissions - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/college-admissions/be-careful-of-snap-apps-in-col.html

"Snap apps are applications that colleges and universities send out that invite students to submit without paying a fee or writing an essay. Some of the information is already filled in for the student, just to make things as easy as possible.These applications have different names: Some are called express applications, or they come labeled "VIP applications," but they all are sent with the same end in mind: To get a student to apply. Students are selected by colleges sometimes because they have shown an interest in the school by visiting or seeking information, while some schools target students with high test scores or some other academic honor.These applications can leave a kid who receives one with the the illusion that they have a leg up when it comes to getting admitted. They don't, and some kids are stunned when they get rejected, having assumed they were wanted by the school and had an easy way in."

11. Gregory Kane: Nobody wants to talk about black America's gender crisis Washington Examiner: http://bit.ly/cKZTiG

"Now that the problem has been defined, we can talk about the particulars. Anybody notice the gender question? We're not talking about black girls underachieving, or black girls having a crisis when it comes to education. We're talking about black boys. That means the girls are achieving, and the boys aren't. That means black America's old, reliable whipping boy -- white racism -- might not be solely to blame for this crisis. And a crisis it is. What we have here is a failure to communicate about the Great African-American gender crisis. (My apologies to Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson, the screenwriters for the film "Cool Hand Luke".) It's our nasty little secret, the dirty laundry we don't want washed in public. If, indeed, white racism, specifically institutional white racism, were the cause of black academic underachievement, we would expect it to affect black girls and black boys in equal, or near equal, measure."

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

121. 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. Not the ‘Hook’ the Admissions Office Had in Mind, by Dave Marcus - http://nyti.ms/aH72IT

"Mark Hatch was reading applications for Bates College in Maine one weekend a few years ago when he became intrigued by a student’s essay about fishing. Turning the page, Mr. Hatch felt a sharp pain — and realized that the student had attached an actual hook. After a trip to the emergency room and several stitches, Mr. Hatch finished reading the essay. Now a vice president at Colorado College, Mr. Hatch has the scar to prove that he did, in fact, admit a student with a hook."

2. No Excuses, Mr. President, by Marc Bousquet - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/99V2gr

"President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan's plans for higher education are evident in their attraction to community colleges. All of the features that most educators deplore about community colleges are what the current administration likes about them: top-down control of curriculum, disposable instructors, automated courseware, a training model of education, and management highly responsive to local employers. Their ambitions for publicly-funded higher education are closely parallel to their commitments in the schools: more automation, a standardized national curriculum, and centralization of control with an intensified assessment regime. Higher education has been slow to pick up on these threats, but national polls show that most Americans already clearly understand the difference between raising test scores and actually improving education."

3. For-Profit Schools, Tested Again, by Gretchen Morgenson - http://nyti.ms/9adClc

"Apollo’s facilities offer flexible-degree programs for people (“working learners,” it calls them) who have jobs or other obligations that keep them from attending school full-time. The University of Phoenix, by far the largest of the company’s institutions, offers both online and on-campus classes. It operates in 39 states. A majority of Apollo’s revenue comes from federal student aid. The University of Phoenix, which accounted for 91 percent of Apollo’s net revenue this year, gets the bulk of its own revenue from Title IV programs. Just 1 percent of cash revenue at the University of Phoenix comes from student loans that aren’t channeled through the federal government. Top for-profit colleges like Apollo’s received $26.5 billion in government-funded student aid in 2009, the Department of Education says. Because taxpayers are on the hook if these loans go bad, it is high time that regulators increased their scrutiny of practices at Apollo and other for-profit education companies."

4. Most expensive colleges money.cnn.com/galleries/2010…

‎"1. Connecticut College

New London, Conn.

Tuition & fees (2010-2011): $43,990

Increase from previous year: 3.9%

Total cost including room & board: $53,110"

5. The For-Profit LMS Market - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/byaSqP

"Mining learning-management systems for data has come into fashion among nonprofit colleges relatively recently, but for-profits have been doing it for much longer, says David Harpool, provost and chief academic officer at the for-profit Westwood College. Accrediting bodies and other regulators have always scrutinized for-profits extra closely, Harpool says, so there was a high demand for tools that would log data on student attendance and the degree of activity by students and instructors in the online learning environment — and make the data easy for for-profits to organize and show to accreditors and others by way of proving their legitimacy. For-profits also have a unique interest in by-the-numbers scrutiny of both students and faculty: faculty because the institutions have greater power to fire them based on classroom performance, and students because, as Harpool puts it: “When an average school in the for-profit sector spends between $4,000 and $8,000 to attract each student, . . . ."

6. Kaplan & U.S. Vet - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-01/kaplan-quest-for-profit-at-taxpayer-expense-ensnares-disabled-u-s-veteran.html

"Melvin is among thousands of returning veterans enticed by for-profit colleges through repeated phone calls and e-mails, advertising in military-oriented publications, and alliances with veterans’ organizations eager for corporate contributions. Admissions advisers woo veterans with visions of high-paying jobs and easy access to federal grants. While some veterans succeed at these colleges, others are hindered by red tape in getting federal funding and the inability to complete degrees and find well-paying jobs after graduation. Aggressive recruiting by for-profit colleges leads to low graduation rates, said Donald Overton, executive director of Veterans of Modern Warfare, a service organization in Silver Spring, Maryland, which has 5,000 post-1990 veterans as members. “As long as the recruiters meet their quotas and bring in veterans, their job is done,” Overton said in a telephone interview. “The colleges are lacking support services, and their programs are fast-paced.”

7. For Exposure, Universities Put Courses on Web, by D.D. Guttenplan -http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/world/europe/01iht-educLede01.html?hpw

"M.I.T.’s announcement in 2001 that it was going to put its entire course catalog online gave a jump-start to what has now become a global Open Educational Resources Movement whose goal, said Susan D’Antoni of Athabasca University, in Canada, is “to try to share the world’s knowledge.” Harvard, Yale, Stanford and the University of Michigan all now offer substantial portions of their courses online. In Britain, the Open University, which has been delivering distance learning for over 40 years, offers free online courses in every discipline on the OpenLearn Web site; the Open University also maintains a dedicated YouTube channel and has often had courses listed on the top 10 downloads at iTunes University. There, students can gain access to beginner courses in French, Spanish and German as well as courses in history, philosophy and astronomy — all free."

8. Tomorrow's College: The classroom of the future. . . , by Marc Parry http://chronicle.com/article/Tomorrows-College/125120/

"As online education goes mainstream, it's no longer just about access for distant learners who never set foot in the student union. Web courses are rewiring what it means to be a "traditional" student at places like Central Florida, one of the country's largest public universities. And UCF's story raises a question for other colleges: Will this mash-up of online and offline learning become the new normal elsewhere, too?Signs suggest yes. The University System of Maryland now requires undergraduates to take 12 credits in alternative learning modes, including online. Texas has proposed a similar rule. The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system is pushing to have 25 percent of credits earned online by 2015. And the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, pointing to UCF as a model, has made blended learning a cornerstone of its new $20-million education-technology grant program. These players pin their hopes on Web classes as a panacea that will expand access, speed up the time spent ...."

9. Mastering the Admissions Essay, by Ellen Gamerman Getting In Unigo unigo.com/articles/maste…

"The Wall Street Journal turned the tables on the presidents of 10 top colleges and universities with an unusual assignment: answer an essay question from their own school’s application."

10. The Case Against College Athletic Recruiting http://bit.ly/bTacyb

"Equally strange, you would discover that some academically elite schools that do not give athletic scholarships—because they are nominally committed to academics over athletics—give away a large portion of their highly competitive admissions slots to athletes, even in the most obscure sports, such as squash. For instance, Williams College, which admits only 17 percent of applicants, recruits 66 athletes per year. That’s 13 percent of the incoming freshman class that is dedicated to third-rate (literally, as Williams plays Division III sports) athletes over first-rate students. Take a look at the NEWSWEEK College Guide and you will find Williams, along with its small-school rivals Middlebury and Bowdoin, and Ivy League members Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Cornell, on our list of the top 25 schools that are “Stocked With Jocks.” You probably would conclude that these American institutions of higher learning have their priorities weirdly out of whack. And you would be right."

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

106. MVCAP fyi

See free MVCAP e-books on college admissions and financial aid for sharing, printing, and downloading at this online resource library: http://fb.me/HOUIYNqq

1. Note to Applicants: Admissions Officers Read What Your Teachers Say About You#more-23693#more-23693 - http://nyti.ms/cJmqjW

‎"Most students want to know if the recommendations matter, if we even read them. At Connecticut College, we require two teacher recommendations, and yes, we read them.Whether or not they matter depends on the quality of the recommendation. A good recommendation — well written with strong praise for the student — will certainly help us make our decision. And, of course, we will take note if the writer has reservations about recommending the student. But if the recommendation is poorly written or clearly a form letter with the name of the student simply filling in a blank (you’d be surprised), we won’t include it in our review. In short, a good recommendation can help, but we don’t hold it against the applicant when we receive a poorly written one."

2. Misplaced From the Start - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/cwGnGr via @addthis

“In the national debates about improving college readiness and increasing college completion, student voices have largely been absent,” said Kathy Reeves Bracco, senior research associate at WestEd and report co-author, in a statement. “Our systems of K-12 education and postsecondary education are not connected and it’s students who pay the price by not being prepared for college.”

3. Calculating the Cost of Dropouts - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/cDEVph via @addthis

"In the report, published today by the American Institutes for Research, Mark D. Schneider, a vice president there and former commissioner of the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics, cites data suggesting that 30 percent of first-year students at four-year colleges do not return to their original institution for a second year, and that states and the federal government provided more than $9 billion in aid to institutions and students to support those students. The critique of the report -- from another leading researcher with a background at the Education Department -- centers on its focus on students who return to their original institution, thus ignoring the many transfer students on whom that first year is not "wasted," as the report suggests."

4. http://huff.to/9EyOOO Huffpost - College Dropouts Cost Taxpayers Billions: Report

"States appropriated almost $6.2 billion for four-year colleges and universities between 2003 and 2008 to help pay for the education of students who did not return for year two, a report released Monday says. In addition, the federal government spent $1.5 billion and states spent $1.4 billion on grants for students who didn't start their sophomore years, according to "Finishing the First Lap: The Cost of First-Year Student Attrition in America's Four-Year Colleges and Universities.". . . The AIR report draws from Department of Education data, which Schneider concedes does not provide a full picture. The figures track whether new full-time students at 1,521 public and private colleges and universities return for year two at the same institution. It doesn't include part-timers, transfers or students who come back later and graduate."

5. http://huff.to/aTXrb8 Huffpost - How to Survive and Have Fun on a College Tour With Your Kid This Fall

‎"But it wasn't the choice of restaurant that was making me so happy this particular Saturday night. It was that we'd survived a day of college touring in Boston without a meltdown, without stalking off a campus, without tears and with everyone still speaking -- and even more surprising, smiling.Anyone who has ever toured colleges with a high school student -- and I was on my third round that Boston weekend -- knows that's no small feat. I've driven four hours to have my son refuse to get out of the car because he didn't like the look of the campus; I've flown halfway across the country to have my daughter bail out before the tour because she didn't like the looks of the other prospective students ("too intense") and because the campus was "too flat." (What did she expect in Chicago anyway?). I've gotten the evil eye from a child when I've asked a question on a tour. (Parents are supposed to be seen and not heard in these situations, I quickly learned.)"

6. 8 Things You Didn't Know About Final Exams http://t.co/5dzYZZA

"At Harvard, for instance, students in a mere 259 of the university’s 1,137 undergraduate courses had to take final exams during the spring semester, according to the Boston Globe. Professors across the country have also been putting less emphasis on finals. At the University of Arizona, about a third of the professors have reduced the value of final exams in students’

grades. Here are seven more things you probably didn’t know about final exams. . . ."

7. In Higher Education, a Focus on Technology: Gates and Hewlett Foundations Focus on Online Learning - http://nyti.ms/aXGT1k

"An initial $20 million round of money, from the Gates Foundation, will be for postsecondary online courses, particularly ones tailored for community colleges and low-income young people.

Another round of grants, for high school programs, is scheduled for next year.

Just how effective technology can be in improving education — by making students more effective, more engaged learners — is a subject of debate. To date, education research shows that good teachers matter a lot, class size may be less important than once thought and nothing improves student performance as much as one-on-one human tutoring."