337. 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. Advanced Placement Classes for All, and $100 for a Passing Score: http://nyti.ms/nFzeVJ -"As Mr. Dillon reports, beyond its inclusive spirit, the program delivers financial incentives. Each student who scores a 3 out of 5 or above on the A.P. exam earns $100, as does his or her course instructor. A participating school in Worcester, Mass., has seen its student enrollment swell to eight times its former size in just two years, with 70 percent of students scoring high enough to earn college credit."

2. Classes and Scores Soar With Incentives for A.P. Tests, by Sam Dillon: http://nyti.ms/oo6Y07 - "South High students said Mr. Nystrom and his colleagues had transformed the culture of a tough urban school, making it cool for boys with low-slung jeans who idolize rappers like Lil Wayne to take the hardest classes."

3. Helping Rural Students Leap Cultural Hurdles to College, by Diette Courrégé - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/05/06rural.h31.html via @educationweek - "The lack of parental and community support is one of the reasons educators say rural students have been among the least likely to go to college. Rural areas have a 27 percent college-enrollment rate for 18- to 24-year-olds, according to a 2007 report from the National Center for Education Statistics, its most recent, compared with the national average of 34 percent and that of cities and suburban areas of 37 percent."

4. Pilot Aims to Ready High Schoolers for Community College in 2 Years, by Catherine Gewertz - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/03/07highschool.h31.html via @educationweek - "Twenty-one high schools in four states are working this fall to restructure their academic programs into “lower division” and “upper division” courses that are aimed at readying all students for community college by the end of their sophomore year. Students who pass a series of exams, at that point, could leave high school and enroll—without remedial courses—in a two-year college, or stay in high school to take additional technical coursework, or pursue studies that prepare them for a university."

5. College Flash Mobs Become Pep Rallies Made for YouTube, by Tamar Lewin - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/education/04flash.html?hpw - “It’s something students will talk about, and it can help colleges brand and market themselves. It’s a way to hook students, and build community and pride in place. It gets new students superconnected, right from the start, which is one of the goals of orientation. For students, I think part of the appeal is that it goes on YouTube, and you get to watch yourself, which is a kind of self-promotion this generation likes.”

6. For Women on Campuses, Access Doesn't Equal Success, by MaryAnn Baenninger -http://chronicle.com/article/For-Women-on-Campuses-Access/129242/ - "Women underestimate their abilities and express lower levels of self-confidence than their abilities suggest. Men overestimate their abilities and express higher levels of confidence than their abilities warrant. This difference arrives with them as first-year students and leaves with them as seniors. When I talk about this, or I hear researchers describe this finding, the audience always chuckles (boys will be boys, after all)."

7. Best Colleges For Undergraduate Teaching: US News List - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/01/best-colleges-for-undergrad-teach-us-news_n_990172.html - "US News and World Report recently named the best colleges for undergraduate teaching. Ivy Leagues Darthmouth and Princeton tied for the top spot with Ohio's Miami University rounding out third place. Check out our slide show of the best colleges for undergraduate teaching. Then tell us, who was your favorite professor? Weigh in below!"

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

324. College Access and Success News

Here are links to recent news on college access and success.

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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