369. College Access and Success News

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

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories on college access and success via @rottenbornj ▸ http://paper.li/rottenbornj

2. Special report on Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, Penn State scandal, by L. Jon Wertheim and David Epstein - http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/magazine/11/16/penn.st/index.html - "What they could not possibly have known was that their accounts would help set in motion the most explosive scandal in the history of college sports, one that would make a mockery of the recent drumbeat of NCAA outrages."

3. Penn State case brings other victims forward, by Marisol Bello – http://usat.ly/rYcawT via USATODAY - "It's a collective empowerment for victims," says Jeff Herman, a Miami attorney who specializes in sexual abuse cases. "Many feel isolated and alone. Then they see all this press and all of a sudden, they see victims standing up and taking on institutions."

4. College coaches cash in, by Erik Brady, Jodi Upton and Steve Berkowitz – http://usat.ly/sh5KGr via USATODAY - "Critics find it troubling that this rapid rise for coaches comes at a time when instructional spending at many schools has slowed or declined amid economic struggles and shrinking state education budgets. "Athletics has gotten so disproportionate to the rest of the economy, and to the academic community, that it is unbelievable," says Julian Spallholz, a professor in the department of food and nutrition at Texas Tech, where coach Tommy Tuberville got a $550,000 raise. "This kind of disproportion in the country is why people are occupying Wall Street."

5. Engineering Majors Most Likely to Burn the Midnight Oil, by Rebecca R. Ruiz: http://nyti.ms/rpr1PY - "The average college student, the researchers reported, studied for 15 hours each week. Engineering students fell on the higher end of the spectrum — devoting roughly 19 hours to class preparation — while students with majors in business and social sciences were on the lower end, spending about 14 hours preparing for class. (Meanwhile, the survey found, students of business were more likely to hold a job during the school year.)"

6. Part 4: Answers to Your Questions on Scholarships and Student Loans, by Mark Kantrowitz: http://nyti.ms/tTizgO - "The odds of winning a scholarship, however, are pretty slim. The majority of students, regardless of their race, will not win private scholarships. Even in STEM fields the odds of winning a scholarship are about 1 in 6. Both white and minority students find it difficult to win private scholarships because there are relatively few scholarships. Race has little to do with it, though white students enjoy a statistical advantage over minority students. As documented in a recent student aid policy analysis paper, “The Distribution of Grants and Scholarships by Race,” white students are 40 percent more likely to win private scholarships than minority students."

7. The Early Line on Early Applications for the Class of 2016, by JACQUES STEINBERG and REBECCA R. RUIZ: http://nyti.ms/sC1Nc0 - "The window for applying to many colleges and universities under early admission programs closed late Tuesday night. While it will be some time before a definitive statistical portrait emerges of this early admissions season, The Choice has been dutifully requesting application figures from a range of more than 100 institutions. The chart above, which we’ll be updating regularly as other figures trickle in, represents the equivalent of early returns in an election, with results from two dozen “precincts.”

8. NSSE 2011 measures student engagement by major, by Allie Grasgreen Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/uiKnGX via AddThis - "For example, McCormick said, first-generation students likely haven’t had as much informal consulting or guidance as their peers whose parents went to college. That might be why this year's NSSE survey shows they went beyond the typical student in terms of learning strategies -- while they spent significantly less time preparing for class, they were more likely than their peers to use a variety of strategies, especially the less common ones such as reviewing notes after class and creating their own examples to help them study."

9. Parental Interactions and Child Development, by Daniel Messinger Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/ufQDl1 via AddThis - LISTEN TO THIS!

10. Consumer Protection Bureau Survey on Private Loans Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/vNPZU5 via AddThis - "The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking comments on private student loans from students, families, colleges and loan providers to prepare a report for Congress on private student lending. In a notice published in today's Federal Register, the bureau said it was seeking information on how students use private loans, what types of comparison shopping tools are available, what best practices are for financial aid offices who counsel private borrowers, and other topics related to the private lending industry."

11. 25 college majors with the highest unemployment ratesby Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57325132/25-college-majors-with-the-highest-unemployment-rates/?tag=mncol;lst;9 - "Five of the college majors with the worst job prospects on this list are related to psychology. Ironically, psychology is the fifth most popular college degree."

12. 25 college majors with lowest unemployment rates, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57324669/25-college-majors-with-lowest-unemployment-rates/?tag=contentMain;contentBody - "The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce used U.S. Census Bureau statistics to tease out the unemployment rates for 173 college majors. I looked at the 100 most popular college majors and pulled out the 25 majors with the lowest unemployment."

13. College Bound: Demand for Jobs That Require High School Diploma Declines, by Caralee Adams - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/college_bound/2011/11/glimpse_at_where_students_are_applying_early_admission.html via @educationweek - "For all the talk of the value of a college degree, there are decent jobs for those with just a high school diploma. The problem is there are not enough of those jobs to go around, according to a report released yesterday by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. . . . It found that 37 percent of all jobs in 2018 will be for workers who have either some high school education, a high school diploma, or on-the-job training. This number is down from 72 percent in 1973, 44 percent in 1992, and 41 percent in 2007. In other words, the demand for postsecondary education will increase from 59 percent to 63 percent in the next seven years."

14. Rising College Costs Are Due Largely to Books, Room, and Board, Study Finds -http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/rising-college-costs-are-due-largely-to-books-room-and-board-study-finds/38109 - "The average amount that students paid, after subtracting savings from scholarships and grants, increased by nearly $3,000, while net tuition prices grew by only about $1,000 over roughly the same period. The overall cost to attend a two-year college also grew, by $1,333, despite the fall of net tuition prices by $849."

15. Hey, it's time to Occupy Education, says @arotherham - http://ti.me/tr1PO5 via @TIMEIdeas - "What do I mean by educational inequality? We’re all familiar with achievement gaps between white kids and minorities. But here’s the income-based gap: just 8% of low-income students get a college-degree by the time they are 24 while three-quarters of affluent students do."

271. 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. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories via @rottenbornj ▸ http://t.co/UftEiOc

2. My degree isn't worth the debt! http://t.co/txvYdC0 via @CNNMoney - "We talked to seven people overloaded with student loans. Here is Erik's story. (Click through the rest of the gallery for other profiles.) --The Editors"

3. No time to abandon black colleges, by Walter M. Kimbrough - http://usat.ly/jA8JFn via @USATODAY - "Since the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board ruling and the mass acceptance of African-American students, the percentage of blacks attending HBCUs has dropped markedly. Before Brown, more than 90% of African Americans of college age attended an HBCU. Today, it's 12%."

4. High schoolers join YSU Summer Honors Institute, by Virginia Shank - http://www.tribtoday.com/page/content.detail/id/558466/High-schoolers-join-YSU-Summer-Honors-Institute.html?nav=5021 - "Each year students attend classes, which are taught by YSU faculty, that span several disciplines including business, engineering, science, social sciences and the arts.To participate, students must be identified as gifted and talented and must have completed either 10th or 11th grade by the start of the program. This year, the $35 fee for each participant covered the cost of student lunches."

5. Slow Growing, by Kevin Kiley - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/l5HJoe - "Published tuition and fees at private colleges and universities will be an average of 4.6 percent higher this fall than last, according to a survey of 429 institutions by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. This marks the third consecutive year of hikes of about 4.5 percent. While that rate still outpaces the consumer price index, a key measure of inflation, it represents a drop-off from the 10 years leading up to the recession, when tuition rose by a national average of 6 percent."

6. Students With Disabilities at Degree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions - http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011018.pdf - "Institutions reported enrolling approximately 707,000 students with disabilities in the 12-month 2008–09 academic year, with about half of these students reported enrolled in public 2-year institutions (table 2). While the reported number of students with disabilities is overestimated due to duplicated student counts, this estimate largely reflects unduplicated counts of students with disabilities; most institutions (94 percent) provided an unduplicated count of the total number of students with disabilities at their institution."

7. Get Into These 39 Top Colleges With Bad SAT or ACT Scores, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/7Hpe4Zh via @cbsmoneywatch - "Where can you find these schools? The best source is the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), which maintains a list of hundreds of colleges and universities with test-optional policies.To make your job easier, I’ve provided lists of the top nationally ranked schools in the liberal arts college and university categories that are test optional. Here they are:"

8. Private College Costs Rising 4.6 Percent, by Tamar Lewin - http://nyti.ms/jOL2FG - "The colleges’ average financial aid will increase by 7 percent. Last year, institutional aid increased by 6.9 percent and the previous year, 9 percent. In 2010-11, the published tuition and fees at private colleges and universities averaged $27,293."

9. Leaders of Historically Black Colleges See Key Role for Their Institutions in Obama's 2020 Goal, by Rachel Wiseman - http://chronicle.com/article/Leaders-of-Historically-Black/128022/ - "Seventeen percent of African-American students at a four-year institution attend a historically black institution, and those students are four times more likely to graduate than African-American students attending other institutions. HBCU's have been leaders in postsecondary education of underserved populations, but the panelists acknowledged that they must continue to aggressively pursue degree-completion goals."

10. When College Grads Move Home: Six Ways to Get Them Off the Couch, by Kayla Webley - http://t.co/yBGS99m via @TIMEMoneyland - "Things are not looking so good for this year’s college graduates. Unemployment among those under 25 is at a record-high, they have more debt than any graduating class in history, and starting salaries are plummeting. That’s right, mom and dad, according to a Department of Labor poll, some 85% of the class of 2011 will be moving back home at some point in their lives."

11. Achievement gap for Hispanic students hasn't narrowed in 20 years, by Stacy Teicher Khadaroo - http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0623/Achievement-gap-for-Hispanic-students-hasn-t-narrowed-in-20-years - "Since the early 1990s, “there’s been overall growth in reading and math for both whites and Hispanics,... but the gap really hasn’t closed,” says Jack Buckley, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees NAEP."

12. Persistent achievement gap vexes education reformers: Six takeaways, by Amanda Paulson - http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/1214/Persistent-achievement-gap-vexes-education-reformers-Six-takeaways/Progress-on-achievement-gaps-sluggish - "No education issue has received more attention in recent years – but with less apparent progress – than the achievement gaps for minority and low-income students. The Center on Education Policy released a study Tuesday that looks at trends in all 50 states. Despite a few bright spots, the picture is bleak. Here are a few of the study’s major findings:"

147. 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. Study: Graduation rates between blacks, whites widening - http://usat.ly/g32Jxk RT @USATODAY

"The graduation success rate for black players went from 58% to 60% this year among the 70 bowl teams. But for white players, the graduation rates increased from 77% last year to 80% this year."

2. Colleges take another look at merit-based aid, by Mary Beth Marklein - http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-03-14-merit-aid_N.htm?csp=hf

‎"For small regional colleges that struggle just to fill seats, merit aid can be an important revenue-builder because many recipients still pay enough tuition dollars over and above the scholarship amount to keep the institution running. But for rankings-conscious schools in between, merit aid has served primarily as a tool to recruit top students and to improve their academic profiles. "They're trying to buy students," says Skidmore College economist Sandy Baum."

3. Somehow, the Age on My Driver's License Says It's Time for College, by Jessica Ray - http://nyti.ms/f10e22

‎"For me, the most difficult part of this process is the brutal variation in its tempo. One moment, I’m frenetically writing, rereading, editing, and coercing my friends into checking my applications, and the next, I find myself contemplating a five-month gap with no action and, worse, no news whatsoever."

4. Thinking of College as a Tattoo, a Decision Not Easily Erased, by Sophia Gimenez - http://nyti.ms/eVyxNx

"Choosing a college is like choosing a tattoo. As with body art, you want an institution that is authentically you and, at the same time, one that allows you to flaunt all of your best attributes to the world. When searching for a tattoo (or a college) you must, if necessary, exhaust yourself looking for the perfect fit because a flop now is a flop forever — with regret etched everlastingly onto your skin."

5. Cherry Creek High: Six Seniors Blog Their College Quest, by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/ijqPkG

‎"There, I have asked six seniors at Cherry Creek High, an idyllic-sounding public school in the small suburb of Greenwood Village, to write an occasional series of first-person essays for this blog about their college application process."

6. The Certificate Solution, by Scott Jaschik - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/feMdkS

"The report, issued by Complete College America and prepared by FutureWorks, argues that it may be more viable for many Americans with limited time to earn a certificate than to earn a college degree. And the report notes that while those who take some courses toward a degree but do not finish are unlikely to gain much economically from their efforts, there is substantial evidence that certificates do advance people economically."

7. The Completion Shortfall Complete College America - http://t.co/ybOFn0S

‎"To name only a few of the many reasons: inadequate academic preparation, poorly designed and delivered remediation, broken credit transfer policies, confusing financial aid programs, a culture that rewards enrollment instead of completion, and a system too often out of touch with the needs of the today’s college student."

8. Graduation Rates Between Blacks, Whites Widening, by Antonio Gonzalez - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/06/grad-rates-between-blacks_n_792687.html

"The growing gap is and has been my biggest concern with graduations rates for some time," he said. "It's like in the economy if income for Latinos and African-American grows at 2 percent but increases 3 percent for whites. Yes, it's getting better. But it's still not great for everybody."

9. Unemployment Up Among College Graduates - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/06/unemployment-up-among-col_n_792399.html

"The jobless rate for Americans with at least a bachelor's degree rose to 5.1%, the highest since 1970 when records were first kept, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics. October's 4.7% rate was up from 4.4% in September. Meanwhile, the national unemployment rate last month rose to 9.8% from 9.6%."

10. Getting Ready for the FAFSA, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/z7n9MUO

"You can’t begin filling out the FAFSA application until Jan. 1, but there are some things you can do now to get a head start on the financial aid process."

11. Study: Most Students Fail to Meet Common-Standards Bar, by Catherine Gewertz - http://t.co/hugFRFg via @educationweek

"The resulting profile is one of a student body largely unprepared for the common standards. The problem was worse in mathematics than in English/language arts, and worse for racial and ethnic minority students than for their white peers."

12. More college students taking degree programs online, by Kara Spak - Chicago Sun-Times: http://bit.ly/dOtcjB

‎"Nearly 30 percent of all higher education students take at least one class online. More than 60 percent of chief academic officers said that online education was critical to their long-term strategy, according to a Sloan Consortium report, "Class Differences, Online Education in the United States, 2010." In autumn 2002, 1.6 million students were taking an online class. That number jumped to nearly 4 million in fall 2007, the group reported.
And in the past two years, the dismal economy pushed even more students into online classes. Universities responded to meet the demand.
More than 5.6 million students were taking at least one online class in 2009, an increase of nearly 1 million students from 2008, the report said."

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116. 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. Average College Debt Rose 6 Percent to $24,000 in 2009, by Jacques Steinberg - http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/debt-3/

"Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, the research and advocacy group that operates the debt project, provided a piece of advice worth passing on to readers of The Choice: “If you’re going to borrow, you should take out federal loans first, because federal student loans come with far more repayment options and borrower protections than other types of loans.”

2. So Far, So Good - Inside Higher Ed http://t.co/Yc68u2C

"Three and a half months after legislation took effect that ended the origination of student loans by banks, and several weeks into the first fall semester of the New World Order in student lending, even many who opposed what they saw as the Obama administration's heavy-handed push to kill the lender-based guaranteed student loan program acknowledge that the transition has gone smoothly. "They've done a good job," says John Dean, the longtime counsel to the Consumer Bankers Association, which fought the Obama proposal. "I'm not aware of a single student whose educational plan was disrupted because of the transition.... [Department officials] should be proud of what they did."

3. Recent US College Grad's Face Job Problems, by Andrew Sum - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-sum/the-labor-market-problems_b_768617.html

"Young college educated workers, particularly those 25 and under, however, have not fared very well over the past three years. They have experienced rising joblessness, underemployment, and malemployment problems (i.e., working in jobs that do not require a college degree). During the January-August period of 2010, we estimate that fewer than 50 of every 100 young B.A.-holders held a job requiring a college degree. The labor market difficulties of many young bachelor degree holders in the U.S. can best be seen in the types of jobs in which they were employed in the first eight months of the current calendar year. Of the 20 individual occupations employing the largest number of young, college graduates (25 and under), seven typically did not require any type of college degree to be employed. There were 175,000 young college graduates working as cashiers, retail clerks, and customer service representatives versus only 146,000 employed in all computer professional professions. . . ."

4. School Counselors Stretched at a Time When Needed Most, by Caralee Adams - http://t.co/rrX5uoM

‎"Although the American School Counselor Association recommends a 250-to-1 ratio of students to school counselors, the national average is actually 457 (2008-09 school year). Click here to see how the individual states stacks up. The reason for the gap in the association's recommendations and reality? A combination of financially strapped schools and lack of mandates for counselors, says Jill Cook, assistant director at ASCA . "They are not as a big of a priority," she says. "When the budget gets tight, that's where the cuts are made. "Proper staffing is even more important today as the job of the school counselor has expanded to serve all students, says Cook. Rather just helping those with discipline problems or those headed to college, as was the case 20 years ago, counselors today are expected to work with all students on academic, career, and social issues. The options are now more varied, too, helping students with the transition to community college, four-year institutions, or work...."

5. It Pays to Comparison Shop When It Comes to College, by Caralee Adams - http://t.co/IucUMst

"The takeaway for K-12: Guidance counselors should be aware of the variation in success rates at schools to help students make the best choices, says Schneider. "Students should be sent to schools with high graduation rates," he adds. "It really, truly matters. "In this research, two findings stand out. Attending a more selective school increases the student's payoff by an average of 6 percent to 11 percent. Among the public institutions, there was no big difference among those at the lowest level of selectivity. Second, public institutions have a consistent advantage over private not-for-profits at every level of selectivity. Any wage boost that students get from private colleges, on average, isn't enough to overcome the high cost of getting that degree, Schneider found. The findings are based on averages, and there was wide variation among schools at the same level."

6. Athletic fees are a large, and sometimes hidden, cost at colleges, by Daniel de Vise - http://t.co/p77a7JJ

"University leaders say that without the fee, they wouldn't be able to offer high-quality intercollegiate athletic programs. Schools with fewer students and deep-pocket donors have to charge correspondingly larger fees. "I have 4,800 students. If I raise [the fee] by one dollar, I get $4,800," said Kathy Worster, vice president for administration and finance at Longwood. School officials say they don't list individual fees on their Web sites out of concern for burying parents in minutiae. The schools generally report prices as a comprehensive fee - a single figure that represents everything a student should expect to pay. "What we're saying is, this is our total cost for our total experience," Worster said. Critics say parents might be surprised at how much of that cost goes toward athletics."

7. The Myth of the R.O.T.C. Ban, by Diane H. Mazur - http://nyti.ms/9c5yqf

"The answer is that in all my research on the subject, I have found no universities that ban R.O.T.C., nor has the military initiated action against any institution for banning the program. We have grown accustomed to saying there are bans only because it fits with the assumption that certain colleges are unfriendly to the military. It is true that many Ivy League colleges do not have R.O.T.C. detachments today. Forty years ago, the military started to close detachments in the Northeast and establish programs in the West and South."

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109. 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. Boomerang kids: 85% of college grads move home http://t.co/r4s0RRz

‎"Stubbornly high unemployment -- nearly 15% for those ages 20-24 -- has made finding a job nearly impossible. And without a job, there's nowhere for these young adults to go but back to their old bedrooms, curfews and chore charts. Meet the boomerangers. "This recession has hit young adults particularly hard," according to Rich Morin, senior editor at the Pew Research Center in DC. So hard that a whopping 85% of college seniors planned to move back home with their parents after graduation last May, according to a poll by Twentysomething Inc., a marketing and research firm based in Philadelphia. That rate has steadily risen from 67% in 2006."

2. Trade schools flunk key test: Helping students http://t.co/Ubp9Kq3

‎"The default rate at for-profit schools is the highest, compared to other types of schools. It climbed to 11.6% in 2009, from 11% the year before, according to a study released Monday by the U.S. Department of Education. The rate is higher than the 6% for public schools and the 4% rate for private institutions.Tuition at for-profit schools runs significantly higher compared to public institutions, according to the Department of Education. The department said the average cost for a degree of less than two years is $11,480 at a for-profit compared to $2,451 at a public school. For programs longer than two years, the for-profit schools charge $12,026 compared to $7,077 for a four-year degree at a public school."

3. Is What’s Ailing For-Profit Colleges Evident Throughout Higher Education? - http://nyti.ms/ccVSsN

"First, Mr. Bousquet acknowledges the fundamental shortcomings of some for-profit universities: They fail to graduate students and the students they graduate are often un-, under- and mis-educated. The students go into debt to pay outrageous tuition for the attention of underqualified faculty, and then fail to find the employment for which they were putatively prepared. And from all of this underregulated misery and failure, the shareholders are racking up massive capital accumulation. He then goes on to make a similar argument about many of the nation’s nonprofit colleges and universities. “The problem is that the for-profits did not invent any of this,” he writes. “All of these tactics – what I’ve called the tuition gold rush – were pioneered by the nonprofit sector.”

4. The 10 Hardest Law Schools To Get Into http://huff.to/aJz7ac Huffpost

"If you're not into those in the Toughest 10, check out the Review's other law school rankings lists, including Best Career Prospects, Best Professors and more. What are your thoughts on these schools? Weigh in below."

5. Obama Highlights Benefits Of College Tax Credit http://huff.to/bUprxd Huffpost

‎"Obama earlier this year asked Congress to make the American Opportunity Tax Credit permanent. The request was part of the budget plan Obama sent to Capitol Hill, but lawmakers took no action on it.Obama said Wednesday that this new tax credit – it was part of the $814 billion economic stimulus bill he signed shortly after taking office in 2009 – would help middle-class families afford to invest in their children's future. "I am calling on Congress to make this tax credit permanent so it's worth up to $10,000 for four years of college because we've got to make sure that in good times or bad, our families can invest in their children's future and in the future of our country," Obama said in the White House Rose Garden."

6. Why America’s Most Expensive Colleges Could Hurt Your Wallet http://t.co/ThohFEj

"But here is what I do get angry about: It’s not possible for Sarah Lawrence to routinely raise its prices in a vacuum. College students who live hundreds or thousands of miles away could get hurt by the price increases at this liberal arts paradise in Bronxville, NY.Why? Because the higher-ed world is full of copy cats. When Sarah Lawrence, Bard College, Trinity College, Bates College and Ivy League institutions that rank among the most expensive schools raise their prices it causes reverberations among thousands of other schools. Schools lower on the academic pecking order judge themselves by what the country’s most prestigious and expensive schools are doing. If the elites continue to construct amazing facilities, shrink class sizes and maybe even offer maid service, the wannabes won’t want to be left behind. The wannabes know they can’t catch up to the college superstars, but they are terrified of losing ground. So they will raise their prices too."

7. Net Colleges & States Vie re: Quality http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/online-colleges-and-states-at-odds-over-quality-standards/27586

"But state officials said they are still concerned that self-imposed standards are not good enough and that online programs are not consistent in providing students with high-quality education. Echoing federal government concerns about the quality of online institutions (reflected in the “gainful employment” rule debated by the U.S. Department of Education earlier this year), a panel of education officials from four states and the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education—which represents 15 states—said it was their responsibility to ensure that all students of online colleges received a good education, and they are skeptical that the institutions consistently deliver."

108. MVCAP fyi

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

1. White House pushes to extend college tuition credit http://t.co/0sAHzmk

"The tax break, introduced under the government's 2009 Recovery Act and applicable to 2009 or 2010 college tuition, expands the existing Hope Credit to include more lower- and higher-income Americans. Unlike the Hope Credit, the AOTC is also partially refundable and covers more of the expenses associated with sending a child to college, like textbooks and computers. It is available for the first four years of post-secondary education, up from two years under the Hope Credit. More money is also doled out to students and parents under the AOTC. Students with incomes of $80,000 or less qualify for a credit of up to $2,500 a year, an increase of $700 from the previous Hope Credit. If the tax break is made permanent, a student would be able to receive a credit of up to $10,000 over four years."

2. Your Comments on Admissions Essays - http://nyti.ms/d6gPHB

"Several of you wondered whether admissions officers can tell if an essay has been largely written by an adult (presumably a parent or independent consultant), or, at the least, extensively revised in a pass through a grown-up’s computer. I would suggest, having read dozens of essays alongside some admissions officers and interviewed many others, that they can often distinguish the voice of a young person from that of someone who, say, has put a few more miles on the odometer. Some admissions have read upwards of 1,000 essays a year over the course of several decades; they’re critical readers, and, as a gut-check, they might try to compare the writing sample in front of them to everything else they know about the applicant, such as his or her grades in English or what the student’s teachers say. Is it possible to put one over on them? Of course, but is that any way to start a college education?"

3. Higher Power - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/a8pUGo

"Under a typical arrangement with Higher One, a university will require students to go through the company as the processor of financial aid disbursements that go directly to students for expenses -- even if a student ultimately decides to have the company place the money in an account with another bank. In practice, however, most students end up sticking with Higher One. In 2009, for instance, 76 percent of the students at participating colleges chose to bank with the company for financial aid, rather than choosing another bank, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Washington Post called attention to Higher One in a recent article, outlining student disenchantment about banking fees, including a 50-cent charge for using the debit card as, well, a debit card. Customers can avoid that fee by running the card as a credit card during purchases, and the company boasts on its website that “over half” of account holders get stung with the fee only once."

4. Where For-Profit and Nonprofit Meet - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/9P7qk8

‎"Earlier this year, the Princeton Review signed a deal with Bristol Community College, in Fall River, to offer accelerated health science degree programs to students willing to pay a higher tuition. These programs are offered in hybrid fashion, combining online coursework with in-person lab time. They are taught by Bristol faculty members but delivered by the Princeton Review, which pays for the expensive lab equipment and new teaching facilities. Otherwise, the only difference between these and traditional health science programs at Bristol is that the Princeton Review-sponsored programs can be completed in about half the time, but only if students fork over $100 more per credit hour -- $246 instead of $146. This tuition differential is then given to the Princeton Review."

5. Online Colleges as a Policy Bloc? - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/ccAB9E

‎"The dominant concern coming from the leaders of online programs at the seventh meeting of the Presidents’ Forum -- a group of institutions that serve adult students primarily online -- was proving they offer quality and value as the U.S. Department of Education and Congress begin roundabout efforts to measure those things. “We need to again use better data to make our case … to tell our story in credible ways,” said Margaret Spellings, who served as secretary of education during George W. Bush’s second term. She is now senior adviser to the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and consults for Education Management Corporation. “We’re seen as wild-eyed, often profit-making, the wild west of higher education, and often don’t get credit for what we do.”

6. The Best College Football Towns (PHOTOS) http://huff.to/cq1xUW Huffpost

"With some help from AP Top 25 voters, the 12 best college football towns:"

7. Confessions of an agent - http://bit.ly/bkJD1Y

"­Between 1990 and '96 I'd estimate that I paid more than 30 players. Joel Steed of Colorado; Rob Waldrop, the Outland Trophy winner from Arizona; and Travis Claridge of USC all took my money but signed with someone else, as did many others. When I called those players and asked them why they didn't sign with me, they always had the same line: "Sorry, I gotta do what is best for me and my family. "One of the misconceptions about the agent business is that the kids are victims, preyed on by people like me. When Alabama coach Nick Saban and others rail against the agent business, they don't mention that most of the time the player or someone from his family approaches us. Guys see that one of their teammates has some cash, ask him about it, and suddenly my phone rings. It was rare to find a player who wouldn't take the money. I put $10,000 cash in front of Kansas's Dana Stubblefield, and he wouldn't take it. I tried to pay UCLA's J.J. Stokes and USC's Keyshawn Johnson, and they said, "No...."

8. Student Loan Debt Traps Grads in Dead-End Jobs http://www.nsfreepress.com/story/student-loan-debt-traps-grads-dead-end-jobs

“I don’t know what I expected,” said Lang grad Garret Hurley, who received his B.A. in digital media last December but now, almost a year later, still waits tables. And he may be lucky. A new study by the Economic Policy Institute shows the unemployment rate for recent college graduates up from 5.4 percent in 2007 to 9 percent in 2009. Worse, according to the EPI, these statistics “do not indicate whether they are employed in a job that matches their skill level.” They estimate that grads working outside their field will earn 30-35 percent less. According to Yale economist Lisa Khan, this is a big problem. Those who compromise early can’t shift into better jobs after the economy picks up. Her data suggest that a higher unemployment rate at graduation means lower income immediately after graduation and long afterward. Each 1 percent rise in unemployment will cost students 6-7 percent of their income the first year, and 2.5 percent fifteen years out."

9. The World Changed, Colleges Missed It http://huff.to/bcbuvr Huffpost

‎"Art Levine, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, sees three major change forces: new competition, a convergence of knowledge producers, and changing demographics. The explosion of online learning from new and existing providers is changing the landscape of higher education. More broadly, everybody is getting into the learning business and providing some kind of instruction: YouTube, iTunes U, the neighborhood library, and closet hackers like Kahn Academy. To make the landscape even more confusing, Levine points out that less than a fifth of higher ed students are traditional -- young adults that went straight to college from high school. The new majority in higher ed are working adults and they view college as just another part of their life. They want a relationship with college like the one with the bank or the electric company -- convenient, service on demand, quality support, and cheap."

10. Will Picture Books Hurt Your Child's Chances for Harvard? http://t.co/Mz2ASmj

‎"Parents worry that if their children aren’t early readers, they will be far behind other kids when they begin kindergarten. And falling behind in grade school could mean they will some day get rejected by their top college choices.A recent front-page story in The New York Times chronicled this irrational trend. It’s stunning to me that parents of young children believe that ditching wonderful picture books like The Hungry Little Caterpillar and Curious George will give their kids an edge in school. My two kids, who are now in college, loved picture books like Good Night Moon, The Ugly Duckling, The Little Engine That Could and a slew of enchanting books by such authors as William Steig, Jan Brett and Eric Carle. Some of my fondest moments as a mom of young children came when I was sharing picture books with my children. I can’t imagine a better way to fuel a preschooler’s imagination than exploring a picture book."

11. In Harlem Children’s Zone Schools Have Their Own Problems - http://nyti.ms/cIfsUF

"The parent organization of the schools, the Harlem Children’s Zone, enjoys substantial largess, much of it from Wall Street. While its cradle-to-college approach, which seeks to break the cycle of poverty for all 10,000 children in a 97-block zone of Harlem, may be breathtaking in scope, the jury is still out on its overall impact. And its cost — around $16,000 per student in the classroom each year, as well as thousands of dollars in out-of-class spending — has raised questions about its utility as a nationwide model.
Mr. Canada, 58, who began putting his ideas into practice on a single block, on West 119th Street, in the mid-1990s, does not apologize for the cost of his model, saying his goals are wider than just fixing a school or two. His hope is to prove that if money is spent in a concentrated way to give poor children the things middle-class children take for granted — like high-quality schooling, a safe neighborhood, parents who read to them, and good medical care — they will not pass on the patterns of poverty to another generation."