300. Summer College News

Here are some links to today's stories
about college access and success.
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Column: Obama should tout fight for minority education, by DeWayne Wickham - http://t.co/8rdfOkq via @USATODAY - "We have launched more investigations than ever before. Much broader, bigger investigations" into whether school officials are unfairly disciplining black kids and shoving them "into the cradle-to-prison pipeline instead of the cradle-to-career pipeline," she told me."

2. Freedom at a Price, by Kevin Kiley - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/pE8Ljj via @AddThis - "While details of the Ohio plan will not be final until Thursday's presentation, a draft of the plan released July 18 calls for immediately freeing all universities from certain regulatory restrictions, such as state health and safety codes, and eliminating enrollment caps. The draft also calls for giving the universities complete control of the management of their employees and exempting them from the purview of the state personnel board of review.
The universities would then be measured annually on a set of metrics that include student outcomes, such as graduation and retention rates; degree production in science, technology, engineering, and math fields; and the percentage of students participating in internship programs, as well as financial measures such as endowment size, affordability measured as a percentage of the consumer price index, and the unallocated cash balance as a percentage of total operating expenses."

3. Value of the Liberal Arts, by Katharine Brooks - http://t.co/iitPEnE - "In today’s Academic Minute, Katharine Brooks of the University of Texas at Austin answers “the question” faced by many college students."

4. Education Management Corporation Accused of Widespread Fraud, by Tamar Lewin: http://nyti.ms/qsJS2E - "The Department of Justice and four states on Monday filed a multibillion-dollar fraud suit against the Education Management Corporation, the nation’s second-largest for-profit college company, charging that it was not eligible for the $11 billion in state and federal financial aid it had received from July 2003 through June 2011.Education Management, which is based in Pittsburgh and is 41 percent owned by Goldman Sachs, enrolls about 150,000 students in 105 schools operating under four names: Art Institute, Argosy University, Brown Mackie College and South University. In a statement Monday, the company denied any wrongdoing."

5. Kaplan Revenue Down 29% in Second Quarter - http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/kaplan-revenue-down-29-in-second-quarter/35148 - "The decline comes at a time when federal agencies and state legislators are more strictly regulating recruitment practices at for-profit colleges, and are increasingly holding them accountable for their graduates’ ability to find employment and repay their loans. As a result of those restrictions, as well as what the company calls “generally lower demand,” new enrollments dropped 47 percent from the second quarter last year."

6. Nonprofit Group Says CA Latinos Crucial to National Degree-Attainment Goals, by Molly Redden - http://chronicle.com/article/Nonprofit-Group-Says/128558/ - "Unless California is able to increase the number of its Latinos with college degrees, the United States will fall short of having the world's highest proportion of college graduates by 2020, according to the advocacy group Excelencia in Education. . . . Excelencia found that while first-time, full-time white college students complete degrees at a rate of about 47 percent, the same group of Latino students attain credentials at a rate of only about 35 percent."

7. #College101: Freshman year bucket list, by Jenna Johnson - Campus Overload - http://t.co/v7UEBbH via @washingtonpost - "Last week I shared a list of tips for surviving freshman year and asked you to share your tips for incoming freshmen . . . . The response was overwhelming. I combed through hundreds of tips and edited them into this 50-item “bucket list.” I suggest that you print it out, tape it to the back of your closet door and cross things off as you do them."

8. Top 10 Most Athletic Colleges - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/09/top-10-most-athletic-coll_n_921913.html#s325405&title=1_Stanford_Cardinals6615 - "Our friends at CampusSplash crunched the numbers to figure out the 25 most athletic colleges in the United States. They looked at everything from number of sports, to number of titles, program revenue and more. Below check out a slideshow of the top 10 schools . . . ."

159. 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. Common Application Users Find Glitch In Common, Too, by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/hrIqxS

"When he would follow the program’s instructions to execute a “print preview” of his answers — which would show him the actual version that an admissions officer would see, as opposed to the raw work-in-progress on his screen — his responses were invariably cut off at the margin, in midsentence or even midword."

2. Showdown in the Offing - http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/12/23/top_republican_vows_legislation_to_stop_rules_on_for_profit_colleges

"One possible scenario has House Republicans putting forward 2011 budget legislation in early March that would cut the Pell Grant Program or slash Head Start or other Democratic priorities -- but would soften those stances in exchange for an amendment to the legislation that gutted gainful employment."

3. 46% Of Fed Loans To For-Profits Will Go Into Default - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/23/46-percent-default-rate-o_n_800283.html

‎"The staggering percentage of defaulted loans at proprietary institutions may garner support for federal efforts to regulate such colleges and provide a boost for the DoE's proposed "gainful employment" rule, which would screen for-profit institutions according to their students' ability to repay loans. Essentially, the rule would test the likelihood that students will graduate and then become gainfully employed."

4. For-Profit College Loan Fail, by Andy Kroll - http://t.co/NCkkTI5 via @motherjones

"The DoE's regulations would mandate that for-profit college graduates earn enough to repay their federal loans, or else the schools could lose access to federal loan funding. That would be a serious blow to much of the industry, which relies on such funds to survive. Most colleges receive 75 percent of more of their revenue in federal loan funding; at others, like the University of Phoenix's parent company, Apollo Group, federal dollars comprise upwards of 90 percent of the revenue. (The legal limit is exactly 90 percent.)"

5. At Kaplan U., 'Guerilla Registration' Leaves Students Deep in Debt, by Chris Kirkham - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/22/kaplan-university-guerilla-registration_n_799741.html?ir=College

"Far from an aberration, Castillo's experience typifies the results of a practice known informally inside Kaplan as "guerrilla registration": academic advisors have long enrolled students in classes they never take, without their consent and sometimes even after they have sought to withdraw from the university, in order to maximize the company's revenues, according to interviews with former employees."

6. Experts Begin to Identify Nonacademic Skills Key to Success, by Sarah D. Sparks - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/12/23/15aera.h30.html?tkn=TOOFSR%2B4810CTp1N9ef4pgxwBLgqJMYV0Ew0&cmp=clp-edweek&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EducationWeekAmericanEducationNewsTopStories+%28Education+Week%3A+Free+Daily+Stories%29 via @educationweek

"Across education and industry, research by Mr. Sackett; Neal Schmitt, a psychology professor at Michigan State University in East Lansing; and others shows the biggest predictor of success is a student’s conscientiousness, as measured by such traits as dependability, perseverance through tasks, and work ethic. Agreeableness, including teamwork, and emotional stability were the next-best predictors of college achievement, followed by variations on extroversion and openness to new experiences, Mr. Sackett found."

7. Last-Minute Budget Bill Spares Pell Grants - http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/last-minute-budget-bill-spares-pell-grant-program/29308

"But Republicans, who will control the House come January, are already signaling that they may not be so generous in the future. In a news release issued today, the incoming chairman of the House Appropriations Committee described the additional Pell money as a “bailout” for the program."

8. Top Colleges Reconsider R.O.T.C. After ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Vote, by Tamar Lewin and Anemona Hartocollis - http://nyti.ms/efkKY0

"The R.O.T.C., which has units on 327 campuses nationwide, was sent packing from several Ivy League and other prominent campuses in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in the firestorm of student protests against the Vietnam War. More recently, though, it has faced opposition because of discrimination against gay men and lesbians in the military."

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133. 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. Your Comments on ‘Clicking’ in Class, by Jacques Steinberg http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/clicking-comment/#more-25011

‎"We’ve received a range of responses from readers — particularly teachers and students — on the growing use of remote-control-style “clickers” in classrooms, particularly lecture halls but in smaller classrooms, too. Many of the nearly 100 comments we’ve posted contained strong opinions, but no perspective was dominant."

2. Community Colleges Push Back - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/axW9cy

"The primary difference between the two sectors, the brief says, is oversight. Whereas community colleges are governed by publicly elected or appointed boards of trustees, for-profit institutions are owned “either by individuals, partnerships, or collaboratives or are corporations that may be publicly traded.” Publicly traded for-profit institutions, the brief continues, “have grown in size and prominence and begun to dominate the sector.” For example, in the fall of 2008, 10 of the largest publicly traded institutions enrolled about half of all students in the for-profit sector.The two sectors also serve different populations in different ways. For instance, community colleges have long enrolled the largest number of students of any sector in higher education. In fall 2008, community colleges enrolled 44 percent of all undergraduates in higher education — about 7.3 million students.By comparison, enrollment at for-profit institutions is much lower, but has grown substantially. . . ."

3. Can Less Mean More In College Application Race? by Eric Gorski http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/16/college-admissions-2010_n_784485.html

"As acceptance rates go lower, families feel like they have to make it up with quantity," said Michael Acquilano, college counselor at Staten Island Academy, a private college prep school in New York. "They throw 15 applications out there and see what goes in. "The growth of the Common Application – which makes it possible to apply to more schools with a touch of a button – plus easy online applications and some colleges' aggressive marketing of free "fast apps" that arrive unsolicited in students' mailboxes are all contributing to the rise in applications.Colleges want to boast about how sought-after and selective they are – and possibly move up the U.S. News and World Report rankings that hold sway over so many families. Admissions officers that don't keep numbers up run the risk of unemployment and lower bond ratings for their schools.The result: 23 percent of high school seniors applied to six or more colleges last year, a huge jump from 13 percent in 2000 . . . ."

4. Kicking Unpopular College Majors to the Curb, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/s09UpZR

"We’re talking about a heap of languages such as Italian, Portuguese, Latin, French, and college majors like the Classics and Philosophy. I was reminded of this sad phenomenon this morning when I heard a National Public Radio segment on SUNY Albany, which has decided to axe some of its foreign language offerings."

5. California Court Backs Illegal Immigrant Students, by Ian Lovett http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/us/16immig.html?_r=1&hpw

“This law makes higher education affordable for so many students who have the added difficulty of not being eligible for federal financial aid,” said Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “If they are both ineligible for aid and then face higher tuition rates, it becomes virtually impossible for students to go on to higher education.”

6. Online Enrollment Increases at Highest Rate Ever http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/enrollment-in-online-courses-increases-at-the-highest-rate-ever/28204

"In fall 2009, colleges—including public, nonprofit private, and for-profit private institutions—reported that one million more students were enrolled in at least one Web-based course, bringing the total number of online students to 5.6 million. That unexpected increase—which topped the previous year’s 17-percent rise—may have been helped by higher demand for education in a rocky economy and an uptick in the number of colleges adopting online courses.Although the survey found sustained interest in online courses across all sectors, there was a spike in the number of for-profit institutions—a 20-percent increase over last year—that said online education is critical to their long-term strategies. However, more public colleges than private for-profits—74.9 percent versus 60.5 percent—say it’s part of their long-term plans."

7. Kaplan's CEO Faces Tough Questions From Public-University Leaders, by Paul Fain - http://chronicle.com/article/Kaplans-CEO-Faces-Tough/125405/

"He acknowledged problems had occurred at for-profits, saying he was "personally appalled and embarrassed" by a recent Government Accountability Office investigation that found deceptive recruiting practices on two Kaplan campuses, as well as at other for-profit institutions. Kaplan later suspended enrollments on those campuses. However, Mr. Rosen took issue with the Education Department's proposed "gainful employment" rule, which would cut off federal student aid to programs whose graduates have high debt-to-income ratios and low loan-repayment rates. Mr. Rosen said that the rule would unfairly penalize lower-income students, and that the current proposal had a 99-percent correlation between repayment rates and the percentage of Pell Grant-eligible students at an institution."

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

130. 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. Should free college be part of education? Plain Talk by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY Founder, RT @USATODAY - http://usat.ly/c4snA7

‎"Is it time to make tuition free in public colleges and universities? Of course. Here's why and how: Families are spending an average of $64 billion in tuition a year to send 13.9 million students to public colleges and universities. For the last 10 years, we have spent $1.1 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an average of more than a $110 billion annually. Get it: $64 billion annually for higher education; $110 billion annually for wars. In addition to that staggering money cost, those two wars have cost us 5,663 military lives. Many of those killed in the wars were college-age men and women.The war costs are paid for through some present taxes and mostly debts piled up for future generations.The college costs are paid for by parents and/or longtime debts for graduating students."

2. Internal Barriers to Online Expansion - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/bwj6k2

"The biggest factors holding back the expansion of online programs at the 183 responding colleges? Lack of instructors and support personnel (61 percent) and budget cuts (56 percent). In a presumably related pattern, 67 percent reported having growth plans fettered by “[s]tudent demand for online courses which exceeds capacity to provide these courses. ”In other words, the pace at which colleges expand their online arms now depends largely on internal politics and how much money administrators can wrangle from their depleted coffers. And if there is opposition, the call is likely to be coming from inside the house. Many institutions see online expansion as a good way to increase tuition revenue in light of reduced giving, shrunken endowments, and stingy statehouses."

3. 11 Colleges That Do Not Require SAT For Admission http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/11/11-colleges-that-do-not-r_n_782187.html#s179417

‎"Although initially introduced as a means of providing all applicants an equal shot at being accepted, some universities believe the SAT's democratic goals have gone awry. Students have to pay a fee to take it, and those who can afford to usually enroll in expensive prep courses or hire a private tutor. A number of researchers have concluded that a student's high school GPA is as good an indicator of performance in college as the SAT. Some institutions, like Wake Forest University, found that dropping the SAT requirement increased their student body's diversity -- the percentage of undergraduate minority students rose from 18 to 23 percent once Wake Forest joined the ranks of SAT-free schools. According to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, at least 775 American colleges and universities are now test optional. Below, check out eleven competitive institutions where most -- if not all -- standardized tests are not required for admission."

4. Want to Live the American Dream? You Might Have to Move to UK, by Jane White - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-white/want-to-live-the-american_b_782324.html

"Compare what the Brits are mad at with what we put up with -- in the U.S. the cost of college can top $50,000 at a private college and typically half that in a public school. This wasn't always the case. A generation ago, college costs were not only lower but federal grants accounted for 70 percent of the cost of a degree; now loans make up 64% of the cost. And our next Speaker of the House, John Boehner, made no bones about taking donations from the student loan industry when he was minority leader, the lenders that make college even MORE expensive, profiting from interest rates that we subsidize."

5. We Get It. College Is Great. But So Is Welding, by Michael N. Smith http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-n-smith/we-get-it-college-is-grea_b_773055.html

"College is the answer for some, just not for everyone. It also works the other way. Skilled trades are the answer for some, but not all. I think we are failing our younger generations by having unrealistic expectations. What would happen if a guidance counselor told the valedictorian they will be a failure if they didn't learn to weld? That would be crazy. Their parents would be appalled. But we do exactly the same thing to other students when we say they "need" to go to college and it's considered okay. Not all students have the same skills. The truth is we aren't all equal and that's OK."

6. As For-Profit Colleges' Enrollment Slows, Industry May Be At Brink of a Major Reset, by Goldie Blumenstyk http://chronicle.com/article/For-Profit-Colleges-May-Be-at/125379/

‎"ITT Educational Services reported that the number of new students at its campuses declined by 3.9 percent over the previous year. Corinthian Colleges Inc. said it expected declines of 5 percent to 7 percent this year. Strayer Education reported a 2-percent decline. DeVry Inc. and Capella Education both said they expected new enrollment would be down slightly from the previous year.The biggest changes occurred at the biggest for-profit institution. The University of Phoenix said the 92,000 new degree-seeking students it enrolled in the quarter that ended August 31 represented a 10-percent decline from the previous year. More telling, the university's parent company, the Apollo Group, said it expected its new-student enrollment could drop by more than 40 percent in the quarter ending November 30, as it radically revamps its enrollment machine in response to new federal regulations and what company executives describe as a transition for the company's business model."

7. 'The Washington Post' and the Perils of For-Profit Colleges, by Stephen Burd http://chronicle.com/article/The-Washington-Postthe/125270/

"It's hardly a secret that the Washington Post Company owns Kaplan Inc., one of the largest for-profit-college chains in the country. Kaplan, in fact, accounts for 62 percent of the parent company's total revenue. Late last week the Post reported that overall revenue from its Kaplan division rose to $743-million, up 9 percent over the same period last year. Recognizing the outsize role that Kaplan plays in keeping the newspaper afloat, Donald E. Graham, the company's chairman and chief executive, declared in 2007 that the Washington Post Company was now "an education and media company."Less widely known are the Post's ties to Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit higher-education company that serves about 110,000 students at more than 100 colleges in the United States and Canada. The newspaper company purchased nearly seven million shares of Corinthian Colleges' stock in 2008, giving it an 8-percent ownership stake in a company that appears to be among those most in jeopardy. . . ."

8. Best Majors for Big Paychecks http://bit.ly/8Zj4lK RT @newsweek

"The number of openings for new B.A.s shrank by an estimated 22 percent last year, according to the National Association of Colleges, and with only slight improvement this year, unemployment for degree-holding early-20-somethings has remained above 7 percent. That means many new grads may find themselves poolside after all—only it won't be out of choice. Some caveats: the figures are self-reported and limited to people with a B.A. only (which means lawyers, doctors, and anyone with an advanced degree are not included). More important, salary reflects career choice as much as the financial merits of a particular major."

9. Top 2,000 Colleges: MIT, Stanford, Caltech Top Latest College Ranking List http://www.educationnews.org/higher_education/top_2000_colleges.html

"The web site StateUniversity.com unveiled its latest college rankings list this week. The list ranks 2,000 U.S. colleges and universities based on a formula that weighs student retention, standardized test scores, student/teacher ratios, and other factors.StateUniversity.com, a web site that provides information about thousands of post-secondary educational institutions, first released a college ranking list in 2009."

10. ACT: Most high school juniors not college-ready in Illinois - Educators criticize ACT benchmarks chicagotribune.com http://bit.ly/bTWI4D

‎"The readiness numbers generated skepticism and even heated criticism from some educators who questioned ACT's benchmarks, though schools were hard-pressed to explain why their students weren't considered prepared. The nonprofit ACT company stands by its readiness scores: at least 18 in English, 21 in reading, 22 in math and 24 in science. The top possible score is 36. Paul Weeks, an assistant vice president at ACT, said students who don't meet those scores may find themselves in remedial courses or struggling in regular college classes."I will hear a story about a student who maybe fell far short of one or two or three benchmarks and went on to college and did well," Weeks said. "But when we look across all the data, that is not the case." School officials insisted that their graduates do, in fact, go off to college and do well — though that information comes from student surveys and anecdotes."

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

128. MVCAP fyi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

126. MVCAP fyi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

53. Proprietary Educational Institutions

For information on the sector of higher education alternatively referred to as "for-profit/private sector/corporate," access data released by the U.S. Education Department on April 6, 2010, at this link from Inside Higher Ed:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/07/enroll

To access the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) report entitled "FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES:
Undercover Testing Finds Colleges Encouraged
Fraud and Engaged in Deceptive and Questionable Marketing Practices," dated August 4, 2010, click the following link:

http://pervegalit.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/gaomarketing.pdf
According to that GAO report, you can watch video clips of applications by undercover investigators and listen to voicemail messages from proprietary educational institution recruiters at this link:

http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-948T

To see the annual revenue and number of students enrolled by some of the largest for-profit companies/universities, click this link to an article in The Wall Street Journal, dated August 30, 2010:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703418004575455773289209384.html?mod=WSJ_article_related

To read the article by Stephanie Chen, "For-profit college risk: Huge debt, questionable degree," posted on 9/2/10, at CNN online, click this link:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/09/02/for.profit.college.debt/index.html?hpt=C2