265. 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. Athletic departments see surge financially in down economy, by Steve Berkowitz and Jodi Upton - http://usat.ly/la5yCa via @USATODAY - "Much of the rise in athletics revenue came from an escalation in money generated through multi-media rights deals, donations and ticket receipts, but schools also continued increasing their subsidies from student fees and institutional funds."

3. Rich Get Richer in Athletics, by David Moltz - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/j6Yxv1 - "The median net generated revenue for those FBS programs that reported a surplus was nearly $4.4 million in 2009 but rose to about $7.4 million in 2010. By comparison, the median net deficit for the remaining FBS programs (98 programs lost money in 2010) was nearly $11.3 million in 2009 and increased to around $11.6 million in 2010."

4. Do Majors Matter? by W. Robert Connor - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/m011SC - "When one looks at these data, one thing is immediately clear. The fields that show the greatest gains in critical thinking are not the fields that produce the highest salaries for their graduates. On the contrary, engineers may show only small gains in critical thinking, but they often command salaries of over $100,000."

5. 10 Great Opening Lines from Stanford Admissions Essays, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/GIhhZ5h via @cbsmoneywatch - "Here are samples from winning college essays courtesy of Stanford University. These are opening lines of admissions essays that the Stanford admission reps especially liked. All of the essay writers were accepted as members of the class of 2012. You can find even more opening lines of sample admission essays in the Stanford Magazine."

6. Experts Call for Early Focus on Black Boys' Nonacademic Skills, by Mary Ann Zehr - http://t.co/XpkuUuz via @educationweek - "The convergence of “maleness, ethnicity, and poverty,” he said, contributes to academic outcomes for black boys, which tend to be more negative than those for black girls."

7. 37% of New York Graduates Meet College-Readiness Standard, by Sharon Otterman - http://nyti.ms/ksSnnR - "The new calculations, part of a statewide push to realign standards with college readiness, also underscored a racial achievement gap: 13 percent of black students and 15 percent of Hispanic students statewide were deemed college-ready after four years of high school, compared with 51 percent of white graduates and 56 percent of Asian-Americans."

8. Syracuse Sends Personalized Video Messages to Admitted Students to Stop ‘Summer Melt,’ by Jie Jenny Zou - http://bit.ly/jyymx5 - "Each video begins with Ms. Brewer or Mr. Crowley saying the first name of the recipient, followed by a brief general message. Recording a personal intro for each of the more than 300 students took some practice, pronunciation keys, and a few hours."

9. The Fathering Gap: Pitfalls of Modern Fatherhood, by Belinda Luscombe - http://t.co/8GqFRwP via @TIMEHealthland" - A new analysis by the Pew Research Center of data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) has found that more than a quarter (27%) of all fathers with children under the age of 19 now live apart from at least some of their children. Black fathers (44%) are more than twice as likely to live apart from their kids as white fathers (21%), while just over a third of Hispanic fathers maintain a separate abode. Similarly, 40% of fathers who didn't finish high school are not residing with their children, a living situation shared by only 7% of fathers who graduated college."

10. 3-year college degree programs not catching on, by Daniel de Vise - http://t.co/CxNS2ix via @washingtonpost - "But students have not responded, and most three-year degree programs have flopped — a reminder, college leaders say, that students still regard college as an experience to be savored. Why rush the best four years of your life?"

11. The Most Expensive Public Colleges For In-State Students - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/16/the-most-expensive-public_n_878006.html#s293193&title=Pennsylvania_State_UniversityUniversity - "On Tuesday, US News and World Report compiled their list of the 10 most most expensive public colleges for in-state students. Although these schools are not exactly costly compared with the most expensive private colleges (those top out around 40,000) they still dwarf the public college average."

196. 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. Two Ways to Get Kicked Out of College Before You Arrive On Campus - Auburn Journal: http://bit.ly/gZ6scR

‎"According to the 2010 State of College Admission (National Association for College Admission Counseling, September 2010, p. 28), 22 percent of colleges reported they revoked offers of admission during the fall 2009 semester/quarter. The average number of offers revoked increased 230% from 2008 to 2009. Although not stated in the 2010 report, in previous years, colleges reported the most common reason for retracting offers being a sharp decline in final grades followed by disciplinary actions (disciplinary actions most likely to result in retraction of an offer were violence, cheating, drug-related offenses and theft)."

2. Juniors Get an Early Lesson on College Applications, by Colleen Tang - Pelham, NY Patch: http://t.co/qAnuMj0

“We have five colleges coming in tonight and they’ll give their perspectives on everything from SUNY Purchase, applying as an art major to Fordham and Iona,“ said Eugene Farrell, director of counseling services at PMHS. “So we try to provide a range of perspectives on colleges and on college essays and all those other pieces. It’s information that we try to get to parents as best we can.”

3. Financial aid: One of six tools to graduate debt-free, by Husna Haq - http://t.co/NWwV16D

"Here are six ways you, too, can trim or eliminate college debt:"

4. Always worth a try to apply for financial aid, by Terry Savage - Chicago Sun-Times: http://bit.ly/gunvDV

‎"You’ll never know until you try whether you will qualify for financial aid. Unless you have saved all the money you’ll need, it’s worth a try. Some expensive schools might grant an aid package that makes them more affordable than even a local college or state school. The FAFSA — the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — is the basis for almost every financial aid decision that is based on need."

5. Study: IL Student Poverty Rate Rises - Achievement Gap Widens, by Mary Anne Meyers - Public News Service: http://j.mp/gWzyDn

‎"According to the 2011 Kids Count Report released by Voices for Illinois Children, less than half of the low-income students in Illinois are able to read at grade level."

6. Cleveland native Ron Ferguson pushes to close academic achievement gap, by Regina Brett cleveland.com: http://t.co/czSJx8z

"Education has been called the next civil rights issue. Ferguson told me it's bigger than that. We need to re-craft a national identity around new academic aspiration. We can't afford to ignore the race gap, he said. Already, in 10 states the majority of children are non-white."

7. College students must work to solve problems that affect blacks, speaker says, by Paul Garber & John Hinton http://t.co/IhYGOaw

"You need to develop causes that you are willing to die for," Marc Lamont Hill said during a fiery 50-minute speech. "You have the ability to turn the world upside down." Hill, 32, was the keynote speaker for the Seventh Annual Black Male Symposium. More than more than 220 people attended his lecture in Dillard Auditorium in the Anderson Center."

8. 63 Colleges With the Best Financial Aid, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/GHCuOTx

‎"In fact, according to a new U.S. News & World Report survey, only 63 schools out of 1,700 colleges and universities claim that they meet their students’ full financial need. . . . Here are the schools on US News & World Report’s list in alphabetical order: 63 Most Generous Colleges and Universities."

9. Buying Your Way Into College, by Jane J. Kim - http://on.wsj.com/eZHl4x

"Thanks to the recent recession, more colleges are giving seats to wealthier students—especially international or wait-listed applicants—who are willing to pay full freight."

10. College Parties, Minus the Beer Binges, by Sue Shellenbarger - http://on.wsj.com/ieuC1s

"Surveys at Purdue University, for example, show a sharp drop in binge drinking among students, to 37.3% in 2009 from 48% in 2006, says Tamara Loew, health-advocacy coordinator. She attributes this in part to a boom in late-night, alcohol-free events on or around campus, from poetry slams and dances to carnivals and "cabin-fever" parties."

11. More Students Fail Advanced Placement Tests, by Stephanie Banchero - http://on.wsj.com/ei0Nh4

"Education experts attribute the low scores to the recent national effort to push more students—no matter how ill-prepared—into AP courses, hoping to get them ready for college. They also blame school districts that have watered down the AP curriculum to accommodate lower-performing students, and students who sign up simply to pad their college applications."

12. Stanford Corners the 'Smart' Market, by Darren Everson and Jared Diamond - http://on.wsj.com/gSL4Jl

"What stands out about Stanford's class is something entirely different: what superior students they are."

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

"The data — covering all institutions of higher education — found that among students whose loans came due in 2008, 25 percent of those who attended commercial colleges defaulted within three years, compared with 10.8 percent at public institutions and 7.6 percent at private nonprofit colleges and universities."

14. US students lagging behind, by Anne Michaud - http://t.co/cN3faUU via @vindicator

"Not coincidentally, perhaps, middle school is where American students begin to fall behind their global peers. By high school, among 30 developed nations, U.S. students rank 15th in reading, 21st in science, 25th in math and 24th in problem-solving."

15. Book Chat: Why Does College Cost So Much? by David Leonhardt - http://nyti.ms/hUjPvH

"The biggest problem with our current financial aid programs is their complexity. Families have to make a series of decisions early in the process to help their children to become college material. Well-to-do families usually take care of this quite well. College is expected, and in most cases the expectation is realized. On the other hand, because they think they can never afford college, children from less well-to-do families do not take the steps one has to take to prepare for college."

16. Ethnic diversity ends, and begins, with admissions, by the Editorial Board - The Skidmore News: http://t.co/ctVGW4Z

"Our college admissions, unlike other peer schools like Hamilton College and Vassar College, considers whether a student can afford tuition as a part of his or her admission into the school; our college operates under "need-sensitive" admission, as opposed to "need-blind" admission. For example, when two prospective students with the same racial backgrounds, test scores, grades and extracurriculars apply to Skidmore, the student who requests less financial aid will more likely be accepted."

17. Yale Shifts Aid From Wealthier Families to Help Poor Students, by Oliver Staley and Janet Lorin - http://t.co/A5JoJel via @BloombergNow

‎"Beginning with students who enter this August, parents who earn between $130,000 and $200,000 a year will be asked to pay an average of 15 percent of their income, up from 12 percent for the previous three years, said Caesar Storlazzi, Yale’s chief financial aid officer, in an interview. Yale will also increase the income cap for families who pay nothing to $65,000 from $60,000."

18. The Changed Landscape, by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed: http://t.co/z6x5Afs

‎"But for higher education, the sea change was most evident in the strikingly lopsided vote for an amendment that would block the U.S. Education Department from using any of its fiscal 2011 funds to carry out its proposed regulation requiring for-profit college and other vocational programs to ensure that their students are prepared for "gainful employment."

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


• For links to articles on college admissions and financial aid, you can "friend" Joe Rottenborn at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=23325544


• "Like" the MVCAP fan page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=23325544#!/pages/Mahoning-Valley-College-Access-Program-MVCAP/284002915922


• You can join the group MVCAP Financial-Aid Friends at this page: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=2361831622#!/group.php?gid=126580419181


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

166. 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. Quarterback Andrew Luck to Stay at Stanford, by Pete Thamel - http://nyti.ms/flZpE1

"True to his low-key nature, and according to the wishes of his family, Andrew Luck released a one-sentence statement. “I am committed to earning my degree in architectural design from Stanford University and am on track to accomplish this at the completion of the spring quarter of 2012,” he said."

2. Rethinking Advanced Placement, by Christopher Drew - http://nyti.ms/f31z6y

"As A.P. has proliferated, spreading to more than 30 subjects with 1.8 million students taking 3.2 million tests, . . . many of the courses, particularly in the sciences and history, have also been criticized for overwhelming students with facts to memorize and then rushing through important topics."

3. Certificate Programs Proliferate, by Motoko Rich - http://nyti.ms/eFRPfw

"In an economy that increasingly rewards specialization, more and more institutions — from the ones that advertise on late-night cable to the most elite of universities — are offering these programs, typically a package of five or six courses, for credit or not, taken over three to 18 months. Some cost a few thousand dollars, others tens of thousands.

Are they worth the paper they’re printed on?
Not always. "

4. The almighty essay is a tough assignment, by Trip Gabriel - http://nyti.ms/dX7pNw

"What if, like most 17-year-olds, a high school senior sounds wooden or pretentious or thunderously trite when trying to express himself in the first person? Prose in which an author’s voice emerges through layers of perfectly correct sentences is the hardest kind of writing there is. Plenty of professional authors can’t manage it. How reasonable is it to expect of teenagers?"

5. Does Helping Out Help You? by Pamela Paul - http://nyti.ms/hu8ekS

"The admissions teams distinguished among the type and duration of service seen on college applications. Seventy percent of them, it turns out, were more impressed by long-term local grunt work than a summer of volunteer work abroad."

6. College’s Value Added, by Amanda M. Fairbanks - http://nyti.ms/hFx5x3

"Since graduating, 60 percent have full-time jobs, nearly 36 percent have moved back home to live with either their parents or relatives and nearly one-tenth are carrying more than $60,000 worth of debt. Of those who have jobs, more than two-thirds were making less than $35,000 a year and 45 percent were earning $15,000 or less."

7. Students who found new ways to give back, by Katie Zezima, Abby Ellin, and Inyoung Kang - http://nyti.ms/gJhxhr

"He returned home to New Smyrna Beach, Fla., raised $10,000 from family and friends, found Web developers and began INeedaPencil.com, a Web site that offers free SAT prep, including lessons that use conversational language and sports analogies and full practice exams."

8. Colleges for students with learning disabilities, by Abby Goodnough - http://nyti.ms/eRq5PQ

"Ms. Nelson is paying most of her own way at Landmark, a two-year college exclusively for students with learning disabilities and A.D.H.D. She wants to graduate on time this spring, and with tuition and fees alone at $48,000 a year — more than any other college in the nation — she cannot give in to distraction."

9. Is college athletics a sweatshop? by Bob Greene - http://bit.ly/fWCB6C #cnn

"There are various and conflicting reports on exactly how much money college sports brings in. The NCAA, on its website, says: "Overall annual revenue for college athletics programs is estimated at around $10.6 billion."

10. D.C. tops rankings for USA's most literate cities, by Mary Beth Marklein - http://usat.ly/hcrUkX - RT @USATODAY

"The study identifies "worrisome trends" consistent with other national research, including declines in newspaper circulation and book-buying, along with sluggish growth in educational attainment. Increases in Internet usage and stable library patronage aren't offsetting those declines, it says."

11. Seeking Your Questions on Financial Aid, by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/hBhOJd

"Now that most students applying to college for next fall’s freshman class have submitted their applications, they will soon turn to the question of paying for that education. Perhaps the most important form they will fill out will be the Free Application For Federal Student Aid, or Fafsa."

12. For-Profit College Grads Also Earn a Life of Debt, by John Hechinger- http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_03/b4211018017031.htm

"The bottom line: Students at for-profit colleges graduate with higher debt loads and loan default rates than those who attend conventional schools."

13. For Law School Graduates, Debts if Not Job Offers, by David Segal - http://nyti.ms/iixD2u

". . . J.D.’s face the grimmest job market in decades. Since 2008, some 15,000 attorney and legal-staff jobs at large firms have vanished, according to a Northwestern Law study. Associates have been laid off, partners nudged out the door and recruitment programs have been scaled back or eliminated."

14. Study Finds Family Connections Give Big Advantage in College Admissions, by Tamar Lewin - http://nyti.ms/fE2S11

". . . Applicants to a parent’s alma mater had, on average, 7 times the odds of admission of nonlegacy applicants. Those whose parents did graduate work there or who had a grandparent, sibling, uncle or aunt who attended the college were, by comparison, only twice as likely to be admitted."

15. Lifetime Chits Would Allow Athletes to Be Students, Too, by Bruce Smith - http://chronicle.com/article/Lifetime-Chits-Would-Allow/125863/

"An NCAA survey from a couple of years ago reported that football players devoted more than 40 hours a week to practicing, playing, and training. Only 20 hours could be mandatory (not including travel time and time rehabilitating from injury), but it's widely known that much more time running, weight training, and practicing informally is necessary to be successful. Playing college sports easily becomes the functional equivalent of a full-time job. But we also ask these young people—both in the revenue-generating sports and in the equally time-consuming "minor" sports—to be full-time college students."

16. Achievement gap slow to close, by Diana Lambert - http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/10/3311645/achievement-gap-slow-to-close.html

"In 2009 there was a gap of 27% points between fourth-grade white students and African American students, and a gap of 22% points between white and Latino students in math. There also was a 28% gap between white and African American fourth-graders in reading."

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


• For links to articles on college admissions and financial aid, you can "friend" Joe Rottenborn at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=23325544


• "Like" the MVCAP fan page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=23325544#!/pages/Mahoning-Valley-College-Access-Program-MVCAP/284002915922


• You can join the group MVCAP Financial-Aid Friends at this page: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=2361831622#!/group.php?gid=126580419181


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

153. 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. Graduation Gap Bowl 2010 -http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/12/11/12_11_10_graduation_gap_bowl/

See the graduation gap on the football teams in upcoming bowls.

2. Deferral? Denial? Acceptance? A Daughter Tells Her Story, by Nicole Gerszberg - http://nyti.ms/eNZF6S

"This process has taught me a great deal. Not only did I learn how to package myself into “250 words or less,” but I also have a better sense of where I want to be in 10 years, what areas of study I would like to explore, and a lot about who I am."

3. In Over Its Head, by Elizabeth Redden - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/goaHgu

"How did Keuka College end up being a powerhouse player in China, with more than twice as many students enrolled there as in New York? Is it the little college that could or is it, per the account in the dissertation, the institution that got in over its head? These narratives are not mutually exclusive."

4. The Senate's Budget Approach, by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/gb9xZC

‎"To the relief of many college officials, both pieces of legislation would provide $5.7 billion to close a shortfall in the Pell Grant Program, ensuring that -- with the help of mandatory budget funds Congress provided in last spring's Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act -- the maximum grant would remain at $5,550."

5. Tweaks to GI Bill Move Ahead, by Jack Stripling - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/gMFMne

"While the current law derives its maximum payout from the highest in-state public tuition in a given state, the new legislation would cap annual payouts at $17,500. Any expenses above that threshold could be covered by the Yellow Ribbon Program, which allows participating private colleges to enter into dollar-for-dollar matching agreements with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs."

6. Colleges With The Highest Graduation Rates - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/14/colleges-with-the-highest_1_n_796136.html#s206355

"On Harvard's heels are Yale University and the University of Notre Dame, with rates of 97 and 96 percent. Among public research universities, the University of Virginia had the highest graduation rate in 2008 at 93 percent, followed by the College of William and Mary and the University of California-Berkeley."

7. Stanford shares details of early-admit class, by Elizabeth Titus - http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/12/13/stanford-shares-details-of-early-admit-class/

"The University received a record-high 5,929 applicants, dropping the admission rate to 12.7 percent for Stanford’s “restrictive early-action program.” Applicants were up 6.5 percent from last year, when Stanford admitted 753 of its 5,566 applicants, or 13.5 percent. The University notified all early applicants of their application status via e-mail on Friday afternoon."

8. 14 Things You Didn't Know About College Students, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/HWVU1UG

‎"Did you know, for instance, that only 48% of undergraduates attend college full-time? This week The Chronicle of Higher Education assembled some statistics on undergraduates in such categories as household income, gender and where students are attending college that could change your perception of the typical college kid. Here are 14 facts about undergrads:"

9. Higher-Ed Groups Lay Out Strategies to Reach Obama's College-Completion Goal, by Eric Kelderman: http://chronicle.com/article/Higher-Education-Groups-Lay/125710/

"Changing how higher education is paid for "may be the hardest task of all, because it will mean abandoning well-understood and deeply ingrained practices that . . . serve to preserve the institutional status quo rather than creating incentives for vital changes, such as improved persistence and graduation rates, or cost containment," the report says."

10. Standardized snake oil, by Marion Brady: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/standardized-snake-oil---.html

"As a mountain of research makes clear, what ails them is primarily long-term poverty and the myriad problems poverty spawns. That’s a matter I’m not qualified to write about, but for those who think test scores actually mean something important, I’ll note in passing that Finland always ranks near the top, and their child poverty rate is less than 3%, while America’s rate is over 20% and climbing rapidly. Those who believe skilled teachers can level the education playing field enough to erase that difference in the quality of the material they’re given to work with aren’t just not in the game, they’re not even in the ball park."

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


• For links to articles on college admissions and financial aid, you can "friend" Joe Rottenborn at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=23325544


• "Like" the MVCAP fan page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=23325544#!/pages/Mahoning-Valley-College-Access-Program-MVCAP/284002915922


• You can join the group MVCAP Financial-Aid Friends at this page: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=2361831622#!/group.php?gid=126580419181


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