333. 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. From 'Today' on NBC: Beginning the Search: http://nyti.ms/qYKZP5 - "The “Today” show — which occasionally partners with The Choice on college admissions segments — broadcast a report on Tuesday morning on how to begin your college search. . . . You can watch the full piece — featuring a tour of the University of Michigan campus and an interview with the director of admissions, Ted Spencer – by clicking at the top of this post."

3. The Hazards of Attending College Part Time, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/the-hazards-of-attending-college-part-time/6746/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "College graduation rates in this country are terrible, but they are far worse for the majority of students who attend college part time. . . . While the typical image of a college student is someone who lives in a dorm, attends school full time and has most of the bills paid by their parents, the reality is starkly different. About 75% of students are commuters, who hold down jobs and juggle family obligations as they pursue their college dreams."

4. Study: Suburban Districts Falter in Global Competitiveness, by Sarah D. Sparks - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2011/09/study_suburban_districts_falte.html via @educationweek - "The report, published in an online preview of the Winter 2012 issue of Education Next, argues that when average district achievement in math or reading is compared to average achievement in those subjects for students in industrialized countries, as measured on the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, even wealthier districts in areas like Beverly Hills, Calif., or Fairfax, Va., come out in the middle of the pack or worse."

5. Is the SAT losing its edge? by Jay Mathews - Class Struggle - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/is-the-sat-losing-its-edge/2011/09/27/gIQAbS7h3K_blog.html via @washingtonpost - "More graduating seniors took the SAT last year than ever, 1.65 million. So why are the scores declining, and why is the best-known and most fearsome college-entrance test in U.S. history losing its edge? Let’s start with the obvious. More students are taking its rival, the ACT."

6. Middle school survey: sex, fear and suicide attempts, by Bill Turque - D.C. Schools Insider - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-schools-insider/post/middle-school-survey-sex-fear-and-suicide-attempts/2011/09/27/gIQAKwz92K_blog.html via Washingtonpost.com - "Chancellor Kaya Henderson sketched a bleak statistical picture of life in DCPS middle schools at Tuesday’s D.C. Council hearing, including a chilling survey finding that 10 percent of the school system’s 4,000 eighth graders have tried to kill themselves."

7. The 10 Best Places To Go To College: Unigo List - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/26/the-10-best-places-to-go-_n_980907.html#s372162&title=Boston_University - "Crave a life beyond the campus multi-purpose room? Check out Unigo's list of the coolest towns -- that also happen to have great colleges -- below. Vouch for your own college town in the comments section!"

8. The New Ivy League: Unigo List - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/27/the-new-ivy-league-unigo-_n_982994.html - "The hallowed Ivy League is famed for its exclusivity, and cluster of eight elite Northeastern institutions can only accomodate a fraction of today's talented students. But fear not, there are other places in America that can offer a home of equal value to the world's burgeoning brains. Using student reviews they compiled, Unigo formed a list of colleges that match the Ivies in terms of rigor and vigor. See them below in alphabetical order."

9. New data highlight YSU retention problem, by Denise Dick - http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/sep/28/new-data-highlight-retention-problem/ via Vindicator - “More serious is what happened in the percentage of returning undergraduates,” he said. There were more than 1,000 students who didn’t return this year. “That surprised all of us,” Fahey said."

10. Youngstown City schools, after state criticism, developing plan for ‘better gains,’ by Denise Dick - http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/sep/28/city-schools-after-state-criticism-devel/ via @vindicator - "He believes people in the district understand the sense of urgency. “We have to move forward,” Hathorn said. “The longer we wait, the worse it’s going to get.”

329. 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. More college officials learn about applicants from Facebook, by Mary Beth Marklein – http://usat.ly/rpUwnK via @USATODAY - "Nearly a quarter (24%) of admissions officials at 359 selective colleges say they used Facebook, up from 6% the previous year, and 20% used Google to help evaluate an applicant, says the survey, conducted by Kaplan Test Prep. Kaplan, which did not identify participating colleges, queried 500 colleges listed in U.S. News & World Report rankings and in Barron's Profiles of American Colleges."

2. ‘Pursue your dream’ by Virginia Shank - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH - http://bit.ly/mQFLL9 via AddThis - "It makes sense," said Jasmine Wallace, 17, a senior and member of the school's yearbook committee. "It's important to show kids that there's far more to life than being on the streets, than just giving up on yourself and what you can do with your life. These are real people pursuing their careers and working hard at what they do. It gives you something to hold on to. It gives you hope that you can also make something of your own life."

3. Gazing Into Higher Ed's Future, by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/ns4co1 via AddThis - "And the gender gap, already a concern for many in higher education, would widen: with enrollments of women growing by 21 percent and men by just 12 percent, as the department projects, by 2019 women would make up 59 percent of all postsecondary students, up from the current 57.1 percent."

4. College Bound: States Pass New Laws to Encourage College Completion, by Caralee Adams - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/college_bound/2011/09/states_pass_new_laws_to_encourage_college_completion.html via @educationweek - "Nearly 80 new laws related to college completion have been approved in states so far in 2011, and the range of approaches are chronicled by Boosting College Completion, a two-year initiative by the Education Commission of the States funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."

5. For-Profit Colleges, Vulnerable G.I.’s, by Hollister K. Petraeus - http://nyti.ms/o9aZzl - "The schools have a strong incentive to enroll service members and veterans, in large part because of the “90-10 rule” created by the 1998 amendments to the Higher Education Act. Put simply, the rule says that a for-profit college must obtain at least 10 percent of its revenue from a source other than Title IV education funds, the primary source of federal student aid. Funds from Tuition Assistance and the G.I. Bill are not defined as Title IV funds, so they count toward the 10 percent requirement, just like private sources of financing.
Therein lies a problem. For every service member or veteran (or spouse or child, in the case of the post-9/11 G.I. Bill) enrolled at a for-profit college and paying with military education funds, that college can enroll nine others who are using nothing but Title IV money."

6. St. Mary’s U. Finds That When It Texts, Students Come, by Alex Campbell - http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/st-marys-u-finds-that-when-it-texts-students-come/33328 - "At St. Mary’s University, potential students are given the option to sign up for updates when they first make contact with the institution. Throughout the application process, they get alerts, and, if they reply, the university writes back to them individually. For the second straight year, students who signed up were more likely to apply than those who didn’t, and, if they got accepted, they were more likely to matriculate."

7. Grading the GOP Candidates on Education, by Andrew J. Rotherham - http://ti.me/nTMHie via Time - "As some start to drop hints about what their education plans might look like, here's a handicapper's guide to the leading contenders and their views — and record — on education."

8. Obama prepares to revamp ‘No Child Left Behind’ by Lyndsey Layton - http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/obama-prepares-to-revamp-no-child-left-behind/2011/09/16/gIQAKUrXlK_story.html via Washingtonpost.com - "Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are scheduled Friday to detail plans to waive some of the law’s toughest requirements, including the goal that every student be proficient in math and reading by 2014 or else their schools could face escalating sanctions. In exchange for relief, the administration will require a quid pro quo: States must adopt changes that could include the expansion of charter schools, linking teacher evaluation to student performance and upgrading academic standards. As many as 45 states are expected to seek waivers."

9. The problem with Obama’s plan to issue NCLB waivers, by Valerie Strauss - The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-problem-with-obamas-plan-to-issue-nclb-waivers/2011/09/21/gIQAdVfQmK_blog.html via Washingtonpost.com - "States have been begging Washington to relieve them of the most onerous of NCLB’s provisions, Adequate Yearly Progress, a measure that requires public schools to ensure that nearly all of their students score as proficient on standardized tests in reading and math by 2014. Failing to reach sub-goals toward that end results in punitive measures that require schools to be restructured in one of several models. As the 2014 goal has approached, the number of schools in danger of failing has shot up."

10. More public universities turn dorms into residential colleges, by Jenna Johnson - Campus Overload - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/campus-overload/post/more-public-universities-turn-dorms-into-residential-colleges/2011/09/21/gIQA8tjGlK_blog.html via Washingtonpost.com - "The idea of a residential college is not new at schools like Cambridge and Harvard, or small liberal arts colleges. But lately many large public institutions are adopting the model, creating small academically driven communities where students can live all four years . . . . The idea is that by putting these students in a building with lots of gathering spots — movie theaters, fitness rooms, kitchens and gaming rooms — they will learn from each other and share ideas."

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

328. 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. Students work on big ideas at Harvard's 'hack night' by Steve Kolowich: http://usat.ly/oxOLVh via @USATODAY - "HackHarvard, which is in only its second semester, operates on two premises: that most students cannot turn good ideas into operational apps, nor operational apps into successful businesses, without help; and that there are plenty of good ideas to go around. The club's leaders describe it as an incubator where students can get feedback on their ideas, learn the nuts and bolts of building Web applications, and meet with like-minded peers and potential collaborators."

2. Admissions 2011, by Scott Jaschik - Inside Higher Ed http://bit.ly/n0GFUA via AddThis - "For many colleges, a top goal of admissions directors is recruiting more students who can pay more. Among all four-year institutions, the admissions strategy judged most important over the next two or three years -- driven by high figures in the public sector -- was the recruitment of more out-of-state students (who at public institutions pay significantly more)."

3. Hechinger Report Getting a college degree doesn’t have to break the bank, by Justin Snider: http://bit.ly/qfSwOV via AddThis - "Cutting college costs has thus become a priority across the socioeconomic spectrum. The good news is there are countless ways to save money on college."

4. Universities Seeking Out Students of Means, by Tamar Lewin: http://nyti.ms/qnrxAJ -"More than half of the admissions officers at public research universities, and more than a third at four-year colleges said that they had been working harder in the past year to recruit students who need no financial aid and can pay full price, according to the survey of 462 admissions directors and enrollment managers conducted in August and early September."

5. Report Profiles Student Veterans Before Passage of New GI Bill - http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/report-profiles-student-veterans-before-passage-of-new-gi-bill/36454 - "Using data from just before the passage of the new GI Bill, the report, “Military Service Members and Veterans: a Profile of Those Enrolled in Undergraduate and Graduate Education in 2007-8,” found that the same proportion of undergraduates and graduate students, 4 percent, were service members or veterans."

6. Turn Middle School Into ‘Boot Camp for Life' by Valerie Strauss - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/middle-school/middle-school-as-boot-camp-for.html - "So let’s consider a different kind of education, one that would allow kids to learn skills in unconventional ways and that would give them far more time to engage in physical activity ouside the classroom."

7. Are High Schoolers Prepared for College? New Data Says Only 43% of Class of 2011 is Ready, by Gaston Caperton - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gaston-caperton/sat-college-gpa_b_970737.html?ir=College - "It is particularly fitting that we established the benchmark in a year when the SAT reached a record 1.65 million students -- many of whom are traditionally underserved -- and only 43 percent of them met the benchmark. After analyzing the results of a diverse group of students from more than 100 institutions all over the country, we set the national SAT benchmark at a composite score of 1550. That means, if a student's critical reading, math and writing scores add up to at least 1550, they have a 65 percent chance of earning a B-minus average their first year in college. Not to mention that students who meet the new SAT benchmark are more likely to enroll in, succeed at, and graduate from college."

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

9. Youngstown schools celebrate academic progress, by Denise Dick - http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/sep/21/youngstown-schools-celebrate-academic-pr/ via Vindicator - "Superintendent Connie Hathorn acknowledges the city school system has much work to do to improve student achievement. “We got beat up for celebrating that we’re in academic watch,” Hathorn told about 200 school district employees and supporters at the Covelli Centre on Tuesday. “I’m not happy about that, but we made progress.” The district moved from academic emergency, the lowest designation, on the last two state report cards to academic watch on the one released last month."

325. 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. Last of 5 Parts: Answers to Your Back-to-School Admissions Questions, by ROBIN MAMLET and CHRISTINE VANDEVELDE: http://nyti.ms/okBdt4 - "Sometimes students want to jump on the early bandwagon because they fear that the early round of admissions fills most of the seats in the freshman class. But this is simply not the case. It sounds incredible, but it’s true that even when half the seats at a college are filled with ED applicants, fewer than half the acceptances have been given out."

2. Help Needed for Student Debtors: http://nyti.ms/qlZmEn - "A substantial part of the problem also lies in the fast-growing for-profit college industry, which accounts for only about 10 percent of students but nearly half of student loan defaults."

3. Major Publishers Join Indiana U. Project That Requires Students to Buy E-Textbooks, by Jeff Young - http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/major-publishers-join-indiana-u-project-that-requires-students-to-use-e-textbooks/33156 - "Slightly more than half of the students surveyed—about 55 percent—said they read less of the e-textbook than they would have read from a printed copy, while 22 percent said they read more from the e-textbook than they would have from a printed copy.Officials were watching closely to see whether students simply printed out the e-books and read from those paper copies. According to system logs, 68 percent of the students printed no pages, while 19 percent printed more than 50 pages."

4. White House details plans for more digital learning, by Greg Toppo – http://usat.ly/nnv0NB#.TnNQdis7Ky4.twitter via @USATODAY - "The center, dubbed "Digital Promise," will aid the rapid development of new learning software, educational games and other technologies, in part through helping educators vet what works and what doesn't."

5. SAT reading scores drop to lowest point in decades, by Michael Alison Chandler - http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/sat-reading-scores-drop-to-lowest-point-in-decades/2011/09/14/gIQAdpoDTK_story.html via @washingtonpost - "For the first time, the College Board said, more than half of all high school graduates — or 1.65 million students — took the exam. That was up from 47 percent in 2010. Test-takers were also more diverse than ever: Forty-four percent were minorities; 36 percent were the first in their family to go to college; and 27 percent did not speak English exclusively."

6. Students say: ‘Pressure? What pressure?’ by Jay Mathews - Class Struggle - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/students-say-pressure-what-pressure/2011/09/14/gIQAdFEaSK_blog.html via @washingtonpost - "My view is that although homework, tests and college admission can be too stressful for some students, the real failing of our high schools nationally is that they apply too little pressure, not too much. . . . U.S. high schools are not in trouble because they are too rigorous."

7. State schools chief sets higher bar for Youngstown board - http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/sep/16/state-schools-chief-sets-higher-bar-for-/?newswatch via Vindicator - "There is little to mistake in the message that Stan W. Heffner, Ohio superintendent of public instruction, brought to Youngstown Wednesday. Youngstown schools must make greater improvements in academic achievement. And if the Youngstown Board of Education and its administrators and teachers don’t show results, it is incumbent on the Academic Distress Commission to use the considerable power that it has under state law to effect change."

8. A+ Colleges For B Students, US News And World Report List - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/16/a-colleges-for-b-students_n_965837.html#s363405&title=Fordham_University_ - "US News and World Report recently compiled a list of the best schools for B students and options are a lot more plentiful than one might think when mired in the hyper-competitive college process."

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

324. College Access and Success News

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

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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