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

2. The End of Subsidized Loans? by Libby A. Nelson - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/onGy8i -"During talks Monday, Rep. Eric Cantor, the Republican majority leader, reportedly proposed making students responsible for paying the interest their loans accrue while they’re enrolled in college, a change that would save the government $40 billion over 10 years.The proposal would end the subsidized Stafford loan program, in which the federal government pays the interest that accrues while students are enrolled in school."

3. 'State Authorization' Struck Down, by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/qmk46W - "Tuesday's ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia came in a lawsuit that the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities filed in January on behalf of the for-profit colleges it represents. The career college group had challenged the state authorization regulation and two of the other "program integrity" rules -- those that effectively bar incentive compensation for recruiters, and that hold colleges accountable if they misrepresent their programs and results."

4. Price Points, by Kevin Kiley - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/omVmuz - "These officials prefer to focus on "net tuition revenue" -- the amount of money derived from each student after aid is subtracted from sticker price. They want to shift the conversations away from the discount rate toward a more integrated approach to tuition, literally striking "discount rate" from strategic plans, and make the concepts of net revenue and the actual price of college more apparent to the public, lawmakers, and potential students."

5. Critical Choices: How Colleges Can Help Students and Families Make Better Decisions about Private Loans - http://projectonstudentdebt.org/files/pub/critical_choices.pdf - "There is general consensus that students should exhaust all available federal financial aid, including federal loans, before considering other forms of financing like private student loans. Federal loans are available to students regardless of their or their family’s income. Private student loans are one of the riskiest ways to pay for college, and they are not financial aid any more than a credit card is when used to pay for textbooks or tuition. They typically have uncapped, variable interest rates and cost the most for those who can least afford them, while federal student loans have fixed interest rates that are not affected by the borrower’s income or credit score."

6. 5 Great Ways to Succeed in College, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/X1T7Ryw via @cbsmoneywatch - "According to the academics who conducted the research, 46% of students don’t improve in their writing skills or critical thinking and reasoning abilities after two years in college. More than a third of students who graduate never improve.How can you avoid that happening to you? Here are five tips to help you succeed in college."

7. Ohio picks interim as state superintendent - The Herald Dispatch: http://bit.ly/re7R4j - "The 15-0 vote to hire interim Superintendent Stan Heffner meant the board passed over Robert Schiller, who became the lone finalist from the board’s top three picks on Sunday after a second contender dropped out. Four board members abstained on the Heffner hiring vote.“A funny thing happened on my way to Texas,” Heffner said after the vote. He had been slated to begin a new job with Educational Testing Service’s office in San Antonio on Aug. 1."

8. A College Education for All, Free and Online, by Kevin Carey - http://chronicle.com/article/A-College-Education-for-All/128162/ - "UoPeople strives to serve the vast numbers of students who have no access to traditional higher education. Some can't afford it, or they live in countries where there are simply no good colleges to attend. Others live in rural areas, or identify with a culture, an ethnicity, or a gender that is excluded from public services.UoPeople students pay an application fee of between $10 and $50 and must have a high-school diploma and be proficient in English. There are also small fees for grading final exams. Otherwise, it's free."

9. Cal State University approves 12% tuition hike - http://usat.ly/ntvN2L via @USATODAY -"With a 13-2 vote, the CSU Board of Trustees passed the annual tuition hike of $588, which comes on top of a previously approved 10 percent increase for 2011-2012."

10. Moving past excuses from the no-excuse reform crowd, by Barnett Berry- The Answer Sheet - http://t.co/iAQRw8V via @washingtonpost - "[Paul] Tough argues that if we are to educate all children to achieve high academic standards, we must tackle the challenges of poverty head-on.He highlights tactics that have repeatedly been proven effective on a small scale: “supplementing classroom strategies with targeted, evidence-based interventions outside the classroom; working intensively with the most disadvantaged families to improve home environments for young children; providing high-quality early-childhood education to children from the neediest families; and, once school begins, providing low-income students with a robust system of emotional and psychological support, as well as academic support.”

11. The FRIENDLIEST Colleges - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/13/the-friendliest-colleges_n_896867.html#s306756&title=Carleton_College - Which college in Ohio made this list?

12. Don't spread these myths about college admissions, by Lee Bierer CharlotteObserver.com: http://bit.ly/niweTO - "Parents who have recently "graduated" from the college admissions process freely dispense advice and sometimes misinformation. To dispel many of these untruths, let's focus on some of the most popular myths about college admissions."

13. ON COLLEGE: The do's and don'ts of helping your high school senior, by Purvi S. Mody - San Jose Mercury News http://t.co/KxyWdL5 - "Don't call colleges on your child's behalf. If you and your child have a question about admissions or anything at all, let your child take the lead. It will develop self-confidence, and colleges like to hear from the students rather than the parents."

197. 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. Jobs that pay well, no degree required, by Anthony Balderrama - http://bit.ly/eyss8f #cnn

"That's not to say you shouldn't earn a college or graduate degree if you want. However, if college isn't the right option for you or if it's not a plausible option in the short term, consider these 15 professions that don't require a college degree but pay well:"

2. Economy shuffles Princeton Review's Best Value Colleges, by Mary Beth Marklein - http://t.co/7J4vIXM via @USATODAY

‎"Federal stimulus money, which helped many public universities hold tuition down, is about to dry up. Some private schools, including Williams and Dartmouth, are paring financial aid. House Republicans have proposed cutting the maximum Pell Grant given to needy students."

3. Four Questions on How to Cut Tuition, by John M. McCardell Jr. - http://nyti.ms/fvg07r

‎"I would not presume to say what other institutions might be capable of doing. But I WILL say that any institution that has embraced the high tuition/high discount mode of fee-setting is, sooner or later, heading for a fall."

4. Funding Completion, by Hilary Pennington - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/hOtoab

"Today, Complete College America (an effort supported by the Gates Foundation and four other national philanthropies) is inviting all governors to take the Completion Innovation Challenge. The 10 governors with the most innovative and inventive proposals to significantly boost college completion in their states each will receive a $1 million grant."

5. Wanted: A Dependable Backer, by Dan Berrett - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/hzJ1mf

"State governments have proven to be unreliable partners," Robert J. Birgeneau, chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, said here Saturday morning at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "The federal government needs to guarantee the fate of our great public institutions."

6. U.S. House Votes to Slash Current-Year Education Funding, by Alyson Klein - http://t.co/wFLnmJj

"The U.S. Department of Education's current-year budget would be slashed by more than $5 billion under a bill approved early this morning by the U.S. House of Representatives on an almost strictly party line vote of 235-189. That sets up a showdown as the legislation heads to the Democratically controlled Senate, where lawmakers are expected to reject the cuts."

7. Generous, but Not So Generous, by Scott Jaschik - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/hNTmL9

"While aid officials almost uniformly want to encourage more colleges to offer more aid, many have been quietly critical of institutions like Yale, Harvard and Stanford for being as generous as they are to families with incomes as high as $200,000 . . . ."I think Yale want too far, farther than anyone else," said one aid director at an elite college who asked not to be identified. . . ."

8. Financial Aid Growing Faster than Tuition - Notre Dame Magazine // University of Notre Dame - http://t.co/vQla4GD

‎"Trustees approved an increase of $1,150 in tuition and $290 in room and board for next fall, bringing the average undergraduate student’s bill to $29,100 a year. The combined increase of $1,440 or 5.2 percent is the smallest, percentage-wise, in two decades. . . . Even with the price increase, Notre Dame continues to cost less than all but two of the other institutions in U.S. News & World Report magazine’s top 20 national universities."

• 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

155. 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. Data on 760,000 at risk after The Ohio State University's server hacked, by Jim Kavanagh - http://t.co/3mry0Bh via @cnn

"It doesn't appear that anyone's personal data were accessed, the university said, but Ohio State is providing a year of free credit protection services to those potentially affected. . . . The university expects the investigation and credit protection services to cost it $4 million, according to the Dispatch."

2. Elite Colleges Continue to Fill Slots Early, by Jacques Steinberg: http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/early-admission-acceptances/

"At UPenn, for example, nearly half of the freshman class has already been admitted, according to my back-of-the-envelope calculations. At Haverford, Johns Hopkins and Bowdoin, the comparable figure is at or near 40 percent.

By allowing the most motivated — and, at times, some of the most financially able — applicants to lock in their college choices in December, selective colleges have in past years drawn criticism. The institutions have responded that it is in their interest to accept those applicants who are deemed the most qualified, and who have done sufficient research on a university to commit to it as their first choice."

3. More Tuition Struggles Projected, by Jack Stripling - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/e7yG2y

"Of 128 respondents, 15 percent of private institutions forecast zero growth or decreases in net tuition revenues for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30 for most colleges. That’s quite a change from the period between 2002 and 2008, when no more than 5 percent of private colleges saw annual decreases. The declines don't mean private colleges are cutting tuition, but rather that revenue lost from increases in discounting rates, which are at a 41 percent median, may be greater than revenue gained by tuition hikes."

4. Making P-16 Meaningful, by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed http://t.co/ni0vzYK

"Education reformers have held out hope that the Common Core State Standards Initiative -- the bottom-up effort by governors and state school chiefs to define college readiness and create national standards and assessments to measure progress toward it -- could get college and K-12 leaders out of the silos in which they too often operate."

5. Tracking Students to 200% of Normal Time: Effect on Institutional Graduation Rates - http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011221.pdf

"A majority of college graduates take longer to earn a degree than what is commonly thought to be the “normal” amount of time it should take—4 years for a bachelor’s degree and 2 years for an associates degree."

6. Delaware man pleads guilty to duping Harvard - http://b.globe.com/h1zyqU (via @BostonUpdate)

"Adam Wheeler was sentenced to 10 years of probation and to pay restitution to Harvard for the financial aid, scholarship money and academic awards he received fraudulently from the school."

7. 2010 high school valedictorians - Boston.com: http://shar.es/XcocG

"Forty different paths, many that began in distant lands, have brought them together. Through hard work, caring parents, and perceptive teachers, they've conquered challenges. Now, they've made it to the top of their class. Here is a snapshot of Boston's 2010 valedictorians."

8. Sweating Bullets at the GAO, by Frederick M. Hess and Andrew P. Kelly - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/gFoGJo

"The authors of the Government Accountability Office’s for-profit secret shopper investigation pulled off a statistically impressive feat in August. Let’s set aside for the moment that on Nov. 30, the government watchdog quietly revealed that its influential testimony on for-profit colleges was riddled with errors, with 16 of the 28 findings requiring revisions. More interesting is the fact that all 16 of the errors run in the same direction -- casting for-profits in the worst possible light. The odds of all 16 pointing in the same direction by chance? A cool 1 in 65,536."

9. 10 Excellent College Towns: Unigo List - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/16/10-excellent-college-town_n_797873.html#s209457

"A school's location is the inherent culture surrounding the campus, and what that environment can offer its students. Don't worry though, if you are looking for great weather, we have that too! The perfect vista, town, or climate where you'll be truly happy is out there waiting for you. Here are ten of our favorites."

10. Seeberg parents feel betrayed by Notre Dame sex attack investigation - chicagotribune.com: http://bit.ly/h9Zm8A

"We are parents fighting for our daughter. We're fighting for our sisters, our nieces and our granddaughters," Tom Seeberg said. "If not at Our Lady's university, then where? Where in the world would you fight for women? Where in the world would you fight for a cause like this?"

11. 3 Reasons Colleges Accept More Early Applicants, by Kim Clark - US News and World Report: http://t.co/s8Y0AY5

"Many schools' early admission rates appear high because coaches often push recruited athletes, who are pre-screened, through early to ensure commitments. Yale University, for example, accepted 730, or 13.9 percent, of its 5,261 early applications last year. Meanwhile, Yale says it accepted just 1,309, or 5.6 percent, of the 23,273 regular candidates. But Yale spokesman Tom Conroy noted that many of the early applicants were recruited athletes."

12. A Plea Deal for George Huguely, by Liz Seccuro - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liz-seccuro/the-plea-deal-for-george-_b_797742.html

‎"It is important to note that today, as I sit a mere 10 minutes from Capitol Hill, Senator Robert Casey (D-PA) is introducing the SaVE Act in the Senate, a bill crafted in direct response to this horrific death. Let us not lose focus on what Yeardley's murder means, the facts of the case, and that it resonates beyond UVA and to every corner of America's college and university communities."

13. Should You Major in Journalism? by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/QEmDWuF

"I write a college blog for CBS MoneyWatch and the two most popular posts that I’ve written in 2010 focused on the 20 best-paying college degrees and the 20 worst-paying college degrees. Since this summer when I wrote those posts, they’ve had close to a half million hits. And this is no fluke. The most popular college blog post that I wrote in 2009 was also on the same subject."

14. Mentor Program Introduces Students to STEM-Related Fields, by Jamaal Abdul-Alim - http://t.co/ijMyOBl via @educationweek

‎"Just one of dozens of local chapters affiliated with the national ACE Mentor Program, headquartered in Stamford, Conn., the program provides early career exposure, mentoring, and scholarships to high school students in an attempt to encourage them to enter one of the three fields that make up the ACE acronym: architecture, construction, and engineering."

15. Tax Bill With Benefits for Colleges and Students Heads to President's Desk, by Kelly Fields - http://chronicle.com/article/Tax-Bill-With-Benefits-for/125737/

"The bill would extend for two years a series of expiring tax breaks, including several deductions and credits for research, tuition, and charitable donations. They include a tuition tax credit worth up to $2,500, a student-loan interest deduction worth up to $2,500, and a benefit that allows companies to provide up to $5,250 in tax-free tuition assistance to their employees.

The measure would also renew a tax credit for companies that give research dollars to colleges and allow individuals to continue to contribute up to $2,000 a year tax-free to Coverdell Education Savings Accounts."

• 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
  

45. Calculating the Net Price of a College

Daniel de Vise, blogging in The Washington Post at College Inc., stated the following:

"All colleges will be required to post a 'net price calculator' on their web sites by fall 2011. 'Net price' is what a student actually pays to attend, after subtracting discounts and grant aid from the sticker price."

In addition, de Vise quoted Jeff Whorley, President of StudentAid.com, as follows: "Net price is sticker price minus merit and need-based grants. Up-front, out-of-pocket cost is the net price minus work-study and government loans."

Calculate the net price of a college you are interested in and determine your "up-front, out-of-pocket cost" to make certain you can afford to attend.

To read a report, released by The College Board in mid-September of 2010, on "discounting" (i.e., reducing tuition/fees through merit scholarships) by both private and public colleges, click on this link:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/15/discounting