321. College Access and Success News

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

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Adapting to the iPad, called education's 'equalizer' by Alesha Williams Boyd: http://usat.ly/nipmmy via @USATODAY - "I think the key word for this is engagement," Barry says. "The engagement was just a lot higher. I think it's adaptive to meet the needs of individual students. I think it's an equalizer. I do think it's a game changer."

2. Part 1: Answers to Your Back-to-School Admissions Questions, By Robin Mamlet and Christine Vandevelde: http://nyti.ms/oPWt1d - "The best approach for students is to take an appropriately challenging academic course load and do the very best they can. And does it matter how students spend their time outside of class? It does."

3. More Baltimore graduates attend two-year colleges, where they are less likely to earn degree, by Erica L. Green - http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bs-md-ci-college-completion-report-20110907,0,7483796.story - "The consortium also found that only 5.8 percent of those who started at a two-year college earned a degree in six years compared with 34 percent of those at four-year-colleges."

4. Diversity and the Rankings, by Catharine Hill - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/ovwow5 via @AddThis - "It is an unfortunate characteristic of our society that achievement in high school correlates with family income. The possible explanations range from prenatal care to quality of high schools to SAT prep. Whatever the causes, the data are clear. . . . For example, our data indicate that for students with SATs (and ACT equivalents) of 1420 or above, 12.8 percent come from the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution."

5. 5 Things High School Juniors Should Be Doing Now, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/5-things-high-school-juniors-should-be-doing-now/6562/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "Today, however, I want to share some advice with high school juniors, who also need to be preparing for college:"

6. Census: Education Has Greater Effect on Earnings than Race, Gender, by Sarah D. Sparks - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2011/09/census_education_has_greater_e.html via @educationweek - "A worker's level of education has a greater effect on his or her earnings over the course of a 40-year career than any other demographic factor, including gender or race, according to a new study released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau."

7. On Campus, It’s One Big Commercial, by Natasha Singer - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/business/at-colleges-the-marketers-are-everywhere.html?_r=1&hpw - "This fall, an estimated 10,000 American college students will be working on hundreds of campuses — for cash, swag, job experience or all three — marketing everything from Red Bull to Hewlett-Packard PCs."

8. Smartphone Game Turns College Tours, Orientations Into Scavenger Hunts, by Josh Keller - http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/mobile-game-turns-college-tours-and-orientations-into-scavenger-hunts/33114 - “People might think that they’re doing it to play this game, but in reality they’re getting better information, they’re participating in the process,” he says."

9. Civil rights icon Robert Moses promotes middle school algebra, by Bill Turque - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-schools-insider/post/civil-rights-icon-robert-moses-promotes-middle-school-algebra/2011/09/08/gIQAxbndFK_blog.html via Washingtonpost.com - "Moses is founder of The Algebra Project, a non-profit that works with schools to make algebra more available to middle schoolers as a way of fostering careers in math, science and engineering."

10. The ups and downs of U.S. News rankings, by Daniel de Vise - College, Inc. - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/the-ups-and-downs-of-us-news-rankings/2011/09/09/gIQAUN0nFK_blog.html via Washingtonpost.com - "But track the rankings over five or 10 or 20 years, and a pattern emerges of distinct winners and losers."

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

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
  

187. 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. Party ejection led to Ohio frat house shooting, police say - http://bit.ly/f1lMHP #cnn

"Six of the 11 people hurt in the shooting were students. The injured ranged in age from 17 to 31, Youngstown Police Chief Jimmy Hughes said."

2. Why government must rein in for-profits colleges, by Benjamin Todd Jealous and Marian Wright Edelman - http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-02-08-jealous07_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip: http://usat.ly/dTBjeb

"The worst offenders target low-income people — many of them people of color, often the first in their families to seek higher education — who are struggling to gain new skills and find scarce jobs."

3. Happily, Bryn Mawr Wins in a Coin Toss, by Hannah Smith - http://nyti.ms/fb0CfV

"In truth, I liked Smith, Bryn Mawr and Mount Holyoke exactly the same, and although they differed slightly, each one bore the prestigious title of “Seven Sisters.” (Holyoke, by the way, was “heads” in that coin toss.)"

4. Most New York Graduates Are Ill Prepared, Data Show, by Sharon Otterman - http://nyti.ms/eJsu5I

"But New York City is still doing better than the state’s other large urban districts. In Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers, less than 17 percent of students met the proposed standards, including just 5 percent in Rochester."

5. Why Kids Bully: Because They're Popular, by Belinda Luscombe - http://t.co/0HIHzL7 via @TIMEHealthland

"Contrary to accepted ruffian-scholarship, the more popular a middle- or high-school kid becomes, the more central to the social network of the school, the more aggressive the behavior he or she engages in. At least, that was the case in North Carolina, where students from 19 middle and high schools were studied for 4.5 years by researchers at the University of California-Davis."

6. Financial aid doesn't mean free, by Pat Restaino - NorthJersey.com http://t.co/Psbh1P1 via @NorthJerseybrk

‎"First, you file the FAFSA. After you file, you'll receive a Student Aid Report (SAR). The SAR includes your Expected Family Contribution (EFC), which is the amount of money your family is expected to contribute to the cost of attending college. Each school listed on your FAFSA will receive a copy of your SAR. Schools use the SAR to determine if you're eligible for federal student aid, as well as the type of aid package you'll receive. After you're accepted, the college will send an "Award Letter," which spells out the type of financial aid you can expect.
Financial aid packages will vary from one school to another school, so don't be surprised by any differences. Now you can easily compare the cost of attending one institution versus another. How much aid a family receives from a college is often the primary factor when it comes to choosing a school, especially in a slow economy."

7. Countdown to college: Don't procrastinate, juniors, by Lee Bierer - http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/07/3383001/countdown-to-college-dont-procrastinate.html#

"Calling all families with high school juniors: time to get started on the college admissions process--don't procrastinate. The good news is it's not too late. Here's a primer on what you should be thinking about over the next several months:"

8. College Admissions: The 7 Hottest Colleges, by Cristiana Quinn: http://www.golocalprov.com/lifestyle/6450/

"So, what were the hottest schools this year? Columbia applications surged 32%. Dartmouth was up 18%. UPENN and Harvard saw a 15% increase. Yale increased 5%. Brown and Princeton received 3% more apps. Among the Ivy League, only Cornell saw a decline in applications, with a minimal decrease of 1%."

9. Students Negatively Impacted by Strained Financial Aid Offices – American Consumer News: http://t.co/J9k9Xw6 via @ConsumerFeed

‎"The survey—fielded in October 2010—demonstrated that 9 in 10 of the more than 1,000 responding NASFAA members reported having fewer resources to dedicate to critical student services that promote college access, success, and successful student loan repayment. Services feeling the pinch included face-to-face counseling, extra attention for target student populations and outreach efforts."

10. Bridging the Achievement Gap: The Importance of Words, by Reginald Richardson - Bed-Stuy, NY Patch: http://t.co/Ik8m5bT

"The best thing that any parent can do to make sure that his or her child is not on the wrong side of the academic achievement gap is to power up their own vocabulary. According to a 2001 study by George Farkas, a sociologist at Penn State University, children who grow up poor or close to being poor, were adversely affected by their parent’s vocabulary deficit."

11. Ravens' Michael Oher tells his side in memoir, by Deirdre Donahue - http://usat.ly/hZMTTX via @USATODAY

"Most of all, he wants his book to reach the more than 500,000 American children in foster care, and the millions more living in homes where dreams never come true and few beat the odds because of poverty, crime, drugs and despair. Kids just like the young Oher, back when he called the Memphis housing project Hurt Village home. Or when he lived in shelters. Or in a car, or under a bridge."

• 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

170. 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. Students' rights weighed as colleges try to assess threats, by Mary Beth Marklein - http://usat.ly/fwBHh2 - RT @USATODAY

‎"Two states — Virginia and Illinois — now legally require such teams and 80% of colleges nationwide have started them since the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech that left 32 people dead. . . . Since April 2007, news reports show that at least 67 people have been killed and 69 others injured in attacks by U.S. college students."

2. High School Juniors, Start Your Engines, by Lee A. Culbertson - http://nyti.ms/hkyUJb

"Juniors are already itching and beginning to ask, “What should I be doing now?” First, breathe. Remember, “College is a match to be made, not a prize to be won” (Frank Sachs, the Blake School). When you make a list of colleges that you’d like to explore, consider investigating what is most important to you, and then begin to draft your preliminary list."

3. Part 3: Answers to Readers' Questions on Financial Aid, by Mark Kantrowitz - http://nyti.ms/fBS7IH

‎"Money in retirement plans, the family home and small businesses owned and controlled by the family have no impact on federal aid. As a result, parent assets affect the EFC of less than 4% of dependent students. You should, however, save money in the parent’s name, not the child’s. Child assets have a much more severe impact on the EFC."

4. College Is Still Worth It, by Anthony Carnevale - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/gWNYhv

"The most persuasive evidence that the BLS numbers are wrong are earnings data, which show that employers across the country pay a "wage premium" to college graduates, even in occupations that BLS does not consider "college" jobs. This simply means that businesses pay more money to workers with degrees than to those without because employers believe that postsecondary educated workers are more valuable."

5. Second GOALS study emphasizes coach influence, by Gary Brown - http://t.co/4Q8FYQ2 - Latest News - NCAA.org

"Athletics participation was the most-often reported reason for choosing a college (at least 75 percent of the time in all sport cohorts). Academics generally was a close second, followed by the institution’s proximity to home."

6. Five Reasons to Apply for Financial Aid, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/2cGUgxs

‎"Parents grumble about applying for financial aid, but there are excellent reasons why most families should take the time to fill out the cumbersome financial aid applications. If you are on the fence about filling out the FAFSA, here are five reasons to apply for financial aid."

7. NCAA Rejects Plan to Block Early Scholarships - http://t.co/245Bnxi via @educationweek

"The NCAA squashed a proposal Thursday that would have stopped college coaches from offering scholarships to students as young as middle-schoolers. . . . The legislative council also voted down tougher academic restrictions for incoming basketball players at the NCAA's annual convention."

8. High Achievers Scarce in Math, Science in U.S., by Erik W. Robelen - http://t.co/XKGAuOb via @educationweek

"Only about 10 percent of U.S. students scored in the two highest achievement categories in math on the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, well short of the figures for a host of other nations, from South Korea and Japan to France, Germany, and New Zealand

. . . . In science, the U.S. position was more favorable, but not dramatically so."

9. Researcher Finds Easy Solution for Test Anxiety - http://t.co/APRTEDK via @educationweek

‎"The report in Friday's edition of the journal Science says students who spend 10 minutes before an exam writing about their thoughts and feelings can free up brainpower previously occupied by testing worries and do their best work."

10. Facing New Cuts, California's Colleges Are Shrinking Their Enrollments, by Josh Keller - http://chronicle.com/article/Facing-New-Cuts-Californias/125945/

"I'll tell students in my presentations that if you want to leave the state, good for you," Ms. Ponce says. "We have too many people in the state of California. We need someone to leave right now."Many of the students are in denial, she adds. Their parents don't understand how the landscape has shifted. "I will break out the numbers, and they kind of look at me in complete confusion," she says. "They have no idea."

11. A Lesson on Urban Identity, by Matthew Amaral - http://www.educationnews.org/blogs/105853.html

“Can you be Ghetto and successful?” I tell them they can’t talk about drug-dealers, rappers, athletes, or other entertainers--we’re talking about real careers. . . . This is something that will really come into focus on a college campus when a majority of the students are NOT like them."

• 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