347. 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. Who Needs to Know? by Steve Kolowich - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/ofP0PY via AddThis - "The small, private college in upstate New York recently teamed up with Starfish Retention Solutions to institute an electronic “flagging” system that allows a student’s instructors, adviser and other officials to keep each other apprised if the student begins to fall behind on grades, attendance, health or financial aid forms, or any other obligations the student needs to fulfill to stay enrolled."

2. Higher Education Associations to Convene Commission on Attainment - http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Press_Releases2&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=42893 - "While the precise work of the commission will be defined by the participants, the topics to be explored will include: The changing nature of students seeking a degree or credential; The ability of higher education to attract, retain and graduate the increasing number of adults seeking a degree or credential; The current capacity of higher education to accommodate the large number of students who will need to enroll if we are to increase the number of graduates; and The opportunities to increase efficiency and enhance productivity in meaningful ways."

3. The White Man's Trick Bag, by Roy L. Beasley - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/qyQvOv via AddThis - "The problem deniers are still out there, still encouraging us to send our children buck naked into the world's jungles like so many black Harry Potters protected only by maternal fantasies that they can be anything they want to be. No, they can't. It still takes a hell of a lot more guts and talent and other resources for a black man or a black woman to achieve the same level of success as for a white man or a white woman."

4. Do You Know What Your EFC Is? by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/do-you-know-what-your-efc-is/6916/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "You can find your preliminary EFC by heading to the College Board’s website. In the upper right-hand corner just type EFC calculator into the search box. You’ll need your latest income tax return and non-retirement account statements to use the calculator. It should take just a few minutes to obtain your EFC."

5. 3 Reasons Why Law Schools Are Under Fire, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/3-reasons-why-law-schools-are-under-fire/6935/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "The scholarship programs at law schools across the country often look more like bait-and-switch operations. Eighty percent of law schools offer merit scholarships, but many of these scholarships disappear after the recipients finish their first year of law school. Schools are accused of rigging the scholarships so most students can’t keep them. Here’s a New York Times‘ expose from earlier this year that explains how this works: Law Students Lose the Grant Game as Schools Win."

6. Student progress can be tied to teacher's school, by Donna Gordon Blankinship - http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WA_TEACHER_TRAINING_WAOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT - "The academic progress of public school students can be traced, in part, to where their teachers went to college, according to new research by the University of Washington Center for Education Data & Research."

7. 'Capturing Kids' Hearts' Initiative Focuses on Relationship Building, by Ian Quillen - http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2011/10/19/01conversionside-relationships.h05.html via @educationweek"Imagine a misbehaving student and a stressed-out teacher during the final period of the day. But imagine that THE teacher, instead of giving in to anger, poses—in a gentle tone—four questions for the student to answer. What are you doing? What are you supposed to be doing? Are you doing it? What are you going to do about it?"

8. Building the Digital District, by Ian Quillen - http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2011/10/19/01conversion.h05.html via @educationweek - "Since the digital conversion began, the district has seen an improvement of 20 percentage points—from 68 percent to 88 percent—in the portion of its students who scored “proficient” on all core-subject state exams, in the subjects of reading, math, and science. Six of eight schools achieved Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, up from two of seven schools during the conversion’s first year. And its 2010-11 graduation rate rose to 91 percent, up 14 percentage points from four years ago."

9. Vocational Training Can Prompt Unemployment Later in Life, Study Finds - http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/vocational-training-can-prompt-unemployment-later-in-life-study-finds/37294 - "Pursuit of a vocational education may help students in the short term, getting them a job when they might otherwise be unemployed, but by the time they reach the age of 50, they are more likely to be unemployed than are students who had pursued a general education, according to a working paper published on Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research."

10. Learning-disabled students get firmer grip on college, by Mary Beth Marklein – http://usat.ly/nAnonG via @USATODAY - "Nearly nine out of 10 of the nation's two- and four-year colleges enroll students with disabilities, and of the 86% of those that enroll students with learning disabilities, only 24% say they can help disabled students "to a major extent," says an Education Department report published in June. That's why a growing number of short-term opportunities are cropping up to help college students with learning disabilities hone the skills they will need on a mainstream campus."

11. What “no excuses” model really teaches us about reform, by Matthew Di Carlo - The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/what-no-excuses-model-really-teaches-us-about-reform/2011/10/17/gIQAuiirsL_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost - "In the Houston implementation, “no excuses” consists of five basic policies: a longer day and year, resulting in 21 percent more school time; different human capital policies, including performance bonuses and firing and selectively rehiring all principals and half of teachers (the latter is one of the “turnaround models” being pushed by the Obama administration); extensive 2-on-1 tutoring; regular assessments and data analysis; and “high expectations” for behavior and achievement, including parental contracts."

12. "CREATING NO EXCUSES" (TRADITIONAL) PUBLIC SCHOOLS:PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE FROM AN EXPERIMENT IN HOUSTON, byRoland G. Fryer, Jr -http://www.houstonisd.org/HISDConnectEnglish/Images/Apollo/apollo20whitepaper.pdf -"The racial achievement gap in education is an important social problem to which decades of research have yielded no scalable solutions. Recent evidence from "No Excuses" charter schools – which demonstrates that some combination of school inputs can educate the poorest minority children – offers a guiding light. In the 2010-2011 school year, we implemented five strategies gleaned from best practices in"No Excuses" charter schools – increased instructional time, a more rigorous approach to building human capital, more student-level differentiation, frequent use of data to inform instruction, and a culture of high expectations – in nine of the lowest performing middle and high schools in Houston, Texas. We show that the average impact of these changes on student achievement is 0.276 standard deviations in math and 0.059 standard deviations in reading, which is strikingly similar to reportedimpacts of attending the Harlem Children’s Zone and Knowledge is Power Program schools – two strict “No Excuses” adherents. The paper concludes with a speculative discussion of the scalability of the experiment."

13. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily on http://paper.li/rottenbornj

332. 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. Law school is a waste of time, by Penelope Trunk - #cnn - http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/26/living/reasons-against-law-school/index.html - "Many, many students think they are going to law school to join a non-profit and change the world. The problem is law students have to pay back their debt -- no small amount when we're talking law school. So unless you are independent wealthy, you'll have to go to a big law firm first, to pay off your school loans. And once you get used to living the life of someone at a big law firm, you're not likely to leave. This is because we get used to whatever salary we earn."

2. No Child Left Behind option meets praise and caution, by Greg Toppo – http://usat.ly/nOOEsD via USAToday - "On Friday, Obama said he would give states a pass on much of the 2002 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law — most notably the requirement that students make large annual gains on math and reading tests. He also would waive the requirement that virtually every student be "proficient" in the two subjects by 2014."

3. The Medium Is the Message: Should a College Call, Text or Tweet? by Rebecca R. Ruiz - http://nyti.ms/na9O1G - "Members of the millennial generation may be stereotyped as rabid text messagers, but a group of nearly 10 high school seniors and college freshmen agreed on Saturday that they would most like to hear from a college they are interested in by phone."

4. No More Waiting Around, by Kevin Kiley - Inside Higher Ed - http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/09/27/wait_lists_become_a_new_topic_of_focus_at_nacac_annual_meeting via AddThis - "The main concern among counselors was the lack of transparency surrounding how institutions manage their lists and why they operate them as they do. While most of the admissions process is governed by fairly clear rules laid out by the association, there are few rules governing the time between May 1 and August 1. Counselors said they have noticed a trend of more students are getting put on wait lists every year, and many said they hear horror stories about students being blind-sided with quick deadlines or inadequate aid offers months after they gave up hope of getting into their preferred institutions."

5. 25 Best Colleges for Entrepreneurs, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/25-best-colleges-for-entrepreneurs/6682/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "Entrepreneur Magazine and the Princeton Review recently released its second annual survey of the top entrepreneur college degree programs in the country. Like all college rankings, you should take anybody’s list with a grain of salt, but at least it gives you some schools to research."

6. College Costs and Refinancing a Home, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/college-costs-and-refinancing-a-home/6686/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "You should not refinance your mortgage for the purpose of obtaining a better financial aid package. It ain’t going to happen."

7. ‘Complete College’ Study of College Graduation Rates, by Tamar Lewin: http://nyti.ms/quaCw5 - "Another factor is the large number of students mired in noncredit remedial classes that the report calls the “Bermuda Triangle” of higher education. Half of all students studying for an associate degree, and one in five of those seeking a bachelor’s degree — including many who graduated from high school with a grade point average of 3.0 or higher, previous research has shown — are required to take remedial, or “developmental” courses, and many of them never move on to credit-bearing courses, much less graduation."

8. Should the School Day Be Longer? - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com -http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/201... - "When and where does it make sense to institute a longer school day, and how should it be designed? While this change may benefit children from disadvantaged backgrounds, providing a social support system, would it help other American students if they had to spend more time in school, given what we know about how they learn?"

9. Help for Parents and Society, by Geoffrey Canada - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/nM12lc - "The National Assessment of Educational Progress shows little improvement over the decades. The black-white achievement gap is as wide as ever. SAT scores are declining. I am convinced that one of the reasons is that the school day and year are too short. Without additional time, it is virtually impossible for students behind grade level -- particularly poor and minority students -- to catch up."

10. Targeted School Time and Programs, by S. Paul Reville - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/qZquIw - "No wonder schools alone, which use less than 20 percent of a child’s waking hours, have proved incapable, on average, of closing the learning gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Low income students need stimulating, enriching learning opportunities after school and in the summers to complement and enhance academic learning in the same ways more affluent peers do through camps, tutors, music lessons, organized sports and travel."

11. For Us, More Time Is Critical, by Richard Barth - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/nfYkcs - "The mission of public education is to open up the doors of opportunity for students. Increasing time in school is one element to ensuring that all children in America have access to the opportunities that open those doors."

12. The Higher-Education Battle the White House Should Be Waging, by Kevin Carey - http://t.co/475xSNhb - "Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has been quite candid in denouncing "dropout factory" high schools where most students fail to graduate. He is less vocal in observing that many of the students who survive dropout-factory high schools enroll in community colleges or open-access four-year universities where graduation rates are even worse."

13. “Time Is the Enemy” of College Completion, Report Finds -http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/time-is-the-enemy-of-college-completion-report-finds/36681 - "A new report suggests that college students need to find faster ways to earn degrees, because the longer they stay in school, the more likely they are not to earn a degree. Key findings revealed that 75 percent of students are commuters who juggle work and school, rather than live on campus, and less than a quarter of part-time students ever graduate. The research also found drop-out rates linked to race, income, and age."

14. 2011 College Completion Data Complete College America - http://shar.es/bn52h - "Time is the enemy of college completion. Choose your state to see a snapshot of how well your state is educating all of today’s college students. Then click “Complete State Profile” to see the most comprehensive state and campus college completion data ever collected."

15. At a U. of Kentucky Dorm, a Live-In iPad Experience, by Alex Campbell -http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/at-a-u-kentucky-dorm-a-live-in-ipad-experience/33380 - "Students moving into a newly renovated dormitory at the University of Kentucky signed up for a hyperwired college experience: Each one was given an iPad and required to take a series of tech-themed courses. The unusual program is called A&S Wired Residential College and is housed in a dorm of 177 freshmen, who plan to major in a variety of fields."

16. Teacher, Leave Those Kids Alone, by Amanda Ripley - http://ti.me/ob8IqF via @TIME - "But cramming is deeply embedded in Asia, where top grades — and often nothing else — have long been prized as essential for professional success. . . . Modern-day South Korea has taken this competition to new extremes. In 2010, 74% of all students engaged in some kind of private after-school instruction, sometimes called shadow education, at an average cost of $2,600 per student for the year. There are more private instructors in South Korea than there are schoolteachers, and the most popular of them make millions of dollars a year from online and in-person classes."

17. Report exposes hidden failure of part-time students -http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/report-exposes-hidden-failure-of-part-time - "A new report finds evidence of a new majority on college campuses: part-time students. Three-quarters of today’s college students attend part time, juggling classes along with work and family responsibilities, according to a new report from the nonprofit Complete College America. Only 1/4 attend residential colleges as full-time students supported by their parents, the customary vision of college embraced by the suburban middle class. . . . Completion rates are lower still among under-represented minorities. The bachelor’s completion rate is 17% for Hispanics who attend part-time, 15% for African Americans, even after allowing 8 years to finish."

18. A bet on No Child Left Behind, by Richard Rothstein - The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/who-won-a-2007-bet-on-no-child-left-behind/2011/09/26/gIQAwBBi0K_blog.html via @washingtonpost - "So the secretary is now kicking the ball down the road. States will be excused from making all children proficient by 2014 if they agree instead to make all children “college-ready” by 2020."

289. 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. Numbers to Say No, by Kevin Kiley - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/mSiquY - "By tracking data related to financial aid appeals, the financial aid office at Nazareth College found that students enrolled at the same rates (or even slightly higher rates) when their appeals were denied as when the appeals were accepted. That finding has emboldened the office to reject certain appeals and reallocate money to students whose decisions really do hinge on financial questions. It also highlights a trend of "frivolous" appeals by families who don't actually need the money."

2. For-Profit Debate Redux, by Libby A. Nelson - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/oT9zsp - "But in the Senate, debate about the for-profit sector marches on, driven by Senator Tom Harkin. The Iowa Democrat held a roundtable discussion with some for-profit college critics -- and the leaders of two private-sector colleges, including DeVry Inc.-- on Thursday, a three-hour forum that seemed to indicate that he would pursue additional legislative regulation of for-profit colleges."

3. College-going inches up from Chicago high schools, by Sarah Karp - http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/notebook/index.php/entry/1199/College-going_inches_up_from_Chicago_high_schools - "The move also shined a bright light on the stark reality of how few graduates went straight to college. In 2004, only 43.5 percent of graduates enrolled in college the following fall. Since then, the percentage has gone up each year. Of 2010 graduates, 55.7 percent enrolled, up from 54.4 percent in 2009."

4. Politics K-12: New Initiative Targets 'School-to-Prison' Pipeline, by Nirvi Shah - http://t.co/UDpeoNU via @educationweek - "A new undertaking from the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education targets school discipline policies that end up pushing children into the juvenile-justice system for crimes and rule-breaking on campus—and keeping them from pursuing their education."

5. The Case Against Law School - Room for Debate, The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/07/21/the-case-against-law-school?hp - "Law school tuition is rising four times as fast as the cost of an undergraduate degree, which itself is soaring. Despite the high price, students are still flocking to law schools, even if it means going into heavy debt to enter a tight job market with few top-paying openings."

6. For-Profit Allies and Critics Discuss Ideas for Improving the Sector, by Kelly Field - http://chronicle.com/article/For-Profit-AlliesCritics/128364/ - "The proposal met with support from Holly Petraeus, director of the Office of Servicemember Affairs in the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who said for-profits often view veterans and service members as "dollar signs wearing a uniform." ". . . . The sad truth is that a lot of them are signing up based on advertising and word of mouth," she said. If the colleges "wrap themselves in the flag and say they cater to the military, they get picked."

7. College presidents, students lobby to keep Pell Grant funding, by Jenna Johnson - Campus Overload - http://t.co/1ynP8OW via @washingtonpost - "This week, dozens of university presidents, students and education advocates are on the Hill to persuade lawmakers to protect Pell Grants. Monday has been designated as “Save Pell Day” by the Education Trust, a nonprofit focused on closing education achievement gaps."

8. Hechinger Report New efforts to raise U.S. college graduation rates, by Jon Marcus: http://bit.ly/pqDTba - "The graduation problem isn’t generally evident at elite colleges and universities, both private and public, whose graduation rates are comparatively high. It’s concentrated at community colleges and lower-tier public universities, which enroll most of America’s students. Such institutions increasingly serve the fastest-growing segment of American college enrollment: low-income, nonwhite, non-native-English-speaking students who are the first in their families to go to college. Community colleges enroll much higher percentages of students who work full or part time and are considered at risk for dropping out—and who are also more likely to have children at home and have interrupted their education, in some cases for years. In addition, the vast majority arrive unprepared for college-level work, with 60 percent or more steered into remedial education, according to Thomas Bailey, director of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University."

9. Schools’ equity efforts are promising, by Ruth Adkins - http://www.portlandtribune.com/opinion/story.php?story_id=131119485031541300 -"However, with the new Cradle to Career coalition, an unprecedented collaborative effort is under way among schools, local governments, nonprofits and the business community. The goal is that by aligning existing city, county, and private programs and resources, we can, as a community, help give Portland’s children the best possible chance for success."

285. 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. Loans and the Deficit, by Libby A. Nelson and Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/qeubRC - "The federal government is making a lot of money on students and on parents," says Becky Timmons, assistant vice president for government relations at the American Council on Education. "There’s a risk of almost treating students like an ATM machine."

2. More Default Danger Ahead, by Libby A. Nelson - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/nsoXw0 -"While they recommended several strategies, including financial literacy classes, advising students to borrow as little as possible and requiring counseling sessions for those who are borrowing a large amount of money, they also said that many of the factors that go into defaults are ultimately outside of institutions’ control -- except for one. Students who complete college are far less likely to default than are those who drop out, said Jacob Gross, policy and planning research analyst at the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission. “The most important thing we can do to help students not default is to help them finish their credential,” Gross said at one of two default-rate sessions Sunday."

3. At Two-Year Colleges, Less Scrutiny Equals Less Athletic Equality, by Katie Thomas - http://nyti.ms/r6ujU1 - "Even as they play an increasingly vital role in American higher education — enrolling more than eight million students nationwide last fall, a 20 percent jump since the fall of 2007, just before the start of the recession — community colleges are routinely failing to provide enough athletic opportunities to women, as required under Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in education. Many community colleges offer an array of options for men but just a single team for women. And dozens of colleges over the years had no women on their athletic rosters, according to federal education statistics."

4. Law School Economics - Job Market Weakens, Tuition Rises, by David Segal - http://nyti.ms/nxcd2n -"Legal diplomas have such allure that law schools have been able to jack up tuition four times faster than the soaring cost of college. And many law schools have added students to their incoming classes — a step that, for them, means almost pure profits — even during the worst recession in the legal profession’s history. It is one of the academy’s open secrets: law schools toss off so much cash they are sometimes required to hand over as much as 30 percent of their revenue to universities, to subsidize less profitable fields."

5. After The Recession, Students Borrow Reluctantly, by Lisa Lambert - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/18/after-the-recession-stude_n_901381.html - "To cope, many students turn to federal loans. In the 2009-10 school year, 35 percent of all undergraduate students took out a federal Stafford student loan, compared to 23 percent 10 years before, Draeger said. Students may also use private loans and parents can take federal "PLUS" loans. Paying for college has usually involved many parties, Draeger said, including universities themselves pitching in."We're seeing this gradual shift in the burden for paying for college to individual students and families and the way that students do this is through loans," he said."

6. Concern grows about default rates on student loans in Kentucky - http://www.kentucky.com/2011/07/17/1814399/concern-grows-about-default-rates.html - "They quit school last year because of day care problems with their son and defaulted on the loans. That buried them in debt. They haven't filed for bankruptcy, in part because changes to bankruptcy law make it difficult to erase student loans. Daymar College financial aid officials "signed us up" for the loans and controlled access to the accounts, Donald Lee said last week as he prepared to start another shift washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant."It's an awful lot of money for just two years at this little school," he said. "When the loan papers came in, they just handed them to us, told us to sign them and took them back. We never saw them again."

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."

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109. 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. Boomerang kids: 85% of college grads move home http://t.co/r4s0RRz

‎"Stubbornly high unemployment -- nearly 15% for those ages 20-24 -- has made finding a job nearly impossible. And without a job, there's nowhere for these young adults to go but back to their old bedrooms, curfews and chore charts. Meet the boomerangers. "This recession has hit young adults particularly hard," according to Rich Morin, senior editor at the Pew Research Center in DC. So hard that a whopping 85% of college seniors planned to move back home with their parents after graduation last May, according to a poll by Twentysomething Inc., a marketing and research firm based in Philadelphia. That rate has steadily risen from 67% in 2006."

2. Trade schools flunk key test: Helping students http://t.co/Ubp9Kq3

‎"The default rate at for-profit schools is the highest, compared to other types of schools. It climbed to 11.6% in 2009, from 11% the year before, according to a study released Monday by the U.S. Department of Education. The rate is higher than the 6% for public schools and the 4% rate for private institutions.Tuition at for-profit schools runs significantly higher compared to public institutions, according to the Department of Education. The department said the average cost for a degree of less than two years is $11,480 at a for-profit compared to $2,451 at a public school. For programs longer than two years, the for-profit schools charge $12,026 compared to $7,077 for a four-year degree at a public school."

3. Is What’s Ailing For-Profit Colleges Evident Throughout Higher Education? - http://nyti.ms/ccVSsN

"First, Mr. Bousquet acknowledges the fundamental shortcomings of some for-profit universities: They fail to graduate students and the students they graduate are often un-, under- and mis-educated. The students go into debt to pay outrageous tuition for the attention of underqualified faculty, and then fail to find the employment for which they were putatively prepared. And from all of this underregulated misery and failure, the shareholders are racking up massive capital accumulation. He then goes on to make a similar argument about many of the nation’s nonprofit colleges and universities. “The problem is that the for-profits did not invent any of this,” he writes. “All of these tactics – what I’ve called the tuition gold rush – were pioneered by the nonprofit sector.”

4. The 10 Hardest Law Schools To Get Into http://huff.to/aJz7ac Huffpost

"If you're not into those in the Toughest 10, check out the Review's other law school rankings lists, including Best Career Prospects, Best Professors and more. What are your thoughts on these schools? Weigh in below."

5. Obama Highlights Benefits Of College Tax Credit http://huff.to/bUprxd Huffpost

‎"Obama earlier this year asked Congress to make the American Opportunity Tax Credit permanent. The request was part of the budget plan Obama sent to Capitol Hill, but lawmakers took no action on it.Obama said Wednesday that this new tax credit – it was part of the $814 billion economic stimulus bill he signed shortly after taking office in 2009 – would help middle-class families afford to invest in their children's future. "I am calling on Congress to make this tax credit permanent so it's worth up to $10,000 for four years of college because we've got to make sure that in good times or bad, our families can invest in their children's future and in the future of our country," Obama said in the White House Rose Garden."

6. Why America’s Most Expensive Colleges Could Hurt Your Wallet http://t.co/ThohFEj

"But here is what I do get angry about: It’s not possible for Sarah Lawrence to routinely raise its prices in a vacuum. College students who live hundreds or thousands of miles away could get hurt by the price increases at this liberal arts paradise in Bronxville, NY.Why? Because the higher-ed world is full of copy cats. When Sarah Lawrence, Bard College, Trinity College, Bates College and Ivy League institutions that rank among the most expensive schools raise their prices it causes reverberations among thousands of other schools. Schools lower on the academic pecking order judge themselves by what the country’s most prestigious and expensive schools are doing. If the elites continue to construct amazing facilities, shrink class sizes and maybe even offer maid service, the wannabes won’t want to be left behind. The wannabes know they can’t catch up to the college superstars, but they are terrified of losing ground. So they will raise their prices too."

7. Net Colleges & States Vie re: Quality http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/online-colleges-and-states-at-odds-over-quality-standards/27586

"But state officials said they are still concerned that self-imposed standards are not good enough and that online programs are not consistent in providing students with high-quality education. Echoing federal government concerns about the quality of online institutions (reflected in the “gainful employment” rule debated by the U.S. Department of Education earlier this year), a panel of education officials from four states and the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education—which represents 15 states—said it was their responsibility to ensure that all students of online colleges received a good education, and they are skeptical that the institutions consistently deliver."