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1. Educate black men now, or we'll all pay later, by DeWayne Wickham http://usat.ly/9Q00JS - RT @USATODAY

"Black males continue to perform lower than their peers throughout the country on almost every indicator," the Washington-based Council of the Great Schools, which represents the nation's 66 largest urban public school systems, said in a recent report.While much of the news coverage of the council's gut-wrenching report has focused on the failure of nearly all fourth- and eighth-grade black males to read and do math at proficiency levels, less attention has been paid to its conclusion that educational improvements alone won't fix this problem. What's needed, the council said, is a "concerted national effort to improve the education, social and employment outcomes of African-American males. "If you think that's just a warmed-over pitch for more funding of a liberal agenda, you're being shortsighted. In 13 years, minorities will be a majority of this nation's children younger than 18. In just 29 years, most working-age Americans will be black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American."

2. Survey: More college presidents make millions - http://usat.ly/cgoi7x RT @USATODAY

"According to the College Board, average tuition and fees at private colleges and universities have risen almost 35% in the past decade, to $27,290. Many students, though, pay much less because of grants and tax benefits. The average net price at private schools was $11,320 this fall, less than what students paid on average a decade ago.Public college presidents generally earn less than their private counterparts. Only one public university president topped $1 million in 2008-09 —Ohio State University president Gordon Gee brought in $1.5 million. Then there are for-profit colleges, which are under fire for their heavy reliance on federal student aid money and high student loan default rates. Strayer Education Inc. paid chairman and CEO Robert Silberman $41.9 million last year, according to a Bloomberg report last week."

3. Bracing Students, and Parents, to Hear 'No', by Sue Biemeret - http://nyti.ms/caWafM

"I often worry about the student who compiles a long list of colleges where admission is iffy for every single school except for the one they have deemed their “safety school.” And I also worry that this same student knows every statistic about those hypercompetitive schools, but nearly nothing about that “safety,” which could very well be home for the next four years. Truly amazing students get rejected from equally amazing colleges every single year through no fault of their own. For some of these young people, it’s the first time they’ve been denied, and that can unearth their stability. All that self-esteem can come crumbling down in April."

4. Headed to College? Be Prepared to 'Click,' by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/aAPEOq

"In an article on The Times’s Web site, I write about an undergraduate course on “Organizational Behavior” at Northwestern University where all 70 students have been given clickers by the professor. Multiple choice quizzes are given via the devices, always just a minute into class, and the results count for nearly 20 percent of the students’ grade. The devices also record absences automatically. If readers of The Choice have encountered these devices, we’d like to hear what you thought of them. You can use the comment box below to tell us."

5. Speeding Toward a Slowdown? - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/aqX0Rh

"Nearly one million more students took an online course in fall 2009 than in the previous year, according to the new survey, which drew responses from 2,583 academic leaders at both nonprofit and for-profit institutions across the country. That is the biggest numerical increase in the eight-year history of the report, and the largest proportional increase (21.1 percent) since 2005. Online enrollments have grown at more than nine times the rate of general enrollment since 2002. Almost a third of all college students in the country take at least one course online."

6. So Far, 12 Schools See Increase In Early Applications http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/15/early-decision-colleges_n_783775.html#s182529

"Among them are the University of Pennsylvania, which experienced a 17 percent increase in early applications. Duke saw a 14 percent increase, and its admissions director Christoph Guttentag told the Duke Chronicle that he had never seen interest so high in his 28 years working in college admissions. Overwhelmingly, schools who have calculated changes have seen an upward trend. This may be because early applicants have a better chance of being admitted than those students who choose to apply regular decision. Deadlines still loom, however -- Nov. 15 for some schools and Dec. 1 for others and early decision/action II. Check out which schools got more early decision (which is binding) and action (which is not) applications this year than last."

7. Highest-Paid College Presidents (PHOTOS) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/15/the-highest-paid-college-presidents_n_783236.html#s183035

"The Chronicle evaluated 448 private institutions to determine who were the top earning executives in the 2008-2009 school year. At the head of their list was the late Bernard Lander, founder and president of Touro College, who earned a whopping $4,786,830 in 2008 (including $4.2 million in retroactive pay and retirement benefits). Other top earners who are no longer affiliated with their institutions include Trinity University's John R. Brazil, USC's Steven B. Sample, Drexel University's Constantine Papadakis (deceased), Stevens Institute of Technology's Harold J. Raveche, Baylor University's John M. Lilley and Northwestern University's Henry S. Bienen. The university leaders left for a variety of reasons, including term endings and retirements, which in some cases help to explain their hefty salaries."

8. There Is No College Cost Crisis, by Stanley Fish http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/there-is-no-college-cost-crisis/

"The causes of the increase in college costs (an increase that has not, they contend, put college “out of reach”) are external; colleges are responding, as they must, to changes they cannot ignore and still provide a quality product. Chief among these is the change in the sophistication and cost of the technology that has at once transformed the setting of higher education and become one of the areas of knowledge higher education must impart to students. Students expect to be instructed in the new technologies, and that instruction requires their installation, and then as new refinements emerge, their re-installation. “[A] modern university must provide students with an up-to-date education that familiarizes students with the techniques and associated machinery that are used in the workplace the students must enter.”

9. Graduation Percentages for Basketball Players Trail Those of Students in General - http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/graduation-rates-for-basketball-players-trail-those-of-students-in-general/28341

"The graduation rate for men’s basketball players in the NCAA’s Division I is 20 percentage points lower than the rate for full-time male students in general, according to a new report from the College Sport Research Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The gap is even greater in the top-ranking conferences—30.8 percentage points. Women’s basketball players fared better in the institute’s report, but their graduation rate still fell below that of their peers. The gap was 6.2 percentage points on average, and 14.6 percentage points in the top-tier conferences."

10. Be careful of 'snap apps' in college admissions - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/college-admissions/be-careful-of-snap-apps-in-col.html

"Snap apps are applications that colleges and universities send out that invite students to submit without paying a fee or writing an essay. Some of the information is already filled in for the student, just to make things as easy as possible.These applications have different names: Some are called express applications, or they come labeled "VIP applications," but they all are sent with the same end in mind: To get a student to apply. Students are selected by colleges sometimes because they have shown an interest in the school by visiting or seeking information, while some schools target students with high test scores or some other academic honor.These applications can leave a kid who receives one with the the illusion that they have a leg up when it comes to getting admitted. They don't, and some kids are stunned when they get rejected, having assumed they were wanted by the school and had an easy way in."

11. Gregory Kane: Nobody wants to talk about black America's gender crisis Washington Examiner: http://bit.ly/cKZTiG

"Now that the problem has been defined, we can talk about the particulars. Anybody notice the gender question? We're not talking about black girls underachieving, or black girls having a crisis when it comes to education. We're talking about black boys. That means the girls are achieving, and the boys aren't. That means black America's old, reliable whipping boy -- white racism -- might not be solely to blame for this crisis. And a crisis it is. What we have here is a failure to communicate about the Great African-American gender crisis. (My apologies to Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson, the screenwriters for the film "Cool Hand Luke".) It's our nasty little secret, the dirty laundry we don't want washed in public. If, indeed, white racism, specifically institutional white racism, were the cause of black academic underachievement, we would expect it to affect black girls and black boys in equal, or near equal, measure."

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

131. 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. Some Early Returns on Early Admission, by Jacques Steinberg http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/early-admission-2011/

‎"Among those colleges and universities with binding early-decision programs — in which those applying have consented in advance to attend if admitted — Northwestern is reporting that early applications increased by 24 percent, to about 2,100, when compared with last year; submissions to the University of Pennsylvania are up 18 percent, to 4,557; Duke and Johns Hopkins are each up by nearly 14 percent, having received 2,282 and 1,314 applications, respectively; and Rice is up about 15 percent, with about 1,000 early applications."

2. For-Profit College Recruiters Caught Giving False Info (WATCH) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/12/forprofit-college-recruit_n_782982.html

"After a Remington College professor was surprised to find two convicted felons on his class roster, ABC sent an undercover producer posing as a convicted felon to meet with a Remington recruiter. When the producer told the recruiter of his felony conviction, the recruiter assured him they would work with him and that he could find work in law enforcement or corrections. But according to the Texas Department of Public Safety, those convicted of felonies are barred from working in those areas. In another instance, a DeVry University recruiter grossly exaggerated the percentage of graduates who obtained jobs upon graduation."

3. 7 Most Affordable College Towns: Forbes List http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/12/most-affordable-college-towns_n_782341.html#s180096

‎"A new study by Coldwell Banker Real Estate reveals that many students and their families are opting to purchase houses in college towns rather than pay for dorms, reports Forbes. To determine rankings, Coldwell Banker looked at the list prices of houses in 120 college towns, which had at least 6 homes available for purchase between April and September of 2010. Forbes gives the fifteen most affordable college towns. Below, check out the top seven -- and why buying, rather than renting, might be a good idea."

4. College study abroad suffers its first decline, by Mary Beth Marklein - http://usat.ly/bPGX3z - RT @USATODAY

"Europe still attracted the largest share of U.S. students — more than 140,000 — but enrollments dropped 4%. They rose in Africa (16%), Asia (2%) and South America (13%). That growth was fueled in part "by new and sometimes more affordable" programs in developing countries, the report says."The economic situation around the world, not just the U.S., is clearly having an impact," says Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice president of the institute. Although the 2008-09 figures are the latest available, there are signs that the most recent year has begun to see an uptick in U.S. students going abroad."

5. Black Colleges Look To Increase Online Education Presence, by Kathy Matheson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/14/black-colleges-look-to-in_n_783277.html

"Blacks comprised about 12 percent of total enrollment in higher education in 2007 but were 21 percent of students at for-profit institutions – many of which are online, according to an American Council on Education report released this year. Tom Joyner, a syndicated radio host with a largely black audience, also sees the market's potential. The longtime historical black college and unversity booster and philanthropist has invested about $7 million to start HBCUsOnline.com, an educational services venture run by his son."

6. Questionable Science Behind Academic Rankings, by D.D. Guttenplan - http://nyti.ms/d93SWh

"But researchers who looked behind the headlines noticed that the list also ranked Alexandria fourth in the world in a subcategory that weighed the impact of a university’s research — behind only Caltech, M.I.T. and Princeton, and ahead of both Harvard and Stanford. Like most university rankings, the list is made up of several different indicators, which are given weighted scores and combined to produce a final number or ranking. As Richard Holmes, who teaches at the Universiti Teknologi MARA in Malaysia, wrote on his University Ranking Watch blog, according to the Webometrics ranking of World Universities, published by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Alexandria University is “not even the best university in Alexandria.” The overall result, he wrote, was skewed by “one indicator, citations, which accounted for 32.5% of the total weighting.”

7. China Surges Past India as Top Home of Foreign Students, by Tamar Lewin - http://nyti.ms/cZL6l9

"The report found that a record high of 690,923 international students came to the United States last year — nearly 128,000 of them, or more than 18 percent, from China. Over all, the number of international students at colleges and universities in the United States increased 3 percent for the 2009-10 academic year. India, which in recent years had been in the top spot, increased its numbers only slightly, to 104,897 last academic year. “The number of students from China is booming, because of that booming Chinese economy,” said Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice president of the institute. “But India, which also has a booming economy, is only up 1.6 percent. I think one factor is the great number of Chinese families with disposable income, two working parents and only one child, and a determination to invest their money to make sure that child receives the best education possible.”

8. Pay of 30 Private-College Presidents Topped $1-Million in 2008, by Andrea Fuller http://chronicle.com/article/Compensation-of-30/125371/

"The Internal Revenue Service overhauled the way it instructed colleges to report compensation for 2008. Colleges were asked to report salaries according to the calendar year, not the fiscal year, as in years past, meaning that some dollar amounts overlap with what was reported the previous year. But one thing remained the same: As in years past, the top earners included presidents who received large payouts when they stepped down. John R. Brazil, who retired in January as president of Trinity University, in Texas, was the second-highest earner during 2008, receiving $2,777,653 in total compensation. More than $2-million of that amount included payout and interest on deferred compensation.The highest-paid sitting president was R. Gerald Turner, of Southern Methodist University, who earned $2,774,000 in total compensation. According to the university, Mr. Turner's compensation was unusually high because he cashed out a life-insurance policy and bought his own policy. . . ."

9. Top district lets average kids lag, by Jay Mathews - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/11/top_district_lets_average_kids.html

"Dan Stephens, who teaches math at Northwood High School, thinks he knows why. It is a reason I have never heard before from his renowned district. The most prevalent complaint, buttressed by the new documentary “Race to Nowhere” being shown in Montgomery County, is that teachers and principals put too much pressure on the kids. They are jittery, sleep-deprived, maybe suicidal. Stephens, who teaches Precalculus and Geometry to mostly average kids, thinks his students are the opposite of too stressed. They don’t try very hard and know they will still graduate, so no problem. “All I can do is beg my students to study. Ultimately, they know they don’t have to and don’t,” said Stephens, who has taught for 20 years. “I would guess fewer than a handful actually studied for their test last week. No joke.”

10. Black-White Differences in Oracy and Literacy: A Needed Conversation, by Tom Sticht - http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/opinions_on_education/102925.html

"Listening to adults speak in early childhood may, as suggested by Ferguson, produce differences in both oracy (listening to and comprehending speech) and literacy (reading). In research for the U. S. Department of Defense, colleagues and I found that there were significant differences between black and white young adults who were applicants for military service in the oracy skills involved in listening to and recalling information from spoken messages. Additionally, when simultaneously listening to and reading information from a 5th grade passage spoken at 100 words per minute, whites correctly identified 95 percent of mismatches between the spoken and written versions of the same message while blacks answered 85 percent correctly, a ten point gap. Surprisingly, however, when the spoken message was presented for listening at 250 words per minute, forcing examinees to listen and read at that rate, which is about the average rate for silent reading by college-oriented, high school graduates, whites got 60 percent of mismatches correct while blacks got only 30 percent correct, a 30 point gap. For some reason, accelerating the rate of speech from 100 to 250 words per minute tripled the gap between scores for whites and blacks. This suggests some differences in the internal brain processes involved in the fluency of processing oral and written language at rates of reading typical for entering college freshman."

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