352. 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)

(I'm just back from Portland, OR.)

1. Facebook's Impact on Student Grades, by Rebecca R. Ruiz - http://nyti.ms/nMA4mn -"While overall time spent on Facebook negatively affected G.P.A., the results were not clear-cut. As it turned out, those who frequently shared links on Facebook or checked the site to see what friends were up to tended to have higher grades. Those students who posted status updates tended to have lower grades. . . . Meanwhile — contradicting the zero-sum logic of some who might believe that a minute spent social networking is a minute spent not attending to schoolwork — the study found no substantive link between time spent on Facebook and time spent studying."

2. Online students might feel less accountable to honor codes, by Steve Kolowich Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/rRjY7Q via AddThis - "In a series of experiments, researchers at Ohio University found that students in fully online psychology courses who signed an honor code promising not to cheat broke that pledge at a significantly higher rate than did students in a “blended” course that took place primarily in a classroom. “The more distant students are, the more disconnected they feel, and the more likely it is that they’ll rationalize cheating,” Frank M. LoSchiavo, one of the authors, conjectured in an interview with Inside Higher Ed."

3. College Admissions: What Do Schools Really Care About? by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/college-admissions-what-do-schools-really-care-about/6985/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "A new college admission study by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, which represents many colleges and universities, provides a handy cheat sheet on what schools do value when they review applications. . . . Clearly the best things that teenagers can do to increase their chances of getting accepted is to perform well in college prep courses and to make sure they include some rigorous classes in their schedule."

4. How Student Loan Borrowers Are Getting Into Trouble, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/how-student-loan-borrowers-are-getting-into-trouble/6903/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "Private student loans don’t provide the protections that federal students loans offer and yet a new federal study suggests that an alarming number of college students are turning to private lenders before they’ve taken full advantage of their federal options."

5. Hechinger More, better early education could help close California’s achievement gap, by Sarah Garland: http://hechingerreport.org/content/more-better-early-education-could-help-close-californias-achievement-gap_6653/#.TqbKtAVPJkM.twitter via AddThis - "In California, the state with the largest population of Hispanic students in the country, the achievement gap starts early—long before children enter school.Hispanic children are much less likely to enroll in preschool than white or black children, and begin kindergarten more than half a year behind their white counterparts. First-generation immigrant students, many who speak only Spanish, start out more than a year behind. One way to combat this problem, educators argue, is enrolling more Hispanic children in preschool, where they can learn to count, say the alphabet and practice the other pre-reading and math skills they will need later on."

6. Push Is On to Add Time to School, by Nora Fleming - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/26/09elt_ep.h31.html via @educationweek - "But while policymakers and recently proposed federal legislation promote expanded learning time as a strategy for school turnaround, some worry that it may be gaining steam too rapidly as a fix for schools that lack the know-how, resources, or research to implement it effectively."

7. NAEP's Odd Definition of Proficiency, by James Harvey - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/26/09harvey.h31.html via @educationweek - "Joanne Weiss [is] the chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. According to an article in the Aug. 24 issue of Education Week, Weiss said the practice of permitting each state to set its own proficiency standards amounts to “lying to parents, lying to children, lying to teachers and principals about the work they’re doing.” . . . The No Child Left Behind Act, passed by Congress in 2001 as the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, permitted states to develop their own assessments and set their own proficiency standards to measure student achievement. Most states, for their purposes, quite sensibly defined proficiency as performance at grade level.What about NAEP? Oddly, NAEP’s proficient standard has little to do with grade-level performance or even proficiency as most people understand the term."

8. Screen Time Higher Than Ever for Children, by Tamar Lewin - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/us/screen-time-higher-than-ever-for-children-study-finds.html?_r=1&hpw - "Despite the American Academy of Pediatricians’ longstanding recommendations to the contrary, children under 8 are spending more time than ever in front of screens, according to a study scheduled for release Tuesday. The report also documents for the first time an emerging “app gap” in which affluent children are likely to use mobile educational games while those in low-income families are the most likely to have televisions in their bedrooms."

9. College Readiness Is Lacking, City Reports Show, by Fernanda Santos - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/education/25progress.html?src=recg - "Only one in four students who enter high school in New York City are ready for college after four years, and less than half enroll, according to the A-through-F high school report cards released on Monday."

10. When the Answer to 'Access or Excellence?' Has to Be 'Both' by Beckie Supiano - http://chronicle.com/article/When-the-Answer-to-Access-or/129423/ - "Pursuing both excellence and access is something most colleges try to do, and it's never easy. Top faculty and state-of-the-art facilities cost money, but raising tuition can shut some students out. If the college makes scholarships to attract high-performing students a priority, it might not be able to support those with financial need."

11. Business leaders inject themselves in school reform, by Valerie Strauss - The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/business-leaders-inject-themselves-in-school-reform/2011/10/24/gIQArm5mFM_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost - "This news release was issued in regard to the bill that the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions passed last week revamping NCLB. The bill reduces the federal role in public education that has become so prominent in the NCLB era, and it eliminates a key accountability provision of the law that wound up declaring thousands of schools failing, even when they weren’t. It turns back to the states the right to create their own accountability systems for schools, a move opposed by the Obama administration — and, apparently, leading businessmen. . . . Here’s the statement, which shows that the coalition doesn’t think the bill is tough enough:"

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

171. MVCAP fyi: M L King Day

On this Martin Luther King Day, these pertinent articles from past blogs are cited:

1. 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."

2. 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."

3. Minorities are now the majority at UT-Austin, by Jon Marcus and Reeve Hamilton - Hechinger Report http://t.co/7JnZQJJ

"Whites are in the minority this year for the first time in the history of the flagship Texas school, which was segregated until the 1950s. Fifty-two percent of the Class of 2014 is nonwhite. Black and Hispanic students represent about 5 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Asians account for 17 percent of freshmen. The demographic shift at U.T. is a bellwether of what is about to happen—and, with little notice, already has, at other universities in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and New York—in a country where new Census figures confirm that nonwhites are by far the fastest-growing proportion of traditional-age university students."

4. Proficiency of Black Students is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected, by Trip Gabriel -http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/education/09gap.html?_r=2&hpw

“What this clearly shows is that black males who are not eligible for free and reduced-price lunch are doing no better than white males who are poor,” said Michael Casserly, executive director of the council. The report shows that black boys on average fall behind from their earliest years. Black mothers have a higher infant mortality rate and black children are twice as likely as whites to live in a home where no parent has a job. In high school, African-American boys drop out at nearly twice the rate of white boys, and their SAT scores are on average 104 points lower. In college, black men represented just 5 percent of students in 2008."

5. Black Male Achievement in a 'State of Crisis,' Study Says, by Dakarai Aarons - http://t.co/1wmZtp2 via @educationweek"

"As a study this summer by the Schott Foundation for Public Education pointed out, fewer than half of black males graduate from high school on time. "At almost every juncture, the odds are stacked against these young men in ways that result in too much unfulfilled potential and too many fractured lives," writes Michael Casserly, the council's executive director. The council's report suggests that the underperformance of black male youths is nothing short of a national emergency, and it calls for the convening of a White House conference."The previous efforts to ring the alarm bell have too often fallen on deaf ears, and we thought that a White House conference would help both raise the visibility of the issues and aide in attempting to martial the public will to tackle it," Casserly said in an interview."

6. This Raging Fire, by Bob Herbert, The New York Times, November 15, 2010 - http://nyti.ms/9Jjsc2

"The first and most important step would be a major effort to begin knitting the black family back together. There is no way to overstate the myriad risks faced by children whose parents have effectively abandoned them. It’s the family that protects the child against ignorance and physical harm, that offers emotional security and the foundation for a strong sense of self, that enables a child to believe — truly — that wonderful things are possible. All of that is missing in the lives of too many black children."

7. Financial Aid: A Broken Bridge to College Access? by Bridget Terry Long and Erin Riley - http://www.hepg.org/document/19/

"Although there are many barriers to college access and success for low-income and minority students, most can be grouped into three major categories. The first set of major barriers relates to cost. . . . A second major set of barriers to college enrollment and persistence is academic preparation. . . . The third major impediment to higher education for many students, particularly those from low-income families, is the complexity of the college admissions process and financial aid systems, as well as a lack of accurate information about higher education costs. College attendance is the culmination of a series of steps and benchmarks, and this current landscape is too complex and difficult for many families to decipher and navigate."

8. Failure to educate, by Junia Yearwood - http://b.globe.com/dz8Hmo

"I knew that most of my students who walked across the stage, amidst the cheers, whistles, camera flashes, and shout-outs from parents, family, and friends, were not functionally literate. They were unable to perform the minimum skills necessary to negotiate society: reading the local newspapers, filling out a job application, or following basic written instructions; even fewer had achieved empowering literacy enabling them to closely read, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate text. However, they were all college bound — the ultimate goal of our school’s vision statement — clutching knapsacks stuffed with our symbols of academic success: multiple college acceptances, a high school diploma; an official transcript indicating they had passed the MCAS test and had met all graduation requirements; several glowing letters of recommendation from teachers and guidance counselors; and one compelling personal statement, their college essay."

9. Unready and Unsuccessful, by Joanne Jacobs - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanne-jacobs/unready-and-unsuccessful_b_775668.html

"Seventy percent of California's degree-seeking community college students failed to earn a credential or degree -- or to transfer to four-year universities -- within six years, concludes a new study. Most students drop out quickly, reports the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy and the Campaign for College Opportunity. Between 2003 and 2009, only 40 percent of students earned at least 30 college credits, which is considered "the minimum needed to provide an economic boost in jobs that require some college experience," reports the LA Times. Blacks and Latinos did worse: Only 26% of black students and 22% of Latino students had completed a degree or certificate or transferred after six years, compared to 37% of whites and 35% of Asian Pacific Islanders. Students fail because they're not prepared for college-level reading, writing and math. Many are juggling jobs and family responsibilities too, of course, but college readiness is the make-or-break issue."

10. A Call for Change - http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/A-Call-For-Change.pdf

"The Social and Educational Factors Contributing to the Outcomes of Black Males in Urban Schools”

127. 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. What's Gained, and Lost, When the College Search and Application Are Virtually All Online, by Sue Biemeret - http://nyti.ms/atoCpo

‎"Today’s students can conduct their entire college search online. It’s wonderful! You can learn about internship opportunities, e-mail a department head to ask about a specific major, download and complete an application, submit your transcript and even learn of your admission decision all online. Students can access their college application account anywhere there’s an Internet connection, making the process portable and convenient. You can carry your entire academic future on a jump drive. When technology works, it is pure music. However, when it doesn’t work, it is pure chaos.What do you do when the “Details and Accomplishments” section of your Activities page on the Common App disappears? Or when your Docufide transcript doesn’t show up in your electronic file at Nirvana U? Whom do you call?No one. You can’t talk to anyone about your online application. You can e-mail the support center and they’ll get back to you within 24 hours. . . ."

2. Technology and the Completion Agenda - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/cV5em9

"Data analytics is shorthand for the method of warehousing, organizing, and interpreting the massive amounts of data accrued by online learning platforms and student information systems — now as elemental to higher education as classrooms and filing cabinets — in hopes of learning more about what makes students successful, then giving instructors (and the platforms themselves) the chance to nudge those students accordingly."

3. Proficiency of Black Students is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected, by Trip Gabriel http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/education/09gap.html?_r=2&hpw

“What this clearly shows is that black males who are not eligible for free and reduced-price lunch are doing no better than white males who are poor,” said Michael Casserly, executive director of the council. The report shows that black boys on average fall behind from their earliest years. Black mothers have a higher infant mortality rate and black children are twice as likely as whites to live in a home where no parent has a job. In high school, African-American boys drop out at nearly twice the rate of white boys, and their SAT scores are on average 104 points lower. In college, black men represented just 5 percent of students in 2008."

4. The 10 Most Diverse Colleges - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/08/the-10-most-diverse-colleges_n_778373.html#s173581

"The schools that scored closer to one on the index are those "where students are most likely to encounter undergraduates from racial or ethnic groups different from their own. "Racial categories include Hispanics, non-Hispanic African-Americans, non-Hispanic Whites, American Indians and Native Alaskans, and Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders."

5. 4 Weirdest Colleges You've Never Heard Of - http://bit.ly/avKrEn

‎"Here, HC lists four schools in the U.S. that you may have never heard of before, but now you’ll be glad you did."

6. Enlisting Armies of Compassion to Close College Gap http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-bridgeland/enlisting-armies-of-compa_b_777547.html

"Help in closing the college gap is certainly needed. Every year, more than 90 percent of low-income teenagers say they plan to attend college, but only half do. Only 20 percent who enter a two-year institution graduate within three, and about four in 10 students who enroll in four-year institutions will receive their degree in six years. At these rates, America's companies will continue to look abroad for skilled workers."

7. Scaling Education, by Shai Reshef - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shai-reshef/scaling-education_b_770566.html

"If we really want to accommodate everyone, especially working adults, we need to follow and build upon what the online universities have started. These universities were designed to be flexible, meeting the needs of the students and the marketplace. Both their schedules and their offered programs are built around these parameters. Additionally, online universities allow a greater number of students to enroll, given that there are no physical space restrictions. Therefore, the investments these institutions make are directly related to the number of students, not the number of buildings."

8. Why the U. of Chicago’s Story Matters, by Eric Hoover http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/why-the-u-of-chicago’s-story-matters/27695

"For one thing, Mr. Boyer describes the complex nature of the modern admissions office: in addition to evaluating applicants, it promotes the university and its virtues on a national (if not global) scale. And admissions outcomes (measured in application totals, admission rates, and “yield”) shape the public’s perceptions of colleges. In turn, those perceptions can enhance colleges’ literal and figurative fortunes."

9. Eight Ways to Avoid For-Profit School Scams RT @newsweek http://bit.ly/9DJEtD

"They accept any student who applies, selling themselves as a more convenient education with more flexible scheduling than traditional competitors. These schools now enroll 1.8 million students—a near-sixfold burst from just several years ago. The industry's leader, University of Phoenix, rivals the enrollment size of the State University of New York and has enough students (about 443,000) to make it one of the largest higher-education systems in the country. On one hand, this growth is good news for students: more options make it easier to find the massage-therapy certification that the local community college didn't offer or to take courses online instead of commuting to a classroom. But the profit motive can be a nasty thing: investigative reporters and government inspectors have caught for-profit colleges using all sorts of underhanded tactics that hit students in the pocketbook, from overcharging for classes to pushing applicants toward unnecessary education loans. . . ."

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

117. 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. A Plea for More School Counselors, by Robert Bardwell

http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/counselor-2/

"If school counselors were used in more effective ways — and if there were more school counselors to help our students — then our graduation rates and college-going rates would improve, and our students would be better prepared to overcome the numerous obstacles standing in the way of their success. Research shows that comprehensive school counseling programs do indeed affect student success and achievement. Data also indicate that students who have access to quality school counseling do better on standardized achievement tests, one predictor of success in college. The percentage of students bound for higher education increases when they have access to highly trained school counselors who are not at lunch duty, completing paperwork or counting test booklets."

2. Advice for the College Interview: Girls, Dress Discreetly; Boys, Mind Those Hands, by Dave Marcus - http://nyti.ms/a5CAIN

“I’m surprised at the number of students who can’t easily articulate why they drove six hours to visit our campus,” David Kogler of Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn. “Was it our reputation? Did you like our mail? Grandma told you about us? You’re on your way to our chief competitor?”Any of those would at least start a dialogue, he says. When I do alumni interviews for Brown University, I look for a critical thinker, someone who has insatiable curiosity about everything from literature to science. Recently I started asking applicants to name their representative in Congress. I get quite a few dull stares. Same when I suggest that students discuss an article they’ve read in the past two days in a newspaper or magazine, in print or online.Oh, well. My questions rarely matter. Applicants don’t seem to realize that relatively brief alumni interviews hardly ever make or break a candidate’s case."

3. The New Community College Tuition Hike - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/brvVQ4

‎"Some of the college’s most popular programs, like nursing, which has a three-year waiting list, and avionics, would be among those charging a premium. Flores dismissed the notion that raising tuition for these programs might decrease student access to them.“The point is to guarantee access,” Flores said. “The access will be zero if the programs go away. I’m mindful of price elasticity and that some students might be shut out if the price goes too high.… But it’s a balancing act, and we’re a long way from shutting people out.”Flores also pitched another differential tuition idea to his board last month. He wants to give students who take any courses during “off-peak” hours a small tuition break. This, he said, would encourage better use of the college’s resources. Those taking courses during “peak” hours would just pay the standard tuition."

4. DIY U, Educational Access, and the New Elitism, by Anya Kamenetz http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anya-kamenetz/diy-u-educational-access_b_773239.html

‎". . .I have to believe that the large racial and economic gaps that persist in our educational system are the result of systematic inequality, not differences in innate ability. Therefore it follows that a massive injustice is being perpetuated on thousands of children who get crappy instruction in crappy schools and never get a decent chance to go to college, even though if you had stuck them in a top-flight public school from 1st grade they'd definitely be Ivy League material."

5. The Student Loan Disclosure Document That Every Borrower Needs to Read, by Zac Bissonnette - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zac-bissonnette/the-student-loan-disclosu_b_773222.html

‎"One of my greatest concerns about the way most students make their college financing decisions -- and one of the key reasons I wrote Debt-Free U: How I Paid For An Outstanding College Education Without Loans, Scholarships, Or Mooching Off My Parents -- is this: Very, very few borrowers fully understand the potential ramifications of the loans that they are taking out. No effort is made to educate borrowers and while all borrowers do have to sign promissory notes; the disclosures are hopelessly inadequate. To help, I have put together my own disclosure document that I believe every single prospective college student should be required to read and sign before borrowing a dime to pay for college. I'm highly confident that Sallie Mae and financial aid offices around the country will adopt this disclosure statement immediately:"

6. Let's Stick to the Facts on For-Profit College Regulations, by Lanny Davis http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lanny-davis/lets-stick-to-the-facts-o_b_773305.html

"The new rules target only for-profit institutions, a relatively small section of higher education. And for reasons not explained by the DOE, it has made no effort at all to hold public and private non-profit colleges to any similar standard for student debt and repayment limitations and job placement outcomes -- particularly puzzling since these schools are subsidized by tens of billions of dollars of direct federal and state grants and are the beneficiaries of the largest share of federally-backed student loans. Even so, there remains a problem in the debate on this important issue that is fundamental -- and that is respect for the difference between ideology and facts. To put it bluntly and to paraphrase a well-known pundit, those who criticize for-profit schools are "entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts." In this spirit, I challenge three important "assertions of fact" by proponents of these regulations, including leaders at the DOE as well as some Democrats. . . ."

7. States Set Widely Varying 'Proficiency' Bars, by Sarah D. Sparks in Education Week - http://t.co/04RanJW

"The researchers used National Assessment of Educational Progress benchmarks to compare each state’s standards against the benchmarks for the same subjects used in two international assessments, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS, and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, or PIRLS, during 2007, the most recent year all three types of assessments were administered. Researchers then analyzed the percentage of students in each state who would meet minimum proficiency according to their state standards and the common international standards. Measured against the international benchmarks, the gaps between states for students were so great, the report notes, that the difference in actual proficiency between students in states with the most and least rigorous standards was double the national achievement gap between black and white students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2007, then about two grade levels."

8. To Save Students Money, Colleges May Force Switch to E-Texts, by Jeff R. Young http://chronicle.com/article/The-End-of-the-Textbook-as-We/125044/

‎"Here's the new plan: Colleges require students to pay a course-materials fee, which would be used to buy e-books for all of them (whatever text the professor recommends, just as in the old model). Why electronic copies? Well, they're far cheaper to produce than printed texts, making a bulk purchase more feasible. By ordering books by the hundreds or thousands, colleges can negotiate a much better rate than students were able to get on their own, even for used books. And publishers could eliminate the used-book market and reduce incentives for students to illegally download copies as well.Of course those who wanted to read the textbook on paper could print out the electronic version or pay an additional fee to buy an old-fashioned copy—a book. Some for-profit colleges, including the University of Phoenix, already do something like this, but the practice has been rare on traditional campuses."

9. Top Producers of U.S. Fulbright Students by Type of Institution, 2010-11 http://chronicle.com/article/Table-Top-Producers-of-US/125073/

‎1. U. of Michigan 40; 2. Yale U. 31; 3. Brown U. 24; 4. Stanford U. 24; 5. U. of Chicago 23.

10. Early, Rolling, Regular: When Should You Apply? by Ester Bloom - College Admission Deadlines Unigo http://t.co/zM9Lah9

"In my high school English class senior year, 14 out of 15 of us got into our first choice colleges. The only one who didn’t was the only one who did not apply early. Case closed? Not exactly. Some of my classmates regretted landing where they did, while the one girl who went to the state school she got into Regular Decision not only had a great time—she also managed to save a huge amount of money. The truth is, there is no one answer to the question of Early vs. Regular, and feel free to walk away from anyone who tries to tell you otherwise. What is right for you will depend on your unique combo of circumstances, ambitions, and constraints. Check out the different options broken down below."

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