299. Summer College News

Here are some links to today's stories

about college access and success.

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

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

2. Confessions of an Edu-Traitor, by Cathy Davidson - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/roDpgt via @AddThis - "Here goes: I do not think going to university should be the be-all and end-all of K-12 education. The importance of going to college should be intrinsically the rationale by which we justify public support of higher education. Higher education is incredibly valuable, even precious, for many. But it is bad for individuals and society to be retrofitting learning all the way back to preschool, as if the only skills valuable, vital, necessary in the world are the ones that earn you a B.S., BA, or a graduate and professional degree."

3. 15 Worst-Paying College Degrees in 2011, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/KGVN1Sh via @cbsmoneywatch - "When you look at this year’s list of the lowest-paying college degrees, which was provided to me by PayScale, it doesn’t contain a lot of surprises. Three of the worst-paying degrees involve teaching or being involved in some way with children."

4. Rural Education: Rural Struggle: Get Students to Graduate, Go To College, by Diette Courrege - http://t.co/kGoHYF4 via @educationweek - "One of the big problems discussed at the Southeast Regional Rural Education Summit last week was the difficulty rural schools face in getting students to go to college. Speaker after speaker agreed that one of the major hurdles is family support. They said that, in many cases, students aren't encouraged by their families to seek post-secondary education."

5. Rural Education: How Two Rural Schools Prepare Kids for College, Part 1, by Diette Courrege - http://t.co/vP2zmwK via @educationweek - "Superintendent Larry McClenny said the school pushes students to achieve, and one of the ways it does that is through dual-credit courses. Students can graduate from high school with 30 hours of college credit. Both of McClenny's children had that many hours when they finished, and both finished college in three years."It saves parents a lot of money to be able to get in numerous hours in high school," he said."

6. Rural Education: Two Rural Schools Preparing Kids For College, Part 2, by Diette Courrege - http://t.co/FNDs3C3 via @educationweek - "That led to the adoption of a curriculum with programs of study aligned to the National Career Clusters model, which organizes high school classes around job occupations to boost real-world relevance. Loving High has strong dual credit offerings—75 percent of the school's students are enrolled in those classes—and district Superintendent Kristina Baca talked about how the school's programs of study are aligned to post-secondary education."

7. Status of Education in Rural America, 2007 - http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/2007040.pdf - "College enrollment rates for both 18- to 24-year-olds and 25- to 29-year-olds were generally lower in rural areas than in all other locales in 2004. In rural areas, as in the nation as a whole, females enrolled in postsecondary education at a higher rate than males." (p. 64.)

8. Arne Duncan to Override ‘No Child Left Behind’ Requirement, by Sam Dillon - http://nyti.ms/rpzlLP - "Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has announced that he will unilaterally override the centerpiece requirement of the No Child Left Behind school accountability law, that 100 percent of students be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Mr. Duncan told reporters that he was acting because Congress had failed to rewrite the Bush-era law, which he called a “slow-motion train wreck.” He is waiving the law’s proficiency requirements for states that have adopted their own testing and accountability programs and are making other strides toward better schools, he said."

9. Education Needs a Digital-Age Upgrade, by Virginia Heffernan - http://nyti.ms/q8ExIU - "According to Cathy N. Davidson, co-director of the annual MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competitions, fully 65 percent of today’s grade-school kids may end up doing work that hasn’t been invented yet."

10. Top 10 Schools Where Students Study The Most - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/08/top-10-schools-where-stud_n_920830.html#s324337&title=Harvey_Mudd_College - "Princeton Review recently named the schools where the students study the most. Claremont engineering giant Harvey Mudd College topped the list, followed by the perennially bookish MIT. Check out our slide show of the most studious schools."

11. The Decade of Lost Children, by Charles M. Blow - http://t.co/ktxi4ga - "According to “The State of America’s Children 2011,” a report issued last month by the Children’s Defense Fund, the impact of the recession on children’s well-being has been catastrophic."

12. The State of America's Children 2011, Children's Defense Fund - http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/state-of-americas-2011.pdf - "This may be the first time in our history when our children and grandchildren will be worse off than their parents and grandparents. We must correct course with urgency and do whatever is necessary to get them to safe harbor. We have pushed so many of our children into the tumultuous sea of life in small and leaky boats without survival gear and compass. I hope God will forgive us and help our children to forgive us."

228. Unstack the Odds--Success, Part 2

Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

14. Success, Part 2

A key factor in college academic success, at the micro level, appears to be how successful the student had been in high school. My study of both the college graduates and the non-degreed former MVCAP advisees from the high school Class of 2004 who were still enrolled in college during 2008 indicated as much. Indeed, for those 78 (of 568) students who had already earned their two- or four-year degree in 2008, the average [high school] GPA was 3.58; the average ACT composite score was 23.47. (In fact, for these graduates, only 5 had GPAs lower than 3.0 and but 9 had ACT composites lower than 20.) For those students who had not yet earned their two- or four year degree in 2008, but who were still enrolled in college, the average [high school] GPA was 3.08; the average ACT composite score was 20.68.

These findings suggested what might be viewed as a “common-sense” hypothesis: those high school graduates who matriculate and continue in pursuit of their degree will have been “good students” in high school; those who graduate from college in four years will have been even stronger students in high school. http://mvcap.blogspot.com/2009/11/9-results-from-class-of-2004.html

A related important factor in an individual’s academic success would seem to be that student’s ability to study and his or her study-habits. As preparation for college, however, surveys indicate that, on average, high school students do not study very much. Washington Post education writer Jay Mathews offered his findings in that regard: “I cited time diaries collected by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research showing that 15- to 17-year-olds in 2002 and 2003 devoted about 3 ½ hours a day to TV and other leisure while their average time spent studying was 42 minutes. I pointed out that the annual UCLA Higher Education Research Institute survey of college freshmen shows about two-thirds did an hour or less of homework a night in high school.” (Jay Mathews, “Why ‘Race to Nowhere’ documentary is wrong,” The Washington Post—Class Struggle, April 3, 2011.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/why-race-to-nowhere-documentary-is-wrong/2011/04/03/AFBt27VC_blog.html

Furthermore, college students aren’t studying as much as they once did. Indeed, in looking at hours spent studying over time, economists Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks from the University of California Santa Barbara concluded the following: “. . . full-time students at four-year colleges in the U.S. are investing much less time in academics than they once did. Full-time college students in 1961 allocated about 40 hours per week toward class and studying, whereas full-time students in 2003 invested about 27 hours per week. Decreased academic time investment is observable in a wide range of subsamples—across all observable demographic groups and all types of four-year colleges.” (Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks, “The Falling Time Cost of College: Evidence from Half a Century of Time Use Data,” March 24, 2010, p. 19.) http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~babcock/College_time_use_NBER.pdf

In addition, Babcock and Marks found that, with some exceptions –“ higher parental education, being female and not working are all associated with higher study times in 2003” (Ibid., p. 12)-- “. . . study times declined for students in all parental education categories. Similarly, study times declined for all race and gender categories, overall and within both sub-periods . . . . Study times fell for all choices of major, overall and within both sub-periods. Students at liberal arts colleges studied more than other students, but study times fell at all types of colleges, overall and within both sub-periods.” (Ibid., p. 15.)

“Interestingly,” the authors noted, “women used to study about the same amount as men, but study more than men in recent cohorts. Engineering students studied more than other students and the gap has widened.” (Ibid.)

If college students aren’t studying as much, what other factors might affect their chances of success? A study presented to the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) at its annual convention in March 2011 by Todd Wyatt, doctoral student at George Mason U., indicated the following: “Alongside time spent studying outside of class, alcohol consumption is the most significant predictor of a student's grade point average. It has more impact than working, watching television, online social networking — even attending class.” (Allie Greengrass, “Study: Spare time, drinking factors into school performance,” USA Today, March 30, 2011.) http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-30-spare-time-academics-drinking_N.htm

To enhance a student’s chances of success, Wyatt emphasized the importance of tutoring, stating “. . . The most important thing to take away from his research is the importance of effective tutoring.” Wyatt indicated: "Although tutoring has been proven time and time again," he said, "it's a really hard nut to crack, simply because students resist it almost like it's a sickness. They see it almost as a punishment." (Ibid.) Thus, at the risk of glibness, to improve a student’s likelihood of success at college, he or she should study more, party less, and take advantage of tutoring!