75% Of Prospective College Students Send Financial Information to Only One College

Are Students Shopping Enough?
“As the Obama administration has talked more in recent months about tuition pricing and the value of a college education, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has seized on one statistic: that 75 percent of students who fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, Duncan says, have their results sent only to one college. And that, the secretary says, is a problem. Among the thousands of colleges and universities in the country, students should be applying to more than one to find their best fit, he said at several meetings and on conference calls with reporters in recent weeks — both doing more comparison shopping before applying and comparing financial aid packages from different institutions. One problem: They already are. An annual study of first-time, full-time freshmen — the most likely group to go through a traditional admissions process — finds that the vast majority apply to more than one college, and more than half apply to at least five different colleges.”
insidehighered.com

What We Know About Student Learning From Their Liberal Arts Education

Competency Based Education Has Challenges And Opportunities

Students, educators, employers, and policymakers alike are beginning to embrace competency-based education models that measure what students know and not just credit completion. Competency can come from work experience, and not  from  course based credits.  Competency-based education has the potential to transform standards of higher education, keeping students competitive in the global workforce. On June 7 policy experts and leaders from institutions pioneering competency-based education participated in a CAP event exploring the opportunities and challenges of this educational model.
americanprogress.com

New Book Can Help College Students Succed

Title: How to Succeed in College (While Really Trying): A Professor’s Inside Advice
Author(s): Jon B. Gould
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, Chicago
ISBN: 0226304663, Pages: 160, Year: 2012

College Placement Tests Place Too Many Students In Remedial Courses

RETHINKING COMMUNITY COLLEGE PLACEMENT TESTS
Today, many students who apply to a community college to earn their associate’s degree must first take a placement test. This exam is designed to gauge how college ready students are and whether they must take remedial courses. However, as some individuals simply lack adequate test-taking skills, various colleges and organizations feel too many students are being placed into remedial courses they do not need based solely on poor placement test scores. The article is in U.S. News University Connection.

Source: Carnegie Foundation

College And K-12 Leaders Struggle To Define College Readiness

The meaning of “college readiness” was recently debated by K-12 and collegiate leaders from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), one of two federally funded state-assessment consortia, over what definition would delineate performance levels on its tests in 2014-15, writes Catherine Gewertz in Education Week. Three hours of discussion couldn’t produce consensus for a draft approval statement, which would deem “college-ready” students scoring at “Level 4” or above on a five-level test. Level 4 would be pegged to “proficient” on the NAEP, and be set so that 75 percent of students reaching that level would earn Cs in entry-level, credit-bearing courses in English composition and literature, or college algebra and introductory statistics. Debate also revolved around proposed language to describe level of mastery. Some questioned the description of high-scoring high school students as “very likely to succeed,” since many factors come into play for college success that won’t be gauged by the PARCC assessment, such as persistence and motivation. Despite the disagreements and further revisions needed, leaders around the table agreed the conversation is important. “How powerful to have higher ed. and K-12 sitting together on this,” said Mitchell Chester, commissioner of education in Massachusetts and the chairman of PARCC’s governing board. “That is huge.”
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/848rsf4  Source: PEN Newsblast

New Classification Of For-Profit Postsecondary Education

What Tests Cannot Measure For College Readiness

A new report from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research summarizes research on five categories of non-cognitive factors related to academic performance: academic behaviors, academic perseverance, academic mindsets, learning strategies, and social skills. It then proposes a framework for thinking about how these factors interact to affect academic performance, and about the relationship between non-cognitive factors and classroom/school context, as well as larger sociocultural context. It evaluates evidence that non-cognitive factors matter for students’ long-term success, clarifying how and why these factors matter, determining if these factors are malleable and responsive to context, if they play a role in persistent racial/ethnic or gender gaps in academic achievement, and how educators might best support the development of non-cognitive factors within their schools and classrooms. The report concludes that if teachers want students to be successful — both within their current courses and in future endeavors — then they must attend to student engagement in class material and coursework performance, not just tested performance. To make this shift, educators must understand how best to help adolescents develop as learners. This should not be framed as an additional task for teachers, though for many it may mean teaching in new ways. By helping students develop the non-cognitive skills, strategies, attitudes, and behaviors that are the hallmarks of effective learners, teachers can improve student learning and course performance while also increasing the likelihood that students will be successful in college.
See the report: http://tinyurl.com/8ym9srv  Source:PEN Newsblast

Loans Hinder Graduates Economic Mobility

Guest Blogger:Katheryn Rivas

In the last days of the debate over federal loan rates, lawmakers seem to be reaching a compromise. Students who take out loans for the 2012-2013 school year will most likely be offered the same 3.4 percent interest rate from the 2011 enrollment year.

The gradual drop in rates was part of the 2007 College Cost Reduction and Access Act, a temporary budgeting tactic scheduled to expire July 1 of this year.  Though the law has had controversial effects on student and government spending, many are championing the low rate as a pro-education win that will provide more students with access to higher education.

Others argue that – in a country where student loan debt is tipping $1 trillion – maintaining an attractive interest rate for federally subsidized loans is the wrong decision.  To keep the interest rates low, lawmakers will need to slash $6 billion in the budget, which they have proposed to do through corporate pension requirements and restrictions on the loan itself.

Like its parent law, the compromise, which is anticipated to affect 7.4 million students, would be temporary as well, ending June 30 of next year. Reports say that though new borrowers will lock in a low rate, they will not be able to skirt interest rates for more than six years and will not receive an interest-free period coinciding with the six-month grace period.

Is a Low Rate a Good Solution?

Though the low interest rate lower the financial burden for students – reports have quoted $1,000 to $5,000 over the lifespan of the loan – by subsidizing this low interest rate, the federal government has justified cuts in financial aid such as the Federal Pell Grant.

In his article “The Problem with Cheap Stafford Loans,” Josh Barro, a contributor for Forbes, suggests there is also a risky consumer mentality associated with lower interest rates. Essentially, by making the loan a “good deal”, students can perceive the value of the subsidy to supersede that of the actual debt. This makes it easier for them to take out a loan, or borrow more for their education than they may have otherwise done.

Barros suggests a real win for education would be to invest in financial alternatives for students:

“Instead of extending the policy of holding Stafford Loan interest rates very low, why not let rates go back up and redirect the cost of the subsidy into an expansion of Pell Grants and refundable tuition tax credits?”

Is Education Still a Vehicle of Economic Mobility?

Any debt-financed investment poses certain risks, and higher education is no exception. With half of today’s graduates underemployed or unemployed, the burden of repaying student loans has become an economic stumbling block for many recent graduates

However, many students are forced to rely on student loans to bridge the gap between their household income and the costs of tuition.  This can be attributed to fewer financing alternatives and increasing tuition prices. On a national average, state and local funding has declined by 24 percent while the cost of college has increased by 72 percent.

Those who hold college degrees still earn significantly more than non-graduates in their lifetimes, but among college graduates struggling to reach middle class standing or above, debt has become a major factor in mobility. Graduates are reportedly stalling life-cycle events such as buying a car, purchasing a home and even getting married and starting a family due to the burden of student loan debt.

Student loan debt cannot be dismissed in bankruptcy, and the extreme case for graduates (and for co-signing parents) is facing retirement either deeply in debt or with a depleted savings account.

Katheryn Rivas is a freelance writer and resident blogger at online universities, a site dedicated to distance higher education.  She welcomes your comments at katherynrivas87@gmail.com.

Good News In California AP Trend

California students’ improvement on AP exams deserves more attention – by Michael Kirst

There is some good news in California student achievement trends. High performers, as measured by passage of the Advanced Placement exam, are increasing, and rank very high in interstate comparisons. AP is college level work in high school, and indicates that students attending California’s most selective colleges are better prepared than ever. This positive trend is […]