US Ed Report Suggests Better College Prep And Progress

New Report Says Online Courses Are Cost Effective

Students learn just as much in a course that’s taught partly online as they would in a traditional classroom, but such courses won’t reach their potential until they are both easier for faculty members to customize and more fun for students, according to a new report.  One of the authors is a former Princeton President and head of the Mellon Foundation.

More Data Needed To Measure College Quality

The National Research Council released a report that indicates just how hard it is to measure institutional quality. The panel’s recommendations start with the notion that the productivity of higher education should be regarded as ratio of outputs to inputs, but their imprecision is a sign that colleges compile insufficient measures of the quantity and quality of their work. Source:ECS

Colleges Need To Bear Risk For Student Loan Defaults

Review Summary

Pitched unsteadily if shrewdly between honest self-reflection and squirmy narcissistic indulgence, the low-budget indie “Tiny Furniture” is one of the bigger itsy-bitsy movies to hit this year. It was written and directed by the newcomer Lena Dunham, who also plays the leading role of Aura, a recent college graduate who returns to her family’s TriBeCa loft and promptly tries to crawl back in the womb. What makes this womb without apparent view especially notable is that Ms. Dunham’s own mother, the artist Laurie Simmons, plays Aura’s mother, while her real sister, Grace, plays Aura’s on-screen sibling. The story unfolds leisurely, almost listlessly. Aura, carrying a pet white hamster that registers as a token of her vulnerability, slips into her postgraduate routine. She reunites with a childhood friend, Charlotte (Jemima Kirke, funny and appalling), goes to a party, gets a job as a restaurant hostess and flirts with two men, Jed (Alex Karpovsky) and Keith (David Call), whose indifference to her she stubbornly and excruciatingly refuses to acknowledge. She wanders about the loft, padding around in her pajamas like a toddler and standing (in awe or confusion) before the gleaming white cabinets and wall of books that look like the monument to success they are. Nothing happens, and then something does. As you watch Aura meander, you might start wondering when the “real” story will kick in. You’ll have to keep waiting. Part performance piece, part thought experiment, “Tiny Furniture” only looks like a straightforward coming-of-age narrative. — Manohla Dargis

College Reports Worth Reading

• Beyond Need and Merit: Strengthening State Grant Programs (Brookings Institution)

• The Credential Differential: The Public Return to Increasing Postsecondary Credential Attainment (CLASP)

• Reclaiming the American Dream: A Report from the 21st-Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges (AACC)

• Replenishing Opportunity In America: The 2012 Midterm Report of Public Higher Education Systems in the Access to Success Initiative (Education Trust)

Source : ECS

Colleges Need New Strategy To De-Emphasize Rankings

Colleges: Making the Grade?
by Karen Gift & Thomas Gift
Despite frequent complaints that U.S. News has poisoned the college admissions process, schools have done precious little to combat the rankings infatuation. If higher education is serious about reversing the negative consequences-and perverse incentives-that stem from the one-number-fits-all U.S. News craze, it needs to devise a viable alternative. The best solution is to track student performance-from the first hour students walk in the door to years after they earn a diploma-and then make this information readily accessible. This would allow for meaningful comparisons of schools on metrics that matter most to prospective freshman and their families.

Source- TC Record

Parents Make Tough Decisions To Pay For College

PAYING FOR COLLEGE: MORE TOUGH DECISIONS
Middle age is prime time for saving money. From your late 40s through early 60s, you’re supposed to squirrel away cash to cope with health care costs in your old age. But for millions of Americans, middle age also is the time when children are seeking help with higher-education bills, and elderly parents may be needing assistance with daily care. Scott and Kelley Hawkins, both 46, are in that middle position. As they brace for paying rising college expenses for two daughters in school at once, they know they will have many tough financial decisions to make. “A lot of extra stuff we used to have money for, we don’t have the money for” now that the hefty-tuition years are looming, Scott Hawkins said. The article is from NPR’s Family Matters series.

Source:Carnegie Foundation

Graduates of For-Profits Lag Behind Their Peers in Earnings and Employment

For-profit colleges do a good job of retaining students in their first year and getting them to finish, but these students also tend to fare worse than similar students at community colleges and public and private nonprofit institutions, according to a new study. Six years after they enter college, students from for-profit institutions are employed at lower rates and earn less than their peers. Source:ECS

Mixed Review For California Grade 11 College Readiness Assessment

People interested in grade 11 college ready testing will benefit from the publication of a new PACE report: California’s Early Assessment Program: Its Effectiveness and the Obstacles to Successful Program Implementation.  The Early Assessment Program (EAP) has emerged as a national model for states seeking to design policies that increase the number of students who leave high school ready for college and careers.  In addition, the two national consortia designing new assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards have recognized the EAP as a model for the design of new high school assessments, which California will implement in 2014-15.  The report was written by Hilary McLean of Capitol Impact, LLC.

The report describes the key features of the EAP, with a particular focus on the ways in which the program can help to strengthen coherence and alignment in California’s fragmented educational system.  The report reviews the available research on the EAP and its impact on student access and success in post-secondary education, and identifies ways in which the program could be modified to increase its value to California students and educators.

California’s Early Assessment Program: Its Effectiveness and the Obstacles to Successful Program Implementation

8 Reasons Exams May Be All Wrong

This is a provoctive article that makes some interesting and stimulating points   (http://www.bachelorsdegreeonline.com/blog/2012/8-reasons-final-exams-might-be-all-wrong/).