Critic Supports For Profit Colleges Compared To Non Profits

Kaplan CEO biographer claims non-profits don’t spend where it matters
Jay Mathews, who recently published a biography on Kaplan Inc. Chairman and CEO, Andrew S. Rosen, recently stated in a Washington Post editorial that “for-profit colleges are here to stay,” and at the same time, by “spending on expensive campus improvements like gourmet restaurants, luxury dorms, gorgeous recreation centers and other stuff that impresses applicants” non-profit universities are not serving the educational needs of students as well as they could be.
washingtonpost.com

College Completion Statistic Of The Week

Only 32.9 percent of men earn a degree in four years, while the percentage
for women is 43.8. The gap shrinks to 5.5 percentage points at the end of the
sixth year. First-generation college students earn a degree at the rate of 27.4
percent after four years, while students whose parents have college degrees
have a graduation rate of 42.1 percent. Asian American and white students had
the highest four-year graduation rates, at 44.9 percent and 42.6 percent
respectively. Degree-attainment rates remain is the highest at private
universities; the lowest numbers come from public four-year colleges. Data from
the survey shows that overall graduation rates in colleges and universities
went up by about 2.5 percent when compared to similar data from 10 years ago.

Source: Completing College: Assessing
Graduation Rates at Four-Year Institutions via Scott Swail

College Admissions: Increasingly, Money Matters More Than Merit

What matters most in college admissions — money or merit?
Guest blog by Esther Quintero/Washington Post

A recent survey of college admission directors and enrollment managers conducted by Inside Higher Education sparked considerable media coverage about an issue that is not entirely new: Money, not only merit, matters in college admissions. According to the survey of 462 directors and managers, in the face of generalized budget cuts, universities are favoring applicants who don’t need financial assistance to pay their tuition. About 22 percent agreed that “the financial downturn [had] forced them to pay more attention to an applicants’ ability to pay when [making] admissions decisions.” Directors acknowledged seeking more candidates who would not need financial aid, including out-of-state and international students. (more…)

A New Era For College Admissions?

THE END OF COLLEGE
ADMISSIONS AS WE KNOW IT

If you want to buy shares of stock, bid on antiques, search for a job, or look
for Mr. Right in 2011, you will likely go to a marketplace driven by the
electronic exchange of information. There will be quick, flexible transactions,
broad access to buyers and sellers, and powerful algorithms that efficiently
match supply and demand. If you are a student looking for a college or a
college looking for a student, by contrast, you’re stuck with an archaic,
over-complicated, under-managed system that still relies on things like bus
trips to airport convention centers and the physical transmission of pieces of
paper. That’s why under-matching is so pervasive. The higher education market
only works for students who have the resources to overcome its terrible
inefficiency. Everyone else is out of luck. Kevin Carey writes in Washington Monthly that
all that is about to change and everything we know about college admissions is
about to go out the window

Source:Gay Clyburn, Carnegie Foundation

Online Enrollment Increases, But Faculty Views Stable

National Report Finds Overlooked Causes For Increasing Graduation.

By Carla Rivera

Colleges should examine a wider set of social, economic and personal characteristics to determine how they can help students remain in school and graduate, a new report has found.
Aside from SAT scores and high school grade point averages, students’ success in college relies on a number of other factors — often overlooked — that more accurately predict whether they will stay in school, according to the report scheduled for release Tuesday by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA.

Using information from a national survey of college freshmen in public and private institutions as well as graduation data, the report found, for example, that students who visit a college before enrolling, participate in clubs and other activities and those who have used the Internet for research and homework are more likely to complete a degree earlier than others. The costs of attending a college and the institution’s size also contribute to students’ success, the report found.
Overall graduation rates are up from a decade ago — nearly four in 10 students (39%) graduate in four years today compared to 36% of students who started college in 1994, the report showed. But 56.4% of students now take five years to graduate.
Disparities in graduation rates by ethnicity and gender persist and the gaps are increasing, according to the report. First-generation students are especially at a disadvantage: Only 27.4% of these students earn a degree after four years compared to 42% of students whose parents attended college.
“The message to colleges is to use as much information as possible about their incoming students to assess what their probabilities are in terms of completion and think about services and programs that need to be addressed,” said Sylvia Hurtado, director of the research institute and one of the report’s authors.
(Lower in article)The report found that private schools graduate more students in four years than public institutions. But the study suggests that much of that success is because private schools are more selective in the types of students they enroll. But public universities, which are likely to enroll more low-income and first-generation students, graduate more of their students than would be expected, the report also found.

Student Engagement In College Is Important

Fostering Student
Engagement Campuswide: Annual Results 2011

A 21st century vision of undergraduate education demands an integrated,
comprehensive approach to learning that is responsive to the whole student.
Educators must actively collaborate about the experience of their students,
talk about what students know and can do, and design new approaches to engaging
students at high levels. Student engagement results provide educators across a
variety of campus programs and departments information to consider in their
efforts to understand the student experience and to collaborate in the design
of educationally productive activities and programs. Institutions that have
effectively used student engagement results suggest that an important step to
bringing people together is to first help them see the relevancy of results for
their unit.

12 Major Trends In College Admission Policy And Practice

This is the best summary of recent changes in college admissions that I have seen. It addresses all types of colleges that use some selection . Below is the link:

(http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2011/11/21/12-modern-trends-in-college-admissions/).

North Carolina Is Another State Giving ACT To 11th grade

  Over 10 states administer ACT on a statewide basis to provide interstate comparisons and provide student feedback. There are concerns about how ACT aligns with other in- state secondary school assessments.

ACT to Be Given to Test High School Students’ Post-graduation Readiness
Beginning this spring, North Carolina high school students will take national exams to determine how well they are prepared for life after graduation. The education department will spend $5.5 million to offer the ACT to juniors, the run-up test to sophomores and a standardized test for students who have completed a sequence of career and technical education courses. (Raleigh News and Observer, 10/05/11)

Colleges Spend More On Recruiting Students Than Aid For Needy Students