State Incentive For College Graduation Gets Response from Colleges

TN colleges get creative to increase graduation rate
By Jennifer Brooks, the Tennessean
The state of Tennessee gave colleges their marching orders: Raise your graduation rates, or else. If graduation rates decline, so does state support for that institution. So state colleges and universities are getting creative in their efforts to make sure the students they enroll leave with diplomas in hand.

How To Reduce The Burden Of Student Loans

How to Reduce the Burden of Student Loans  : Guest Blogger Chris Jacobsen

If you thought the path into college was rough, you’ve probably not heard the horror stories about student loans from those who’ve graduated. They’re stuck in the unenviable position of having the degree they’ve always wanted, yet burdened by a load of debt that they must repay for the better part of their lives. Student debt is becoming worse by the day as college costs soar and students are left with no way out but to borrow at exorbitant rates in order to afford an education. Not everyone can go to college on their parents’ savings or by the strength of their wealth, so they do have to borrow to meet their tuition fees and other expenses. However, with just a little careful planning, students can reduce this burden considerably:

• Go in for a federal loan instead of a private loan – there are many repayment options and deferment plans if you’re beset by money problems and unable to make your monthly payments. Choose from the Parent Plus, Grad Plus, unsubsidized Stafford, subsidized Stafford, and the Perkins loans.
• Apply for a loan well in advance because the competition is fierce and you don’t want to lose out because you’ve been tardy in sending in your application.
• Enroll in a degree that will allow you to find work in the public sector – you can take advantage of loan forgiveness programs that allow you to write off your student loan if you work in the public sector or in nonprofit organizations for a period of ten years. There are conditions to these programs – you will be asked to work in rural areas or low-income environments, so if you’re ok with this, choose to become a nurse, a teacher, a cop, a civil servant, or any other public service professional.
• Minimize your expenses in college and start putting aside money every month to pay back your student loan. You could take on a part-time job, save some of your allowance, and generally live frugally in order to reduce the burden of your debt when you graduate.
• Once you graduate, find out how much you owe every month, and how many years you have to repay your debt. Based on your monthly income, you can decide if you want to decrease your monthly payment and increase the number of years you have to repay your loan. This helps you avoid delinquency (missed payments) or worse, a default (avoidance of payment altogether).
• Take advantage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRAA) which allows borrowers of qualified federal loans to pay back their debt on a sliding scale based on their income using Income Based Repayment (IBR). If you earn less than your monthly due, this rule allows you to reduce your monthly due to 10 percent of your income. This makes you a debtor for a longer period of time, but at least you avoid the consequences of delinquency (poor credit history, difficulty in securing any kind of loan) and default (wage garnishment, withholding of income tax refunds and Social Security benefits, turning over of debts to collection agencies).
• There are also other options when you cannot meet your monthly payments – one of them is loan deferment which allows you to defer payment on your loan for a certain time period. You could take advantage of this option if you’re going back to school or if you lose your job and are unable to make payments on your loan. When you go in for a deferment, there are some loans that waive even the interest due; but for others (mostly unsubsidized loans), you may have to pay at least the interest due every month in order to prevent it from accumulating and adding to your overall debt.
• Another option to consider is loan forbearance where the lender allows you to temporarily suspend payment because of financial hardship or similar reasons.  

Before you take advantage of all these repayment options, remember that putting off the repayment of a loan or paying less every month means that you remain a debtor for a longer period of time. So plan your future even before you join college – it helps you avoid debt and lead a peaceful life.

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Chris Jacobson who writes on the topic of Criminal Justice Degree Online . Chris can be reached at his email id: chris.jacobson7-AT-gmail-Dot-com

Florida Moves To Deny Tenure To 2 And 4 year College Professors

A bill that would prohibit Florida’s community and state colleges from granting tenure to faculty passed a key legislative committee. New employees as well as those who have not yet earned tenure – including faculty and administrators – would work on annual contracts. House Bill 7193 also requires colleges, when facing layoffs, to let go of their poorest performing employees first. (Orlando Sentinel, 03/29/11)

New Blog on College Developmental Education For Math

Jack Rotman, a professor of mathematics at Lansing Community College and chair of the developmental mathematics committee of the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges,  has started a blog reflecting the challenges of ensuring student success in developmental math. He writes: “Those of us who specialize in developmental mathematics have been especially challenged over the past few years and it is easy to become discouraged and cynical.  I have started a blog as a means to provide both encouragement and practical assistance, consistent with the goals of a professional reformulation of developmental mathematics.”  The blog is Developmental Mathematics Revival.

New Study Finds Effective Practices For Community College Student Progress

A new policy brief from MDRC synthesizes findings from its Opening Doors Demonstration — the first large-scale random assignment study in a community college setting, launched in 2003. The demonstration pursued promising strategies that emerged from focus groups with low-income students, discussions with college administrators, and an extensive literature review. Partnering with six community colleges across the country, MDRC helped develop and evaluated four distinct programs based on financial incentives, reforms in instructional practices, and enhancements in student services. Colleges were encouraged to focus on one strategy but think creatively about combining elements of the other strategies to design programs that helped students perform better academically and persist toward degree completion. The program provides evidence that a range of interventions can improve educational outcomes for community college students. The findings spurred some colleges to scale up their programs, and led to additional large-scale demonstrations to test the most promising strategies. The brief describes the different strategies tested, discusses what MDRC has learned from Opening Doors, and offers some suggestions to policymakers and practitioners for moving forward.
See the report: http://www.mdrc.org/publications/585/overview.html

Source:PEN Newsblast

Texas Dual Enrollment Report Provides Insights For Other States

 Texas has been a leader in funding and designing high school students who take college courses.

A report from the Texas Education Agency examines the state context of dual credit programs and courses delivered during the 2009-10 academic year and the cost of these courses (via ECS’ P-20 Blog).

College Will Award AA Degrees Retroactively

Over the past five years, more than 1,000 San José-Evergreen Community College District students completed the requirements for a certificate or an associate degree but, for whatever reason, never claimed their credentials. Now, the institutional researcher who recently identified these students wants to track them all down and retroactively award them credentials. This practice will increase graduation rates at colleges, but we need to sort out whether it is old or new students causing trends.

New Studies On Undocumented College Students And Remediation

COLLEGE REMEDIATION – Utilizing data from the Colorado departments of education and higher education, a paper from the Colorado Department of Education shows that students needing remediation in their first year of college could have been identified by an examination of their state assessment results as early as 6th grade.

UNDOCUMENTED COLLEGE STUDENTS – A report from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities looks at state policies regarding undocumented college students.

Obama Proposes Small programs For College Completion

On Tuesday, March 22, Vice President Joe Biden unveiled a 23-page “toolkit” (PDF) of seven low- or no-cost policies governors can employ to improve college completion rates, along with state targets (PDF) for meeting President Obama’s 2020 goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. The toolkit includes recommendations to set state college completion goals, embrace performance funding and reach out to adults who have completed some college credits but who have not yet obtained a degree. The vice president also called on each governor to host a college completion summit and announced a $20 million grant program under the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE)’s Comprehensive Program for states seeking to improve college success and productivity.

In addition, the Obama administration’s FY2012 budget proposal (PDF) includes a $123 million “First in the World” incentive for programs that contain tuition, improve college completion rates and help students complete college in a timely manner. The budget proposal also recommends a $50 million College Completion Incentive Grant program that would fund states and schools for systemic reforms that generate better student outcomes. Congress will consider this request as part of the FY2012 budget process.

Complete College America Reports progress in 39 States

Most Governors Are Committed to Bold Action on Completion. in CCA Alliance of States 39 Accept the Innovation Challenge
The numbers speak for themselves.

Over half of our nation’s governors have pledged to fulfill the bold commitments required of Complete College America’s Alliance of States.

Governors in thirty-eight states have accepted the Completion Innovation Challenge, signaling their intention to compete for CCA grants to support sweeping, high-impact reforms essential to boost completion.  (DC is in, too!)

We’ve always believed that Governors get it: for more good-paying jobs, stronger state economies and brighter futures, states must have more college graduates.

And now, there’s proof.

The White House just called for bold action by states.  Complete College America is pleased to report:

the Governors are committed.

We invite you to read a full copy of today’s announcement here.  As always, we welcome your support of this vital effort.

To learn more about the Alliance of States, go here.  For the Innovation Challenge, go here.