Spring4th.net now features a comprehensive list of the free publications, tools and information resources. Most of the publications are available on the Web and/or for download as PDF files.
Two of my favorites is the MoneySkills online course and the Hip Hop Summit Action Network’s “Get Your Money Right” Tour.
Check out the Financial Education page at Spring4th.net.
The College Board is now accepting entries for the 2008 Inspiration Awards. The Inspiration Awards celebrate America’s most improved high schools, awarding the three winning schools $25,000 each.
Winning schools initiate unique programs and create partnerships among teachers, parents, community organizations and local businesses to help more students attend college.
The Inspiration Awards are open to all secondary schools (public and nonpublic) in which 40 percent or more of the students receive free or reduced-price lunches. Schools should be able to demonstrate significant and consistent growth across the entire student population in:
Get additional information or to download an Inspiration Awards application, call 212 713-8052, or e-mail InspirationAwards@collegeboard.org. Applicants will be notified of their status by late March 2008.
The College Board is ending its Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) student loan program. They will not accept new loan applications after Oct. 15, 2007, but will continue to honor its obligations to existing borrowers through the 2007-2008 academic year.
The College Board’s decision to end its student loan program was based on the enactment of new legislation and codes of conduct regarding the student loan industry.
Read the full press release.
The College Board, the organization that develops and administers the SAT, announced that average composite scores on the math and critical-reading sections once again fell to an all-time low, dropping 4 points since last year when scores dropped a historic seven points.
This year’s average score in critical reading was 502 (1-point decline lower than last year). The average scores in mathematics and writing declined 3 points each compared to a year ago, bringing the scores to 515 and 494, respectively.
College Board officials cite the increase in then number of minority students taking the test as the reason for the drop in scores. A record 1.5 million test-takers from the 2007 high school graduating class took the SAT. Thirty-nine percent of them were minorities.
Read the full press release.
Two bills, one in the House and one in the Senate, will deliver student loan reforms not seen in over 60 years. This is great news given that the average U.S. college grad leaves college with $19,200 in debt. Many students struggle to pay down their college debt, which usually comes due within 6 months of graduation. This struggle is exacerbated when students pursue careers in public service or teaching, careers that traditionally pay lower salaries. Even students that accept jobs in higher-paying career fields can find themselves unable to manage student loan payments, rent on new apartments and, oh yeah, food.
Both the House and the Senate’s bills will provide some much-needed relief to current and future college students, and families considering the amount of debt their students’ may have to carry in order to attend their first-choice schools. Though, the House bill, the 2007 College Cost Reduction Act, may be the most beneficial to the most students.
Get the full scoop on Everybody ElsesGuidetoCollege.comÂ
The Imagine America Foundation, formerly the Career College Association, has released its first economic impact study as part of the group’s effort to change public attitudes about its institutions. Â The study asserts that, on average, career college students earned a 31% return on their tuition investments based on the higher wages they will earn over their lifetimes.
Career college graduates earn approximately $9,230 more per year, or $337,000 over their lifetimes, compared with the wages earned by high school graduates.
The Imagine America Foundation is a 1,400 member association of for-profit colleges, most of which offer certificates and associate degrees in fields like health care, business, information technology, and hospitality.
Over 2.1 million students are enrolled in the U.S.’s 2,694 career colleges, up 23% since the 2003-04 academic year. In 2006, 61 percent of the credentials awarded by career colleges were certificates, 23 percent were associate degrees, 9 percent were bachelor’s, 7 percent were master’s, and 1 percent were professional or doctoral degrees.
The study claims that the overall economic impact of the for-profit sector is nearly $39-billion, taking into account the $14.6-billion in revenue going to the colleges and the additional $4-billion that students spend beyond tuition to attend, along with the indirect impact of the higher wages earned by career-college graduates and the added value they bring to the industries where they go to work.
When asked if the degrees awarded by career colleges are worth it, Harris N. Miller, the association’s president, replied “In a bottom-line sense, absolutely yes”.
Resources
The Southern Regional Education Board, an education policy research organization, released its SREB Fact Book on Higher Education, a report on the state of higher education in the 16 states that make up the Southern region (see the states).
The reports revealed 6 major findings:
-Most of the U.S. population growth over the next 20 years will be in the South.
More than half of the United States’ population growth over the next 20 years will be in      the 16 SREB states.
-Hispanic students represent the lion’s share of projected population growth.
Hispanics will account for 28% of the region’s high school grads by 2018. Black and Hispanic college enrollment levels are expected to increase to 44 percent by 2014 and to 48 percent by 2018.
-The percentage of Black college students finally exceeds the percentage of Blacks in the region’s population
Black undergraduate enrollment has risen 52 percent to 21% of total college student enrollment, while the Black population sits at roughly 19%. Nationally, the percentage of Black college students lags behind their population percentage.
-College enrollment rates of Hispanic students lags behind that of Blacks and Whites.
Despite the increase in number of Hispanic students, the college-going rate of Hispanic 18- to 24-year-olds (25 percent) lagged behind the rates for black students (33 percent) and white students (43 percent) in the U.S. in 2005.
-Women and minorities lead growth in degrees.
Women and minorities accounted for most of the SREB region’s increases in degrees awarded from 1995 to 2005, representing 69 percent and 42 percent, respectively, of the total increase in bachelor’s degrees.
-Increased minority college enrollment may threaten gains in educational attainment.
If the educational attainment levels of Blacks and Hispanics do not improve, the increases in minority student enrollment (and the resulting increase in the number of students in the region from middle- and lower income families), the rising cost of college tuition and the increase in the number of jobs requiring bachelors degrees may converge to cause a reversal of educational progress in the region. SREB predicts that “efforts to ensure that affordable college opportunities are available to all students will be increasingly important to the region’s and nation’s continued education progress”.
Other Interesting Findings
The majority of the Black student enrollment increases have occurred at public universities and two-year colleges, rather than at historically black institutions, which traditionally have educated the bulk of black students in the South. Black enrollment in historically black institutions has slipped from 26 percent to 19 percent over the last decade.
Reaction to the SREB Findings
None of SREB’s findings should come as a big surprise given all of the debate over immigration, which has unfortunately focused almost solely on Hispanics, and the debate over the No Child Left Behind Act, our president’s attempt at improving the educational opportunities and outcomes of the nation’s poorest students.
Additionally, the fact that more minorities and women are earning degrees and becoming more affluent is also nothing new.
Finally, the Board’s finding that more Black students are enrolling in colleges in the South are not surprising given that Blacks are relocating back to the South in record numbers, citing reasons that include lower costs of living and being nearer to family members (especially post-911 and Katrina).
The fact that most of the new enrollment is not going to historically black colleges is also no surprising, and not indicative of any decline in their quality or attractiveness. Instead, the numbers represent a move toward lower cost tuition.
Read SREB’s full report.
Thousands of students enroll in community and junior colleges every year, generally as an alternative to higher priced private and public 4-year colleges. In the past that meant foregoing the “college experience” complete with sports teams, dorm life, student government and lots of school spirit in exchange for less stringent admissions requirements, low per-unit costs, flexible schedules and a shorter path to a degree (an associate’s degree).
Junior and community colleges still offer these great benefits, but, in response to the demands throngs of students ages 18-24, they are now attempting to provide a more authentic college experience by adding or expanding athletic programs. Students–both those interested in playing sports and those who simply want to cheer them on–are responding by enrolling in greater numbers to those community and junior colleges that boast athletic teams. And that’s just what the colleges’ presidents had in mind.
The National Junior College Athletics Association has reportedly added more than 40 colleges since 2003, ten of those in 2006 alone, bringing their total membership to 500 colleges.
Here’s a sampling of the new additions:
2006
Find junior and community college athletic programs in your state!
The Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 decision on the cases of Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education (KY) and Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District appeared, on their face, to spell the end of the use of race in school admissions and transfer decisions. But, did it?
The dissenting justices and proponents of affirmative action in school admissions decried the June 28th decision on the grounds that it effectively reversed the Court’s earlier decision in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, the case that established equality in education. Basically, this case allowed the use of race in school admissions, placement and allocation decisions as long as the use served the government’s interest, namely remedied past intentional discrimination.
In both the recent cases, schools in Seattle and Louisville, KY used race to determine which schools students could attend, to make transfer decisions, and as “tie-breakers” when they needed to make choices between White and Nonwhite students once schools were over-booked.
The Supreme Court found that the use of race in the schools’ admissions and transfer processes served neither government interest–since the Seattle schools had never been legally segregated and the Kentucky schools had had their court-ordered desegregation lifted in 2000. Further, the schools failed to demonstrate that their policies benefitted the students or improved the quality of education in any legally acceptable way; the policies, according to the court, amounted to “racial balancing”.
Chief Justice John G. Stephens Jr. wrote that such policies only “promote the notion of racial inferiority and the politics of racial division”.
In the end, the justices’ decision did not do make use of race as an admission criteria illegal in all secondary school admissions; schools may use race so long as the goal is narrowly defined and serve to remedy past intentional discrimination. Race may not be used as the sole criteria, and must be shown to markedly improve the quality of education at the school (as determined by more than higher test scores or mere racial diversity).
The Court’s decision also did not really impact the use of race in college admissions where the court acknowledges that it may be appropriate to use race in college admissions where the use can be shown to improve the quality of education, as long as it is part of a broader set of criteria designed to create that diversity.
School is out. What’s your plan? A little swimming? A summer fling? Lazy summer nights?
Skip it!
Use your summer to kick the tires at a few colleges. There’s no better time than summer to take a road trip to check out campuses you’ve only read about and seen in catalogs. It’s summer for college students too, so many of the campuses will be a bit deserted, but you’ll still be able to get a good “feel” for the campus, the dorms, the classrooms, libraries, some of the professors and the surrounding cities and towns.
During the school year, the admissions offices at every college offer student-led tours, weekend visits and course audits. Most of this stuff is not available after May 31 because the students who lead and facilitate the tours and overnight visits have gone home for the summer.
Don’t despair. Summer programs abound. Many colleges offer summer “preview” programs, or summer institutes and weekend workshops for high school students and other prospective undergrads. These programs are generally focused on particular segments of students–minority or female students, or students interested in engineering–and designed to introduce students in the community to which they might belong if they attend the college. They are also, of course, great recruiting tools: There is nothing more seductive than spending the night in a drafty old building named after a rich dead guy, eating nondescript food in a dining hall that reminds you of your elementary school (remember standing in line with your plastic tray, your applesauce and your half-pint carton of chocolate milk?), staying up and out all night with people you barely know but feel amazingly close to, wearing your PJ’s to class, falling asleep in the “stacks” of an architecturally-stunning old library, and finding yourself among the lucky few who scored a seat in the classroom of the best professor in your major.
I attended several of these summer programs during my sophomore, junior and senior years. They gave me an up-close and personal preview of life at the colleges I was considering applying to. I also met cool people who ultimately became my friends once when I enrolled in college. Needless to say, I highly recommend attending a few of them.
Excited? Good.
Now, the bad news: If you haven’t already applied, you may not be able to get into the program of your choice at this late date. And, most of the programs are not free. In fact, some of them are very expensive.
I know. I know. You think I got you all excited for nothing. But, that’s not so; there are still plenty of colleges still accepting applicants. While they may not be your top-choice schools, they can still offer you valuable insight into college life. They can show you what you don’t like, which is as important as knowing what you do like when choosing a college.
More good news: Many of the programs offer financial aid (Apply early to get the most consideration).
Here are a few:
Now, allow me to further redeem myself by telling you that not finding a summer program is not the end of the world, or the summer. You can build your own summer campus tour.
Here’s how:
