Graduates regret education choices
A majority of two-year and four-year college graduates would choose a different major or school or both, if they had a second chance, reports Voice of the Graduate, a McKinsey survey of recent graduates. Health majors were the most satisfied with their choice. Students who had majored in visual and performing arts, language, literature, and the [...]
First-gen students need advice, mentoring
First Generation Student, a new web site, provides sensible advice for students who will be the first in their families to go to college. Jaimie Krause writes about developing academic resiliency. In another post, Mark Kantrowitz offers financial aid tips, starting with finding a mentor. It’s also important to connect with other students on sites such as First [...]
Bridging the higher ed divide
Community colleges “are asked to educate those students with the greatest needs, using the least funds, and in increasingly separate and unequal institutions,” concludes Bridging the Higher Education Divide, a report by a Century Foundation task force. “Racial and economic stratification is connected to unequal financial resources as well as to unequal curricula, expectations, and school cultures.” Forty-four [...]
Completion rises as enrollment dips
Colleges and universities awarded 5.1 percent more degrees in 2011-12, despite a 1.6 percent dip in enrollment, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Community colleges lost 250,000 students, but granted 8 percent more associate degrees. The number of bachelor’s degrees rose by 4.3 percent.
Community colleges see 3.6% enrollment dip
College enrollments are continuing to fall by an average of 2.3 percent, except at four-year, private, nonprofit institutions, reports the National Student Clearinghouse. Community colleges lost 3.6 percent of students from spring 2012 to 2013. Full-time enrollment declined by 5.2 percent and part-time enrollment by 2.6 percent. The number of traditional-age students went down by only 1.7 [...]
ACT: 25% are ready for college
Twenty-five percent of ACT test takers in 2012 were prepared for college, according to ACT’s 2012 Condition of College and Career Readiness report. Sixty-seven percent were ready to pass a college writing course, 52 percent were prepared to read a social science textbook, 46 percent were ready for college algebra and 31 were likely to pass [...]
You can live in the basement without college debt
It’s better in to live in your mother’s basement, drink beer and play video games all day than to major in English or sociology, go into debt and then live in the basement, says Aaron Clarey, author of Worthless: The Young Person’s Indispensable Guide to Choosing the Right Major.
Tracking students raises privacy concerns
Tracking students through college and into the workforce is an idea whose time has come back, reports Inside Higher Ed. The Student Right to Know Before You Go Act revives a controversial idea opposed by privacy advocates and adds a federal “unit record” database administered by the Education Department. Colleges would make information public about students’ [...]
‘Jobs of the future’ may not require a degree
The Jobs Of The Future Don’t Require A College Degree, writes Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry in Forbes. Most of the fastest-growing jobs aren’t “knowledge economy” jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The aging population will require many more home health aides and other medical support workers; the BLS estimates strong demand for iron and rebar workers. Being a [...]
College-worth debate looks at 2-year degrees
Are Bachelor’s Degrees Worth It? asks Jeffrey Selingo, author of College (Un)Bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students, in the Wall Street Journal. With unemployment among college graduates at historic highs and outstanding student-loan debt at $1 trillion, the question families should be asking is whether it’s worth borrowing tens of [...]
