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.
California’s rocky path to prosperity
Unless California helps low-income parents learn basic skills, train for jobs and pursue higher education, the state’s prosperity is at risk, concludes Working Hard, Left Behind. The Campaign for College Opportunity, the Women’s Foundation of California and Working Poor Families project collaborated on the report. California leads the nation in low-income working adults and in [...]
Should Pell require readiness?
Many Pell Grant recipients aren’t prepared for college and never complete a degree, writes Jane Shaw of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. Instead of denying Pell aid to remedial students, she proposes requiring evidence of readiness, such as SAT scores of at least 850 (verbal and math) and a high school GPA of at least [...]
No Pell for remedial courses?
Pell Grants should go only to college-ready students, proposes Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Foundation on Bloomberg View. “A huge proportion” of the $40 billion annual federal investment in college aid is going to unprepared students, he asserts. About two-thirds of low-income community-college students — and one-third of poor students at four-year colleges — need [...]
Look at outcomes for all colleges
Federal aid is subsidizing colleges with low graduation, loan repayment and employment rates, writes Judah Bellon on Minding the Campus. Instead of singling out for-profit higher education, regulators should scrutinize the outcomes of all colleges and universities that rely on federal loans and grants. For-profit colleges enroll more black, Hispanic, low-income and older students than public [...]
Retraining is tough for ex-steelworkers
When RG Steel closed in Baltimore, laying off 2,000 well-paid steelworkers, Community College of Baltimore County offered workers a chance to retool. But college was a tough sell, reports the Chronicle of Higher Education. ”It’s a group of men who think college is for other people,” says Brian Penn, who runs the college’s heating, ventilating, air-conditioning, and [...]
‘Gainful employment’ regs will return
The U.S. Education Department will rewrite “gainful employment” regulations fought bitterly by for-profit colleges, according to a notice published in the Federal Register. The department plans to use “negotiated rule-making” to move forward its agenda on college aid and affordability, substituting regulation for legislation, notes Inside Higher Ed. The traditional venue for enacting long-term changes [...]
Does college pay? Site shows risks, rewards
Whether college pays — in dollars — depends on where you go and what you study. College Risk Report, a web site created by 29-year-old Jared Moore, asks the collegebound to enter their prospective college or university and their major. It estimates how long it would take to pay off a bachelor’s degree and compares that [...]
Two-Pell proposal
A 19-year-old living with parents and seeking a bachelor’s degree and a 29-year-old single mother looking for job credentials have very different needs that can’t be served by a single Pell Grant, argues Rethinking Pell Grants by a College Board study group headed by Sandy Baum and funded by the Gates and Lumina Foundations. The group [...]
Pell spending inches down
Pell spending declined slightly halfway through 2012-13, reports the American Association of Community Colleges. Grants cost $16.6 billion compared to $16.7 billion the year before and $17 billion in 2010-11. Fall enrollments declined by 3.1 percent at community colleges, while Pell recipients were down 7.2 percent, AACC estimates. Total Pell Grant funding for community college students fell by [...]
