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THE NEWS
ACADEMIC PREPARATION
Dual credits encourage students on path to higher education
By Carmen McCollum, Northwest Indiana Times
Thanks to a dual credit program at her high school, Casey Hahney, of Hammond, was able to transfer her credits and enroll at Ivy Tech Community College Northwest. Dual credit is designed for high school juniors and seniors, enabling them to earn college credits while fulfilling high school requirements. Educators say dual credit may not mean that students will finish college in less than four years but it may reduce the number of students finishing in six years. Local colleges and universities recently reported six-year graduation rates in 2008 well below 50 percent, also less than the national average of 55.9 percent.
A summer school for success
By Clare Jensen, Tacome Weekly
Faculty at Tacoma Community College (TCC) made a bold decision when they decided to start their newest summer programming. Aimed strictly at one of the lowest performing academic populations, the inaugural year of Men of Distinction aims to address an issue that has become impossible to ignore, especially in Tacoma: the achievement gap. The first group of Men of Distinction at TCC runs from late June through mid-August, and the men range in age from 18 to 20. All have graduated from high school, except for one. And all have the desire to move forward with their education. Many of the students struggled in high school, and come from backgrounds that dictate poor learning environments.
Standards raised, more students fail tests
By Jennifer Medina, The New York Times
Applying new, tougher standards, state education officials said Wednesday that more than half of public school students in New York City failed their English exams this year, and 54 percent of them passed in math. The results were in stark contrast to successes that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had heralded in recent years. When he ran for re-election in 2009, he boasted of state test scores that showed two-thirds of city students were passing English and 82 percent were passing math. But state education officials said that performance was misleading because those scores were inflated by tests that had become easier to pass.
POSTSECONDARY ACCESS SUCCESS
Most student-aid programs would receive no increase under Senate spending bill
By Michael Sewall, The Chronicle of Higher Education
A Senate appropriations subcommittee approved a spending bill on Tuesday that would provide a $1-billion increase to the National Institutes of Health but keep spending flat for most student-aid programs, including Pell Grants. The lack of an increase to Pell Grants differs from the House version of the spending bill, which would supply about $5.7-billion more to the need-based aid program to cover a budget shortfall and to keep the maximum award at $5,550 for the 2011-12 academic year. The Senate version also maintains the maximum award, but that could change if other money isn't found to cover the shortfall.
State’s technical colleges set enrollment record
By Staff Writer, Effingham Herald (Georgia)
An unprecedented 22 percent jump in the number of students attending the state’s technical colleges has set a new annual enrollment record for the Technical College System of Georgia. The system’s 26 colleges enrolled 190,842 students in fiscal year 2010, which ended on June 30. The total smashes the previous record high enrollment set in 2009 by more than 34,000 students. At Savannah Technical College, total enrollment was up 13 percent from the previous year, with the college serving 9,639 students in 2009-10 up from 8,531 in 2008-09.
As college text prices soar, students get a rental option
By Tracy Jan, The Boston Globe
College students will have new, cheaper alternatives this fall to shelling out hundreds of dollars each semester for textbooks they may never use again. In an effort to curb escalating book prices amid sky-high college costs, bookstores at more than a dozen campuses across the state and hundreds more around the country will begin renting textbooks at about half the cost of buying them. At other schools, professors looking to save students even more money are solely assigning reading materials accessible over the Internet — for free.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Education groups call for deepening U.S. academic ties to Indonesia
By Karin Fischer, The Chronicle of Higher Education
A coalition of education and public-policy groups is calling for more-substantial higher-education ties between the United States and Indonesia, arguing that "2010 offers the best chance there will ever be for a major United States-Indonesia bilateral initiative on education." The coalition—which includes the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, the Institute of International Education, the United States-Indonesia Society, and the East-West Center, is pressing for more education exchanges, deeper institutional linkages, and greater investment in Indonesia's higher-education infrastructure.
Fears for the future of Germany’s ‘Ivy League’ initiative
By Aisha Labi, The Australian
Konstanz is one of nine universities that have earned a coveted designation by the German government as being among the nation's strongest. The project, which began in 2005, has unleashed a new dynamic that has reshaped German higher education, demolishing the pretence of egalitarianism and forcing universities to focus on defining their mission and sharpening their focus. "This kind of competition set free a lot of new forces within the universities," says Margret Wintermantel, president of the German Rectors' Conference, which represents the heads of the country's 258 institutions of higher education. "Overall, we are very positive about it."
Asian business schools target Western students
By Hannah Fearn, Times Higher Education
Four major schools - the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Indian School of Business and Nanyang Business School in Singapore - are all ranked in the top 30 business schools worldwide according to the Financial Times, and have long been fierce competitors for European applicants. Now, with demand growing for an international business education, the four institutions are collaborating to promote themselves in the West. They have formed a recruitment coalition that will attend MBA fairs in London, Paris and Madrid this autumn, under the title Top Asia Business Schools.
REPORTS WORTH READING
After the FAFSA: How Red Tape Can Prevent Eligible Students from Receiving Financial Aid
This report is intended to raise questions and spark debate about the utility and effectiveness of the current financial aid process between FAFSA filing and aid disbursement. While it is important to make sure that air dollars are spent appropriately, we cannot ignore the costs that well intentioned protective measures can have for students, as well as for colleges. It is impossible to explain definitely why so many students who appear to qualify for Pell Grants do no complete the process. However quantitative and qualitative analyses in this report both support the hypothesis that the red tape students encounter after filing their FAFSA prevents eligible applicants from receiving aid.
Promising Practices in Statewide Articulation and Transfer Systems
While the loss of college completion potential occurs at numerous points, considerable “leakage in the pipeline” toward the baccalaureate degree appears in the transition from public two-year to four-year institutions. Compounding this problem is that most students attend more than one college or university during their postsecondary career. Specifically, over the course of the undergraduate education of first-time bachelor’s degree recipients, almost 60 percent attend more than one institution. It is hoped that this study of promising practices in articulation and transfer between two- and four-year public institutions can help states and postsecondary institutions, so that the U.S. can reach the goals mentioned above.
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