Month March 2013

Month March 2013

Rural Americans More Likely to Join the Military than go to College

Blog, Colleges, General, News, Parents, Uncategorized

Claire Vaye Watkins authors an op-ed piece in the New York Times discussing her experience that far too many top students from rural as well as inner city schools can relate to in the college application process.  She strongly suggests that the answer is to follow the model of the military – walking the family methodically through the process.  [read more]

Early College Graduation can Save Thousands

Blog, Career, Colleges, Financial Aid, General, News, Parents, Scholarships, Students

Graduating early from college can have a significant positive financial savings.  Using such tactics as using AP, dual credit, and/or CLEP credits to fill core requirements as well as taking advantage of summer opportunities and online courses at local junior colleges to fulfill core requirements can eliminate thousands of dollars from the more traditional four-year graduation plan.  Students finishing in the middle of the year often have less competition in the job market because only about five to ten percent of students graduate in December, according to Inside Higher Ed. [read more]

Problem with Rich – Poor College Graduation Rate Gap

Blog, General, Information, News

Peter Orszag of The Miami Herald and former Director of the Office of Management and Budget for the Obama administration, offers an opinion regarding a paper recently released by economists Martha Bailey and Susan Dynarski of the University of Michigan regarding the widening gap in college completion rates.  Bailey and Dynarski posit that the gap between the rich and the poor has grown by 14 percentage points since 1980.  Orszag reminds us of a fundamental national concern; we are risking “the traditional American notion of equal opportunity.” [read more]

National Institutes of Health Limits Political Science Funding

Blog, Colleges, General, News

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on 3/21 that the US Senate appropriated funds to continue research at colleges and universities, however deep cuts are in store for political science research.  Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma strongly disagreed with the foundation’s spending priorities.  He “sent a letter last week to the NSF’s director, Subra Suresh, listing a series of agency-financed projects he considered a waste of taxpayer money. His list included several involving political science, including studies of voter attitudes toward the Senate filibuster and of the cooperation between the president and Congress.”

“Michael Brintnall, executive director of the American Political Science Association, who called it a dangerous act of political interference in science…(citing a) NSF-sponsored political-science … study of school districts and government that informed many of the efforts by mayors in recent years to improve school-system governance.” [read more]