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General

Baylor Donors and Alumni Take a Stand

Blog, Campus Safety, Colleges, General, News, Parents, Students
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In light of all of the negative publicity that Baylor University has received following the ongoing allegations of sexual-assault on the campus, influential alumni and key donors have formed a nonprofit group to demand and to oversee the overhaul of Baylor’s Board of Regents. Julie Hillrichs, spokesperson for Bears for Leadership Reform, asserted: “I cannot stress enough, it’s not about football . . . This is about women who have been sexually assaulted on this campus. We need to have total accountability and transparency.” [read more]

The Value of a Residential Liberal Arts Institution

Blog, Colleges, General, Information, Parents, Students
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James Lang writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education posts an article discussing the value of attending a residential liberal arts institution as a “practice for life.”  Much of his article highlights a new book entitled Practice for Life: Making Decisions in College, out this month from Harvard University Press, authored by Lee Cuba, Nancy Jennings, Suzanne Lovett, and Joseph Swingle.  “Becoming liberally educated,” they write, “is a complex and messy process involving making decisions and learning from them . . . A residential college is excellent practice for reflecting on what home means and finding one as an emerging adult.” [read more]

New Charges of Gender Bias Still Plaguing SAT

Blog, General, Information, News, Testing
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March, May, and June have seen thousands of high school juniors and seniors study for and sit for the new redesigned SAT.  Along side the students were many professional test-takers with the primary goal of understanding the changes to the test so that they can develop better testing preparatory materials for those very important high school students.  It is these professionals who lay the claim of gender bias.  [read more]

Major + Skills = Job Prospects

Blog, Career, General, Major, Parents, Students
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Goldie Blumenstyk, writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education suggests that good data exists to support students interested in a liberal arts education.  Develop some key skills along the way and good paying jobs prospects are an attainable reality, especially for those with some coding experience.  [read more]

College Return on Investment

Blog, Colleges, General, News, Students
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No matter how you look at it, college is an investment — both of time and money. Whether you’re planning to study computer science or psychology, earning potential in your chosen field, along with the cost of attendance for the schools you’re considering, should be part of the equation when whittling down your list of best return on investment colleges.

Check out the return on investment as reported by PayScale, the company with the largest salary database in the world.

Artificial Intelligence to Wipe Out Millions of Jobs

Blog, Career, General, Information, Major, Parents, Students
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The next big wave of automation came to light last week in a rather quiet way as a Google-owned computer system, Lee Sedol, a champion of one of the world’s most complex board games.  As the world of artificial intelligence continues to advance millions of jobs and ways of life are going to change.

Some 10 percent of all American jobs involve driving vehicles, and most all of them will be lost, said Moshe Y. Vardi, a professor of computational engineering at Rice University. “What are we going to do with these 3.5 million people?”

Christof Koch, president and Chief Scientific Officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science warned  “This is a real issue of our time, and none of our politicians right now is even mentioning it.  I’m not sure anybody even knows about this, which is rather depressing.”

Miles Brundage, a doctoral student at Arizona State University who has been studying AlphaGo, believes the far more urgent need is a real and comprehensive examination of how society and its economy will function once artificial intelligence begins wiping out millions of jobs. [read more]

160 Private Colleges Fail Education Dept.’s Financial-Responsibility Test

Blog, Colleges, General, Information
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According to a The Chronicle of Higher Education analysis of data released on Friday, 160 degree-granting private colleges failed the U.S. Education Department’s financial-responsibility test, which seeks to quantify the financial health of proprietary and nonprofit institutions, for the 2013-14 academic year. That’s two more than failed the year before.  Of the 160 failing institutions, 94 are nonprofit and the rest are for-profit. For the previous year, 108 of the 158 failing institutions were nonprofit. [read more]

Important Income Tax Considerations

Blog, General, Information, Parents, Students
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Parents of college students often forget to consider college expenses as part of their tax return. To help parents navigate the often complex considerations involved in claiming the American Opportunity Credit, the IRS has issued an informative guideline “Tax Benefits of Education.” This tax credit is not the sole tax credit program to consider, especially for parents of students not yet in college. Edvisors has published a noteworthy article to help parents understand the advantages and pitfalls of various programs.