December 19, 2014: Education News We're Reading This Week
On Friday the White House announced the framework portion of their college rating system which will be implemented next year. The system will help determine federal financial aid to schools based on access, affordability and student outcomes, and will include a three-category scale. NPR released a story on the framework, while The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed commented on the announcement’s lack of detail. Reuters published their own piece and the Los Angeles Times focused on the new plan’s critics.
Not all colleges and universities graduate the same percentage of low-income students as their higher-income peers, but U.S. News & World Report has discovered who does it best. These schools have nearly the same graduation rates for both groups.
This time of year, some students are being notified that their early college applications have been deferred. Rebecca Joseph gives six suggestions for those students who may feel pessimistic about their options in The Huffington Post.
EdTech reports on using analytics to increase college graduation rates, as discussed at the White House Summit on College Opportunity. D. Frank Smith shares the example of Georgia State University using predictive analytics to track students facing financial risks, particularly underrepresented students, which has led to more than 3,000 successful interventions to get them back on track.
Check out videos and working papers from the Education for Upward Mobility conference, provided by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Many elite colleges do their best to seem highly selective, but what are the 10 colleges where you are the least likely to be accepted?
A National College Access Network study notes that of low-income students who participate in college access programs, many are “slightly more or nearly as likely as their higher-income peers to start and finish college.” Diverse explains in detail.
A self-described “longtime admissions professional” writes, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, that few low-income, first generation and minority students can keep up with the admissions office game—while high-income students from well-educated families are inadvertently given preference.
The Hechinger Report writes that some school districts are providing laptops for each student. But new technology means new curriculum, and those who do not have access to internet connectivity at home may fall behind their more privileged peers.
Nervous about that first college interview? Here are six tips from The Huffington Post.
Foundation adviser Matthew Ozea and one of his Young Scholars, Gage Roberts of Salina, Kansas, were the subject of a great article in the Salina Journal this week.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges also featured the Young Scholars Program in this piece on the annual Environmental Studies Summer Youth Institute. The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has covered the cost of this summer program for Young Scholars in the past.
The Hechinger Report cites a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation statistic in this piece on the “pipeline to prison.” Data shows that only “56% of first graders remained in the top achievement quartile by the fifth grade, compared to 69% of higher income children.”