The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

As Home Values Fall A U California Degree Now Costs About The Same As A House

As California's college students prepare to start classes again at University of California campuses, the sticker shock from fees and living expenses is likely fresh on their minds.How rough is it? Well, thanks to rising fees and falling home prices, parents can now get a typical house in Sacramento for less than the cost of a UC education for their children. The median home price in the city of Sacramento is about now about $150,000, according to tracking firm Zillow.com. The estimated cost of five years at a University of California college for new students who live on campus is about $154,000 - and that's assuming fees don't continue to rise. Read more at: 
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/08/17/3844320/uc-education-now-costs-more-than.html#ixzz1VTgolkPz

Those With College Degress Do Better - At Least In Utah

A new survey underwritten by Utah’s business community documents broad social and economic benefits enjoyed by those with college degrees, suggesting that public investment in higher education offers robust returns. Degree holders are less likely to have been unemployed and to have tapped public assistance such as food stamps and Medicaid, according to a presentation to a legislative panel meeting Wednesday at Mountainland Applied Technology College. Those with degrees reported better health, greater career and personal satisfaction and greater community engagement, not to mention 75 percent greater earning power. Read more at:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52405184-78/education-higher-poll-degree.html.csp

Only Five Colleges Adequately Serve the Financially Disadvantaged

A new report from the nonprofit Education Trust finds only five U.S. colleges that properly serve the disadvantaged — by offering a quality education to a significant number of low-income students at a reasonable price. The report, issued this month, draws this stark conclusion from new federal data on the net price of higher education, after accounting for grant aid. The analysis found 275 colleges that require their neediest students to pay more than their total family income to attend. The five: University of North Carolina at Greensboro, CUNY Queens College, CUNY Bernard M. Baruch College, Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Long Beach. Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/report-only-five-colleges-properly-serve-needy-students/2011/06/24/AG6OXFjH_blog.html?wprss=college-inc 

 

New Studies Report Minorities Lagging In Higher Education

The College Board is releasing two reports today on the crisis facing young black and Latino men, who, the reports find, continue to be measurably less educated than minority women and white men. According to the reports, 16 percent of Latino and 28 percent of African-American men  ages 25 to 34 had obtained an associate’s degree or higher as of 2008, while the comparable figure for white men was 44 percent and for Asian men,  70 percent. The report also said that foreign-born members of those lagging minority groups were more likely to drop out than those born in the United States. Read more at:
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/college-board-findings-on-minority-men/ 

 

College Freshmen Report Feeling Above Average

Among academics who track the behavior of young adults and teens, there's a touchy debate: Should the word "entitled" be used when talking about today's younger people? Are they overconfident in themselves? college students and others their age are more self-centered – narcissistic even – than past generations. Now she's turned up data showing that they also feel more superior about themselves than their elders did when they were young. Read more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/16/more-college-freshmen-fee_n_878348.html

One Scholar's Output Has Big Impact On Global IHE Rankings

 For institutions that regularly make the Top 10, the autumn announcement of university rankings is an occasion for quiet self-congratulation. But the news that Alexandria University in Egypt had placed 147th on the list — ahead of such academic powerhouses as Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (151st) or Georgetown in the United States (164th) — was cause for both celebration and puzzlement. Times Higher Education, acknowledged that Alexandria’s surprising prominence was actually due to “the high output from one scholar in one journal.  The revelation that one scholar can make a world class university comes at a particularly embarrassing time for the rapidly burgeoning business of rating academic excellence. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/education/15iht-educLede15.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Little Progress In Getting Younger Men To Complete College

Younger men are significantly less likely to have completed college than older men, according to an analysis of federal data by the American Council on Education, a nonprofit group that represents college leaders. The educational stagnation of men is hindering the progress of the nation as a whole and largely offsetting gains by women, the group says. Women outnumber men nearly 3-to-2 in the college population, largely because men are more likely to drop out of high school and to forgo college for manual labor or the military. Read more at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/19/AR2010101907505.html

Racial Diversity Improves But Higher Ed Needs To Make More Progress

While U.S. colleges have grown more racially diverse in recent years, minority students - especially Hispanics - still lag behind on key measures of academic progress, a new report says. When it comes to college, the Hispanic record is similarly mixed. In 2008, 28 percent of traditional college-age Hispanics were in college, up from 17 percent two decades earlier. But other racial groups made greater gains, and an enrollment gap that has whites ahead of Hispanics has widened. Young Hispanic men are lagging farther behind young Hispanic women. Read more at: 
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/20/1881851/colleges-more-diverse-but-racial.html#ixzz12zulWotU

Go To College, Get Married

The gap between those who have a college degree and those who do not is widening -- this time when it comes to marriage. For the first time, adults are more likely to wed by the age of 30 if they obtained a bachelor's degree than the young adults who have not, according to a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center. The percentage of people with college degrees marrying has slightly eclipsed those without. In 2008, 62 percent of college-educated 30-year-olds were married or had been married. Read more at: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/06/Pew.reversal.college.marriage.gap/ 

 

First-Year Dropouts Come At High Cost To Taxpayers

A report released today illustrates the high cost to taxpayers for college students who drop out after their first year. The report by the American Institutes for Research shows that states spent nearly $6.2 billion over five years on full-time freshmen who didn’t return to the same college their sophomore year. Report author Mark Schneider said he wanted to highlight the importance of the first year of college as higher education officials and policymakers increasingly emphasize college completion rates. “If you don’t finish the first lap, you can’t cross the finish line,” said Schneider. Read more at:
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/294369/