Financial Aid

With New Online Marketplace, Community Colleges Hope to Better Compete With For-ProfitsCommunity colleges are staking a claim in the territory of online course marketplaces. They’re about a decade behind their university counterparts, who helped to found edX in 2012, the same year that startup Coursera launched its competing service, now worth millions. But leaders of a new platform called Unmudl say the time is right for community colleges to collaborate and make their workforce-training programs available more widely by marketing them through a shared website. It’s a vision quite different from the traditional mission of community colleges to serve their communities—the literal, physical ones that surround their campuses. “They want to serve in their own locales, but their markets need t...

STUDENT VOICE: Why rural students like me are ‘meant to be here’ in collegeDuring the spring of my freshman year of college, I was failing chemistry and met with a dean. As I sat across from her, she gestured to my college admissions essay setting on her desk: “Making your way to this institution from your community couldn’t have been easy. In case you’re having any doubts, let me just say this: You’re meant to be here.” That fall, I’d left my rural hometown in Nebraska to attend college in Boston. I’d traded my high school class of 18 students — the same 18 students I’d known my entire life — for a class of over 1,000. Although I’d nearly completed my first year of college, my conversation with the dean marked the first time anyone had acknowledged that my path to higher education was unu...

First-Ever RISE Awardee AnnouncedNeed a reason for celebration? In the Recognition Programs Unit of ED’s Office of Communications and Outreach, we have several of them spread throughout the year.  The newest recognition award joining the family, structured to shine a spotlight good work and ignite more positive contributions, while engaging state and local stakeholders with their federal education agency, is the Recognizing Inspiring School Employees award. In April 2019, Congress passed the Recognizing Achievement in Classified School Employees Act enabling the U.S. Department of Education to begin honoring one extraordinary education support professional annually and that fall, ED launched the first cycle of the award, with nominations from governors and state education agencies, often ...

College Students Find the Silver Lining in a Pandemic It was the year of college without the college experience. No packed stadiums and arenas. No intimate, small-group seminars or serendipitous encounters with strangers. No (or fewer) ill-advised nights of beer pong and partying. It is not likely, if given the choice, that many college students would opt for the past year of distance, separation and perpetual wariness. Still, perhaps surprisingly, for many students, there was much that was gained, as well as much that was lost, in their unwanted suspension of campus life during the coronavirus pandemic. Madison Alvarado, who graduated from Duke University this month, could no longer enjoy the camaraderie of painting herself blue and the giddy tumult of Duke basketball, which to her was...

New Zealand universities face fines after dormitory deathNEW ZEALAND AFP  19 October 2019 New Zealand universities and dorm accommodation providers were told on 15 October they could face hefty fines following a gruesome case in which a student's decomposing body lay undetected in his room for weeks, reports AFP.Education Minister Chris Hipkins said the teenager's fate, which emerged last month, showed voluntary standards aimed at caring for students in halls of residence had failed. He said a mandatory code of practice would come into force in 2021, including fines of NZ$100,000 (USS$63,700) for breaches that led to a student's death or serious injury. "The [voluntary] code has effectively broken down... and now it's time for the government to be more involved," Hipkins told Radio New Z...

OPINION: Investments in child care facilities are critical to building a more equitable system of careA little more than a month ago, President Biden announced his American Jobs Plan, which includes $25 billion to invest in facilities upgrades in child care settings and to build the supply of infant and toddler care. The plan also includes investments to replace all lead pipes and service lines in drinking water systems to ensure no child is at risk of exposure to lead. When combined with investments in making child care more affordable for families and supporting compensation for the child care workforce, these investments could have a transformative impact on the lives of children, families and providers. There is a demonstrated need to make investments in the physical infrastructure of ...

What I Learned From Students About Their Pandemic StrugglesStarting last fall, as a staff writer for the magazine, I followed a group of A.P. students in Columbia, Mo., as they managed the trials of remote learning. One of the pleasures of my job is how often it exposes me to new environments or subject matter, some of it utterly foreign to my own experience. Reporting on these young people may well have been the first time that I felt that my own life paralleled, over and over again, what I was covering. As I was getting to know the young people I was focusing on in Missouri, I was watching my own sons, high school freshmen in a suburb of New York City, adjust to — or struggle with — the quirks, but also the disappointments, frustrations, cruelties, tedium and loneliness of months that i...

Northwestern Athletic Director Resigns Amid Backlash Over Harassment CaseHayden Richardson, a member of the team from 2018 to 2020, filed a lawsuit in January 2021 against the university, its deputy Title IX coordinator, its associate athletic director for marketing, Polisky and Bonnevier, claiming that she had been groped, harassed and lifted without her permission by intoxicated fans and alumni during university-sponsored events and tailgating parties. She said in the lawsuit that she had been encouraged to continue taking photographs and mingling with potential donors to elicit funds for the university even though she raised concerns about those actions to Bonnevier and Polisky. The lawsuit, filed in a U.S. District Court in the school’s state of Illinois, also contends that the Title I...

Survey reveals disturbing results on campus sexual violenceUNITED STATES About one quarter of undergraduate women say they’ve been sexually assaulted, according to a disturbing new national survey in the United States, which found that at one institution, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the figure was a startling one in three, writes Natalie Musumeci for the New York Post.The Association of American Universities (AAU) released the findings of its Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct last week in which 181,752 students from 33 public and private institutions participated. According to the survey, 41.8% of all participants reported experiencing sexual touching or penetration involving physical force and the inability to consent.“The disturbing new...

Enhanced Loan Counseling Now Available to Student Borrowers iStockNew features unveiled this week on StudentAid.gov are designed to help students better understand the process of borrowing for college and choose a repayment plan that’s right for them. Both the website and myStudentAid mobile app are now equipped with enhanced entrance and exit counseling modules. The new, streamlined entrance counseling module uses personalized information to help borrowers estimate the cost of their education, determine how much they can expect to borrow, and prepare for repayment after school. The enhanced exit counseling includes an assessment to help borrowers choose the best repayment strategy based on key factors, such as their marital status, tax filings, and employment status. The updates are part ...

Is it Time to Re-Evaluate Our Questions?iStockTraditionally, the Common App has required students to list their extracurricular activities; often, as a supplement, colleges ask them to pick the one that is most important and expound upon it. What we have all (hopefully) realized in the last 12 months is that what was once required of students, what was once a part of their daily routines, has changed, perhaps forever. We are asking students to define themselves by a past they didn’t have, at the very moment we require them to identify a future where they can thrive. Encouraging students to define themselves by rules and frameworks that are no longer compatible with the world in which they live is not only a disservice to the students, but to the institutions with which they wish to engage....

Poll: US Families Want More Postsecondary Options iStockAlthough most American parents want their children to complete a bachelor’s degree, a significant number of families would like other options for their students, according to a new national survey. The opinion poll, which was released last week by Gallup and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, found that 46 percent of respondents preferred an alternate postsecondary path for their child, such as community college, skill training, military service, or paid employment. In addition, although 84 percent of parents of current middle and high school students said they were satisfied with the four-year college, two-year college, and/or technical training programs currently available, 45 percent wished more alternatives were offered. The su...

Academics criticise 'harassment' of university whistleblowerGLOBAL Academics from across the globe have condemned Murdoch University’s treatment of a whistleblower who spoke out about international student exploitation, saying they are “appalled” at what they see as an “extraordinary” attempt to intimidate him and others into silence, writes Christopher Knaus for The Guardian.The Australian university is suing Associate Professor Gerd Schröder-Turk for criticising its treatment of international students during an episode of the ABC’s Four Corners programme. Schröder-Turk alleges the university retaliated against him within days of the programme airing, and he is now attempting to engage Western Australia’s whistleblower protections.But the university has launched a cross-claim...