A task force on Tuesday recommended requiring students at the University of Texas to complete their bachelor’s degrees in 10 semesters or five years

So do you think that means that the university will start reporting it’s four year (not six year) graduation rate which is 48%? Oh wait, that’s the student’s fault as well, you know, all those top 10 percent graduates who are just enjoying paying for college so much that they won’t graduate and mess up the school’s stats.

Nonetheless, San Antonio College only has a 11.7% graduation rate for a four year degree in six years. If you find yourself at SAC for financial reasons (and the tuition is significantly lower than that of four year institutions) take advantage of the Presidential Honors Program.

Presidential Honors Program

A limited number of students are selected for this program every fall and spring semester. High school applicants are evaluated on the basis of high school GPA and class rank, SAT and/or ACT test scores, teacher recommendations and weight of academic load (number of math, science, social science, and humanities courses). Selected students are given a full scholarship (tuition and books). Those entering the program then take a mix of honors courses, contract courses, and regular courses to fulfill the requirements of the Honors program and of the students’ major. Graduates of the program can enter degree programs at universities in any field. The Honors program also helps place its students in universities and often can help students gain scholarship continuations into the Junior and Senior year.

Such a program is one way to get the attention and support you need to make it to the four year college. Some community colleges actually have agreements with other colleges where students in their honors programs can directly transfer into the four year university’s program. And given the graduation rate at some four year colleges, the honors programs is another way to prevent falling through the cracks.

The University of Texas at San Antonio’s six year graduation rate is only 30.2% compared to 75.1% for the University of Texas at Austin. Surely, however, the students in UTSA’s honors programs must have a higher graduation rate? Furthermore, the eligibility requirements for UTSA’s Honros College aren’t exactly daunting: graduation in the top 20%, ACT of 24, SAT (M+V) 1100.

I suppose this comes across as a back-handed compliment to the programs. Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe that you can get a great education at either of these schools. But you would certainly be maximizing your resources if you pursued the honors options available at less selective schools.

Unfortunately, these programs can be hard to find. The honors program link shows up after the second click on the UT Austin website. It takes four clicks on the UTSA page and that’s only if you know to click on “Student Information Bulletin” and then “Admission to Colleges and Special Programs.” As for the program at SAC, so far I’ve only found it by doing a search on the website. I don’t know what links into it. Maybe it’s the administration’s way of keeping down enrollment.

In any case, for all those students who aren’t likely to get into UT Austin because of the top ten percent rule, there are probably some excellent honor programs which would serve them just as well.

UT sued for considering race in admissions

“But for her race and ethnicity, it is our belief she would have been admitted to the University of Texas,” said Edward Blum, director of the Project on Fair Representation, a legal-defense group that fights the use of race and ethnicity in public policy.

What exactly is this “belief” based on? Do Hispanics and African-Americans make up a larger percentage of the non-top ten percentage admits than Anglos (excepting athletes in money making sports, of course)? Are individuals from these groups being admitted with lower SAT scores than Anglos? How about those with a lower class rank? Is playing the cello supposed to be considered part of the admission process? If so, how does that compare to getting merely decent SAT scores at a poorly funded and poorly performing high school?

I have to admit that this is a change from the usual “my child scored 1400 on the SAT but can’t get into UT because she’s not in the top ten percent” complaint. Fisher’s SAT scores would put her in the bottom of the middle 50% for UT. It would be nice to know why they think she would be admitted under “race neutral” conditions.

Technorati Tags: UT Austin, admissions policy, racial preferences

OpinionJournal – Leisure & Arts

Take this passage from Michele Hernández’s “Acing the College Application,” where she assesses the chances of a high-school student getting into a college of his choice. “Best case: Neither of your parents attended college at all, your father is a factory worker, and your mom is on disability. . . . Worst case: Your father went to Yale as an undergraduate and then Harvard Business School and is now an investment banker and your mom went to Brown, holds a Ph.D. in chemistry and works as a research chemist.”

We all understand that being a rich white kid puts one at a disadvantage in the college-admissions process.

This casually drawn conclusion on both the parts of the author, Michele Hernandez, and the reviewer rankles me. First of all, how can you have all the “passionate” enrichment activities unless your parents have money? I know some exceptional kids do but they are just that, exceptional.

Then there is the fact that while students from private schools make up only ten percent of the student population at the elementary and high school level, they seem to be disproportionately represented at the elite colleges.

Percentage of freshman from public school

Poor little, rich Johnny isn’t getting beat out by some poor Hispanic kid from the Rio Grande valley; he’s getting beat out by another poor, little rich kid.

Now at days, virtually everyone applying to selective schools has perfect or near perfect SAT scores and is in the top ten percent of their class. So which do you think is going to make more of a difference in the application process, a mother who is an alumnus or a father who is a truck driver? Which applicants are more likely to have the resources to follow their passions?

I’m sure that there are some minority students admitted that have lower scores than many of the white males who were rejected. I’m just as sure that there are athletes, artists, musicians, and students from Montana (other traits people are often born with) that have lower scores than those who were not admitted.

It sounds like these books are encouraging you to reap the benefits of your parent’s wealth without appearing as such to the admissions committees. Or maybe the authors are just trying to reap the benefit’s the parents wealth without appearing as such to the parents.

Technorati Tags: college admissions, private admission counseling, discrimination, Acing the College Application, What High Schools Don’t Tell You, Naomi Schaefer Riley

Goodman reports that Harvard claims the tuition initiative could cost it $22 million a year. However, if it heads off the Congressional mandate, the school saves $245 million dollars a year for the endowment.

The real story on Harvard’s generosity – The Boston Globe

Quite a trick. Spend at best a tiny fraction of the endowment, while reducing growing political pressure in Washington and around the country that could potentially cost the university more than 10 times the additional amount of financial aid.

When there are plenty of colleges with endowments of less than $50 million, like Goodman, I can’t help but wonder what Harvard plans on doing with it’s endowment. It’s obvious that it doesn’t need it to educate the vast number of struggling and unprepared students it admits every year (that’s sarcasm, it’s 25th% for the SAT was 1390.)

Maybe it could spend some it’s money on initiatives with high schools that don’t send as many students to the selective schools. It could pay for some college test prep classes that many high school students can’t afford. It could give some high school students  stipends that allow them to pursue the all important extracurricular activities instead of working a part time job. Or maybe provide a bridge year of studies for free for students who’s high schools have ill prepared them for college.

Better yet, if money is so important for quality education, Harvard should put the quality of it’s endowment and education to the test. Admit not so spectacular students and see if the Harvard experience can make them even better students. It’s easy to educate someone with a 1400 SAT, how about someone with less than a 1000?

I can’t imagine Harvard going for that one. The entire admissions’ process from the school’s point of view is to admit students that will create the best possible “community” and “education environment” on campus. If that’s the case, then why not provide free undergraduate tuition? I’m sure this would increase the applicant pool and allow Harvard to become even more selective. And as Goodman points, out it just might save its endowment from Congress so that is can be used for…what?

Technorati Tags: Steven Roy Goodman, Harvard, College Endowments, college costs, tuition

I see it as the perfect example of what passes for legislative support for higher education in Texas.

College officials say law capping dropped classes may hurt students | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Latest News

The author of the law, Rep. Fred Brown, R-College Station, said he doesn’t buy the complaints about logistical nightmares.

Colleges work with transcripts all the time, he said. Plus there’s money at stake. The state pays colleges based on their enrollments. Students who drop classes may forfeit their tuition, but the state doesn’t recoup its dollars.

Mr. Brown said he’s not sure how much money the law will save the state and its colleges, “but the savings has to be huge,” he said.

With unregulated tuition increasing at state schools and overall decreasing financial contributions by the state, the legislature provides the citizens of Texas with a “no drop” law to show it’s support for higher education. Thank you Mr. Brown, for making higher education so much more accessible to the poor and middle class. By the way, do you know exactly how many students had dropped six or more classes before passing this law? Of course not, otherwise you would have been able to tell us how much the state will save.

Just one more example of those responsible for education in Texas being penny wise and pound foolish.

Technorati Tags: Texas Legislature, Higher Education, Funding, Fred Brown, capping dropped classes

In recent weeks, community members have rallied and pleaded with trustees, begging them to spare West Campus, which has about 600 students. But faced with a heart versus head dilemma, trustees voted to close the campus, which has had chronic low enrollment for years, operates at a deficit and has an “academically unacceptable” rating from the Texas Education Agency.

Now what is the point of school vouchers again? A way for poor parents to escape a failing school system? But what if parents are fine with their local schools no matter what its academic rating?

MySA.com: Metro | State

Parents, many of whom have their own memories of school days at West Campus, haven’t taken the decision lying down. On Friday, they filed a request for a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court to challenge the school district’s effort to keep the dispute from bubbling up during the evening’s football game.

The latest legal challenge came after district officials announced that they would not tolerate any save-the-school fundraising efforts at the game or allow audience members to wear shirts or carry signs emblazoned with defamatory messages.

Despite the fact that their children will go a better rated high school, these parents aren’t happy. So how can you expect vouchers to “save” the school system if parents aren’t going to behave as voucher proponents expect them to? Let’s face it, “vouchers” at the higher education level, (grants and loans) don’t guarantee that students attend only schools with high graduation rates or job placement. It does allow quite a bit more diversity in education choice but it doesn’t mean that poorer quality schools shut down.

Technorati Tags: Texas, higher education, vouchers, South San Antonio High School West Campus, education quality

Texas College Open House/Information Days

Upcoming College Visit Days

Austin Area

San Antonio Area

Some events are restricted to high school juniors(j) or seniors(s). These are often overnight visits and you must register early. Some events may also have fees. Check their website for more information.

Apparently Pell grants didn’t turn out they way colleges would have preferred:

Inside the Higher Education Lobby

the Democratic Congress was considering ways to help expand access to higher education, and colleges advocated an approach by which they would receive aid as institutions, which would then allow them to offer tuition breaks to poorer students. But instead, Congress created federal grants that would be given directly to college students, to use at the school of their choice. (The program, conceived by Democratic Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, now bears his name.) Many in higher education circles blamed the defeat on a lack of lobbying sophistication.

Law schools and med schools publish their licensing exam passing rates but teacher colleges shouldn’t?

Inside the Higher Education Lobby

For decades, education experts have been concerned about declining teacher quality in K–12 schools, and in the late 1990s the Clinton administration tried to address the problem by improving colleges’ notoriously lackluster teacher-training programs. The Education Department put together a proposal requiring states to report the percentage of teacher-training-program graduates from each school who pass the state licensure exam, and to report which of their education schools, many of which are affiliated with major universities, were underperforming. Schools that consistently failed to produce graduates capable of passing the exams would lose their eligibility to receive federal aid for teacher training.

For many colleges, teacher-training programs, which can count on a steady stream of applicants and have relatively low administrative costs, represent a crucial revenue source—and the higher ed lobby went into overdrive to protect it. “They didn’t want publicly accessible info for the performance of their graduates,” says Sara Mead, who worked on implementation at the Education Department. “They didn’t want to be held accountable. They would come up with all sorts of technical objections, but that was the real issue.”

And then there is the whole student loan lenders relationship thing:

Inside the Higher Education Lobby

Last February, legislators from both parties proposed the Student Aid Reward Act (STAR), which sought to encourage schools to choose direct lending over private lending, by allowing them to keep three-quarters of the savings that direct loans generate—to be spent on additional Pell Grants for their students—with the remaining one-quarter going to deficit reduction. Schools that continued to participate in the lender-based program would face no penalty. In other words, schools would receive free federal money for Pell Grants, or would get increased leverage in negotiating with private lenders for a better deal.

One might expect, then, that the proposal would have received the enthusiastic support of the higher education lobby. But none of the Big Six associations (see “The Higher Ed Lobby: A Glossary”), and very few of the smaller lobbies, came out for STAR, much less put their political muscle behind passing it. “The silence was deafening,” says Michael Dannenberg, an education expert at the New America Foundation. Without higher ed pushing back against the deep-pocketed lenders’ opposition to STAR, it went nowhere.

What explains the lobby’s reticence? NAICU’s Flanagan says her organization opposed STAR because it would have meant that some students ended up receiving more aid than others. But that stance makes little sense, since no student would have ended up with less aid because of STAR.

As someone who is starting to look at colleges for my son and expecting to pay the full price of tuition, I would appreciate a little more information than what you find at most admissions’ sites.

Technorati Tags: higher education, accountability, Ben Adler, Washington Monthly, college value

MySA.com: Editorials

The governor said he doesn’t want to create more top research institutions before a new commission on higher education and global competitiveness comes up with a plan for the most effective use of funds.

This isn’t a new school. The institute was established by the legislature in 2001. It has already received $6.5 million in funding. It may or may not be deserving of the requested $6 million. It was at least as deserving as UT Permian Basin that received over $16 million dollars.

I think what bothers me more than anything else is that “he” -Perry- “doesn’t want to create more top research institutions” makes it sound like he is the sole authority of how many “top” research institutions Texas gets to have. I get the impression that this institute could not possibly exist without Perry’s blessing. The fact that it was created by a previous legislature is irrelevant.

All things considered, the SALSI is probably better off if it can develop without relying on the whims of state government. It’s just Perry’s political arrogance bugs me. How convenient to use the commission as an excuse to justify a veto in this case. What commission does he use to justify the cases he didn’t veto?

Technorati Tags: San Antonio Life Sciences Institute, Texas, higher education, Rick Perry, line item veto