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Manipulating Grades Puts Students at a Disadvantage

Why Manipulating Grades Puts Students at a Disadvantage

A recent story reported in The New York Times, in The New York Post, and on network news programs reports that Prof. Maitland Jones of New York University was recently fired after a group of students filed a petition complaining that it was too hard to earn a high grade in his Organic Chemistry class. 

It seems that the course Prof. Jones taught was just too difficult and that Prof. Jones, a respected professor who had been teaching for many years and who even wrote the most often-used textbook on Organic Chemistry, was not helpful enough to students who were earning low grades. According to reports on the news, the underlying problem was that those low grades would hinder the ability of his students, who were mostly pre-med, to gain admission to med schools.  Read more

Student Success and improved graduation rates

New Report Suggests New Ways to Use Data to Build Student Success

“Increase the Human & Financial Benefits of Student Success Initiatives,” an important new study you can download from Civitas Learning, suggests some effective new ways that educators can use student data to improve graduation rates and foster other positive outcomes.

Although the report focuses on student success at institutions like the University of Central Oklahoma, Utah State, and Austin Community College, we feel that lessons from the report can be used to improve student success in K-12 too. Read more

Meeting Remedial College Entrance Requirements

A New Approach to Meeting Remedial Entrance Requirements Is Gaining Ground

Information teachers, parents and college counselors should know . . .

In years past, colleges often required incoming students to take certain remedial courses in math, science, or other subjects before becoming fully enrolled. Often, students took those courses at community colleges, or in special programs the colleges offered, before becoming fully enrolled students. Read more

Student Carrying Books - Is America’s Love Affair with College Fading Away

Is America’s Love Affair with College Fading Away?

Updated enrollment figures from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center show that college enrollment levels are continuing to fall

Data just released by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows that enrollment in American colleges and universities is continuing to fall:

  • Undergraduate enrollment in American colleges fell by 3.1 percent in the year preceding fall 2021, a loss of 465,300 students.
  • Enrollment losses show a two-year decline of 5.1 percent or a loss of 938,000 students since fall 2019.
  • The largest numerical drops occurred at public four-year institutions, where 251,400 students (or 3.8% of total enrollment) were lost. But the steepest percentage decline occurred at private for-profit four-year colleges, which lost 65,600 students (or 11.1% of enrollment.)

Read more

A student who is combatting college burnout

How to Recognize and Combat College Burnout

Do you know a college student who is struggling emotionally now? If so, the cause could be more than simple stress. It could be college burnout, according to “What Is College Burnout?”, a new article written by Tyler Epps for the Best Colleges Blog.

According to Dr. Lee Keyes, a psychologist and experienced student counselor Mr. Epps interviewed for this article, college burnout is often difficult to recognize. Why? It’s because college students are chronically living in a state of high stress anyway, which makes it difficult to know when their mental state has become just a little bit worse. Read more

Student Success and improved graduation rates

Helping Your Students Discuss the Ethical Issues of Applying to College

As you know, a major scandal involving college admissions has been making headlines since 2019. A number of very wealthy parents – some of whom are celebrities – paid vast sums of money to a college admissions counselor of sorts, who then pulled all kinds of strings to get their kids into elite institutions that included USC, Stanford, Yale, and others.

How did that counselor help those students get into top colleges? In some cases, he found ways to assure that they would earn top scores on standardized tests. (In one case, he allegedly stated that one student required special accommodations on a test, then he had that student take the test in a private location where he could answer questions for her.) Read more

2021 image of masks

Will 2021 Be a Good or Bad Year to Transfer Colleges?

The idea of transferring from one college to another has always been on students’ minds, and chances are it always will. Students who are just starting their first college year think, “Well, if things don’t work out at the college I have chosen, I can always transfer.” And students who are in their second, third or later years of college think of transferring too, for many reasons. Some would like to transfer to a college that offers stronger instruction in their chosen major. Others transfer for financial reasons. The list of reasons is a large and as varied as students are. Read more

college campus quad

Why College Could Become Even Further Beyond the Reach of Underprivileged Students

“What this means is that the American Dream for many low-income students has been deferred, perhaps permanently. Young people not born to well-off families will not surpass their parents in income and home ownership, they will not surge into promising careers, and they will not trust the American system to do right by them.”

– Source: “New Data: College Enrollment for Low-Income High School Grads Plunged by 29% During the Pandemic” by Richard Whitmire, the 73million.org blog, December 10, 2020 Read more

Is Endowment the First Factor to Consider when Picking a College Today - Student Research Foundation

Is Endowment the First Factor to Consider when Picking a College Today?

We are going to start today’s post by asking you a question.

Can you identify the following college, based on the information we provide below? This college:

  • Accepts more than 60% of all applicants
  • Has seen a dramatic reduction in the number of foreign students it has enrolled
  • Offers financial aid to more than 70% of the students it accepts
  • Has a shrinking endowment
  • Has a difficult time raising money from alumni
  • Is continuing to build costly new buildings and campus facilities in the hope of attracting more students

Read more

Commencement Speeches and college graduations - Student Research Foundation

2020 Commencement Speeches You Can Watch Online

In years past, many colleges and universities have posted online the speeches that were given at their commencement ceremonies.

Remarkably, many colleges and universities have done so again this year, even though they have held virtual online commencements. This year’s commencement addresses look different from those of past years. You won’t hear the cheers or laughter of the crowd. Not a single speaker’s hat gets blown off by a sudden gust of wind. But because most of this year’s speeches have been recorded close-up with computer video, they have an intimacy and a directness that can be quite affecting. Read more