A student who attends a public flagship university in California characterizes distance learning as: Chaos is an apt description. Zoom is challenging to manage and pre-recorded lectures lack humor. It’s difficult to focus on lectures… Third year undergraduate The student, like many others, struggles to continue learning, conflicted about missing friends and her life in…
Tag: The Golden Ticket
Opportunity amidst upheaval
The continued COVID-19 health crisis, and its impacts both economically and socially may have wide-ranging consequences for colleges throughout the United States. Families confronted by an array of changing circumstances are recalibrating their educational decision making processes, especially for high school seniors choosing between multiple colleges or deferring enrollment, as well as continuing college students…
Test-Optional Confusion
Cornell University admissions officers will not require that Fall 2021 first year applicants submit SAT or ACT scores as part of their applications. Cornell’s policy change applies only for the Fall 2021 application cycle, so underclassmen in the Class of 2022 and younger may once again be required to submit SAT or ACT scores. Yet,…
Fiscal Reckoning Dead Ahead
The $14 Billion bailout for U.S. colleges and universities as part of the recent CARES Act will not solve the widening financial deficits in higher education. Costs to maintain buildings and the physical grounds, despite the lack of students present on campus, as well as salaries to faculty and staff must still be paid. Additionally,…
Managing a return to normal in the time of COVID-19
Emerging from “shelter-in-place” is not as simple are reopening school and college campuses, and welcoming students back into the buildings. The on-going health risks of subsequent outbreaks of COVID-19 absent a proven treatment or vaccine, along with the convoluted governmental structure to protect public health, creates complexity for students and parents trying to plan for…
More Economic Difficulties for Gen Z and Millennials
Graph courtesy of The Wall Street Journal Current college students, many who find themselves at home though would rather be finishing their school year on college campuses around the country, will be confronting along with their older colleagues who graduated college in 2019, 2018, a possibly more complicated problem that of protracted unemployment. In addition,…
Academic Meritocracy In Peril
Dear The College Board CEO David Coleman: After viewing your live cast on Daily Homeroom with Sal [Khan of Khan Academy], I respectfully request responses to my questions regarding the 2020 Advanced Placement (AP) exams, as well as my concerns about your replies regarding current high school students’ and their families’ worries. In stating that…
“Graduating by default”
In a recent text exchange with Tyler, a graduating senior at a large California state college, we discussed what he’s learning during his final college semester, given his campus is now closed and his professors are learning to teach via an unfamiliar digital learning modality. The following is an excerpt of our conversation: Since Tyler…
Easy Does It
School district officials around the country are struggling to define how instruction will continue, and more importantly how students will be evaluated, given that school sites will be closed through the end of the school year. Some district administrators have decided to emulate the actions of many US colleges, and implement a Pass/No Pass grading…
Difficult Labor Market Directly Ahead
Courtesy Bloomberg News The employment outlook is at best difficult, and at worst, dire, even worse than The Great Financial Crisis of 2009 which was the worst in 45 years. Now, is the time to think seriously how to compete for what will be a difficult employment environment, at least over the short and intermediate…
Top 25 Nationally Ranked Universities Adopt Pass/No Pass-Style Grades for Spring 2020
To date, thirteen of the top twenty-five US News & World Report nationally ranked universities, all adopted Pass/No Pass-style grading systems for the spring term, due to the COVID-19 health crisis: Although Pass/No Pass is the default system at UC Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Princeton and Yale, students can still “opt-in” to be awarded…
The State of A College Education: How Golden Is The Golden Ticket? Part 3
In Parts 1 and 2, sentiment amongst college students and prospective college students may already be declining, which could be exacerbated even further, as we weather the current global pandemic with closed college campuses and students dispersed to their childhood homes. Additionally, the last of the Millennials are now college graduates, but experiencing a current…
Expectation Canceled
On Monday, March 16, The College Board canceled the March 28 Makeup Test, the test all the March 14 canceled test takers were counting on, as well as the May 2 SAT test date. Additionally, the April 4th ACT was canceled. With the cancelations, tens of thousands of students’ test taking strategies for college admissions…
Why a College Degree May Not Be a Guarantee of “Wealth” and Prosperity
Hat Tip: Whatever It Takes to Never Give Up, Doug Noland
The State of A College Education, Part 2: The (Un)Fulfilled Promise of a College Degree
As I posited in Part 1, although an exact date is impossible to state, sentiment amongst college graduates is set to decline (as seen in the graph above), testing and possibly exceeding the 2009 lows. As the last of the Millenials graduate college this year (2019), many are disgruntled that the financial prosperty promised by…