Student Loan Reforms on the Way

mTwo bills, one in the House and one in the Senate, will deliver student loan reforms not seen in over 60 years. This is great news given that the average U.S. college grad leaves college with $19,200 in debt. Many students struggle to pay down their college debt, which usually comes due within 6 months of graduation. This struggle is exacerbated when students pursue careers in public service or teaching, careers that traditionally pay lower salaries. Even students that accept jobs in higher-paying career fields can find themselves unable to manage student loan payments, rent on new apartments and, oh yeah, food.

Both the House and the Senate's bills will provide some much-needed relief to current and future college students, and families considering the amount of debt their students' may have to carry in order to attend their first-choice schools. Though, the House bill, the 2007 College Cost Reduction Act, may be the most beneficial to the most students.

The House Bill

The 2007 College Cost Reduction Act, will benefit students in 6 important ways:

• More Money - More students eligible for federal loans, both subsidized and unsubsidized

• Lower Interest Rates - Interest rates on federal loans and federally subsidized loans will be cut in half in the next five years, from 6.8% to 3.4% on a Subsidized Stafford Loan.

• More Money for Food - The act would limit monthly loan payments to 15 percent of a graduate's discretionary income.

• Pell Grants Increased - Currently, the Pell Grant, a government grants awarded to the nation's neediest students, maxes out at $4,050. By 2011, the Pell Grant would max out at $5,200. The bill would also increase eligibility to about 600,000 more students.
  

• Tuition assistance - Undergraduates and graduate students who plan to teach in public schools would be able to get an extra $4,000 a year, in addition to their loans and other federal grants.
  

• Loan forgiveness (erasing the debt)- Students who pursue careers in public service, i.e. nursing, fire and police, public defenders, will have about $5,000 of their debt forgiven. Other public sector jobs may qualify students for debt for loan forgiveness after 10 years of working in the career field (and paying on the loan).

The Senate Bill

The Senate bill, which was sponsored by Ted Kennedy (D-MA), would raise the Pell Grant an extra $200 by 2012 to $5,400, and cap the amount grads pay each month to 15% of their discretionary income. But, the Senate bill does not include two very big benefits offered by the House bill--the interest-rate reduction on federal loans and the tuition assistance for public school teachers.

Both bills would slash subsidies to lenders to pay for the changes, which represent an additional $18 billion. Not surprisingly, groups representing private lenders (banks, loan companies, finance companies) are lobbying against passage of both bills because their constituents stand to lose millions in subsidies. They argue that the bills would reduce the discounts they are currently able to offer borrowers, and decrease competition leading to fewer options for students who really need assistance paying for college.

In a statement released by the Office of Management and Budget, President Bush's senior advisers have said they will recommend that the president veto the bill because they are an inefficient way to encourage graduates to go into certain professions, and because they"fail to target the neediest students currently in college and creates new mandatory federal programs that are poorly designed and would have significant long-term costs to the taxpayer."

Student groups are, of course, in favor of the reforms, especially the House bill, because it hits home by taking care of all of the ills of the current student aid system.

Hispanic, Black Student Enrollment Rises in South

The Southern Regional Education Board, an education policy research organization, released its SREB Fact Book on Higher Education, a report on the state of higher education in the 16 states that make up the Southern region (see the states).

The reports revealed 6 major findings:
-Most of the U.S. population growth over the next 20 years will be in the South.
More than half of the United States' population growth over the next 20 years will be in the 16 SREB states.

-Hispanic students represent the lion's share of projected population growth.
Hispanics will account for 28% of the region's high school grads by 2018. Black and Hispanic college enrollment levels are expected to increase to 44 percent by 2014 and to 48 percent by 2018.

-The percentage of Black college students finally exceeds the percentage of Blacks in the region's population
Black undergraduate enrollment has risen 52 percent to 21% of total college student enrollment, while the Black population sits at roughly 19%. Nationally, the percentage of Black college students lags behind their population percentage.

-College enrollment rates of Hispanic students lags behind that of Blacks and Whites.
Despite the increase in number of Hispanic students, the college-going rate of Hispanic 18- to 24-year-olds (25 percent) lagged behind the rates for black students (33 percent) and white students (43 percent) in the U.S. in 2005.

-Women and minorities lead growth in degrees.
Women and minorities accounted for most of the SREB region’s increases in degrees awarded from 1995 to 2005, representing 69 percent and 42 percent, respectively, of the total increase in bachelor’s degrees.

-Increased minority college enrollment may threaten gains in educational attainment.
If the educational attainment levels of Blacks and Hispanics do not improve, the increases in minority student enrollment (and the resulting increase in the number of students in the region from middle- and lower income families), the rising cost of college tuition and the increase in the number of jobs requiring bachelors degrees may converge to cause a reversal of educational progress in the region. SREB predicts that "efforts to ensure that affordable college opportunities are available to all students will be increasingly important to the region’s and nation’s continued education progress".

Other Interesting Findings
The majority of the Black student enrollment increases have occurred at public universities and two-year colleges, rather than at historically black institutions, which traditionally have educated the bulk of black students in the South. Black enrollment in historically black institutions has slipped from 26 percent to 19 percent over the last decade.


Read SREB's full report.

Smells Like School Spirit: 2-Year Colleges Add Sports Teams

Thousands of students enroll in community and junior colleges every year, generally as an alternative to higher priced private and public 4-year colleges. In the past that meant foregoing the "college experience" complete with sports teams, dorm life, student government and lots of school spirit in exchange for less stringent admissions requirements, low per-unit costs, flexible schedules and a shorter path to a degree (an associate's degree).

Junior and community colleges still offer these great benefits, but, in response to the demands throngs of students ages 18-24, they are now attempting to provide a more authentic college experience by adding or expanding athletic programs. Students--both those interested in playing sports and those who simply want to cheer them on--are responding by enrolling in greater numbers to those community and junior colleges that boast athletic teams. And that's just what the colleges' presidents had in mind.

The National Junior College Athletics Association has reportedly added more than 40 colleges since 2003, ten of those in 2006 alone, bringing their total membership to 500 colleges.

Here's a sampling of the new additions:

2006

• Arkansas Baptist College (Little Rock, Ark.)
• Berean Institute (Philadelphia)
• Coastal Bend College (Beeville, Tex.)
• Guilford Technical Community College (Jamestown, N.C.)
• Jackson Community College (Jackson, Mich.)
• Little Big Horn College (Crow Agency, Mont.)
• Marion Military Institute (Marion, Ala.)
• Mayland Community College (Spruce Pine, N.C.)
• Simmons College of Kentucky (Louisville, Ky.)
• University of South Carolina at Lancaster (Lancaster, S.C.)

Find junior and community college athletic programs in your state!

Opportunity Alert: SF Film School Students Delivers Hands-On Opportunities

This is an opportunity alert! I often engage strangers--mostly students--in conversations about what they want to do with their lives. This inevitably leads to career conversations. Most want to do something they enjoy while earning a decent living.

Surprise!

Bigger surprise...most don't want to spend the next 8-12 years learning about it; they want to get to it. There's nothing wrong with that.

So, here and there I'd like to feature opportunities to do just that--get to it. These are opportunities to get hands-on training in less time than it might take to earn a bachelors, masters or professional degree.

Keep in mind that skipping the 4-year (or more) education could mean foregoing a higher paycheck or a higher-paying first job. Of course, talent and luck can pull you ahead of even the best educated counterparts (though, we want to be sure not to get eaten up with ego).

Anyway, if your goal is to "get to it", there's no substitute for career/technical education, apprenticeships, internships and entry-level jobs.

So, here goes. Our first Career Education Opportunity alert...

San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking

This small specialized school in the heart of San Francisco offers small class sizes, relatively low tuition rates (and financial aid), and, most importantly, an opportunity to build a portfolio you can use to find actual work.

The school's programs focus on the the three major areas of filmmaking--screenwriting, digital filmmaking and editing and film acting. The core program is the digital filmmaking program which is available as a 1-year program during which students create a working portfolio of narrative fiction, documentary, commercial-length and special effects films, and work alongside a professional production crew on the set of a feature-length film. The filmmaking program is also available throughout the year as a 5-week intensive workshop during which students complete a short film, from screenwriting, to casting and directing and editing.

Other cool bits include the fact that the school's campus is basically a big soundstage with lots of state of the art equipment.

Here's what it takes to get in:

1-YEAR DIGITAL FILMMAKING PROGRAM ADMISSIONS REQUIREMENTS

• Completed application form
• High School Diploma or GED equivalent
• Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE) Entrance exam required of all students
• Students with English as a second language will be required to submit a passing score on the Test on English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) from a qualified testing center

APPLY NOW DOWNLOAD THE 1-YR PROGRAM APPLICATION

5-WEEK DIGITAL FILMMAKING PROGRAM ADMISSIONS REQUIREMENTS

• Completed application form
• Minimum age 16

APPLY NOW DOWNLOAD THE 5-WEEK WORKSHOP APPLICATION

What the Supreme Court's Ruling on Race-Based Admissions Means to You

The Supreme Courts 5-to-4 ruling on the Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, a case involving Louisville, KY public schools and its suburbs, and the case of Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 dealt a stinging blow to schools and districts who are striving to maintain ethnically diverse student bodies. But, the decision was not exactly black and white.

The cases, argued in December 2006, involved voluntary race-based admission programs adopted by schools in Seattle and Louisville to assign students to high school and elementary schools. In both cases, the schools used race to allocate slots and make transfer decisions.

The Kentucky schools were previously legally segregated and operated under a court-ordered desegregation decree until the year 2000; the Seattle schools never operated as legally segregated schools, nor were they ever subject to court-ordered desegregation.

This is important because, in the eyes of the Court, neither school had a compelling reason to use race to make these determinations. Because of this, the Court agreed to hear and rule on the cases.

Previous cases brought before the Supreme Court involved schools that were subject to past racial desegregation (due to racial segregation and "Jim Crow" laws in the South), and/or schools that had previously been placed under court-ordered desegregation because they had been found in violation of laws established by Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that secured equality in education for all.

The Court has previously sanctioned race-based policies that were "narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest", namely remedying the effects of past intentional discrimination. The Court has also upheld policies that included race as part of admissions decisions in cases involving college admissions, so long as race was "considered as part of a broader effort to achieve exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas and viewpoints".

In the Court's decision, decided on June 28, 2007, the Court equated the schools' policies to nothing more than "racial balancing", which the Court believes has no place in American society as it tends to promote “notions of racial inferiority and lead to a politics of racial hostility”.

Ultimately, the Court found that, while the schools, argued that their policies served the interests of equality in education, they offered no evidence that race-based decisions had any beneficial effects, and "failed to show that they considered methods other than explicit racial classifications to achieve their stated goals".

So, what does that mean to you?
Basically, it means that high schools cannot decide who to admit or transfer based solely on race. They can, however, use race as one of many factors considered, if they can show that their practices and policies actually ensure equality of education as demonstrated in some way other than by creating a racially balanced student body, increased test scores or other such factors. The schools cannot argue that having more or less of one race increases grade point averages or test scores.

On the face of it, this decision could be a good thing for a student who wants to attend a "good school" to which too many persons of the the student's race have already been admitted. In this scenario, the student will be admitted, if s/he he meets admissions criteria (and, of course, the school is not overbooked).

The problem comes when you examine the housing trends in this country. Middle-class and wealthy families have moved away from "bad school districts" (usually in poor urban and rural areas with a high percentage of ethnic minorities), while poor, mostly minority, families have remained in these districts. Consequently, many public schools, especially those that are considered poor-performing, are filled with poor and minority students whose parents cannot afford to pay for private school or homes in districts where the public schools are "good".

This means that we end up with racially desegregated schools just as we had in the 1970's--separate but unequal. And while the argument can be made that the public schools in the poor areas will have the same resources as those in the rich, the reality is that schools in the poorest areas will need more resources than their richer counterparts to even approach any sort of equality. Poorer, minority-heavy, schools will inevitably struggle, as they currently do, to attract quality teachers and to provide quality instruction. Students at those schools will not receive an education that is on par with those of their richer counterparts; They will be viewed by colleges as "less prepared". Even hard-working "straight-A" students from these schools will be looked upon as inferior because their academic programs were "less rigorous" than those offered in better school districts.


The result: College admissions officers will start to distinguish the applications from students who attended the "good" (less diverse) schools from those that did not. And, given a choice (and the best intentions) will likely choose the better prepared student who is "more likely to be successful in [our] environment".

Don't mistake the above scenario to mean that I believe students who are poor and minority are inferior or unable to compete in general. I believe every student, given equal preparation and opportunity, can be successful in college or the workplace. But, let's get real...

The reality is that MOST of the poor families in this country are ethnic minorities. MOST of the "bad schools" are in MOSTLY minority and poor areas. MOST of the student bodies in these "bad schools" are ethnic minorities and poor. MOST of these "bad schools" struggle to attract teachers from top colleges. MOST of these "bad schools" do not offer AP courses, college preparatory or other advanced courses. MOST poor and minority students from "bad schools" are less prepared for college than their "good school"--mostly White--counterparts.

All of the statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Census Bureau and individual college admissions data bear this out.

So, while I would love to agree that it is time to put away "race" as a sole or significant admissions or placement factor, I cannot. The fact is, that some schools will need to adopt voluntary race-based admissions policies to ensure that all students learn in a diverse environment alongside a population that mirrors that in the real world, and that all students are availed of equal education.

I'm afraid that the Court's decision discourages schools that support diversity as key to a quality education from employing policies that consider race. Administrators may fear having to determine how much weight or consideration is too much, and simply avoid the situation altogether.

This could mean that really smart minority students whose parents cannot afford to move to better neighborhoods/school districts will be disadvantaged when applying to college or selecting a career.