Category: Higher Education/System

SAT scores nationwide dropped this year by the largest amount in three decades, officials of the College Board testing company said Tuesday.

National average scores for the SAT college entrance exam fell 7 points � the biggest drop in 31 years � for the high school class of 2006, the first to take the new version of the test.

The average score on the reading and math portions of the newly expanded SAT showed the largest decline in 31 years, according to a report released yesterday by the College Board on the performance of the high school class of 2006.

Students who attend public universities and state colleges graduate with nearly as much student-loan debt as those at private colleges on average, according to a report released on Tuesday.

BMW�s Custom-Made University

CLEMSON, S.C. � When Clemson University received $10 million from the German automaker BMW in 2002, the money helped jump-start a $1.5 billion automotive research and educational center. It also led to a partnership that both the automaker and the university acknowledge has grown extraordinarily close.

saving for college. Now, though, you really have no excuse. The pension bill President Bush signed into law this month made the tax benefits offered by 529 college savings plans permanent. Those provisions had been scheduled to expire in 2010. State-sponsored 529 savings plans allow parents and grandparents to save $250,000 or more toward a child’s college education. Though your contributions aren’t deductible from federal taxes, as long as the money pays for college expenses, your withdrawals are tax-free.

College students love their reality television.

The ââ?¬Å?Florida International University Amazing Raceââ?¬Â takes root, requiring teams of students to answer a bevy of questions ââ?¬â? how many floors does the library have? ââ?¬â? to solve clues during a scavenger hunt across campus. And Lehigh University, in Pennsylvania, gets a reality show home designer to come help freshmen settle in to campus life during this yearââ?¬â?¢s orientation move-in, which started Thursday.

The selective college admission process has been compared to a lottery, but Elizabeth Wissner-Gross, a college admission packager in the ultra-competitive Great Neck area of Long Island, N.Y., doesn’t see it that way.

From his first step on the Princeton campus, Jonathan Cross just knew it was the school for him. ââ?¬Å?I loved it and thought it was the perfect place,ââ?¬Â says Jonathan, 18, who was smitten by the environment, the endless opportunities and the Ivy League allure.A year and a half, 12 applications, one deferral and two rejections later, Jonathan is starting college ââ?¬â? happily and gratefully, with a full-tuition scholarship ââ?¬â? at Duke.

David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, talked to The Chronicle’s Jeffrey Selingo this week about his decision to be the sole member of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education not to sign on to its final draft report this month. Following is a transcript of the interview.

Stick up those pointer and pinkie fingers: Stock in the “Hook ’em, Horns” signal — a 50-year-old sign of support for the University of Texas at Austin Longhorns — is on the rise. The hand gesture has recently been spotted from the Rose Bowl to the White House, and now Austin students can flash it to celebrate not only their national-championship football team, but also their status as the top “party school” in the nation, according to Princeton Review Inc.

UW-Madison is holding steady among the top 15 percent of national universities, according to a ranking released Friday. But some say the highly publicized rankings aren’t the best way to choose a school.
The U.S. News & World Report’s latest rankings put the university at 34th, tied with Boston College, New York University and University of Rochester in New York. It was the seventh highest ranked public university.

The UW-Madison is the seventh-best public university in the nation, according to this year’s U.S. News and World Report survey – one spot better than its ranking last year.

For the second year in a row, the magazine’s edition of “America’s Best Colleges” has ranked the UW 34th overall in its annual survey of all 234 American doctoral universities.

Let the wailing commence: The annual college rankings compiled by U.S. News & World Report have arrived. This year Princeton University claimed the top spot, followed by Harvard University at No. 2. Princeton and Harvard had tied for first place in each of the previous three years.

UW-Madison was 7th among public universities, 34th overall.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The cost of higher education looks like it’s climbing … again.

While the final trend figures for the fast-approaching 2006-2007 academic year are still being compiled, students can expect about a 5 percent increase in both tuition and fees, says Carl Buck, vice president for college funding for the college information firm Peterson’s.

The generation of students in college, just out or heading there soon, is causing those in academe to make big changes for the future as they welcome young people long immersed in technology and accustomed to both alone time and working together.

States move to lighten college financial burden
Concerns over spiraling college textbook prices have prompted state legislators to introduce more than 40 bills and resolutions in 15 states this year.

A new research paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research argues that declining state funds for colleges can impair student success and, in turn, economic growth.

In a nod to MySpace and Facebook, more schools are creating their own sites for social networking.

Scores for the ACT college entrance exam rose ââ?¬Å?significantlyââ?¬Â this year, and the average composite score reached its highest level since 1991, a report says today.

The average score of high-school seniors who took the ACT exam in 2005-6 rose two-tenths of a point, to 21.1, the biggest one-year increase in scores over the past two decades, ACT officials said Tuesday.

The composite score on the ACT increased to 21.1 for students who graduated from high school this year � a 0.2 point increase that represents the biggest advance in 20 years.

The U.S. Defense Department has backed off a proposal to require significant new controls, including security badges and restricted laboratory access, for foreign researchers working with sensitive technology at American universities.

You’re starting graduate school this fall, and your parents are thrilled. Which is a good thing, because once your student loans come due, you may have to move back in with them. More than 60% of graduate students have student loans, and the average borrower graduates with $37,000 in debt. For law and medical students, average debts range from $70,000 to more than $113,000.

It’s the summer before your senior year, and you’re sweating. The college brochures are spread across the table, along with itineraries, SAT review books, downloaded copies of Web pages that let you chart the grades and scores of every kid from your high school who applied to a given college in the past five years and whether they got in or not.

The cover of Privatization and Public Universities features a brick campus wall with a ââ?¬Å?For Saleââ?¬Â sign taped to it. The collection of essays arrives from Indiana University Press at a time that many fear that public universities and their values may indeed be for sale ââ?¬â? as states pull back from their role providing both funds and leadership for public higher education.

Upon being accepted at the University of Hawaii-Manoa for the fall semester, the first question out of the mouth of one new student from Washington State was, ââ?¬Å?What is the best car-shipping service to get my car over here?ââ?¬Â

Before the University of Wisconsin System increases its number of incoming students, it ought to make sure more of them are prepared to succeed.
UW System wants to add as many as 7,700 more students to its 160,000-student enrollment over the next six to eight years. The proposal is part of a growth agenda that also includes more faculty and research money.

Students who transfer to UW- Madison earn 20 percent of the bachelor’s degrees. And Madison Area Technical College is the primary source of those students.
By admitting well-prepared, third- year students from MATC, UW- Madison generates revenue otherwise lost when some of its own freshmen and sophomores leave school.

Raising awareness among computer users about privacy protection is a never-ending job, especially on college campuses where the student population changes each year. USA TODAY reporter Mary Beth Marklein examines how and why security breaches have occurred on campus, some of the ways colleges are trying to protect data and how students can protect themselves.

A USA TODAY review of 109 computer-related security breaches reported by 76 college campuses since January 2005 found that about 70% involved hacking � breaking into or gaining unauthorized access to a computer system.

A high volume of security breaches on college campuses, including about a dozen reports this summer, underscores a growing concern among privacy advocates: Colleges and universities aren’t up to speed when it comes to safeguarding information on their networks.

A Skeptic on 9/11 Prompts Questions on Academic Freedom

By GRETCHEN RUETHLING

Published: August 1, 2006
MADISON, Wis., July 26 ââ?¬â? Sipping on a bottle of water and holding a book about the history and future of Islam, Kevin Barrett ticked off a few examples of what he saw as evidence that the Sept. 11 attacks had been an ââ?¬Å?inside job.ââ?¬Â

Dear Editor: The UW made the proper decision to allow Kevin Barrett to teach his course on Islam, even if he includes his belief that the U.S. orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. As Voltaire is reported to have said to Helvetius, “I disapprove of what you say and will defend to the death your right to say it.”

To allow politicians, columnists and the general public to dictate course content is to embark on a slippery slope. UW students are intelligent, thinking adults. As such, most of them will not swallow Barrett’s beliefs any more than they will accept that the Holocaust never happened or that the world is flat. Which leads me to one more quote: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”

WASHINGTON — Sensing a political opening in the soaring costs of higher education, Democrats have seized on college aid and made it a key pillar of their election-year agenda, hoping their pledge to make school affordable pays dividends in November.

“Islam: Religion and Culture” course description: Introduction to Islam as a religion – a 14-centuries-old holistic worldview that is also a system of belief and practice. Examination of the major creeds and theologies within Islam as well as its characteristic social and mystical expressions. Consideration of Islam’s contributions to world culture, its modern-day image in the world media, and its American faces.

It’s hard for an instructor to keep personal views entirely out of the classroom, several University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty members said today.

They were challenging the central theme of a Sunday opinion column in the New York Times that took issue with UW-Madison’s decision to hire a 9/11 conspiracy believer on grounds of academic freedom.