Clipmarks | dmegivern's 'college' clips

First Generation College Students

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:39:58 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

They're the first to go to college

About one fourth of the state's undergraduates are the first in their families to go to college, according to a 2004 survey of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.

All around him, he felt the pressure to put more emphasis on finding a job than focusing on school.

To stay in school, Meza surrounded himself with a group of supportive guidance counselors and teachers. He also joined Admission Possible, a college readiness program for low-income juniors and seniors.

"The biggest barrier to college education for first-generation students is sort of feeling of being a fraud," Olson said. "A lot of times, first generation college students feel like, 'I've made it this far, I'm kind of fooling people. They're going to find me out any day now, that I don't really belong here.' And they get those messages of not belonging in so many different, subtle ways."

Tags: radio, college, first-generation

Suicidal Thoughts Common Among College Students

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:57:09 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: latimesblogs.latimes.com

Suicidal thoughts common among college students

Many college students become so distressed at some point they think briefly about killing themselves, according to a new study.

In a Web-based poll of more than 26,000 students at 70 colleges and universities, more than half said they had at least one episode of suicidal thinking at some point in their lives. Two-thirds of those considered suicide on more than one occasion in a 12-month period.

the fact that so many young people had thought about suicide and yet had not told anyone or sought help means the traditional model of helping students in crisis isn't quite working

Tags: college, students, suicide, mental illness

College Encourages Deviance?

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 08:55:45 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: well.blogs.nytimes.com

College Students Behaving Badly

Many people associate property crime and other delinquent behaviors with low social status and a lack of education. But new research has identified a surprising risk factor for bad behavior — college.

During adolescence, the prospect of attending college was positive. The researchers found that college-bound youth were less likely to be involved in criminal activity and substance use during adolescence than kids who weren’t headed for college.

But college attendance appears to trigger some surprising changes. When male students enrolled in four-year universities, levels of drinking, property theft and unstructured socializing with friends increased and surpassed rates for their less-educated male peers.

The reason appears to be that kids who don’t go to college simply have to grow up more quickly.

this research suggests that college may actually encourage, rather than deter, social deviance and risk-taking.'’

Tags: education, college

Another Privacy Controversy

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 20:16:38 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

Cornell Cuts Suicide Rate in Half

Cornell University has made the controversial decision that a human life is worth more than strict privacy rules. As a result, it has cut its suicide rate amongst students in half in the past 6 years (as compared to the previous 6 years when this policy wasn’t in place).

At the same time while undergraduate enrollment at Cornell has declined during most of the 2000’s, visits to the school’s counseling center have nearly doubled, from just over 11,000 in 2000 to nearly 20,000 in 2007. This may also help account for the reduction in the suicide rate.

While I am somewhat conflicted about this policy, I applaud Cornell University and its counseling staff for erring on the side of safety rather than privacy. It’s hard to argue with solid data and results illustrating that as people become more educated about mental health and emotional warning signs, they can try and reach out to troubled students before it’s too late.

Tags: college

Bush Vetoes College Funding, Override of Veto Fails

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:25:18 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.politico.com

Bush vetoes college funding

In his budget, President Bush proposed to eliminate various higher education programs that offer tuition assistance to lower-income students such as the Perkins Loan program and the Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant (SEOG).

But Congress passed an appropriations bill with large margins in both Houses that would have supported those programs at their current level.

They would also increase funds for Pell Grants and programs such as TRIO that provide support services for first-generation college students.

“I wouldn’t have been in college if it hadn’t been for TRIO.”

Democratic congressional leaders were also critical of the veto, saying it would hinder their attempts to improve college access for disadvantaged students.

Tags: trio, college, education, affordibility

Diversity, Discourse, and the Working Class Student

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:56:20 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.aaup.org

Diversity, Discourse, and the Working-Class Student

Everybody likes "diversity." But, sometimes, all the talk about it hides complicated realities.

By Janet Galligani Casey

For example, the working-class student is not well served by our current discourses on big-d Diversity. Attending to the special circumstances of lower-class students brings to the fore the many ways in which our diversity rhetoric continues to gloss over certain forms of cultural difference, and continues, in an unreflective manner, to advance the middle-class ideology of the academy as the normative one.

We might think for a moment about the entirely negative proposition of "outing" oneself as the child of a janitor or, in some settings, merely admitting that one's parents did not attend college—types of difference to which virtually no social value adheres.

Tags: academia, working.class, diversity, college

Discrimination Based on Social Class in Academia

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:03:11 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.aaup.org

How Liberal Arts Colleges Perpetuate Bias

When you hire only those who have attended schools like yours, you practice discrimination.

By Michael J. Shott

Class bias persists in the academy. Class bias in higher education is not a recent phenomenon; it’s the reason we needed the GI Bill. In 1979, sociologists Seymour Martin Lipset and Everett Ladd concluded in an essay published in Qualitative and Quantitative Social Research: Papers in Honor of Paul F. Lazarsfeld that “prestigious, research-oriented institutions have drawn their professors disproportionately from the higher social strata.” Sociologists Robert McGinness and J. Scott Long wrote in 1988 in The Academic Profession: The Professoriate in Crisis that “the rewards of prestigious academic positions are much better correlated with measures of pedigree than of productivity.”

Class is the whale in the living room whose stinking carcass polite academic society politely ignores.

Tags: academia, social.class, college

Recent College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:39:06 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Excerpts from interview between Tavis Smiley and George Miller (D-CA), a representative who strongly supports education.

Clip Source: www.pbs.org

Rep. George Miller

It's a remarkable effort by the Congress. It means now that low-income students will get a boost in the Pell Grant over the next five years of $1,000. It also means that middle-income, low-income families that have to borrow money to pay for college will see their interest rate over the next five years cut in half from 6.8 percent today to 3.5 percent over that period of time.

One of the things we did in this legislation also was put in over $200 million for Upward Bound, to make sure that we have an effort in concert with the colleges to go out into the community, identify those students who are interested in college, make sure they complete their coursework, make sure they graduate from high school, expose them to college life in the summers or in the different vacation periods, so they understand that they are eligible, they can go there, if they complete their coursework.

Tags: college, affordability, loans, grants, students

Higher Education Act Faces Potential Veto

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:43:30 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: It looks like the increases in financial aid for college students are in jeopardy. Sad. Our students here were actually feeling relieved.

Clip Source: chronicle.com

Student Aid Has Gained, but College Costs Have Risen Faster, Surveys Find

By LIBBY SANDER

Financial aid to college students has increased by 82 percent over the past decade but still falls short of covering the average price of a college education, as the cost of attending the nation's public universities has continued to outpace inflation, family income, and sources of grant aid, according to two new surveys from the College Board.

More than $130-billion in grants, federal loans, Work-Study funds, and education tax credits and deductions was distributed to undergraduate and graduate students in the 2006-7 academic year, one of the surveys found, while students borrowed an additional $18-billion from state and private lenders to pay for their education.

Tags: college, financial aid, government, students, education

The Dark Side of Academia

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 18:33:31 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: This article discusses academics who don't become "stars"

Clip Source: chronicle.com

Is Graduate School a Cult?

For all its claims to the contrary, graduate education does not seem to enhance the mental freedom of many students, some of whom are psychologically damaged by the experience. As Newhouse suggested -- perhaps more rhetorically than seriously -- graduate school these days seems to have a lot in common with mind-control cults.

For anyone who has been in graduate school, numerous portions of Hassan's outline of the mind-control practices of cults will seem weirdly familiar. Reading through it, your initial tendency may be to laugh out loud. But proceed down the list and the parallels between cults and the experiences of many graduate students can become mildly disturbing.

Behavior control:

Information control:

Thought control:

Emotional control:

Maybe thinking of graduate school as a "cult" is silly. What's the difference between indoctrination and professionalization, anyway?

There are jobs out there for smart, creative people that don't expect you to sell your soul.

Tags: academia, professorship, education, college, graduate.school

Help-Seeking for College Students with Mental Illness

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:16:17 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Long ignored, the mental health of college students is finally getting attention.

Clip Source: www.ns.umich.edu

"We can't assume that reducing financial barriers is enough," Eisenberg said. The study found that one of the biggest predictors of whether a student sought help was socioeconomic background—students who reported growing up in poor families were almost twice as likely not to seek help. Poor students were also much more prone to symptoms of depression and anxiety disorders.

It's important to understand what motivates students to seek help or not for several reasons, Eisenberg said. Most mental disorders first occur before age 24, and those problems often have long-term implications into adulthood. Studying a university setting lends insight into what other factors besides affordability keep people from seeking help.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Studies show that the incidence of mental illness on college campuses is rising, and a new survey of 2,785 college students indicates that more than half of students with significant symptoms of anxiety or depression do not seek help.

Tags: college, mental.illness, treatment, psychology