Colorado’s CollegeInvest agency, an organization in charge of state loan forgiveness and scholarship programs, is facing criticism and increased scrutiny from the state’s legislature after an audit revealed conflicts of interest and a surprisingly low number of scholarship awards being made by the board.  The state legislature will now require the agency to report to them monthly to ensure proper oversight of the state’s scholarship and student loan funds.

The audit found that the CollegeInvest Early Achievers Scholarship, a fund that awards high-achieving high school students with college financial aid, had only given out a tiny fraction of the awards it was expected to since it was established in 2005.  Students opt into the scholarship program as 7th, 8th or 9th graders and pledge to take pre-college coursework in high school and maintain a GPA of 2.5 or better.  The Colorado legislature estimated that the scholarship fund would award about $3.8 million in scholarships per year, but awarded only $91,000 this year.  A volunteerism scholarship program and a student loan forgiveness programs managed by CollegeInvest also fell significantly short of goals and projections.

Meanwhile, the fund incurred over $12 million in administrative expenses beyond salaries and benefits for its employees.  Reports on the audit note that the program has spent $10 on administrative costs for every $1 in scholarships awarded.  The audit also found conflicts of interest with the board awarding funding to other organizations they were connected to and giving out large payments to financial advisors.

CollegeInvest officials say that the program is off to a slow start and that potential conflicts of interest were disclosed and didn’t affect board decisions.  For now, the state legislature has just asked for increased oversight of the program.  But for Colorado students who were expecting to benefit from academic scholarships, community service scholarships, or loan forgiveness programs for which money is in place but funds aren’t being awarded in large amounts, any change in these programs cannot come soon enough.

Posted: under College News, Financial Aid, Scholarships, Student Loans.
Tags: college news, Financial Aid, loan repayment, Scholarships, state news, Student Loans

Comments (0) Sep 30 2009

High school seniors in a school district in Texas will receive $1 million in scholarships after their district was named the winner of this year’s Broad Prize for Urban Education.  The award is offered annually by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and is designed to reward notable gains in student achievement and in narrowing the achievement gap for poor and minority students.  Aldine Independent School District, which serves the Houston area, won the top prize this year, after having previously been a runner up for the prize three times.

The Broad Foundation names five finalists each year and from them, chooses a winner for the $1 million Broad Prize.  This year, the other finalists were Broward County, Florida (a two-time finalist); Long Beach, California (a former winner and three-time finalist); Socorro Independent School District in El Paso, Texas; and Gwinnet County Public Schools in the Atlanta, Georgia area.

Aldine won the prize based on a number of factors.  The Broad Foundation cited the district’s gains in breaking “the predictive power of poverty,” as the district’s predominately low-income students outperformed peers of similar backgrounds on state standardized tests.  The achievement gap for both low-income and minority students has been closing at Aldine, with a 14-point reduction in the achievement gap for African-American middle schoolers in math over the last four years.  Other successes included Aldine’s recruitment of highly qualified teachers, engagement with students, and districtwide standardization of education practices and curriculum (many poor families move around within the district, so making what is taught in each grade more uniform across the district helps them keep from falling behind).

The scholarship awards will help further the success of graduates from Aldine, with $20,000 over four years going to students who enroll in four-year colleges and universities and up to $5,000 over two years going to students who enroll in community colleges.  Students at other finalist schools will also receive scholarship money:  each of the prize’s four finalist districts will receive $250,000 to award to their high school students.

Posted: under High School, High School News, Scholarships.
Tags: college scholarships, High School, High School News, high school student scholarships, high school students, Scholarships, state news, Texas scholarships

Comments (0) Sep 18 2009

A new book is shedding light on graduation rates at state colleges, and also causing a stir with its findings and recommendations.  The book Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities, was written by William G. Bowen, a former president of Princeton University, Michael S. McPherson, a former president of Macalester College, and Matthew M. Chingos, a graduate student at Harvard University. It shows many of the nation’s top public schools are coming up short when it comes to graduating students in four years, especially low-income and minority students.

The book analyzes the four-year and six-year graduation rates of students at 21 flagship universities and 47 four-year public universities in Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia.  Among the findings, the authors reveal that flagship universities, typically the most competitive and prestigious in their state university systems, graduate only 49 percent of their students in four years, with other state colleges having even less success.  The six-year graduation rates for both sets of schools are better, but vary widely based on several factors discussed in the book.

Disparities by common demographic factors, namely race and socioeconomic status, were found in the research for the book, and were most pronounced among male students. However, the most striking differences come in terms of schools’ selectivity.  Some of these disparities include:

• Graduation rates of 82-89% for the most selective and second most selective categories of schools and most competitive category of students (3.5+ high school GPA and 1200+ SAT score), but graduation rates of only 59% for the same category of students at the least selective schools.
• Graduation rates of above 70% for all students at the most selective schools, regardless of GPA or test scores.
• The disparity between the graduation rates of the most and least competitive students at the least selective schools was only 11 percentage points, while the disparity between students of similar ability at schools of different selectivity ranged 21 to 30 percentage points.
• The least competitive group of students (GPA of less than 3.0 and/or SAT of less than 1000) did better at the most selective schools (71% graduation rate) than the most competitive students did at the least selective schools (59% graduation rate).

These results have many questioning the effectiveness of academic scholarships and other merit-based aid, especially in light of the University of Texas at Austin’s recent decision to stop sponsoring the National Merit Scholarship Program. More so, though, they have experts, including the book’s authors, wondering what is causing this disparity in graduation rates.

Price plays a huge role for students of low socioeconomic status, pushing them to attend the least expensive (and often least selective) schools or to opt out of four-year colleges entirely. Rising costs also could play a role in dropout rates among poorer students, so the availability of financial aid for all four years is crucial to graduation.

One of the biggest problems identified in the book is a phenomenon dubbed “under-matching.” Highly qualified students are aiming low in the college application process, attending less selective schools with lower graduation rates when they could easily be accepted to and graduate from more selective schools with higher graduation rates. Students most likely to under-match are low socioeconomic status students whose parents did not attend or did not graduate from college. The higher a student’s income and parents’ level of education, the less likely the student is to under-match.

Based on this information, the authors suggest that schools focus their efforts on encouraging students to graduate in four years and to remain in school until they graduate. Keeping tuition low is a part of this, as are readjusting requirements to make graduating in four years more doable and, above all else, making it clear that students are expected to graduate in four years.

Graduation rates are gaining attention from other corners, as well. Washington Monthly included graduation rates in their recently released college rankings, and another study published this summer by the American Enterprise Institute compared graduation rates at colleges. The Education Department is also doing its part to make information on graduation rates available to students who complete the FAFSA on the Web.

Posted: under College Applications, College Costs, College Culture, College News, College Search.
Tags: academic scholarships, applications, choosing a college, College Applications, College Costs, College Culture, college news, College Search, education study, graduation rates, merit-based, state colleges, state news

Comments (0) Sep 10 2009

Even in the face of a continuing recession, new scholarship opportunities are being made available to students in a variety of situations.  Recently, students in two communities in Michigan, a state hit especially hard by economic problems, have received news of scholarship programs that will give them significant help paying for school, even as the state considers cutting funding to one of its largest merit scholarship awards.

Baldwin, a community in rural northern Michigan, is the first to take advantage of the state’s “Promise Zones” program, which allows areas with a high percentage of poor students to use state property tax funds to provide college scholarships for their students.  Baldwin plans to offer scholarships of up to $5,000 for up to four years to current high school seniors.  Up to nine other high-poverty communities in Michigan are eligible to participate in the program, provided they, like Baldwin, raise money to fund their scholarships for the first two years of awards.  The Promise Zone funding, like the state’s endangered Michigan Promise scholarship, were inspired by the Kalamazoo Promise scholarship, a full-tuition scholarship award created by an anonymous private donor that allows graduates of Kalamazoo public schools to attend any college in Michigan for four years.

Another Michigan community has also unveiled a substantial scholarship program for its high school students, this time a four-year full-tuition award to Finlandia University for all graduates of public schools in Hancock, a tiny mining town in the state’s Upper Peninsula, who gain admission to the college.  The scholarship program was created as Finlandia’s way of paying the community for the use of a building that the school district no longer needed.  Rather than working out a traditional payment plan for the purchase of the building, something complicated by tighter credit requirements, FInlandia proposed a deal that would provide more immediate and tangible benefits to the students of Hancock.  The scholarships will be offered to members of Finlandia’s current freshmen class and to subsequent graduates of Hancock’s schools.

Local scholarships like these exist for communities nationwide, and are likely to seek out inventive ways to find funding, as community members are committed to helping their neighbors succeed.  To find out more about scholarship opportunities for students in your area, conduct a free scholarship search.

Posted: under College News, College and the Economy, Scholarships.
Tags: College and the Economy, college news, college scholarships, full-tuition scholarships, local scholarships, Michigan scholarships, Scholarship Search, Scholarships, state news, state scholarship

Comments (0) Sep 08 2009

Attending community college is a great way to save money on the first two years of higher education, but for many students, paying for school after they transfer to a four-year college or university can still be difficult.  Now, transfer students in Alabama will get help with their last two years of school, thanks to a new state scholarship.

Alabama has launched a new scholarship program for graduates of the state’s two-year community and technical colleges that will allow them to receive a bachelor’s degree for free.  Alabama State University and Alabama A&M will each award 250 two-year full-tuition scholarships starting this fall, with the number of available scholarship awards to double to 500 apiece next year.

Initial funding for the scholarship program comes from the state’s Education Trust Fund, and is part of the settlement in the 28-year-old Knight v. Alabama segregation lawsuit.  Knight, the lead plaintiff in the suit, is now a state representative and vows to do what he can to ensure continued funding for the program as long as he’s serving in the state legislature.

Initially, 50 students have been awarded the scholarship, but the state is working to identify more eligible students.  Students in Alabama who are planning to attend a community college then transfer to one of these two state schools will want to keep this scholarship in mind.  Other local, state, and national awards are also available to students who are attending community college and planning to transfer to a four-year college or university.  More information on these and other scholarship opportunities can be found by conducting a free college scholarship search.

Posted: under College News, Financial Aid, Scholarships.
Tags: Alabama, college news, college scholarships, community college, full-tuition scholarships, Scholarships, state colleges, state news, state scholarship, transfer scholarship

Comments (0) Aug 27 2009

Earlier this summer, it came to light that for some students in Illinois, being accepted by state colleges was less about what they knew than who they knew, as an investigation into admission practices revealed the existence of a special clout list of well-connected applicants to the University of Illinois.  Now, the Associated Press is reporting that some college scholarships in the state may be governed by a similar principle.

Each Illinois state representative is given the equivalent of two four-year full-tuition scholarships to award to his or her constituents each year.  Some representatives choose to break up their scholarship awards into eight one-year full-tuition awards, while others choose to hand out two-year or four-year scholarships.  At least 83 of these scholarships went to students with some form of political connections between 2008 and 2009.  Of these scholarships, 41 went directly to the children of donors to the politician making the award.

While the lawmakers award the scholarships, the universities are responsible for finding the funding for each award.  After state colleges and universities, as well as the majority of the state’s grant programs for low-income students have faced steep budget cuts this year, these General Assembly scholarships have drawn substantial ire from critics who feel the $12.5 million currently allocated to the program could go to better use elsewhere.

Representatives deny impropriety, but it seems that families in Illinois who have seen their 529 plans shrink in the recession may want to consider taking their college savings and investing them in their representative’s next reelection campaign.

Posted: under College Culture, College Grants, College News, College and the Economy, Scholarships.
Tags: College and the Economy, College Culture, College Grants, college scholarships, local scholarships, Scholarships, state news, state scholarship

Comments (0) Aug 26 2009

As the start of the fall semester approaches, students across the country are finding themselves in a precarious position when it comes to financial aid.  As we’ve previously mentioned, several states have been forced to make deep budget cuts this year, canceling or reducing funding for scholarships and grants, in some cases after award notices have already been sent to students.  This has left students scrambling for last-minute student loans, and in some cases facing the difficult decision of whether to take a semester off while trying to procure alternate funding.

The Wall Street Journal and U.S. News both feature articles this week that offer up alternatives for students who have come up short on funding for the fall.  While scholarship opportunities are still available for the coming academic year and should be pursued, students who need immediate sources of funding may want to check out private loans, peer-to-peer lending, and emergency loans and other aid offered by some universities and state agencies.  Reducing to part-time enrollment or transferring to a cheaper school are also last-resort options that may be better choices than taking an entire semester off or putting tuition on a credit card.

An appeal to your college’s financial aid office can also produce more financial aid, especially if your financial situation has changed since you completed the FAFSA, or if your parents were turned down for a federal PLUS loan.  Additional loans, and even some grant aid, may be available if you ask.

In addition to trying to find new sources of funding, some college students are also petitioning their state legislators to get grant and scholarship funding restored.  Lawmakers in Utah have listened, promising to reinstate full funding to the state’s New Century Scholarship program, whose awards they had previously planned to cut nearly in half.  Students in Michigan also may yet get a reprieve from budget cuts, as the governor of Michigan and numerous state legislators are vowing to do what they can to keep the state’s popular Promise Scholarship program intact.

Even if states manage to find funding for grants and scholarships this year, the next fiscal year could also prove challenging.  Students in cash-strapped states who are planning to rely on state scholarships to pay for college may want to start looking into alternate funding now.  One of the best ways to do this is to start with a free college scholarship search.

Posted: under College Costs, College Grants, College News, College and the Economy, Financial Aid, Tips.
Tags: College and the Economy, College Costs, College Grants, college news, Financial Aid, Scholarship Search, state grants, state news, state scholarship, Student Loans, Tips

Comments (0) Aug 19 2009

Rising unemployment rates and other symptoms of the ongoing recession continue to drive more people to attend college and look for ways to pay their bills, causing an uptick in state and federal financial aid applications. However, states are also hurting for money to meet financial aid requests and other budget demands. According to the Associated Press, 12 states have made significant cuts to state grant programs so far this year, with additional cuts likely. At least anecdotally, these cuts are already leading to more reliance on student loans, especially among groups that, according to a brief published this week by the College Board, may already be finding themselves overburdened with debt.

This week, the College Board released some new numbers on student debt loads and borrowing habits, culled from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, data released every four years by the Department of Education.  Students at for-profit colleges are the most likely to borrow (96-98 percent graduate with some amount of loan debt), have the largest average debt loads at graduation, and are also some of the poorest college students (students at for-profit schools received 19 percent of the federal Pell Grants disbursed in 2007-2008 despite making up only 7 percent of the college-going population).  With additional sources of need-based aid drying up, these students may find themselves even more burdened with debt.

Students at other types of schools have also had to do more borrowing in recent years, according to the study.  A full 59 percent of college students graduate with some amount of student loan debt, including 66 percent of bachelor’s degree recipients.  While most students took on manageable amounts of debt, 10 percent of students at four-year public schools, 22 percent of students at four-year private colleges, and 25 percent at four-year for-profit colleges borrowed more than $40,000 to attend college.

The average loan debt of undergraduate students in 2007-2008 was $15,123 (this is all students, not graduates), up 11 percent from the last time the survey was conducted.  While increases in loan burdens were most modest at four-year state and non-profit colleges, reductions in state grant programs that are often earmarked for students at state colleges or nonprofit private colleges could send these numbers climbing.

You may want to consider statistics on student debt as a factor in your college search, but keep in mind that there are alternatives to borrowing.  Scholarship opportunities exist for students at every type of college pursuing many different types of degree programs.

Posted: under College Costs, College Grants, College News, College and the Economy, Financial Aid, Student Loans.
Tags: College and the Economy, College Costs, College Grants, college news, Financial Aid, grants, private loans, state colleges, state grants, state news, student debt, Student Loans

Comments (0) Aug 12 2009

While it may be grabbing most of the headlines, the federal “Cash for Clunkers” program is not the only government grant program to run out of money well ahead of schedule this year.  The state funding allocated to Illinois Monetary Awards Program (MAP) grants, college financial aid awards for needy students, was slashed during state budget cuts this year. As a result awards have been cut in half for all students and have been denied outright to over 130,000 students who applied after May 15, a significantly earlier cutoff date than previous years.

Typically, Illinois MAP grants award up to $5,000 per year to the neediest college students in the state, provided they submit their financial aid applications by mid-August.  This year, however, the deadline was moved up to mid-May due to budget cuts.  Even students who applied on time will still receive reduced funding, as the current budget for the program can only cover grants for one semester of study.  Students at community colleges, who typically apply for financial aid later in the year and often have access to fewer financial resources, are likely to be the hardest hit.

Illinois isn’t the only state forced to make cuts to its college grant programs.  California and Ohio are among others that have recently gained attention for cutting aid to college students.  If you live in a state that’s been forced to reduce student financial aid, you still have options to pay for college.  Before looking into student loans or considering a semester off, conduct a free college scholarship search. Scholarships, including state and local scholarships, are still out there despite the recession.

Posted: under College Grants, College News, College and the Economy, Financial Aid.
Tags: College and the Economy, College Grants, college news, Financial Aid, grants, state grants, state news

Comments (0) Jul 31 2009

On August 1, the new GI Bill will kick in, bringing with it increased education benefits for people who have served in the military since 2001.  At least in theory.

The new GI Bill covers an undergraduate student’s full tuition and fees at any four-year state college anywhere in the country, which is a more generous benefit than the veteran aid students received under the old GI Bill.  Eligible students will also receive an additional monthly housing stipend, and thanks to the recently approved HEA Technical Corrections legislation, these benefits won’t be counted as income for purposes of determining federal student financial aid eligibility.

The GI Bill also includes a new program that gives veterans benefits at private colleges and allows schools to match federal VA benefits for their students.  More than 1,100 private colleges signed up to participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program, which should allow veterans to attend a larger number of institutes of higher education at little cost.

However, the formula for determining benefits under the Yellow Ribbon Program has been mired in controversy since its announcement, and as the deadline for the GI Bill to go into effect nears, many people are looking at the wide disparity in Yellow Ribbon benefits nationwide and scratching their heads.

Veterans attending private colleges can receive up to the full amount of tuition and fees at the most expensive public college in the state from the government, with their institution agreeing to assist with additional tuition costs at Yellow Ribbon schools.  But the amount the federal government will cover varies widely from state to state, with government benefits ranging from just over $2,000 to just under $40,000, depending on how the department of Veterans Affairs calculated the maximum in-state tuition in each state.

These differences have caused some private schools to limit their Yellow Ribbon participation, meaning many veterans may still be on the hook for most of their college costs if they choose to attend private colleges.  The wide variation in benefits also can cause confusion and uncertainty for veterans considering attending private universities but unsure of the financial aid they’ll be eligible to receive.

Posted: under Back to School, College Costs, College News, College in Congress, Financial Aid.
Tags: Back to School, College Costs, College in Congress, Financial Aid, GI Bill, military, private colleges, state colleges, state news, veterans

Comments (0) Jul 14 2009