Educational researcher Melissa Roderick from the University of Chicago is using her powers for good in order to study college attendance rates among graduates of Chicago public schools. Kids said they wanted to go to college, but didn’t actually end up attending. What was the glitch and when in the process was it occurring?

The assumption had been this was due to a lack of motivation on the part of the students and their parents. The research interviews brought to light that:

…student aspiration to attend four-year universities exists, but many young people don’t have access to the right guidance and tools to apply and enroll in schools.

In 2005, 72 percent of 12th-graders in Chicago’s public schools stated on a survey that they hoped to complete a bachelor’s degree or higher, while only 59 percent applied and only 41 percent actually enrolled in post-secondary education, Roderick said.

She said the lack of qualifications is the main obstacle for the Chicago students, who have low grade point averages and ACT entrance exam scores. The low scores are especially prevalent in black males, she said. Only 31 percent of black males in Chicago schools in 2005 graduated with qualifications to enter four-year colleges.

“Teachers make a huge difference in this,” she said, adding that teachers are often the ones providing recommendations and admission forms for their graduating students.

Fear of making the wrong college decisions and of the high costs of university tuition, as well as the sometimes-imposed pressure of picking out a career before enrolling in a school, scares students away from seeking enrollment at universities, Roderick said.

Meanwhile, one of her studies “dumbest findings,” Roderick said, was that some students who were accepted to four-year colleges didn’t enroll because they didn’t fill out their free application for federal student aid on time, leaving them without known financial aid.
“Schools must ensure that students are filling out financial aid applications,” Roderick said.

It’s an odd feeling for me to be having, but I can understand and sympathize with all parties and their points of view on this one. No empathy as I’ve been neither a teacher nor a student in a big city public school.

I don’t think it’s the responsibility of the teachers to corral or babysit their students to make sure all forms and applications are filled out correctly and turned in on time. The students have some responsibility as it is their own lives we’re talking about. Or writing about. Whatever.

I’m just hazarding a guess, but I would imagine that the teachers aren’t there for the money. Which tells me they must be devoted to the cause of lifting up young minds or they wouldn’t be killing themselves trying to cut through the red tape of the public school system. So it would be nice if, in their non-existent spare time, they helped out the kids who want to take the next step.

As far as the kids go, I get it that an unknown entity like college is probably terrifying. And an expensive terrifying thing can’t seem at all appealing. But at some point a person’s life is his/her own responsibility. Find out what has to be done and do it. Cross the t’s, dot the i’s. A lot of adults are cranky, burnt out and annoying, but there has to be one around who’s willing and able to help. Ask them and get it done.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Top Chef and the Food Network have fueled the rise of the celebrity chef and it’s been very good for cooking schools. Students are filling culinary schools are unprecedented rates. Professional training can help cooks move up quickly through the kitchen ranks. And culinary schools have produced many of the nation’s finest chefs.

From All Culinary Schools - Top Chefs Who Attended Cooking School:

Emeril Lagasse – The Food Network personality and owner of many restaurants has made quite a fortune from cooking. He attended cooking school at Johnson and Wales after turning down a full scholarship to study music at the New England Conservatory of Music. Talk about talent! Lagasse also supports a number of charities through the Emeril Lagasse Foundation.

Ann Cooper – She calls herself the “Renegade Lunch Lady.” A former celebrity chef, who once cooked for the Grateful Dead, Chef Ann is now giving public school cafeterias around the country a major facelift. She’s currently Director of Nutrition at Berkeley Public Schools where she has replaced all canned and processed foods with fresh meat and vegetables and baked goods from local bakeries. Cooper studied at the Culinary Institute of America.

Erika Bruce – Bruce is a test cook on America’s Test Kitchen, public television’s most popular cooking show. On the show, test cooks like Bruce experiment with recipes and tinker with cooking tools to find out what works and what doesn’t. Bruce attended the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts.

Walter Scheib –As the executive chef at the White House for 11 years, Scheib was in charge of preparing meals for the First Family. Scheib’s book about his experiences White House Chef: Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen came out in January, 2007. He graduated with highest honors from the Culinary Institute of America in New York in 1979.

Julia Child – She’s the queen mother of the culinary industry. In 1948, while her husband, an officer for a federal government agency, was posted in Paris, Child enrolled in the world famous Cordon Bleu cooking school. There was no turning back. After just six months of training, Child and two of her classmates opened up a cooking school of their own called L’Ecole de Trois Gourmandes. They also published a book together called Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Child promoted the book in the US and one Boston public broadcasting station found her so charismatic they gave her a cooking show of her own. The show was an immense hit – it was syndicated all over the country and won many awards, including an Emmy.

Although no one disputes that culinary training is essential to become a chef, attending a pricey culinary school can put you in the hole for years. The New York Times reported in May 2007 that culinary school graduates are defaulting on federal student loans at alarmingly high rates. The article advises culinary students to be very careful about how they pay for school and to exhaust federal and state loans before looking for alternative funding.

From the New York Times:

Top Chef Dreams Crushed by Student Debt

But would-be top chefs face a challenge that most lawyers, engineers or nurses do not: few jobs in their chosen field pay enough for them to retire their student loans. As a result, as many as 11 percent of graduates at some culinary schools are defaulting on federal student loans. The national average for all students last year was roughly half that, at 5.1 percent.

“The problem isn’t getting a job, the problem is getting a high-paying job,” said Susan Sykes Hendee, a dean at Baltimore International College and a member of the American Culinary Federation Foundation Accrediting Commission, which accredits many culinary schools.

Many of the schools offer two-year programs where the total tuition and supply costs can reach $48,000. Only a slice of that is covered by low-interest federal loans. For example, the most that students in two-year programs can currently borrow in federal loans is $14,125.

culinary school |
college

Reforms and Clean Sweeps in Financial Aid

On May 31st, the New York Times revealed how deep the corruption at Columbia University ran. The financial aid director for Columbia’s undergraduate college and its engineering school, David Charlow, was promoting a student loan company in which he held stock. Columbia dismissed him last week. Now Columbia is giving $1.1 million to a fund to educate students about loans.

The article also announced that the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators would end the practice of turning to bankers and other lenders to sponsor its many conferences and allowing them to court its members through meals and gifts.

When Mr. Cuomo first started investigating student lending problems, the group protested vehemently, accusing him of tearing “the fabric of trust between schools and students.” It said that abuses and conflicts of interest were rare.

Buttoday, Dallas Martin, the group’s president, who was at Mr. Cuomo’s news conference, said he had been wrong.

“I want to apologize,” he said. “We did not have all the facts. We do not condone individuals taking kickbacks.”

He said his association’s directors had expanded its own ethical code, and that the group would in the future bar loan companies from sponsoring its conferences or giving gifts or other payments to its members.

“I hope we can put these issues behind us,” he said, and that students and parents can feel confident in the advice they get from financial aid officers.