Below is an excerpt from President Obama’s State of the Union Address 2010. I’m not on board with his primary and secondary education reform plans, which may be smarter than Bush’s NCLB Act, but are also more evil.

However, so far his plans for higher education look to be an improvement. I’m especially liking the Pell Grant increases, the lessening of student loan malevolence, and the attempt to have colleges and universities knock it the hell off already with the insane tuition increases.

Still, in this economy, a high school diploma no longer guarantees a good job. That’s why I urge the Senate to follow the House and pass a bill that will revitalize our community colleges, which are a career pathway to the children of so many working families. (Applause.)

To make college more affordable, this bill will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies that go to banks for student loans. (Applause.) Instead, let’s take that money and give families a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college and increase Pell Grants. (Applause.) And let’s tell another one million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only 10 percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after 20 years — and forgiven after 10 years if they choose a career in public service, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college. (Applause.)

And by the way, it’s time for colleges and universities to get serious about cutting their own costs — (applause) — because they, too, have a responsibility to help solve this problem.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Redirecting your thought process is difficult on a good day. Redirecting your post-high school plans is nearly impossible, especially if college has been the one all-consuming thought you and your parents have had since you were exhibiting sheer finger-painting genius in preschool. The farther you’ve driven, the harder it is to turn the car around.

Even though eighteen-year-old me would never have listened to any advice involving my not going to college, that doesn’t mean I was correct in my closed-mindedness. Whether or not it’s advice you want to take, only fools assume their way is always right and disregard all other input and information. (That was directed at me. I’m the idiot. Or, I was the idiot. I’ve made so many horrific blunders that now I’m wise beyond all measure.)

Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist has an excellent piece about college education and what it really means in this day and age. It’s difficult to open one’s mind up and really consider what she says, especially if you’ve grown up thinking the way I do about higher education. But that’s part of growing the hell up and learning to examine all options and relevant information when making a decision. Penelope tends to think outside the box, and the more miles you walk through this world, the more you’ll realize how valuable that quality is.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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Good news for FAFSA applicants: the 2010 version will be easier to apply for. The form is simplified and is no longer written in a language incomprehensible to even students with 4.0 GPAs and off-the-charts SAT scores. As an added bonus, volunteers will be available to help parents and students fill those suckers out.

While the total amount of grants and scholarships likely to be handed out this year won’t be anywhere near enough to meet most students’ needs, at least it will be easier to apply for aid. The online version of the notoriously headache-producing Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which is the scholarship application used by the federal government and most states, charities, and colleges, has been streamlined and simplified. Even better: There is a growing network of volunteers who will help anyone fill out the FAFSA free of charge.

Volunteer financial aid experts will be stationed at more than 800 YMCAs, churches, colleges, schools, community centers, and other locations around the country in January and February for College Goal Sunday events. The aim of the nonprofit events: to help students and parents get their aid applications in on time. Originally, College Goal Sunday events were held the Sunday after the Super Bowl. The program has grown so much in the past few years that many states now have several events on various days throughout January and February, says Marcia Weston, director of the program, which is funded by the Lumina Foundation and operated by the YMCA. Some states, such as California, use a different name for their volunteer event. But the College Goal Sunday website lists the times and places for events in 47 states plus the District of Columbia. Some sites will also provide transportation, she says. More…

Posted by Alexa Harrington

While high school juniors and seniors are in full-on panic mode because the college application and acceptance process is hitting the fan in earnest for both groups of students, I’m hopeful everyone can manage to remember that college is not a life or death situation. Every adult involved in the life of an upperclassman tends to make it seem as though it is, but I promise you it’s not.

Breathe, people, and read this post in the NY Times education blog, Mom U. Regular columnist, Caren Osten Gerzberg, had her daughter write the post. Nicole is a high school junior and makes some excellent points with regard to the college admissions process and how it relates to the grand scheme of things.

Seriously, you are a single, unimportant speck in the universe. No one actually gives a rat’s ass which institution of higher learning chooses you for matriculation. And in ten years, neither will you. Perspective is a priceless tool.

Further Reading:

Community College vs. University
College Comparison Tool
Awesome Parent
The Coolest College Application Essay Ever
How To (Not) Screw Up the College Apps
Avoiding Six Common College Application Slip-Ups
College Admissions Testing: For and Against
Taking Your Personality Into Account When Making Major Decisions
Media Frenzy Around High Pressure College Admissions
College Admissions—Looking Good Only On Paper

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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Should you require more advice than that given in the previous post, you can ponder this article/post at U.S. News and World Report: 10 Tips for Starting Your College Search.

Short Version:

1. Observe yourself.
2. Become familiar with your internal guidance system (IGS).
3. Use your imagination.
4. Look for your cultural match.
5. Take one step at a time.
6. Use your team.
7. Confront your fears as you go.
8. Maintain your privacy.
9. Don’t take college admissions advice from your friends…ever.
10. Be proud of who you are.

The little nuggets are worth the 3 minutes it’ll take you to read the post. Even preschoolers know to prepare before battle.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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High school juniors: It is time. You and your parentals have probably been working toward this moment since preschool. The college application process of doom is about to begin. Hurl if you must, then pull it together and start thinking about which colleges you might want to apply to.

Maybe avoid doing what I did. I plunked my little self down in the high school counselor’s office and answered her “Which major?” question. She had gallons of information about the plethora of schools available to me. I waved them all away impatiently and asked for the helpful grid the California State University system sends out. Printed helpfully upon it is a list of every degree offered, with a dot next to the campus(es) that can deliver the goods.

I wanted simple: In-state tuition; close but not to close; far but not too far; no big-name schools; and I wanted my decision to mostly be based on academics, not on a school’s reputation for politics or parties. Three schools had my program: Long Beach (too SoCal), San Francisco (too close to my Machiavellian grandparents), and Fresno (perfect).

Sadly, not quite, as it turned out. The one drawback to Fresno State is that it’s in Fresno. Yes, Fresno did produce the Fresno Poets, and I’ll admit to the importance of that. But aside from a handful of people who can write interestingly, one has to dig deep to find culture. Also, I would generally advise against living in a place where the dust kicked up by farm machinery on the 80 million raisin-grape vineyards contains mold spores that can kill you. I like an exciting life as much as the next girl, but dying from dust is just dumb.

My attempt at simplicity, frugality and pure academic focus was noble. That being said, if I had it to do again, I would have chosen a school based mostly on academics, but also upon location. Because you don’t just study while away at college, you have to live there, too. If I had considered that, there’s a chance I may not have fled.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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College Scholarships.org has the bad financial news for college students explained simply and graphically below. The immediate effects of student loans are explained, as well as the long-term effects (the ones you thought you’d be done thinking about that many years down the line). I’m hoping that the nationwide foreclosure situation has educated everyone as to what happens when people are allowed to borrow beyond their means.

I get it that paying for college so you can have some decently-paying career options is a big fat Catch-22 as well as a vicious circle. It also just plain sucks a real lot. However, it’s still better to have the information prior to heading into the jungle. No one’s going to make you use the info, but it’s good to at least have it back there in your grey-matter archives, just in case.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(hat tip to jennifer)

Enrollment at community colleges is increasing at a startling rate. The two main contributing factors being: (a) college students and their parents are pinched for funds and spending a few years at a community college is several thousand dollars cheaper than heading for a four-year school immediately after high school graduation; and (b) adults who have just lost their jobs due to the recession are using the forced downtime to work on improving their career education and/or training.

It blows mightily that just as everyone is flocking to community college campuses, the recession is sucking a lot of funding from public schools. The schools have neither the physical space nor the money to deal with every potential student who knocks on their doors.

Irony is a tricky word, and no one should go around just slapping the Ironic! label on every bummer situation they see. The fact that community colleges have an embarrassment of riches due to incoming students, while simultaneously losing a painful chunk of their funding so they can’t enroll all of those students isn’t technically ironic. But it does get the It Ubersucks! label.

Further Reading (It’s All Bad News):

Community Colleges See Demand Spike, Funding Slip
Community College Enrollment Increase 4.9%
College Funding Dilemma
Demand Has Increased at State’s Community Colleges
3 O.C. Colleges Cut Classes for 2,000 Students
Community Colleges May See Increase In Enrollment
Community College Enrollment Booms At University of Hawaii
Community Colleges See Spike In Fall Enrollment
COCC Closes Fall Admissions
New Data Confirm Increased Enrollments
The Community College Enrollment Boom
Community College Surge

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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I was never good at taking advice in my teen years, but grown-up me wants to go back to the 1990s, tie teenager me to a chair, and wait while the pain-in-the-ass younger version of myself reads the above book. I also would have liked to have known of its existence yesterday, when I wrote this post about an eerily familiar topic.

It looks to be an excellent resource for any community college newbie. Here’s the publisher’s blurb:

Bookstore shelves are crowded with books offering advice to college students, yet—astonishingly—none of these books offer needed advice to the majority of college students in the United States … those attending community college. Of the approximately 21 million full- and part-time college students, 11 million attend community colleges.

The Community College Guide aims to help fill this huge gap. The authors of this book have decades of experience between them as professors and administrators in both two-year and four-year colleges, have written numerous books for a general readership and thoroughly understand what community college students need to know to succeed in their college careers.

From how to apply to community colleges to what to expect from your courses, from the truth about what you’ll pay to actual financial aid opportunities, The Community College Guide offers a wealth of information for the millions of American students who desire higher education at the community level.

They make a good point: Why aren’t there any good guides available for community college students? A two-year institution isn’t as capable of drowning unsuspecting freshmen, but I’m sure those brand spanking new college students would appreciate some guidance and advice.

Further Reading:

Community College vs. University

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Not everyone heads off to a four-year higher learning institution right after high school. Some people forgo the awesomeness of freshman year in the dorms so they can save thousands of dollars learning how to become a stellar college student amid the relative safety of a community college before launching themselves full-bore into the larger and less safety-netted world of the four-year college or university.

I was dead-set on escaping my tiny hometown as soon as I turned in my rented cap and gown and was handed my official high school diploma. (They gave us blank rolled-up sheets of paper at the ceremony, and threatened us, on pain of death and of not ever officially graduating, if we failed to return our dorky graduation get-ups. Did they seriously believe that we would steal something so polyester and hideous?) I thought I would explode with anticipation for my higher education adventure, and had to talk myself into enjoying my last, fully free summer vacation, because all I wanted to do was dive head first into college life.

I had done pretty well in high school, considering I only bothered to carry my books home when I had a homework assignment that would take me longer then the five minutes before class the day it was due. I managed to get into a good school, and figured I was golden from there on out. This plan did not work out. I was shocked to discover, after receiving a ‘B’, a ‘C’, a ‘D’ and an ‘F’ for my first semester’s “efforts,” that there was an outside chance I was going to have to crack a book and study in college. Crap.

It sucked, it was humbling and painful, and it was horrifically expensive. My parents made just enough to not qualify for any help with my tuition costs, but not nearly enough to pay for my education outright. They had been saving since I was an infant, and I can’t tell you how shi**y it feels to tell your good, kind, hard-working parents that their dumbass kid just wasted several thousand of their hard-earned dollars trying to avoid the inevitable learning process that is a college education.

It would have been so much easier on everyone’s heads, hearts and savings accounts if I had skipped the dorm experience and had instead gone to a community college for a year or two. I would have had smaller classes, less of that dehumanizing I’m-a-number feeling, more attention from instructors, and a slew of accessible staff and tutors who would have liked nothing more than to help me help myself.

For any high school students out there who would prefer to get really great at being a college student before hitting the four-year campus of their matriculation dreams, then please consider spending a year or two at a solid, accredited community college, and transferring to what will then be a more easily conquerable four-year college or university.

Further Reading:

Community College vs. University

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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