Guide to Education Grants

Another Student Loan Resource:
The American Council on Education opened its 89th annual meeting this past Sunday, Feb. 11, 2007. According to a Feb. 12, 2007 article by Richard Byrne titled “At Annual Meeting, Council Focuses on Issues of Access and Accountability,” that appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “The theme of the council’s 2007 meeting, which continues through Tuesday, is ‘The Access Imperative.’”
 
Access to higher education for lower-income families seems to be the prominent theme lately among higher education legislators, advocates and watchdogs. Byrne reported that within the American Council on Education circles, “Much of the discussion of the access issue has focused on a lack of preparedness for higher education among low-income and minority students, and the social and cultural barriers to their entry to universities in greater numbers.”
 
Questions on Accountability                                                             
 
As well as access to higher education, members at the meeting discussed the ever-looming issue of quality control when it comes to higher education and the pursuit by some institutions to rank on consumer guides to college such as that of U.S. News & World Report.
 
The article reports, “The members of a panel titled ‘Who Is Defining Quality in Higher Ed? At What Cost?’ agreed that a number of factors have created something of a mania for assessment and accountability in higher education. Those factors include recommendations made by the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education and a scrum by universities to rise in popular institutional rankings, such as U.S. News & World Report’s annual college guide.
 
‘One of the great things about the blossoming of rankings is that there are a lot of different ways of looking at institutions from the outside,’ said Ben Wildavsky, a senior fellow in research and policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. (Before joining the foundation, Mr. Wildavsky served as editor of the U.S. News & World Report’s annual college rankings.)”
 
Low-Income Kids Given the Boot
 
Apparently, some members of the council see a correlation between a college’s desire to rank on consumer lists and limited access to higher education for low-income students. Byrne reported, “Some of the practical fallout of the pursuit of prestige has been reflected in a lessening of flagship universities’ commitment to low-income and minority students, said Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust. Her group, an independent research and advocacy organization, released a report in late 2006 that ranked top state universities’ commitment to such access issues and found many of them wanting (The Chronicle, November 21, 2006). Those rankings suggest that ‘most flagship universities have walked away from low-income kids and kids of color,’ Ms. Haycock said on Sunday.”
 
It is important to keep up to date on all the news regarding student loans and education.
 
Talk to the education financial advisors at NextStudent. They have all the information and advice you need on student loans. Check out www.nextstudent.com.
 
Be sure to tune in next Monday for my next blog on student loan issues in the news.
 
Student Loan Girl
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 12:42 pm and is filed under Student Loans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.