America has mastered the master-planned city concept. Outdoor mall areas seem more like small cosmopolitan enclaves. Why not college campuses?

A new canned urban is about to be sold to prospective students and other demographics that fit the mold.

Pre-Packaged Urban

More colleges and universities than you might think are ready to break ground on their wide open spaces. Where once “bucolic” pastures lay, mixed-use areas, micro-urban hubs, and trendy apartments and condos will now spring forth. The focus is multifarious—present college students with the amenities they require, i.e. coffee shop, late night eats, funky shops, and general 24/7 buzz. At the same time those laying the plans are building to attract an older, adult crowd that will be an instrumental piece in the so-called buzz.

The New York Times (“Rural Colleges Seek New Edge and Urbanize,” Finder) emphasizes that so far the redesign trend is peculiar among “rural” colleges or those with “vast tracts of unused land.” Specifically the University of Connecticut, in Storrs, a town really only on the map for its campus-presence, University of Notre Dame, and Hendrix College in Arkansas, among a few others are those institutions with blueprints on their board tables.

Cosmopolitan Draw

Remote institutions have been wringing their hands over the increasing lack, even active loss, of students. Once upon a time suburban students sought out a smaller, more serene campus; but trends have sharply reversed:

“Students graduating from high school these days seem particularly attracted to urban settings….Many come from the suburbs… students crave the kind of vitality you have in an urban space.’”

While the trend might currently fill a student gap on so-called rural campuses, it’s destined to take off in untold directions.

Market for the Adult Learner

If it sounds as if these smaller colleges are ready to draw larger numbers of students, you might be surprised, as well. Purposes are mixed: most don’t intend to build a larger student presence, just shore up the census they already enjoy, even if it’s with new adult learners, those beyond the age of 25, those who will live and work in the new communities. The possibilities among the adult learning set are vast as far as interest AND profitability go. Adults on a small campus may now be less intimidated when it comes to attending a course or pursuing a degree they had formerly put off.

If You Build It They Will Come

Designed for “global living,” the new college campus will likely have a deeper impact than is perhaps expected. Yes, the initial intent is to create 24/7 communities, a collective buzz to sell to the prospective student. But chances are the spread will not stop there. Developers are too greedy to sit back and let Hampshire College, let’s say, have its own “urban” heyday.

When you set out to create urban, sow the seeds, no matter how quaint and pre-packaged, doesn’t it make sense that more of the same will follow? Hopefully the communities attached to such campuses are prepared to check possibly unchecked sprawl, but then again, some people like that.

A recent government inquiry into the “relationships” forged between college financial aid offices and student loan lenders has raised the question, “Is there a correlation between soaring college tuitions and fat-cat lenders?”

The recent New York Times article (“Greater Scrutiny on Colleges and Ties to Lenders,” Glazer) draws attention to the initial inquest, which originated with the New York Attorney General’s Office. As we speak, the Attorney General is sniffing out a slew of college practices to see exactly what stinks.

See, colleges and universities prefer to work exclusively with a particular set of lenders, that’s no secret. And the qualifying criteria for such a relationship? That’s what a growing number of lawmakers want to know.

Back Office Handshakes or Just Good Business?

It’s a matter of course that “lenders use various tactics to curry favor with colleges and universities.” But until now the practice has gone without issue. Unchecked tuition rates in conflict with government efforts to curtail student loan rates, now makes this professional partnership a rug to be looked under. Senator Ted Kennedy (Mass.) has likewise waxed skeptical over the harmlessness of the “preferred lender lists” that many colleges maintain:

“Mr. Kennedy is pushing a bill that would require the disclosure of such arrangements; ban gifts and services worth more than $10 to college employees; and require lenders to tell students that they might be eligible for low-interest federal loans.” (NY Times)

Currently the de rigueur business agreement between lenders and colleges looks a bit like this:

“The kinds of arrangements loan companies may have with colleges vary. One type is the kind that Education Finance Partners has — paying a college increasing sums of money based on loan activity. Other lenders, including Sallie Mae, make money available to an institution for loans to students with poor credit, also based in part on private loan volume.”

Private loans might be the operative term here. Most lenders of course provide the whole menu of federal loans, but they also make a bigger business with their private, or alternative student loans. According to the NYT, private student loans now account for 20 percent of all student loans put together, and they “have grown at an average rate of 27 percent annually since 2001.”

Potential Plot Twists

Players on all sides of the fence have predictions for bettors. Student loans could become a guerrilla marketing mess if lenders are left to appeal directly to college students, or colleges are unable to recommend lenders; student loans could go up, especially for students with bad credit and/or low income levels; or the relationship could be guaranteed fair and just—preferred lenders but based not on back office kickbacks relative to volumes of customers served, but instead on the best rates and service, buoyed up by the college’s forthright reputation.

For some colleges and universities social networking is a scourge upon their academic landscapes. When students aren’t studying, or when they should be, they are “networking” on sites like Facebook and MySpace.

One person’s online social networking site may be an annoyance to some, but for others it may prove a useful tool. The San Francisco Chronicle has an article on the latest college strategy: social networking as a communications and marketing vehicle for current and prospective students.

Social Networking for Good not Evil

A respectable handful of colleges have already linked their home pages to their own new, hip MySpace page. There fresh content the likes of recent videos, photos and student comments can be added and subtracted just like any other MySpace page. The strategy is quite marketing related, but it provides prospective students with a more palatable inside look at the colleges they are considering, possibly even from a student’s perspective. It’s the glimpse behind the glossy marketing brochures.

“San Francisco State recently put up its own MySpace page, becoming the largest among the growing number of colleges and universities — from Boston University’s College of Communication and Graduate Admissions to Hiram College in Ohio — to embrace social networking.” (SF Chronicle)

Sum of its Parts

Some colleges have not stopped with a MySpace page. Some are going all the way, linking into their campus Facebook, and featuring podcasts, blogs and forums, and messaging systems.

An admissions counselor at SF State (Victor Villanueva) was the individual behind the university’s new MySpace presence:

“San Francisco State started its MySpace page after Villanueva attended a conference in Las Vegas titled ‘100 Ways to Effectively Recruit Today’s Students.’ He added a Facebook group about a month ago. The campus also has a self-guided campus tour that can be downloaded as a podcast.”

The Real Thing

Even though the colleges that have implemented the new sites have reported a remarkable number of hits and queries, the strategy still has its fair share of critics. Some say young adults will be turned off by “adults butting-in.’” Yeah? Well get this: Santa Clara University in California features student blogs on its site and just since September it’s received close to 40,000 hits. While it’s a sure thing the blogs are “adult-supervised” they are, nevertheless, an inside look—sights, sounds, smells and tangibles not otherwise conveyed by any other means.

Many Colorado voters were quite satisfied with themselves back in November when Amendment 41 passed without a hitch. The measure was well intended: disallow political gifting. State politicians and government officials could no longer accept monetary gifts worth over $50 from anyone. While this sounds sane, the measure unfortunately was left a bit open-ended; enough to put some Colorado student’s college scholarships at risk.

Amendment Terms

The Final Text of Amendment 41 includes the Ethics in Government measures that come into question. The Amendment defines a “Government Employee” as:

“any employee, including Independent Contractors, of the State Executive Branch, the State Legislative Branch, a State Agency, a Public Institution of Higher Education, or any Local Government…”

The section on the “Gift Ban” says that no government officials, spouses or dependents may “accept or receive any gift or other thing of value having a fair market value or aggregate actual cost greater than fifty dollars ($50) in any calendar year…”

Okay, so nobody wants to see government officials taking money from their lobby groups or from constituents, colleagues or others. It just smacks of bribery. But c’mon, who wants to deny college students scholarship and grant money?

“The ban could prohibit school scholarships for children of clerks and janitors and other non-policymaking employees, for one example, or criminalize an auto dealer’s recreation-league sponsorships.” (Denver Post)

Amendment Implications Not Just a Hiccup

The Denver Post underscored Amendment 41’s flaws back at the beginning of January; the hub-bub is just in time for FAFSA and scholarship season. Measures like Amendment 41, the Post claims, are often the victims of careless drafting. In other words, the measure was so loosely sketched that the resulting phraseology may be interpreted to an extreme, even nonsensical proportion. Scholarships over $50 (monetary gift) awarded to dependent students of state employees and officials, could be legitimately argued to be illegal by a lawyer with an axe to grind.

But the language snags don’t end there. Sources have even suggested that keeping close to the letter of the new law, that even college professors (state employees) could lose monetary fellowships that allow them to conduct deeper research and studies:

“Critics of Amendment 41 are concerned that the measure could produce unintended results, such as denying the children of everyday government employees certain education scholarships, or even preventing university scientists from receiving Nobel Prize money.” (Denver Post)

Already at risk are the Daniels Fund Scholarships, a program that helps hundreds of Colorado students fund their education:

“A spokesman for the Daniels Fund…said Amendment 41 has caused his organization a ‘bit of heartburn’ throughout the scholarship-candidate-selection process.” (Daily Sentinel)

Reason for Concern

There’s wiggle-room, right? I mean no one really is going to dismiss a student’s scholarship because they are the son or daughter of a state employee….are they? According to some officials, “the law must be implemented as written—vague language and all.” But how many state voters actually had the inside dope on the “language of the law” prior to voting day? How many individuals really take the time to consider and weigh the rhetoric?

Are Work-Study Programs Also at Risk?

Consider this: students engaged in work-study programs at state universities could be argued to be state employees. Under the new Amendment, some students could lose their work-study programs that make it possible for them to go to college. As we speak, college officials are working closely with legal counselors to sort all this out. But in the meantime necessary student funding hangs in the balance. As if college didn’t cost enough.

Congrats Jerid Kurtz!!!

Political Blogging Scholarship finalists:

• Jerid Kurtz (Democrat)
• Denis Ambrose (Republican)
• Garrett O’Hara (Non-Affiliated)

Voting will start shortly! (check back around 1pm eastern)

Adversaries of educational Affirmative Action are undoubtedly happy. Today’s big news on the education front is the settlement reached between the University of Michigan and two of the case’s leading plaintiffs. The now historical case has dragged on for almost the last ten years. Over that time it grew into a “nearly 40,000-member class-action lawsuit.” (NY Times, “Michigan: Affirmative Action Suit Settled”).

Like many universities, the U. of Michigan had a strong preference for minorities in their admissions processes, both undergraduate and graduate. The goal of such programs has been to balance the scales of diversity. Michigan settled with the plaintiffs and has had to readjust its undergraduate admissions criteria in order to satisfy the new Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.

Who’s Next?

Clearly the issue raises hackles on nearly every front and the uproar will likely not die down anytime soon. Which raises the question, “Who’s next?”

Ward Connerly, the loudest adversary of Affirmative Action, has led the charge. With a head of steam and cocky from the Michigan win, he is set to test the waters in a range of Northwestern states, including Wyoming, Colorado and South Dakota, among others. Where he finds Affirmative Action dug in, he will surely challenge ‘til the death.

Connerly was instrumental in the California Proposition 209 vote, then Washington and now Michigan. An African American himself, Black liberal journalists have cast him as a mouthpiece for “rich, white benefactors” and caricatured him in political cartoons. Many of his critics also argue that Connerly is just too socially privileged to rally against Affirmative Action.

The Other “Minority”

If not ethnic minorities then who else could possibly be a minority group on a college campus in the U.S.? Plenty of sources report that along gender lines women now outnumber men on campus.

Are men, then, a minority?

If you consider the Towson University scholarships that favor academically challenged males, then one may argue young males are a growing campus minority. The program seeks to challenge the persistent devotion to “research that shows that high-school grades, not SAT scores, best predict how students will fare in college.” Towson believes that males are becoming scarcer on campuses because they are ineligible for many programs due to low performance in general academics, in sharp contrast to their typically high SAT scores. In other words male students are smarter than their academic records indicate; they’ve simply been academically “lazy.”

“Like many universities, Towson has a student population that is predominantly female, and it is looking for ways to balance that out.”

Special Admissions

Towson’s program is called the Academic Special Admissions Program. Since the scholarship’s inception in the 2005-06 academic year the majority of students accepted have been male. However, TU makes it emphatically clear that the program is open to all students:

“Towson has been careful to avoid complaints of discrimination. Any student is eligible, regardless of gender or ethnic background. And students who are admitted do not take spots away from those who qualify for regular admission.”

A New Admissions and Scholarship Business Model

TU is just as cognizant of the political climate as is every other American college and university. And right here is a good example of the new model. See, everyone is now eligible to apply for everything. However, smart phraseology will make it possible still for admissions and scholarship programs to be aimed in the direction of specific “minority” populations.

It’s just that the lines between “minorities” are now blurred.

(The Towson University article was originally published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, a subscription-based review. The link accesses a copy of the original republished by the National Association for College Admission Counseling.)

Related:

• Minority Scholarships
• White Male Scholarship Guide

Oregon adults! Do you have a partially completed undergraduate degree and at least five years displacement from college? If you have any plans to return to finish up your Bachelors, consider the University of Oregon’s Osher Reentry Scholarship. The Bernard Osher Foundation has just anted up an additional $50,000 for its non-traditional scholarship program, reports the UO. Qualified applicants may earn $2,000. Sounds like incentive enough to finish up.

The Truth About College Student Debt

FAFSA season brings on a lot of talk about the role parents play in making sure all the forms get filled out. But the mountain of student debt is really a college student problem. Fresh college grads, unless they immediately launch themselves into grad school, are responsible for repayment of college loans a quick six months following graduation. You know how quickly six months can fly by?

But if you think college students only have their student loans to juggle, think again. Credit card debt on college campuses is a problem some say is not addressed nearly enough. The actual problem though is lack of financial advice to students or lack of training in the fine art of personal finance:

“Too many college students go off to school without understanding finances, said Shalonda Jones, a representative of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. Parents make the mistake of not introducing financial literacy to children at a young age and most parents are equally clueless as to what it takes to remain financially stable, she said.”

Students who shop at the mall, such as The Gap, Victoria’s Secret and others might regularly pay with cash, but the temptation for the retailers credit cards may just be too much. Most retailers offer each buyer the on-the-spot opportunity to receive a store credit card with the added incentive to save a percentage on their current purchase. While the spirit may convince the flesh that it will cut it up afterward, the flesh is weak, weak, weak.

The CNN article underscores the situation of a college freshman who is already “$9,000 in debt,” not to mention “the thousands of dollars in student loans” she’ll face after graduation.

Financial Resources for Students

Most college students likely only run on the teaching of their families. A few programs are becoming well-publicized and recognized for their potential to fill the financial savvy gap:

For NCAA student athletes The Hartford has developed a series of online tools and tutorials. “Playbook for Life” offers financial planning ideas and elementary concepts that lay a basic foundation for a new financially-conscious lifestyle, even while in college.

Middle Tennessee State University offers a course in The Stock Market Game, an opportunity for students to manage their own make believe investments for a semester. The hands-on, albeit fictional, curriculum provides valuable skills not learned elsewhere.

While the whole brouhaha over cuts in student loan interest rates may seem attractive, even helpful thanks to the political rhetoric, students actually in college or prepping for college will have to look elsewhere for financial relief.

What the Interest Rate Cuts DID NOT Do

A couple of weeks ago the House of Reps voted to cut the interest rates accorded to big student loan lenders. The move, dubbed the College Student Relief Act, was hailed by many as a smart response to the skyrocketing costs of a college education that just don’t stop. Others, like the White House, argued the measure was inconsistent with the real meat of the matter—college costs.

See the interest rate cuts really benefit college grads. They are the party who may see adjustments in their student loan repayment, but for those in the thick of college or looking for financial aid relief now, the whole political handshaking scene is worthless:

“So the College Student Relief Act is really the College Graduate Relief Act – the expansion of a regressive wealth-transfer program benefiting a demographic group earning $1 million more per capita than the hardworking American taxpayers without college degrees who will have to pay for it.” (Baltimore Sun, Carbone)

If Not This, Then What?

The student loan business is really not poised to change very much. State and federal programs are not budging; no, you’re not going to get more money for your Stafford Loans. So if not student loans, then where should college-bound kids look for more cash, because what they have now, ain’t working?

Right now it seems that the biggest break students can get is a two-fold process: scholarships and the savvy to know they can qualify if they work at it.

In Kentucky, plans to create scholarships and grants that would benefit hundreds of college kids and their families are already underway. Eastern Kentucky U., Western Kentucky U., and Morehead Universities are all patting themselves on the back for their contribution to the college cost problem. And we’re not talking a little $200 scholarship for a couple of students. The KY institutions are taking the problem seriously and going after it in a proactive kind of way:

“In the face of persistent evidence that a college education is becoming less affordable, three more public universities in Kentucky have announced financial-aid initiatives to help students.” (Lexington Herald-Leader, Jester)

BEACON Scholarship Program at EKU comprises a set of scholarships, including the Math/Science Scholars program that awards a current 22 students with over $11,000 each; the Regional Scholars program that recognizes the academic fortitude of low-income students with $2,600 scholarships; Scholastic Opportunity Grants will focus on students who are already Pell Grant recipients; and the Transfer Scholarships will assist those students who wish to transfer in from one of the state’s communities colleges.

Western Kentucky U. is launching its “Top it Off” program. The aid measure awards financial aid grants equal to the disparity between a WKU tuition and the federal and state financial aid awarded to low-income students. Future plans are to cover the tuition disparities of over 500 students.

Morehead U.’s Eagle Access Program is also a “cover the difference” program.

Second Part of the Problem—A New Mantra

Still, according to financial aid experts, too many families and students are selling themselves short. Fill out the FAFSA, is the mantra. Whether you think you qualify for aid or not the form is important. Many colleges and universities want the FAFSA for other types of aid. Miss the deadline and you miss out entirely. And typically those who think they don’t qualify are dead wrong.