By now you are no doubt familiar with the story of Trina Thompson and her lawsuit against her alma mater, Monroe College. The blogosphere has been abuzz since Kathianne Boniello of the New York Post broke the story.

The Digital Student over at GoCollege offered some support for her plight. They noted that tiny Thomas College in Waterville, Maine, actually makes a promise to its grads, one that Monroe does not: a job or else.

But most were merciless in their criticism of the 27-year-old. Robbie Cooper at UrbanGrounds gave her “The Idiot of the Day Award” while Ryan at RightJuris dissed her even as he stood up for the legal profession noting that Thompson had to file the suit herself, the insinuation being that the case was so frivolous that no one in the legal field would touch it.

Given some of the absurd suits that have been filed we tend to believe her when she simply says she filed it herself because she could not afford a lawyer. Whatever the case, therein lies the rub.

Everyone in the blogosphere has an opinion of the information-technology graduate. Trina Thompson is now a household name on the web.

Today, if one uses any search engine of note and types in the name Trina Thompson, pages and pages emerge. Many with unflattering titles, many more mentioning the anger she feels as a result of her plight and all highlighting the fact that she has chosen to blame her school for her failure to acquire a job.

Future Employment?

Irrespective of the merits of her lawsuit, Thompson now faces more difficulty than she could have ever imagined.

Anyone involved in the process of hiring someone for a professional position will thoroughly check a candidate’s references. Not only will phone calls made and questions asked of all listed references, many employers will try to determine the inside scoop by contacting someone else that may have knowledge of a candidate but is not listed as a reference.

However, the Internet has brought new meaning to the term reference check. The time has come when virtually all potential employers add one other simple process: Googling a candidate’s name.

The availability to readily access information on the web about a candidate has created a whole new phenomena called personal branding. It is a concept every high school and college student needs to become aware of and breaks down simply: it is extremely important that when your name is Googled, positive information comes up.

The last thing you want to have happen is for that search to yield information that would cause an employer to think twice about offering you a job.

If Ms. Thompson was truly searching hard for work before but was coming up empty, her decision to file the lawsuit has likely become her kiss of death. By virtue of her actions, she has created the ultimate red flag for human resource offices. No employer wants to hire someone that appears willing to sue others in a fit of anger.

Unfortunately, the filing of this lawsuit led Trina Thompson down a path in which she lost control of her personal brand.

And given the nature of the Internet that will follow her the rest of her life.

Barriers to Higher Education are Alive and Well

The Higher Education Act of 1965 launched some of the first financial programs aimed at the support of low-income and disadvantaged students. Since then, dozens of federal and state scholarship and grant programs have been developed to assist the same. A popular theory remains: more and more free money will put more disadvantaged and minority students into college and solve the problem of low college attendance rates among high poverty students. Regardless of the money higher education continues to throw at low-income students, the numbers actually attending college and staying in college remain low. If money is not the solution, then what’s the problem?

The Problem

There are significant numbers of public funds already available for low-income students. Add to this the increasing trend among elite and reputable colleges and universities to spring for full tuition scholarships for academically eligible disadvantaged students and a more relevant question becomes: “With the money available already for low-income and minority students, why do so many fail to earn a college degree?” What circumstances beyond the financial, continue to impede the educational roadway of the disadvantaged student, and why does higher education, at large, repeat the same ineffective gestures in its quest for the solution?

Dream of College Access for All Americans

President Lyndon B. Johnson dreamed of building our country into one in which “a high school senior [could] apply to any college or any university in any of the 50 States and not be turned away because his family is poor…” He further declared, “Education in this day and age is a necessity.”¹ He made these statements on the same day he signed the Higher Education Act of 1965 into legislation. If higher education was deemed a necessity in 1965, then it has become critical by today’s standards.

For the most part President Johnson’s dream has become a reality, but outside of the financial, some of the same barriers to higher education remain:

• Schools that fail to adequately prepare students for college.
• Outside influences and expectations, especially those of parents/family and educators.
• Psychological factors.

Secondary Schools Fail to Prepare Students for College

Regardless of the money available to low-income students, in many cases students fail to even qualify for college admission. Perhaps, as some critics of the current system argue, where career and guidance counselors proactive in “talking up” college as soon as middle school, kids particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds would incorporate college goals into their futures much more naturally than when career and education goals are thought inconsequential.

Educators, including teachers, counselors, and principals, simply have low expectations of disadvantaged students, say some proponents of education reform. An overall neglect of college preparation routinely takes place at most minority and high poverty high schools. The perception that disadvantaged students will either not make it into college, have little interest in higher education, or be unworthy of the time spent to get them prepared, are all subversive and deeply damaging perceptions. At best this disregard is a primitive throwback to the same circumstances President Johnson sought to bury.

The Non-Existent College Prep Curricula

Average, college bound high school seniors are alarmingly unprepared for the rigors of college academics, but an even more disturbing population of low-income and minority students seem to avoid college altogether or possess test scores and academic records that have put many in higher education on alert. In fact, the circumstances renew debate over the quality of public school systems: “Nine in ten high school graduates from families earning more than $80,000 attend college by the time they are 24, compared to only six in ten from families earning less than $33,000.”²

Research proves that many of the so-called high school assessment tests “bear little resemblance to the work [students] are expected to do in college.” Despite the best hopes of those students that do possess college degree expectations, preparation for such is sorely lacking—students again and again clearly “lack crucial information on applying to college and on succeeding academically once they get there.”³ College administrators report that most students only think they are academically prepared; the sobering reality is that the so-called college prep curriculum they slogged through in high school was not college level work, after all.

Ironically, this lack of preparedness is the ailment of many average high school grads, and not exclusive to low-income students. But evidence shows that “a greater percentage of low-income students are marginally qualified or unqualified for admission at four-year institutions.”⁴

And college prep includes providing students the appropriate information with which to pursue college, including college search, financial aid and scholarships, and admissions processes. But in many disadvantaged schools the information is not disseminated, not included as a natural progression in education.

For students interested in pursuing college the process becomes a bit like fumbling in the dark: “many low-income college students need aid and do not know how to apply for federal or state assistance.”⁵ Low-income students often opt for a community college—open access and remedial coursework, and schedule flexibility that allows students to work part time and carry on normal family responsibilities.

High Scores vs. Student Success and the “Push-Out” Phenomenon

High schools across the country have new standards by which to adhere. Accountability in secondary education may play a significant part in the collegiate success or failure of certain students. Since the inception of No Child Left Behind the reliance on test-based schools has split students down the middle—in some areas. Students are either an asset or a deficit to a school.⁶

In New York City, test scores served to define a dispensable archipelago of students most likely to fail. Students at disadvantaged schools throughout the region were so overlooked that rogue administrators and educators systematically amputated from the system whole populations of underachievers for the “betterment” of the whole. The plan was simple: “push out” students with poor grades and low test scores and test score averages would look a lot better.⁷

The Teacher Factor

Does a high quality teacher make a difference to a low-income and/or disadvantaged student, and if so, why? A growing body of evidence shows that teachers do matter. But studies have begun to prove an alarming trend: “The very children who most need strong teachers are assigned, on average, to teachers with less experience, less education, and less skill than those who teach other children.”⁸

A study that surveyed three Midwest revealed consistent data proving that in most low income schools teachers were much more likely to be “inexperienced, out-of-field, and uncertified.” Furthermore, as school enrollment of low-income students increased, the population of teachers hired grew increasingly inexperienced.⁹ Most studies declare five years of teaching experience as the dividing line between experienced and inexperienced.

The less experienced the teacher the less likely he or she is to be qualified or motivated to guide disadvantaged students in wise career and education choices. Surprisingly, teacher surveys have also proven that on the whole they, too, tend to have an unsure grasp on the college preparatory process.¹⁰

The qualities most valued and effective in high-quality teachers include:

• Over five years experience teaching within their specialty.
• Teachers able to modify methods on-the-fly and in direct response to student abilities.
• Teachers with degrees from reputable institutions.

Contemporary findings such as these provide more leverage for school systems, and lawmakers when it comes time to plan teacher distribution models designed to serve future generations of students.

Can Experienced Teachers Get Disadvantaged Students to College?

Data has been culled from a crew of challenged high schools, turned-high-performing, in various regions of the U.S. that proves high quality teachers can make a significant difference with at-risk youth. In every high performing school surveyed almost half the student bodies were from high minority-high poverty backgrounds. And in every case the population of college bound students had increased above the national average.

What factors set high performing high schools with diverse student bodies well above others in nurturing college ready graduates?

• High quality and experienced teachers able to adjust methods to suit students.
• A very relevant and challenging college preparatory curriculum that surpasses state requirements.
• Unlimited access to academic tutors and career advisors.¹¹

Part of the goal of the Higher Education Act of 1965 was to promote improvement in high minority/high poverty schools, including attracting more experienced teachers. Contrary to some, both these factors—schools and teachers—continue to figure prominently in the educational futures of students.

College Admission Requirements Detrimental to Disadvantaged Students

Whether high school or college, the fact is that reputation, high marks, selectivity ratings, and even cost of tuition, all constitute factors that conspire to create an institution’s reputation. Ratings and credentials have become a beacon for student business, a means to market and advertise a college to expanding populations of prospective students.

The annual U.S. News and World Report: America’s Best Colleges has become a much-anticipated publication.

New criticism, though, from college administrators aims to downplay the relevancy of some of the ratings, which many say have nothing to do with a good college education. Why so much fuss over ratings? The report has been widely dubbed the college “beauty contest,” and the higher colleges and universities have driven ratings the better their business. But in the process, some pieces of the academic puzzle have been forsaken, like some populations of students.

Ratings Drive Business, Which In Turn Drives Up Admission Reqs

Colleges and universities that rank well in the U.S. News report seek to be considered “selective.” This kind of marketing seems to make business more brisk, but it also makes it challenging to attract a large minority or low-income student population. In order to make a college accessible for the majority of low-income and disadvantaged students, admission requirements must be relaxed.

The traditional metrics of admission include SAT scores and GPA, precisely the type of measurements most low-income students suffer by. As we explored above, it’s not their responsibility—educators have been loath to provide the proper guidance and nurture—and, besides, SAT and GPA are rarely accurate indications of academic worthiness. This then is why a growing stable of college administrators is taking aim at the notoriously exclusive annual ratings race.¹²

Compared to the relatively small number of college administrators backing away from the ratings game, there are plenty that believe in its promise. For instance, a strong cadre of schools believes the marketing theory that overpriced products and services attract buyers and consumers because high price implies high quality. This then is why tuitions are hiked and SAT and GPA requirements inflated. Yet again, disadvantaged students are unable to reach certain institutions where, ironically, money is likely to exist for their education.

When Admission Hikes Purposely Dismiss Disadvantaged Students

Another strategy behind ramped up admission requirements seeks to purposely define the splinter group of underachievers and those students with low test scores and make it impossible for them to essentially clog the way of those students without academic challenges. Low income and minority students with low SAT scores and low GPAs “will be steered” to the state’s community colleges.

Simultaneously more college prep programs are being built into the state’s public school system. Students will now have a system in place able to alert them should their academics fall below realistic first year college goals.¹³

Outside Influences Offer Most Resistance to College Life

Besides money and academic challenge, many low-income and disadvantaged students face challenges much more murky to middle and upper income, white Americans. In some cases the influence of parents and family are more profound than more mainstream issues.¹⁴

Parental Influence

Consider the idea that many minority and low-income students come from first generation families, meaning no one else has yet gone to college. For many average American students, the dream of a college degree is fueled over the years by parents. When that drive is not there, other priorities may take precedence, such as job, finance and family.

It’s not that parents of first gen college students have no desire to see their children succeed, even go to college, but most are unable to provide the type of support necessary to bolster a fresh and, perhaps, disenfranchised college newbie.

Cultural Perceptions of Debt

Financial aid experts may also have discovered another roadblock—“cultural aversion to debt.” Over the years the financial aid needs of middle and upper income students have risen, but statistics have shown little or no increase in the student loan debt among low-income and ethnic minority student groups, which “calls into question the effectiveness of student loans in aiding low-income populations.” Studies strongly suggest that minorities are “more sensitive to price and less willing to use educational loans to pay for college when making their college decisions.”¹⁵

Tuition sticker shock may be a similar deterrent. Even though academically talented low-income students may qualify to enroll in elite universities where the ability to prove a certain level of disadvantage buys them a free ride, only a fraction of those actually eligible partake of the opportunity. The scholarships from institutions like Harvard and Princeton are not just in place for altruistic purposes. These “white-bread” institutions want to diversify and offering money for disadvantaged students seems a good idea. Surprisingly, a much larger wellspring of academically qualified low-income students is out there. SAT scores prove the numbers,¹⁶ but where are they?

Educator Expectation Matters, Too

The nation’s low-income students, including those with academic fortitude and those dubbed low-achievers, may share common bonds: many face familial and cultural obstacles, but do they also face low educator expectations? Studies have already measured the effect of educator expectation on the college outcomes of low-income, minority students and found alarming numbers of low-quality teachers and counselors with little hope for students in lower income brackets.

Teachers and advisors acting out of their personal beliefs and stereotypes may be unable to provide the unbiased guidance underserved students require to get them to the doorstep of a college campus, whether it be a community college or one of the elite universities.¹⁷

What Then if Not Money?

Considering the obstacles discussed above, are there further psychological impacts? If I am a student from a low-income household in which neither of my parents attended college, isn’t it likely that a college degree will not be a main priority in my life? And if I am academically talented, would I not feel out of place and disenfranchised on a Harvard campus even if my education were fully funded?

If I overheard teachers in my high school complaining about their jobs and saying that many of the students will be lucky to make it to graduation, much less college, would I not doubt my teachability, my worth as a student?

Harvard can roll out its red carpet and dangle full scholarships ‘til the cows come home, but what really eats away at the collegiate futures of low-income, minority students—talented or not—has little to do with money.

Footnotes

1. LBJ for Kids, accessed September 3, 2007, http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/lbjforkids/edu_whca370-text.shtm.
2. “Harvard Announces New Initiative to Aimed at Economic Barriers to College,” Harvard University Gazette, February 28, 2004, accessed September 5, 2007, http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/daily/0402/28-finaid.html.
3. Rooney, Megan, “High Schools Fail to Prepare Many Students for College, Stanford Study Says,” March 3, 2003, accessed September 4, 2007, http://ed.stanford.edu/suse/news-bureau/displayRecord.php?tablename=susenews&id=25.
4. Andrea Venezia, Michael Kirst, Anthony Antonio, Betraying the College Dream: How Disconnected K-12 Schools and Postsecondary Education Systems Undermine Student Aspirations, 2003, accessed September 4, 2007, http://www.stanford.edu/group/bridgeproject/betrayingthecollegedream.pdf.
5. Kirst, Michael, “Betraying the College Dream in America,” The College Puzzle, August 21, 2007, accessed September 4, 2007, http://thecollegepuzzle.blogspot.com/2007/08/betraying-college-dream-in-america.html.
6. Beveridge, Andrew, “Counting Drop Outs,” Gotham Gazette, August 2003, accessed September 4, 2007, http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/demographics/20030814/5/492.
7. Beveridge, Andrew, Gotham Gazette.
8. Heather Peske, Kati Haycock, Teaching Inequality: How Poor and Minority Students are Shortchanged on Teacher Quality, The Education Trust, June 2006, accessed September 2, 2007, http://www2.edtrust.org/NR/rdonlyres/010DBD9F-CED8-4D2B-9E0D-91B446746ED3/0/TQReportJune2006.pdf.
9. Peski, Haycock, The Education Trust.
10. Venezia, Kirst, Antonio, Betraying the College Dream
11. “Preparing All High School Students for College and Work: What High-Performing Schools are Teaching,” ACT, February 23, 2005, accessed August 30, 2007, http://www.act.org/news/releases/2005/2-23-05.html.
12. “U.S. News College Rankings Debated,” The Online News Hour (transcript), PBS, August 20, 2007, accessed September 5, 2007, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/july-dec07/rankings_08-20.html.
13. Tresaugue, Matthew, “UT Campuses Will Raise Admission Standards,” University of Houston, May 10, 2007, accessed September 5, 2007, http://www.uh.edu/ednews/2007/hc/200705/20070510admission.html.
14. Szelenyi, Katalin, “Minority Student Retention and Academic Achievement in Community Colleges,” 2004, accessed August 29, 2007, http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-4/minority.html.
15. Cultural Barriers to Incurring Debt, ECMC Group Foundation, 2003, accessed September 3, 2007, http://www.ecmcfoundation.org/documents/CulturalBarriersExecSummary.pdf.
16. “Large Numbers of Highly Qualified, Low-Income Students Are Not Applying to Harvard and Other Highly Selective Schools,” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 2006, accessed August 26, 2007, http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/52_low-income-students.html.
17. Patricia George and Rosa Aronson, How Do Educators’ Cultural Belief Systems Affect Underserved Students’ Pursuit of Postsecondary Education?” Pathways to College Network, 2003, accessed September 3, 2007, http://www.pathwaystocollege.net/pdf/EducatorsCulturalBeliefs.pdf.

Create a Simple RSS Mash-Up that Corrals Herds of Scholarship Data

Users with the most limited tech savvy and little interest in tinkering will be able to set up a small, but powerful Yahoo Pipe. A simple mash-up of disparate scholarship site feeds could save you an exquisite amount of time. The alternative is checking in, one at a time, on multiple bookmarked links or RSS feeds and sifting through dozens of news headlines for the scholarship info you’re really after. If you have not made the internet an integral component in your search for college funding then you are really going to be left out in the cold.

Yahoo Pipes was launched in the spring and I’ve only just tried it, but Wow! What a concept for wrestling information into submission. The visuals are fun and clean, and the utility is robust and fairly intuitive.

Explore the Interface

When you log onto Pipes/Create a Pipe, you are given a user interface that features a “Canvas” (“Drag Modules here”), Modules on the left in the “Library,” and the “Debugger,” below the Canvas, where you can view your Pipes output at various stages in the build. Y-Pipes is not hard and you cannot break anything. Build simple to complex data mash-ups via drag-and-drop functionality.

Let’s Create a Simple Scholarship Pipe

In the Create a Pipe user interface view: from the Sources drop-down menu in the left-hand library, drag and drop a Fetch Feed module on to the canvas. The Fetch Feed module opens up to show a +URL button and a field where you type in the feed URL of the website from which you want to monitor scholarship information, such as this one: http://www.collegescholarships.org/blog/wp-rss.php.

(Hint: How to find the site RSS feed-open up the webpage; this blog has a big, orange RSS icon. When you click on it you are taken to a page of pure RSS script; the URL in the address bar is the one you want to copy and paste into the Fetch Feed module).

Test out the feed: click on the Fetch Feed title bar, it will turn orange and any current feeds should appear down below in the Debugger field.

Add a second feed URL: click on the +URL button and paste in another feed URL, like this:

http://www.newscholarships.org/feed/

Now make sure the module is receiving both feeds by again clicking on the Fetch Feed title bar ; it turns orange. Click the “Refresh” link in the Debugger field. You should now see output for two RSS feeds in the Debugger. Continue adding feed URLs until you have the sites you’d like to monitor for information.

Finish building the Pipe by wiring together the Fetch Feed module and the Pipe Output module , which is already sitting on the bottom edge of the canvas—if you cannot see it, drag the Debugger’s upper edge downward until the Pipe Output mod is visible. To make a wire, click on the little circle along the bottom of the Fetch Feed module and drag a wire to the circle on the Pipe Output module. These are technically called “terminals.”

Refresh the Debugger output to make sure your pipe still works.

Yahoo Pipes allows you to publish and share your custom data pipe so other students seeking scholarships can use your information.

To Save and Publish:

Click the Save button and enter a name for your Pipe; save. Name it something that indicates what your pipe does, like “Scholarships and Grants.”

Click the Properties button:

Enter a brief description, for example, “simple search for general college scholarships.” Enter a few tags associated with the data: college, scholarships, and grants. Click Publish. When prompted to make your pipe public, click Publish (or Cancel if you prefer to keep it private).

Give your scholarship mash-up a test run: at the very top of the builder interface page, click on “Run Pipe.” In a new window you’ll see how your Scholarships Pipe appears to the real world—it’s a very clean list of scholarship information culled from the sources you chose.

Now this is about the simplest you can possibly make a Pipe, but feel free to experiment and even edit your creation. Thousands of users have created all kinds of intriguing data distillations. Here’s a link to my scholarships and grants pipe–slightly different configuration and use of a Filter module.

When it comes to scholarships, the name of the game is organization, persistence, and the ability to harness unfathomable amounts of dynamic data. This make-your-own custom data engine may just give you the edge on your competition.

Turn off the boob-tube and the Play Station and haul your butt to that student loan/financial aid workshop.

The “We Don’t Qualify” Syndrome

According to many financial aid experts, too many families are of the belief that they just don’t fit into the financial aid scheme, not qualified for state or federal aid, won’t be eligible for any scholarships or grants. In most cases, they are wrong.

Not only this, but the whole financial aid process has become one big mish-mash of processes, that should require you have something akin to an agent to decipher. Okay, so you don’t get a personal agent, but there is a new movement afoot: financial aid workshops. The Rocky Mount Telegram today reports,

“As seniors grind through the final months of their high school careers, now is the time for those planning to attend college to think about their options to pay for it. It’s a process with many nuances, and one that financial aid advisors say is often misunderstood.”

The New Trend in Financial Aid

In our era of self-help books and workshops for everything from cooking to healthcare, investing and retirement planning, of course the trendiest new workshop movement is student financial aid.

From catchy workshop names like the “Cash for College” workshops offered to students in California, slated for a run of well over 300 programs, to on the spot scholarships such as the $1,000 award offered at the regionally offered Sallie Mae Paying for College workshops, are becoming a necessity.

College Goal Sunday is a nationwide program that was so successful when it first was launched in Indiana that now the program, with funding from generous organizations like USA Group, Lilly and Lumina Foundation, is available in almost every state. Students and parents are encouraged to attend beginning early in their high school careers. For those on the brink of college, Coal Goal Sunday leaders even offer help with FAFSA filing. The form is long, complex and leaves many families alienated from the process:

“Many students don’t access the thousands of dollars in aid available from the government, or don’t make it through the complicated application process, college administrators say. The money could benefit students forced to drop out for financial reasons.”

College Goal Sunday time is now. Check the website for workshops in your area.

Today’s Scholarship Good Word

Are you a high school female with even the slightest interest in pole vault?

Seriously, if you can manage an 11-foot vault, you could win a college scholarship for the pole vault. A component of the Track and Field arena, pole vault has only welcomed women for the last ten years and it is currently one of the most wide-open fields for a female athlete as far as scholarships go.

If you are seeking an online degree consider going to a college which helps subsidize your education costs via financial aid.

The Online Education Database recently commissioned a study which ranked accredited online schools by the percentage of students who are receiving financial aid.

Over 50% of students at the top 10 ranked online universities receive tuition assistance, with Grand Canyon University coming out on top.

If you haven’t been paying attention, Affirmative Action is under fire in the college/university realm. At the epicenter is Michigan, which has recently passed a proposition—a.k.a. the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative,—a la California’s Proposition 209 passed in 1996. California’s landmark law made it illegal for state colleges and universities, as well as any other public institution, to consider college admissions and financial aid on the basis of gender, color, race, creed or nationality.

But for the last few decades that is exactly how colleges and universities have diversified. The last decade itself saw scads of science, engineering and technology (SET) scholarships targeted specifically and unabashedly to minorities and women. If you listen to such watch-dog organizations as the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) then you will likely be influenced to believe that higher education is now turned on its ear racially. Others argue for the gender side—white males are a minority on college campuses, thanks to years of preferential scholarships for minorities and women.

Yes, it’s one big messy Pandora’s Box and everyone has a gripe.

How We Do “Race-Blind”?

“Race-blind” is the new buzzword in college admissions. But the issue encompasses gender as well. For college students all this political rhetoric and positioning portends a muddle of scholarship and financial aid shifts, including careful rewording of applications and criteria and selection rationale. But will it change anything, really?

The New York Times (Colleges Regroup After Voters Ban Race Preferences, Lewin) today suggests that colleges and universities en masse will scramble to find their way around the issues, alter application criteria to include more ambiguous terms all the while staying ON race:

“At Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, a new admissions policy, without mentioning race, allows officials to consider factors like living on an Indian reservation or in mostly black Detroit, or overcoming discrimination or prejudice.”

Popular Vote—Who’s Popular?

Michigan’s Proposition 2, it’s noted, was passed by a “popular vote” of 52 to 48, “despite strong opposition from government, business, labor, education and religious leaders.” Since the issue now polarizes voters, and it’s unclear how many of those are college students registered to vote, the question becomes WHO exactly is getting out the vote?

If you’re looking at colleges, especially public, this will likely affect you, regardless of your color, race, creed or sex. And the issue is becoming pervasive:

“Both defenders and opponents of affirmative action say the lesson of last fall’s campaign in Michigan…is that such initiatives can succeed almost anywhere.”

It would be interesting if the demographics of the vote in Michigan were available; for instance, how many African American, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians, and women voted for the measure? Better yet, how telling it might be to actually see the numbers of registered college voters that participated. Because once all is said and done this may be THE minority group we’re talking about.

Even though the CEO and others may argue that race is sucking the life out of college admissions and financial aid, there are just as many others that argue killing Affirmative Action will assuredly set off a juggernaut of racial inequality on campuses across the U.S. How do they suppose that?

Race-Blind Undoes Diversity Measures

Follow-up to the California Proposition 209 and similar measures in Texas have proven the theory. UCLA’s numbers on Blacks, Hispanics and Asians entering next gen classes have been incrementally dropping since 209 was passed. In fact, according to the NYT Black freshmen at UCLA are at a “30-year low.” Texas universities revealed similar scores, which subsequently impelled officials to once again include race in the admissions criteria for public universities.

Since it seems that nationwide campus diversity will continue to be a bugaboo for institutions regardless of the “popular vote,” which I’d argue is largely post-college, what can be done to maintain fairness and diversity?

Wayne State University in Detroit set one of its law professors on the problem. His job was to develop a workable plan that jumps through Michigan’s new legal measures, while at the same time it discreetly circumnavigates the brouhaha. Carefully worded language and rephrased criteria that summarily avoid the word “race,” instead troll for students based on:

“…first in the family to go to college or graduate school; having overcome substantial obstacles, including prejudice and discrimination; being multilingual; and residence abroad, in Detroit or on an Indian reservation.”

New Age of Scholarships and Financial Aid

Yes, there are changes afoot, but how drastically they will change is hard to say. Colleges and universities know they must find a way to stay the course with diversity measures at the same time they must respect the law. In the future you will find that your “disadvantage,” whatever it may be, must be approached from a more subtle aspect. Students who mention race, gender and any other Affirmative Action-related labels and terms may be pushed aside in the name of the law.

Hurry up!

You could be out in the cold on federal and state funding if you are not on the ball (read “early”) in getting started on your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form. Follow the best advice of Sallie Mae, the largest student loan provider in the country, and get your paperwork handled early. The charge is led by an article today in the The Southern outlining just how many pieces of the FAFSA puzzle you risk missing.

The article emphasizes the importance of filing well before the deadline. But what exactly you might ask is the deadline.

The Deadline

Check out these FAFSA deadlines for federal and state funding. The deadline concept is important: you must consider that every entity that loans money has a deadline for the FAFSA. This means you must make the earliest date to catch them all: federal, state and college. The next most important concept is that there are quite a lot of funding opportunities tied to the FAFSA. It’s much more than just a tool to get a Stafford Loan:

“’The cost of missing a deadline can be measured in real dollars,’ said Martha Holler, a financial aid expert with Sallie Mae. ‘Some states have lots of free money, but if you apply after their deadline, you jeopardize your chance of getting some. And when it’s gone, it’s gone.’”

Filling out the FAFSA is not something to be done over a 10-minute coffee break, either. The FAFSA, it’s already been charged, is a long-winded, dinosaur of a document whether you do it in hardcopy or online—it’s eight long, grueling pages. Not only does it require you provide all manner of information short of the kitchen sink, you also need to apply for a PIN ahead of time. The PIN allows you both access to the electronic version, which is preferred, as well as a means by which to electronically sign the behemoth document before you file online.

Also, make sure you are up to snuff on your home state’s requirements, too. In some cases you may also need to fill out their application to qualify for specific state funds, including loans, grants and scholarships. And of course, make sure you know the deadline for this form if one is required.

The Right Documents

Here’s a list of personal documents you will need to collect in order to get ‘er done:

• Last year’s tax returns. Haven’t done them? Better hop to it. Yours and your kid’s.
• Bank and investment statements and records.
• Drivers license number, social security number, and/or alien registration number.

Think you might make too much income to sign up for federal loans? Don’t waste one more minute trying to run the figures: fill out the form no matter what.

Here is the FAFSA website for your reference.

Get College Grant Funding! 

Our site primarily deals with scholarships, but grants are also a great means to getting free money for school.

The only real difference between a grant and a scholarship is that grants are traditionally need-based only.

Of course, the provider can call the award a scholarship or a grant, and it would have the same effect on the student (nothing to pay back, ever!).

We compiled a list of 101 College Grants You’ve Never Heard Of.

You should come away from reading this list with a new take on what financial aid opportunities are really out there.  There are grants for particular students, subjects, colleges, U.S. states, and even some unique college grants that we couldn’t find a category for.

Check it out now.

Future police officers should take note of this large commitment made by St. Johns University. $10 million is being allocated for students enrolled in the St. Johns NYPD Cadet Corps Program:

The program will recruit and enroll as many as 100 well-qualified transfer students who seek a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice, providing them with up to $10,000 in annual scholarship funding which would be matched by $10,000 in tuition reimbursement offered by New York City. In addition, the University will provide $2,500 grants to incoming freshmen majoring in criminal justice…

The qualifications are:

• Minimum of 45 credits
• Meet admission standards
• Be enrolled in the Cadet Corps program

Since these awards are only for transfer students, competition will be high, as it should be for such large amounts of money.

This new program will start September of 2007. Go to the NYPD Cadet Corps Program website for further details.

If you want other scholarship resources for Law Enforcement, we have a list for you to browse here.

If you’re a minority student you will appreciate the newest reports from the U.S. Department of Education that forecast the numbers of minority students to continue to voraciously outpace your white counterparts. The recent findings were reported in the UNLV Rebel Yell, “Minority Enrollment May Rise Nationwide.”

According to the article, the ED is anticipating a “boom” between now and 2015 during which sharp spikes of minority students, Latinos in particular, will take their place on college campuses. Latino students are among the largest minority group in the U.S. and are one of the least represented in higher education.

Students seeking scholarship and grant money are also in luck. Especially abundant are those scholarships that offer tuition awards to minorities and women who purse careers in traditionally under-represented fields, such as engineering, math, sciences, law and teaching.

Sarita Brown who works with the group Excelencia in Education is quick to reinforce the fact that the ED’s projections while encouraging are purely math at this point. While the results emulate a movement that has already begun, she says that unless increased federal, state and private funds are made available for minorities the projected numbers are not likely to play out.