With the coronavirus pandemic raising doubts about the feasibility of in-person classes next year, a growing number of high school grads are considering taking a gap year.
But what should families know about this option? Education reporter Elissa Nadworny recently shared some important insights with National Public Radio listeners.
“Research has shown that those who do a gap year—so that’s (a) specific time away with a clear enrollment plan—they do really well when they get to college. They tend to be whiter and wealthier and have highly educated parents,” Nadworny said in a segment that aired earlier this month. “At the same time, we know that for many students, when they simply delay enrollment or they put off college to work to save money, the longer they wait, the harder it is to get a degree. And that’s especially true for low-income students.”
Colleges continued to offer online coursework this spring amid the coronavirus pandemic, but one educator says the “new normal” unfairly disadvantaged her students at MiraCosta College.
The two-year school is part of the California Community College District, and sociology instructor Kat Soto-Gomez said shifting learning online – particularly during a time of economic turmoil – hastened student attrition.
Her Ed Surge essay highlights the challenges low-income students face during the coronavirus pandemic. As one student told her after falling behind on his coursework: “I didn’t realize I would be deemed an ‘essential worker’ working at The Home Depot.”
Disruptions caused by the coronavirus will likely lengthen the time students take to earn a college degree, education experts say. And the effects will be felt most acutely by low-income and first-generation students.
“This could add a year or two easily to a student’s time to degree,” Kristen Renn, an education professor at Michigan State University, told The Hechinger Report.
What is the best predictor of student success? According to a new study, it’s high school grade point averages.
The study, published recently in Educational Researcher, found that a student’s high school grade point average is five times stronger than their ACT scores at predicting college graduation.
New research backs up what many college counselors and admission officers have witnessed firsthand: Overbearing parents can spur student distress.
According to a study published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies, “helicopter parenting behaviors may hinder the development of self-control skills among emerging adult college students,” leading to burnout. The finding was based on a survey of 427 college students.
As opioid abuse rises to epidemic levels, a growing number of US colleges have started to provide sober living and treatment programs.
According to a recent Inside Higher Ed article, over 130 colleges and universities in the US now offer drug and alcohol recovery services for students. As recently as 2012, only 35 colleges offered such programs.
Could changing the federal financial aid structure help more student-parents earn a degree?
A recent op-ed published by the Center for American Progress argues that awarding larger Pell Grants could help more parents persist to graduation.
“These funds would not be enough to cover anywhere close to the full cost of child care—nor would they address underlying structural issues related to the lack of available spots in high-quality child care options—but they would at least recognize that parents face larger costs than nonparents, including for things that go beyond child care, such as food or clothing,” Ben Miller, vice president for postsecondary education at American Progress, notes in his column.
A new podcast series from NPR is designed to help students make the most out of higher ed.
How to Succeed at College offers advice on how to pick classes, what to talk about at office hours, and the best strategies for studying. One episode even includes information about how to land a job after graduation.
“No matter where you are coming from, college can be a huge transition, and figuring out how to make it work for you is super-important,” host Elissa Nadworny says in an introduction to the series. “…”We’re going to cover a lot of ground: from making friends to nailing job interviews and how to roll with it when things don’t go as planned.”
Eight out of 10 college presidents report that student mental health has become more of a priority on their campuses over the past three years, according to a new survey from the American Council on Education (ACE).
The finding comes at a time when the number of students visiting campus counseling services continues to rise. As one president wrote: “Mental health has become a major issue for retention and the general well-being of our students . . . This is in my top three areas of improvement for my college.”
