Good information can go a long way when helping students make the right college choice.
Financial Aid Basics: What Students & Families Need to Know provides an overview of how to estimate college costs and apply for aid.
Continue reading ICYMI: Download NACAC’s Financial Aid PowerPoint
Editor’s note: This column was first shared on the NACAC Exchange.
It’s just BUSY this time of the year, and while what I WANT to do is close the door and write, write, write, there are a myriad of other things that have to do done. There is nothing that says fall like the word busy.
So when a student popped in my office and asked if she could work on her application, I told her sure and kept working on what I needed to do. She would ask the occasional question, but mostly we were both working on her separate to-do lists.
Then there was silence. As a father of five, I FEAR silence. I looked up, and she was crying.
Editor’s note: Admitted’s op-ed columns offer NACAC members the opportunity to share their take on the day’s news and events. The views and opinions expressed in Member View columns are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policies or positions of the association.
Throughout his tenure as president, Barack Obama frequently quoted Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous line, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” In 2012, the Obama administration implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, which temporarily allowed qualified undocumented immigrants to the United States, who entered the country as minors, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and eligibility for a work permit. Additionally, DACA allowed some of these students access to in-state tuition.
DACA’s establishment was controversial, but the path toward DACA was paved decades before. In fact, the implementation of DACA coincided with the 30th anniversary of Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 Supreme Court decision that barred K-12 public schools from charging undocumented students tuition. In may have taken 30 years, but undocumented students in the United States had increased opportunities for not just primary and secondary education, but higher education as well. DACA was, essentially, part of the long arc bending toward justice.
A NACAC affiliate is calling on testing companies to ensure all students worldwide have equal access to US college admission exams.
Fewer ACT and SAT test dates were provided this year for international students when compared to their peers living in the US, according to a statement from the International Association for College Admission Counseling. In addition, in recent years students outside the US have had to deal with frequent test cancellations or changes in testing due to concerns about test security. Communication about those developments “has neither been comprehensive or timely,” the statement notes.
Continue reading International ACAC Calls for Equal Access to Admission Tests
Need financial aid for the 2018-19 academic year?
The US Department of Education is reminding students to remain cognizant of deadlines when completing the FAFSA.
While the FAFSA is primarily used to award federal financial aid, many colleges, states, and scholarship programs also use the form to assess eligibility for their aid programs.
Continue reading Reminder: Keep an Eye on Financial Aid Deadlines
Does freshman year matter?
New research from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research suggests that students’ ninth-grade GPA might actually be the best predictor of future academic performance, graduation rate, and college enrollment yet.
Continue reading Study: Ninth-Grade GPA Helps Predict Student Success
Getting ready to help students fill out the FAFSA?
The Department of Education released a list this week highlighting the eight steps that need to be followed when filing for federal student aid. And included in the article is an important reminder: Students can — and should — list multiple colleges on their FAFSA.
Continue reading Expert Advice: Listing College Options on the FAFSA
Prospective first-generation college students cite high educational aspirations as 10th graders, but take longer to enroll in college and are less likely than their peers to earn a degree.
Those findings are included in a new research brief from the US Department of Education’s Institute of Educational Sciences. The report uses 10 years of data collected from a nationally representative sample of students who were high school sophomores in 2002.
Continue reading Report Examines Experiences of First-Gen Students
Just-released data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services provides more information about the young people currently enrolled in the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
https://nacacnet.wistia.com/medias/b8kxq4q2al
Professor Shaun Harper, executive director of the University of Southern California’s Race & Equity Center, served as the keynote speaker at NACAC’s 2017 National Conference in Boston.
Watch (or re-watch) the speech and read NACAC CEO Joyce Smith’s reflections on Harper’s message.
Continue reading Shaun Harper’s Keynote Speech from #NACAC17
