Roughly 3.1 million Americans reside in education deserts, according to a recent report from the Urban Institute.
In other words, they live more than 25 miles from an open-access public college and lack the broadband Internet connection needed for online education. The resulting isolation acts as a barrier to higher education.
Continue reading Report: Millions of Americans Live in Education Deserts
Seniors are busy weighing their college choices, and for many students, that means decoding often-confusing financial aid award letters.
Get up to speed and gain the knowledge you need to confidently field college cost questions with Financial Aid 101 — NACAC’s new e-learning course.
Continue reading Learn How to Evaluate Financial Fit with Financial Aid 101
In an effort to combat stereotypes and poverty, one Arizona college has come up with a creative way to engage its largely first-generation student population.
Sixty-six percent of Arizona Western College’s nearly 8,000 undergrads identify as first-gen students. And according to recent data from the Community College Benchmark Project, 22 percent of Arizona Western’s students have annual family incomes of less than $20,000. The median family income for the school is $34,200.
Continue reading Arizona College Celebrates First-Gen Students
Looking for a good book to curl up with over spring break?
Check out our next #NACACreads selection — The 160-Character Solution: How Text Messaging and Other Behavioral Strategies Can Improve Education.
A Twitter discussion of the book with author Benjamin Castleman is scheduled for April 18 at 9 p.m. (ET).
Continue reading #NACACreads: Learn New Strategies to Help Students Succeed
Is your college application essay about money, work, social class, or another related topic?
If so, The New York Times wants to hear from you.
Continue reading Students: Share Your College Essay with The New York Times
Editor’s note: A version of this post was originally published on Admitted in December 2015. It’s being republished as part of NACAC’s Best of the Blog series.
For Gail Grand’s students, the college search process is about more than just picking a campus.
Teens complete an aptitude and interest test and explore careers before ever submitting applications. The strategy is a smart one.
Fewer than four in 10 college students graduate in four years, federal data show. And as tuition rates continue to grow, extra years in school can often mean additional debt.
Tapping into resources like the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) helps teens make wise college choices, said Grand, an independent college counselor based in California’s Westlake Village. It also increases students’ likelihood of graduating on time, she noted.
Continue reading Occupational Outlook Handbook Helps Students Explore Careers
We all know the space race gave America access to the moon, but did you know it also helped pave the way for more women to go to college?
Women now make up more than 56 percent of students on campuses nationwide, according to the US Department of Education. But back in the 1960s, colleges often used “gender quotas” or simply excluded women entirely.
2018 marks 60 years since the passage of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA). In a recent episode of the Ways & Means podcast, host Emily Hanford explored how the National Defense Education Act inadvertently gave millions of American women access to college.
Continue reading College Access: How the Space Race Opened Doors for Women
When students transfer, colleges are looking at more than just credit totals. Performance also matters, which is why Stanly Community College (NC) has eliminated D grades.
For course credits to transfer, many four-year colleges require students to have earned at least a C. So even through students with a D grade have technically passed the class, they didn’t perform well enough to have another institution recognize their learning. And in many cases, the low mark also prevents students from meeting the prerequisites needed to take more advanced courses within the same subject.
Continue reading College Spurs Transfer Success with Elimination of D Grades
Despite a push to increase interest in STEM careers, many high school students aren’t getting the classes they need to be successful in a STEM major.
A recent article from The Hechinger Report examined the disconnect, noting that just 39 percent of high school grads in 2013 took a single physics class.