Economists: College Degree Still Worth the Investment
What's worse than being 12 years out of high school and on your way to having $40,000 in debt? Being 30 years old, with no college degree, making $15 an hour. That's why Jesse Mullan has taken a risk and gone back to college, sitting in classrooms with with college juniors who were 8 years old when he graduated from high school in St. Paul, Minn., in 1994. Mullan, who expects to graduate from college in 2008, figures that taking on debt to further his education will pay off. He expects to triple his hourly pay shortly after collecting a degree in computer science from the University of Minnesota, allowing him to pay off his school loans in no more than 10 years. 'It's better than car loans,' he said.
Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN - 6/20/2006
Utah's Online Electronic High School Leads The Nation In Student Enrollment
More than 50,000 Utah students are earning high school credit from their bedrooms, dens and kitchens. And though the Electronic High School may not be the easiest way to earn credits, students are flocking to the program to catch up on classes, graduate early or just fit a few more electives into their school days. Currently Utah has the largest online learning program in the country. Florida is a distant second with just over 20,000 enrolled. Richard Siddoway, principal of the Electronic High School, said Utah had a jump on the rest of the nation in establishing the program. While other states started creating online courses in the late '90s, the program debuted in Utah in 1993 — before Netscape, Explorer and other browsers.
Deseret News, Salt Lake City, UT - 6/20/2006
Execs-Turned-Entrepreneurs Find Biz Classes Helpful
When W. David Hellyer, 50, took the plunge into self-employment in 2004, he had a bachelor's degree in business administration and psychology as well as 26 years of experience in corporate America, including many years as the general manager of a manufacturing company. Yet one of his first moves after co-founding Kadat Partners LLC in Pinegrove Mills, Pennsylvania, was to contact the Penn State Small Business Development Center office and sign up for its basic business classes. Why in the world would such a clearly talented, experienced and successful businessman spend time studying business basics at that point in his career?
Entrepreneur.com - 6/19/2006
University of Phoenix Targets Young Students Online at Lower Cost
Eric Ridel doesn't fit the mold of the typical student at the University of Phoenix. He came in with few college credits, works third shift at K-Mart and isn't sure what he wants to do after he graduates beyond something with computers. The 34-year-old Connecticut musician is part of a new breed of UOP students, a mostly younger, less experienced group enrolled in a sister school called Axia College. The online associate's degree program has been quietly offered for 18 months - Ridel finishes in November - but is only now being formally rolled out and advertised under the University of Phoenix umbrella.
Arizona Republic, AZ - 6/05/2006
New Online Summer School is a Hit With Wilson Students
With morning football practice, a night job and a failing grade in English, Greg Thompson has a lot going on. If he didn't live in Wilson County, this rising high school senior might have to choose between the pigskin and summer school to graduate on time. But this summer, Greg will be able to do it all. Wilson County is leading the way in the Midstate to teach summer school online. 'That way, when I get off football at 11 a.m., I can have that time between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to do my school work and then go to work,' said Greg, who attends Watertown High School and works at a Sonic restaurant. 'On computer, you can take your time. They'd be going too fast in classroom,' he said. Plus, if you don't finish then, you'll still have time to finish later.'
Tennesean, TN - 6/07/2006
E-Learning for Hospitality, Food Service
Cornell University has had the highest-ranked hotel school in the U.S. for several years. In fact, visitors to Cornell's Ithaca, NY campus often stay in the 150-room Statler Hotel, an elegant establishment that gives hotel students the chance to put their academic training into daily practice. Cornell's School of Hotel Administration is of great interest not only to its 890 students but also to the 1,700 industry professionals enrolled in the executive program. A few years ago, a segment of both of these groups gained access to a powerful new online platform for hotel administration education. Line56 recently spoke to Cornell University Professor Sherry Kimes about the platform and its compelling implications for both industry and the academy.
Line 56 News, USA - 6/01/2006
Miss. proposes self-paced, online curriculum
May 22, 2006 - Mississippi Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds has unveiled a new $20 million proposal designed to offer seven possible career paths to high school students and online courses that would help prepare them for college and the workforce. "Technology offers many options today that didn't exist 15 or 20 years ago and can engage students in ways that traditional lecturing can not," Bounds said in a recent newsletter to the state's schools.
eSchool News - 5/22/06
State universities turn to online classes for funding
(RALEIGH) - The focus on overcrowding in public schools has overshadowed the growth in the state's public universities, but higher education also faces financial needs as universities continue to expand. When Governor Mike Easley unveiled his budget Tuesday, he touted it as a win for education. “I think we can say without question this is the strongest education budget ever seen in the history of North Carolina,” Easley said. Most of that money involved teacher raises and programs in grade school, but Easley also has big plans for the state’s universities.
News 14 Carolina - 5/12/06
Online Degree Programs Take Off
Angela Bostic will get her MBA in August from the University of Maryland University College, part of a dual master's degree she is pursuing. She has never met a professor, has never sat in a classroom and has checked out the Adelphi campus only once , long after she had enrolled. In fact, until recently, the 28-year-old graduate student had been studying from Brussels.
Washington Post, Washington, DC - 5/16/06
Schools sign up to online learning
School books will be replaced by online learning and parents will be able to monitor children's progress from home in a radical classroom change for thousands of Bay students. New software which will be used by up to five Bay schools will change the way children learn and interact in class _ and other schools are expected to follow suit. The program, Knowledge Net, provides access to Education Ministry-approved websites, including encyclopedias, news, world maps, calculators and other resources.
Bay of Plenty Times, New Zealand - 5/6/06
Technology transforms voc-ed
May 12, 2006 - Sophomore Brandy Joyce's shop class stinks like a dank fish tank. Actually, it smells like seven dank fish tanks as large as 1,500 gallons, swirling with tilapia, tautog, largemouth bass, koi, and red belly turtles. "This shop is why I'm here," said Joyce, a student at Upper Cape Regional Technical School in Bourne, Mass., who breeds zebra fish in the school's environmental technology lab. She plans on going to college, and maybe then getting a doctorate. The smell of sawdust from carpentry classes still wafts down the hall at Upper Cape Tech and other technical high schools across the country.
eSchool News - 5/12/06
Continuing Education Drives Distance-Learning Enrollment
Continuing education accounts for a significant portion of enrollment for traditional and for-profit higher education institutions, which will drive distance learning to grow 10 times faster than on-campus growth over the next 10 years. That's according to "2006 State of Continuing Education Marketing: How Does Your University Size Up?" released jointly by Penn State University Office of Outreach Marketing and Communications and University Continuing Education Association.
ClickZ.com - 5/10/06
Online university enrollment soars
Pratiksha Patel and her brother, Jignesh, both decided to earn college degrees over the Internet. But while Jignesh enrolled at the for-profit University of Phoenix, Pratiksha sought a more selective, prestigious school. After scanning a list of America's top 100 colleges, the Culver City, Calif., resident chose the University of Massachusetts. Ms. Patel, a procurement-company operations manager with a community-college degree, was admitted to UMass's online program in business administration in spring 2004 and maintains an "A" average.
Wall Street Journal - 5/9/06
Intel's answer to $100 laptop: Eduwise
May 9, 2006—Seeking to extend the use of personal computers in developing nations, chip maker Intel Corp. on May 3 unveiled its own design for a mobile PC that is intended to provide affordable collaborative learning environments for teachers and students around the world. Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini said the $400 machines--code-named "Eduwise"--will feature built-in wireless capabilities and will be able to run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows or the Linux operating system. "What we want to do is accelerate to uncompromised technology for everyone in the world," Otellini said during a demonstration at the World Congress on Information Technology in Austin, Texas
eSchool News - 5/9/06
School of the net
An online learning tool enhances, rather than replaces, the conventional classroom. Harriet Alexander reports. The emergence of e-resources may kill off the textbook, but it is not yet time to deliver the last rites to the classroom. Rather, the classroom may have found a virtual friend. The latest online learning product to hit the market has been embraced by some schools as a support tool for teachers and parents, rather than replacing real-world classes.
The Age, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia - 4/29/06
Internet schools growing
Since July, when the Pa. Leadership Charter School opened a regional office in the Pittsburgh Mills mall, the number of students from Valley communities attending online schools has soared -- more than doubling in some districts. In all, about 600 Alle-Kiski Valley elementary and secondary students are enrolled in cyber schools -- Internet-based schools where they take classes on a computer from home. Last year, that number was about 350.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Pittsburgh, PA - 5/3/06
Online Education, Even At Harvard, Is Inadequate
At a recent round-table discussion with students, President Summers pledged to expand the for-credit distance education programs currently offered through the Harvard Extension School. As an alumnus of the Extension School and an adjunct professor at a community college, I have no objection to non-traditional venues of higher education. I also understand and appreciate the educational potential afforded by the Internet. Nevertheless, I must part company with the outgoing President on the issue of Internet education at Harvard.
The Harvard Crimson Online, Harvard University - 4/21/06
Technology creates lectures on demand
A video-capture technology first adopted by network news outlets such as CNN and Fox News is now appearing on college campuses, including Harvard, Michigan State, and Temple universities, to record live classroom lectures and presentations and post them to the internet for students to review. University officials say the technology is leading to higher retention and greater experimentation in the classroom--and some schools are even using it as a recruiting tool.
eSchool News - 4/27/06
College, My Way
ERIN MADDEN laughs a little self-consciously referring to what she calls "my college tour." Not the kind that high school students take to look at potential campuses; hers started after she went to college and discovered she didn't like her choice. She transferred to another, and another, and another, and another, ultimately ending up with five colleges on her transcript when she graduated last year. It wasn't collegiate life as she once imagined it. But it wasn't so unconventional, either. These days, a majority of students take a similarly nomadic path to a degree; about 60 percent of students graduating from college attend more than one institution, a number that has risen steadily over at least the last two decades.
New York Times, New York, NY - 4/23/06
New Miss. law to target unlicensed 'diploma mills'
JACKSON, Miss. - Beginning July 1, the state of Mississippi will have a means of cracking down on unlicensed "diploma mills." The law, signed this past month by Gov. Haley Barbour, will allow the Mississippi Commission on College Accreditation to ask chancery judges to order colleges to stop offering unapproved post-secondary academic degrees. "This is a way to shut them down. This is a way to protect the consumer," said Sen. Terry Burton, R-Newton. Some people pay lots of money to enroll in these unaccredited schools for "diplomas that mean nothing," said Burton.
Associated Press - 4/21/06
Webcasts connect kids to science, nature
Next Tuesday, April 25, students and teachers will have the chance to take part in two separate online learning activities that aim to engage students in science: a webcast and online chat about genetics and the Human Genome Project, and a live internet broadcast from Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. April 21, 2006—Two separate online learning events to be held on Tuesday, April 25, will take advantage of technology's power to reach thousands of students from coast to coast in engaging ways, while also showing students the kinds of careers they can have if they study science.
eSchool News - 4/21/06
Boys Are No Match for Girls in Completing High School
Nationwide, about 72 percent of the girls in the high school class of 2003 — but only 65 percent of the boys — earned diplomas, a gender gap that is far more pronounced among minorities, according to a report being released today by the Manhattan Institute. The report, "Leaving Boys Behind: Public High School Graduation Rates," found that 59 percent of African-American girls, but only 48 percent of African-American boys, earned their diplomas that year. Among Hispanics, the graduation rate was 58 percent for girls, but only 49 percent for boys.
New York Times, New York, NY - 4/19/06
Do computers make it harder to learn?
Almost everything we need to know or ever wanted to know can be searched for on the Internet. The answers are just a few clicks away and accessible from a desk, at work or in the classroom. But instead of embracing everything technology has to offer , teachers and employers are setting guidelines. School supply shopping took students to computer stores last fall. Undergraduate and graduate MU journalism students are are required to own a wireless laptop computer. Many students now opt for a keypad and screen to take notes.
Missourian, Columbia Missouri - 4/14/06
High-tech learning helps flatten Appalachia's world
ZANESVILLE - In the year after graduation, nearly 100 percent of Zane State College graduates will find employment. Eighty percent of those jobs are in the technology sector. Educators credit the high success rate to an emphasis on technology training.” In today's economy, employers need a skilled workforce to be competitive in the global market," said Jamie Clark, the director of Career and Employment Services. "The demand for technology-savvy individuals has never been greater."
Zanes Ville Times Recorder, Zanesville, Ohio - 4/18/06
Panel Considers Revamping College Aid and Accrediting
Months after suggesting that standardized testing should be brought to colleges and universities, a higher education commission named by the Bush administration is examining proposals to change sharply how the nation's colleges are accredited and how federal student aid is administered.One proposal calls for scrapping the current system of accreditation, which has been done largely by private regional bodies, in favor of a National Accreditation Foundation that would be created by Congress and the president. Another proposal calls for streamlining the federal student aid system, replacing some 17 grant, loan and tax-credit programs with just one, or perhaps three, federal aid programs.
New York Times, New York, NY - 4/12/06
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