10 colleges where students graduate with the most debt

Most students do not take on six-figure debt to go to college, a new study by financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz has found, U.S. News reports. But, according to school-reported data, some students are still leaving college with much higher levels of debt than the national average. Students who borrowed for college and graduated in 2011 left owing $26,224 on average, based on statistics reported by 1,035 schools in an annual survey to U.S. News. For graduating classes with the highest average debt, student balances were roughly $18,000 to $28,000 more. In 2011, La Sierra University‘s graduating class had the highest average debt of any school in the country. That year, students with loans left the Riverside, Calif., institution owing an average of $54,885…

Click here for the full story

…Read More

Florida A&M University suspends dance group amid new hazing probe

Florida A&M University, shaken by the hazing death of a marching band drum major last year, suspended a student dance group on Tuesday after receiving a tip that members were involved in an off-campus hazing incident over the weekend, U.S. News reports. Interim President Larry Robinson ordered the suspension of the Torque Dance Team until an investigation could be completed. The move follows tightened scrutiny of alleged hazing activities following the November death of Robert Champion.

“We have zero tolerance for hazing,” Robinson said, adding the suspension followed an anonymous tip from a parent. “It is unconscionable that a student organization would participate in any hazing activity considering what has transpired in the past year.”

The campus police chief, dean of students and director of student activities were all notified of the allegations. Robinson said they have launched an investigation, but details about what may have happened weren’t released……Read More

How the future of higher education affects businesses

Higher education is going to look much different in the future, with a greater reliance on teleconferencing and distance learning, according to a recent survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, U.S. News reports. Sixty percent of the 1,021 respondents, which included a variety of technology experts, education professionals, and venture capitalists, agree that hybrid learning, which combines online education with in-class instruction, and “individualized, just-in-time learning approaches” will be much more common by the year 2020.

“[T]echnology will allow for more individualized, passion-based learning by the student, greater access to master teaching, and more opportunities for students to connect to others ? for enhanced learning experiences,” wrote Charlie Firestone, executive director of the Communications and Society Program at the Aspen Institute, whose comments as a survey respondent were included in the report. One major factor that will drive technological innovation in higher education over the next decade, according to survey respondents, is the steep cost of higher education. According to data provided by 1,009 colleges and universities to U.S. News, college graduates completed their degrees in 2010 with an average loan burden of $24,962, and nationwide, the student loan debt has passed $1 trillion…

Click here for the full story…Read More

Data collection to start for online education programs

Starting August 21, U.S. News will be commencing its online data collection for our second Top Online Education Programs rankings in both the bachelor’s and graduate levels for all disciplines. As was done in 2011, we will send questionnaires to a pre-selected number of regionally accredited bachelor’s degree programs (1,766), as well a number of master’s degree programs in business (958), computer information technology (313), education (1033), engineering (292), and nursing (473). We’ll ask whether the programs administer their programs online, and if so, to report statistical and profile information that U.S. News will use to rank them and construct searchable individual profile pages. If you would like to know which programs at your school will be receiving surveys or who at your institution is currently set to receive them, contact OnlineEdOfficial@usnews.com. This year’s questionnaires are revised to ease the reporting burdens on schools, to more closely reflect how distance education programs collect data, and to incorporate additional suggestions from schools and stakeholders. One result of these changes is that data will not be solicited this year on Doctorate of Nursing Practice degree programs. A future blog post will elaborate further on the new questionnaires. U.S. News also is changing its definition of “online degree” to better align with the new U.S. Department of Education’s terminology and broader data collection efforts in distance education…

Click here for the full story

…Read More

Study: Online learning outcomes similar to classroom results

Critics of online learning claim that students are exposed to an inferior education when compared to traditional in-class instruction, but a recent study from Ithaka S+R, a strategic consulting and research nonprofit, questions this notion, U.S. News reports. The report, “Interactive Learning Online at Public Universities: Evidence from Randomized Trials,” notes that students who utilize interactive online learning–or hybrid learning–produce equivalent, or better, results than students participating in face-to-face education. Monitoring 605 college students taking the same introductory statistics course at six public universities–including the University at Albany–SUNY, SUNY Institute of Technology–Utica/Rome, the University of Maryland–Baltimore County, Towson University, CUNY–Baruch College, and CUNY–City College–during fall 2011, researchers split the students into two groups. One group completed the course in a traditional format, while the second group completed an online component complemented with an hour of in-class instruction each week. Students were asked to complete a series of tests before and after the course, and researchers found that “hybrid-format students did perform slightly better than traditional format students” on outcomes including final exam scores and overall course pass rates, according to the report…

Click here for the full story

…Read More

3 critical graduate school considerations for international students

Despite worries that the U.S. economy and the rising cost of higher education will lead to fewer students applying, one set of graduate applicants seems undeterred: international students, U.S. News reports. Last year, first-time enrollment of international graduate students in the United States rose by 8 percent–the largest increase in 5 years, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Council of Graduate Schools. While it’s clear that an increasing number of international students want to earn a graduate degree in the United States, there are three important issues that these students must weigh before applying

Click here for the full story

…Read More

Thousands of veterans failing in latest battlefield: College

During a pair of six-month stints in and around Fallujah, Iraq –- then a fiercely volatile city –- Navy corpsman Lucas Velasquez came to know about life. And death, U.S. News reports. From late 2005 through early 2007, not long after nearly 100 U.S. troops and more than 1,350 insurgents were killed in Fallujah during Operation Phantom Fury, Velasquez routinely rendered emergency aid to wounded Marines while ducking bullets, rocket-propelled grenades and IED blasts. In uniform, Velasquez was smart and quick, adept at practicing field medicine literally while under the gun. In 2007, after retiring from the Navy, Velasquez, then 23, enrolled at Columbus State University in western Georgia. He promptly failed four of his first six classes.

Lucas Velasquez enrolled at Columbus State University in Georgia after retiring from the Navy. He is pictured on the bottom, second from the right, with his Kappa Sigma fraternity brothers…

Click here for the full story…Read More

What Romney’s education plan means for college students

In addition to providing must-watch late night television, student debt continues to play a role in the presidential election, U.S. News reports. On May 23, Mitt Romney unveiled his own education plan, “A Chance for Every Child: Mitt Romney’s Plan for Restoring the Promise of American Education.” While the plan is relatively lacking in shock-value, your Student Loan Ranger will take a stab at breaking down its implications for higher education from our own inimitable student debt perspective. According to A Chance for Every Child, higher education is ensconced in a “new normal” in which “education is unaffordable, a government loan is an entitlement, default is the norm, and loan forgiveness is the expectation.” Despite this somewhat hyperbolic description, the issues it highlights are not unfamiliar to even casual followers of higher education or this blog-although our take on some of these issues may differ from Romney’s…

Click here for the full story

…Read More

5 reasons community colleges make sense right now

Whether you’re a parent or a high school student researching college options, community college should be high on the list, says U.S. News. With higher education rising to exorbitant levels in the past few years, many students are mortgaging their futures to pay for degrees that may not be worth the investment. Yet despite alarming trends in the student loan debt arena, the competition is as fierce as ever for a seat at top schools. Cost seems to be a secondary consideration at this point, which is all the more reason you should consider a community college and sit out on the degree hunter’s bidding war. As someone who went to a four-year university right out of high school, I can tell you now that I wish I had gone to a junior college first. The decision would have provided an easier transition right out of high school and made much more sense financially. And that was before tuition skyrocketed to where it is today. Since hindsight is 20/20, hopefully young readers and parents will benefit from my experiences. Here are some reasons why community college makes more sense than attending a four-year college at the moment…

Click here for the full story

…Read More

Mark Cuban: College is a business decision

A meltdown is coming to the higher education sector, billionaire computer magnate and NBA Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban warned in a blog post on May 13, U.S. News reports. With education costs that rise each year, a hungry market of students plied with easy-to-get loans, and little incentive for colleges to make meaningful changes, the arena is ripe for a major shakeup, the entrepreneur writes.

“Like the real estate industry, prices will rise until the market revolts. Then it will be too late,” Cuban blogged. “Students will stop taking out the loans traditional Universities expect them to. And when they do tuition will come down.”

Without their usual influx of funds, universities will have to cut costs “beyond what they are able to… which will all lead to a de-levering and a de-stabilization of the University system as we know it,” he writes. But what about those students who are considering college now? As it turns out, the Indiana University–Bloomington graduate and self-made billionaire also has some tips for them to make smart decisions, despite the current higher ed environment……Read More

Oops! We could not locate your form.