Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

How to improve remedial education

Legislation passed earlier this month in Connecticut allows underprepared students to take full-credit courses.

Each year, an estimated 1.7 million U.S. college students are steered to remedial classes to catch them up and prepare them for regular coursework. But a growing body of research shows the courses are eating up time and money, often leading not to degrees but to student loan hangovers.

The expense of remedial courses, which typically cost students the same as regular classes but don’t fulfill degree requirements, run about $3 billion annually, according to new research by Complete College America, a Washington-based national nonprofit working to increase the number of students with a college degree.

The group says the classes are largely failing the nation’s higher education system at a time when student-loan debt has become a presidential campaign issue.…Read More

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Backer of Common Core school curriculum is chosen to lead College Board

David Coleman, an architect of the common core curriculum standards that are being adopted in nearly all 50 states, will become the president of the College Board, starting in October, the New York Times reports. The College Board, a membership organization of high schools and colleges that administers the SAT, the Advanced Placement program and other standardized tests, helped design the standards — an outline of what students should learn in English and math from kindergarten through high school — meant to ensure that all high school graduates are prepared for college. Mr. Coleman’s new position will involve a continued focus on college readiness. “We have a crisis in education, and over the next few years, the main thing on the College Board’s agenda is to deliver its social mission,” he said in an interview on Tuesday. “The College Board is not just about measuring and testing, but designing high-quality curriculum.”

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Tighter security for SAT, ACT in wake of cheating

The new security measures come after a major SAT cheating scandal.

The millions of students who take the SAT or ACT each year will have to submit photos of themselves when they sign up for the college entrance exams, under a host of new security measures announced March 27 in the aftermath of a major cheating scandal on Long Island.

The two companies that administer the tests, the College Board and ACT Inc., agreed to the precautions under public pressure brought to bear by Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice, who is overseeing the investigation.

The measures take effect in the fall.…Read More

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New reports reveal alarming facts about the educational experiences of young men of color

Nearly half of young men of color age 15 to 24 who graduate from high school will end up unemployed, incarcerated or dead, according to the College Board. This jarring statistic is just one of many highlighted in two new reports released by the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center at an event held in collaboration with the Harvard University’s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research in Cambridge, Mass.. The reports, The Educational Experience of Young Men of Color: A Review of Research, Pathways and Progress and Capturing the Student Voice, are especially relevant given the need for these young men to attain postsecondary degrees if the nation’s economy is to thrive and compete globally…

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As college fees climb, aid does too

As their state financing dwindled, four-year public universities increased their published tuition and fees almost 8 percent this year, to an average of $7,605, according to the College Board’s annual reports, says the New York Times. When room and board are included, the average in-state student at a public university now pays $16,140 a year. At private nonprofit colleges and universities, tuition rose 4.5 percent to an average of $27,293, or $36,993 with room and board. The good news in the 2010 “Trends in College Pricing” and “Trends in Student Aid” reports is that fast-rising tuition costs have been accompanied by a huge increase in financial aid, which helped keep down the actual amount students and families pay…

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