Millennials came of age during a volatile time of market booms and busts, skyrocketing tuition costs and an increasingly competitive job market. Now, when it comes to selecting a college, they are focused on value: finding programs that will pay off and prepare them for the working world, Forbes reports. According to a new survey of nearly 6,000 high school and college students, conducted by market research firm TRU, 88% of college-bound teenagers place career preparation and future success over more nebulous goals like personal growth or pursuing their passions. My previous research has shown that not all degrees are created equal. Health care, business and the STEM majors (science, technology, engineering and math) are more stable and higher paying for recent college graduates, whereas graduates of the arts, humanities and social sciences face higher unemployment rates and earn lower salaries…
…Read MorePodcast 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.
Pearson, Knewton team up to personalize college
Higher education is in dire need of a customer retention program. Close to half of all college students never finish the school they started, Forbes reports. A quarter of them don’t return to the same school after freshman year. Taxpayers and legislatures have gotten so frustrated that close to a dozen states have scrapped or are thinking about scrapping traditional reimbursement based on number of students enrolled and switching to schemes based on gains in graduation rates and similar performance measures. A partnership announced today between Knewton, a New York City startup, and Pearson, the world’s biggest publisher of print and online textbooks, may offer some help with this challenge…
…Read MoreUniversities on the brink
The ever-increasing cost of education is not sustainable, reports Louis E. Lataif for Forbes. Higher education in America, historically the envy of the world, is rapidly growing out of reach. For the past quarter-century, the cost of higher education has grown 440%, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Education, nearly four times the rate of inflation and double the rate of health care cost increases. The cost increases have occurred at both public and private colleges. Like many situations too good to be true–like the dot-com boom, the Enron bubble, the housing boom or the health care cost explosion–the ever-increasing cost of university education is not sustainable. Just 10 years ago the cost of a four-year public college education amounted to 18% of the annual income of middle-income families. Ten years later, it amounted to 25% of that family’s average annual income. The cost of attending a private university is about double the cost of public universities. Think of higher education as the proverbial frog in boiling water. It feels very warm and comfy but soon will be cooked…
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