Education and Class

• Why not having a college degree is a bigger barrier than it used to be – The Washington Post

  “More and more employers are requiring bachelors degrees for positions that years ago wouldn’t have needed them, shutting off access for the unmatriculated. Forget the “skills gap.” According to a new report from the career data analytics service Burning Glass, there’s actually a  “credentials gap” for training and development specialists: While only half the people currently in that role have undergraduate degrees, 75 percent of online job postings list a BA as a requirement, leaving a gap of 25 percent.”

  tags: socialclass

• Financial Aid, Simplified: A Better College Calculator – NYTimes.com

  It seems relatively simple to demystify the actual costs of attending college, yet even small gestures in that direction are newsworthy.

  “The biggest downside to the calculator’s first year is the mix of students using it: Most are still not low- or even middle-income families. The users, according to the Brookings paper, “are more heavily tilted towards higher income financial aid applicants, particularly those with total family incomes between $80,000 and $225,000 and away from those with incomes below $50,000.” That last group, of course, has the most to gain from understanding the truth about financial aid.”

  tags: socialclass

• Pondering the Non-Trad Difference | Student Affairs and Technology @insidehighered

  I don’t know if there is data on this, but at my campus, many of the “non traditional” students deferred or left college earlier in life because of money and life circumstances related to class.

  “Brick-and-mortar institutions are mostly-structured to serve an 18 to 22 year-old student…at least in the undergraduate degree granting space. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it’s something that we need to address on a more regular basis. Our traditions, history, and monetary interests have driven our structures. However, “non-traditional” students are oftentimes relegated to the sidelines. Plus, those programs that typically grant undergraduate degrees that have been tailored for “non-traditional” students are often placed within online-degree-granting, super profitable (and increasingly more expensive) areas of higher education.”

  tags: socialclass

• Brown launches initiative aimed at providing internships to low-income students @insidehighered

  It’s a step in the right direction to address the inequalities of the growing expectation that students do unpaid internships as a condition of eventual employment.

  Yet these projects will never compensate for deep differences in social capital that allow some students to use family connections to land the more prestigious and unadvertised internships while other students scan websites for potential openings in organizations they know little about.

  “A new website that Paxson described as a “one-stop shop” allows students to search for internship and research opportunities across the country, connect with Brown alumni to receive career advice, and explore what kinds of financial support the university offers for low-paid and unpaid internships and research positions. Employers can post internship openings on the website for students to find, and alumni, family members, and other donors can also provide funding through the site. Alumni will be a key part of the initiative, which is so far primarily funded through donations, Paxson said.”

  tags: socialclass

• Average student debt across the country again ticked up in 2013, new report says @insidehighered

  Student debt levels up again, not because of individual circumstances of students but because of uneven state investments in higher education.

  “Debbie Cochrane, research director at TICAS, who co-wrote the report, pointed to state funding of higher education as a factor in the varying state debt levels.
  “Graduates from New Hampshire colleges are almost twice as likely as Nevada graduates to leave school with student loan debt, and they owe almost twice as much as graduates from New Mexico colleges,” she said in a statement. “The importance of state policy and investment cannot be overstated when it comes to student debt levels.””

  tags: socialclass

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.