Thursday, March 26, 2015

News Links | March 26, 2015

SYSTEM NEWS | OPINIONS

CBC scholars overcame challenges on way to educations, passions
Columbia Basin College students Royden Luckey and Oumou Sidibe were treading unfamiliar ground when they started attending classes at the community college in the fall of 2013. Luckey, 34, hadn’t set foot in a classroom since graduating from Hanford High School in 1999. Sidibe, 20, had moved to the United States from Mali only a year before and could barely speak or understand English. But the recently designated All-USA Academic All Stars for CBC clearly made the best of their circumstances. They’re preparing to graduate this spring with associate degrees, sporting GPAs of 3.84 and higher. They will head off to pursue higher degrees in computer science and mechanical engineering.
The Tri-City Herald, March 25, 2015

Milestone: Sequim’s Carl gets academic honor
Morgan Carl and Stephen DeVoe have been named to the 2015 All-Washington Academic Team from Peninsula College. They will be honored in a special ceremony March 26 at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia. The annual ceremony recognizes top scholars from community and technical colleges across the state. The award is given to students for scholastic achievement and service to their communities and colleges.
Sequim Gazette, March 25, 2015

BTC culinary students take second place at regional cook-off
Bellingham Technical College’s five-student hot food team was just edged out of first place in the American Culinary Federation’s western regional last weekend in Las Vegas. BTC was behind the first place team by 0.8 of a point, according to its Facebook page. To represent Washington state in the regional competition, the BTC culinary students had to first win gold in the state competition in January, which they did by beating out Walla Walla Community College and Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Seattle.
The Bellingham Herald, March 24, 2015

Richland wants to work with CBC on new city hall location
Richland is hoping to get some help in finding a new location for city hall. The city seeks 1.8 acres in the parking lot of the Federal Courthouse, just across Jadwin Avenue from the current building, but negotiations with the U.S. General Services Administration have stalled, said Brian Moore, Richland’s redevelopment project supervisor. ... Moore hopes that Richland can work with Columbia Basin College on a land swap. He said CBC is interested in taking over a records building surplused by the federal government near the intersection of Mansfield Street and Northgate Drive so it can expand its health science center.
Tri-City Herald, March 24, 2015

Under Secretary Concannon visits West Seattle Elementary and Highline College
U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary Kevin Concannon visited West Seattle Elementary school on Tuesday March 24, to observe successes the school has had with the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) and a focus on local foods. It was part of a trip to Seattle where he also visited Highline College in Des Moines, Wa., where he announced that Washington State will receive $22 million over the next three years to help unemployed food assistance recipients find well-paying jobs.
West Seattle Herald, March 24, 2015

Accreditation and awards for Bates Technical College’s Culinary Arts program
Bates Technical College’s Culinary Arts program can add national accreditation and regional awards to their growing list of accomplishments. Valid for three years, accreditation from the American Culinary Federation (ACF) Education Foundation’s Accrediting Commission assures that the program meets ACF standards and competencies set for faculty, curriculum and student services. Graduates of the program are eligible to receive Certified Culinarian® certification.
The Suburban Times, March 24, 2015

TRENDS| HORIZONS | EDUCATION

Community college to bachelor's
Nearly half of all students graduating with a four-year degree in the 2013-14 school year had some experience within a two-year institution. That detail is a part of a new report released Wednesday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, which found 46 percent of all students who completed a 4-year degree had been enrolled at a 2-year institution at some point in the past 10 years.
Inside Higher Ed, March 26, 2015

Student-loan default rates are easily gamed. Here's a better measure.
The University of the Rockies has a good federal student-loan default rate. Only 7 percent of borrowers from the for-profit graduate school default on their loans within three years of leaving the university — a better record than its peer institutions. But a closer look at the data reveals a strange pattern. From October 2008 to September 2011, nearly 1,300 borrowers from the University of the Rockies started repaying their loans. Yet the university awarded only 316 degrees during the 2008-2011 academic years. In other words, for every degree earned at the University of Rockies, four borrowers have their debts come due. So while many of the students aren’t defaulting, they aren’t graduating either. This disconnect between repayment, completion, and default exposes a significant flaw in the key metric the federal government uses to police its student-loan programs and decide which colleges to bar from eligibility. And it highlights the weakness of current attempts at accountability around student loans.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 26, 2015

Report on challenges for high school counselors in college advising
High school counselors have significant time demands that keep them from spending as much time as many would like on college advising, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
Inside Higher Ed, March 26, 2015

Video: How an elite women’s college lost its base and found its mission
Almost 30 years ago, Trinity College, in Washington, D.C., faced a crisis familiar to many small institutions today: It lost the ability to attract the predominantly well-to-do women it had traditionally enrolled. So the Roman Catholic women’s college adopted a risky strategy. It changed its base, focusing instead on serving primarily African-American and Latina women who face financial disadvantages. Under the 26-year tenure of President Patricia A. McGuire, the college has not only stabilized but grown. A new science-and-technology building is under construction, and the five schools that make up the institution — now rechristened as Trinity Washington University — have an enrollment of more than 2,200.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 25, 2015

International students stream into U.S. colleges
American universities are enrolling unprecedented numbers of foreign students, prompted by the rise of an affluent class in China and generous scholarships offered by oil-rich Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia. Cash-strapped public universities also are driving the trend, aggressively recruiting students from abroad, especially undergraduates who pay a premium compared with in-state students. There are 1.13 million foreign students in the U.S., the vast majority in college-degree programs, according to a report to be released Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security. That represents a 14 percent increase over last year, nearly 50 percent more than in 2010 and 85 percent more than in 2005.
The Wall Street Journal, March 24, 2015

POLITICS | LOCAL, STATE, NATIONAL


U.S. keeps scrutiny of risky colleges secret
The U.S. Department of Education is so concerned about the risk that dozens of colleges pose to students and taxpayers that it has curtailed access to federal money at those institutions — but it won’t say which ones. Even as it pushes to make far more information about colleges available to consumers, the department is keeping hidden from public view its decisions to punish certain colleges with funding restrictions known as heightened cash monitoring.
Inside Higher Ed, March 26, 2015

No expectation of privacy
The Obama administration briefly considered but ultimately decided against expanding a new student privacy bill beyond K-12 education, according to sources with knowledge of the drafting process. The resulting draft is a “missed opportunity” for the White House to address privacy in higher education, legal scholars say. The Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act of 2015, which will be introduced later this week by U.S. House Representatives Luke Messer and Jared S. Polis, seeks to limit how educational technology companies can use data they collect from students using their products. It builds on a proposal released by the White House in January, which in turn resembles a student privacy law passed in California last year.
Inside Higher Ed, March 25, 2015