"Slip-Sliding Away: An Anxious Public Talks About Today's Economy And The American Dream," is a report from Public Agenda which finds that the number one financial concern of economically-stressed Americans who also have children is college affordability. Also high on Americans' priorities, stressed financially or not: Social security and retirement benefits and job training.

If this isn't an indication of high demand for higher education, we don't know what is:

When it comes to what would be "very effective" in helping people become economically secure, the public puts its faith in higher education and job training, along with preserving programs like Social Security and Medicare. These are the top three solutions among both those who are struggling and those who aren't.

"Making higher education more affordable" led the list overall (63 percent) and among those who say they're struggling (65 percent). Preserving Social Security and Medicare was next at 58 percent (62 percent among the struggling) and expanding job-training programs came in third at 54 percent (56 percent for the struggling).

Neither cutting taxes for the middle class (48 percent) nor reducing the federal deficit (40 percent) get majority support, and other options rate even lower. ...

One reason for the faith in education may be the public's perception of who's struggling the most in the current economy. Three-quarters of Americans say that people without college degrees are struggling a lot these days, compared to just half who say college graduates are struggling.

Don't miss out on joining nearly 1,500 of your colleagues and peers at higher education's premier planning event of 2010, SCUP–45. The Society for College and University Planning's 45th annual, international conference and idea marketplace is July 10–14 in Minneapolis!

Here's your SCUP Link to "Why Did Wal-Mart Choose American Public University?"

 New York Times writer Micheline Maynard wondered, too, and thus this story (in which SCUP gets a mention).

Wal-Mart surveyed 81 institutions, including for-profits, nonprofits, online universities, brick-and-mortar colleges, and “even some of the open-source, open-platform online offerings that are out there,” said Alicia Ledlie Brew, senior director of Wal-Mart’s lifelong learning program.

It had several criteria: a program with clear, low pricing (American Public charges $250 a credit hour, a price that has not changed in 10 years, Mr. Boston told the UBS audience); one that was accredited; a college that offered a variety of degrees and course subjects; and one that was used to dealing with adult students.

In a survey of employees, more than two-thirds told Wal-Mart they preferred an online college to a physical one.

  Don't miss out on joining nearly 1,500 of your colleagues and peers at higher education's premier planning event of 2010, SCUP–45. The Society for College and University Planning's 45th annual, international conference and idea marketplace is July 10–14 in Minneapolis!

Here's your SCUP Link to "Keep Students Hooked on Your School"

This is just a really good background piece (Karen West, Today's Campus) on the current status, and many of the current issues, regarding student retention - as the US gears up to graduate many more students by 2020. Rather than our usual quotation of a significant piece of the writing, we felt that a list of headers in the document would be more useful to you. Here they are:

• Everything has changes but the results
• College demographics worth noting
• Hopeful signs upstream
• Dummy down or smarten up?
• Retention Solution - Private College
• Carroll's Ten Retention Factors
• Retention Solutions - Public University
• Retention Solutions - Community College
• Retention measurement: complicated, confusing and essential
• Enter the government and a moving target
• Community colleges are a special case

Don't miss out on joining nearly 1,500 of your colleagues and peers at higher education's premier planning event of 2010, SCUP–45. The Society for College and University Planning's 45th annual, international conference and idea marketplace is July 10–14 in Minneapolis!

Here's your SCUP Link to the initial source of Degrees of Difficulty

On Monday, May 24, USA Today begins a week-long series of video reports on various non-traditional college students. Five students were selected, one to be featured in each video. Background information and links to the videos, as they are released, can be found here.

A video project dubbed "Take America to College" aims to tell the story of today's non-traditional college students in their own words and images.

The project organizers in January put out a casting call and more than 200 nontraditional college students responded by sending in their stories; 78 uploaded audition videos. Five were chosen to represent the millions of students who struggle to complete a college degree. The link to background information and to find the videos as they are available is here.

They are:

• Dennis Medina, a police officer and a night student at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston;

• Kathryn McCormick, a single mom who waitresses 35 hours a week and is enrolled at Valencia Community College in Orlando

• Shane Burrows, who works full-time as a sales assistant while studying at Sierra Community College in Rocklin, Calif.;

• Brandon Krapf, an Iraq war veteran studying at American University in Washington, D.C.;

• Charneé Ball, a Navy veteran, also at Valencia Community College in Orlando

Understanding the Costs of Public Higher Education by Peter McPherson and David Shulenburger

"In the case of higher education costs, diametrically opposed views have persisted over time. Why?"

Paul T. Brinkman and Anthony W. Morgan. 2010. Financial Planning: Strategies and Lessons Learned. Planning for Higher Education. 38(3): 5–14. 

This article is part of a themed issue of SCUP's journal, Planning for Higher Education, focusing on Issues in Higher Education Finance. Click, above, on the journal image to go to this issue's full table of contents or on the article title to go to this specific article.

Abstract - "This article explains the cost of education in public research universities. 'Price,' meaning 'tuition,' is often incorrectly substituted for 'cost,' meaning expenditures by the university that make the education possible. University cost is disaggregated to enable readers to distinguish between the costs associated with providing education to students and the costs of other non-educational activities that tend to produce their own revenue. While tuition has increased rapidly, real cost per student for providing education has been roughly constant for nearly 20 years. Increased revenue from tuition has been almost precisely offset by reduced revenue from state appropriations."

SCUP members were sent a printed copy of this issue, can read the full article on line, and can download a PDF at no additional charge. Nonmembers can purchase a PDF of this article here.

Don't miss out on joining nearly 1,500 of your colleagues and peers at higher education's premier planning event of 2010, SCUP–45. The Society for College and University Planning's 45th annual, international conference and idea marketplace is July 10–14 in Minneapolis!

Here's your SCUP Link on 'Maintenance of Effort' Funding an Issue for Feds and States

What to do when the federal government gives money for higher ed to a state, but then the state turns around and uses that for stopgap, or to underwrite programs in some way that allows the sate to diminish its future funding? 

An emerging policy solution to counter states’ funding cuts to their public higher education systems is the inclusion of “maintenance of effort” (MOE) provisions in federal legislation. These provisions stipulate that the federal government will offer states a financial incentive in exchange for their “maintenance” of a prescribed level of funding “effort.” This reflects a changing dynamic in higher education finance, given that the federal government has not traditionally been involved in efforts to make college affordable, aside from funding federal student aid programs. The use of MOE provisions to protect state appropriations to higher education also establishes federal expectations of states similar to those formed in 1965 with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA); this has proven effective in preventing many states from supplanting state funding commitments to elementary and secondary education.

Don't miss out on joining nearly 1,500 of your colleagues and peers at higher education's premier planning event of 2010, SCUP–45. The Society for College and University Planning's 45th annual, international conference and idea marketplace is July 10–14 in Minneapolis!

Here's your SCUP Link on How to Get 75,000 More Seats in Colleges!

Wick Sloane has good students at Bunker Hill Community College who could get into elite colleges, if only the spots weren't all filled by graduates of elite private high schools. He suggests that, since those elite students get an equivalent of a Bachelor's degree in high school, why not let their elite private high schools issue them with BAs? Thus opening up 75,000 spots for community college grades, like his students.

The outrage is the total feasibility, not the outlandishness, of my bachelor’s proposal. Everyone reading here knows that for these AP high schools a bachelor’s degree reflects the academic achievement of the graduates far more than the high school diploma these students are about to receive. Is this situation just? No way. For the sake of a few thousand students in community colleges, could we at least admit the folly in sending the most fortunate cohort of students to college twice, while millions of others, just as able, may never finish college at all?

It's fine for most kids to go to college, of course, (but) it is not obvious to me that that is the best option for the majority," says Mike Gould, founder of New Futures, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that provides scholarships for low-income students pursuing anything from a four-year degree to a massage-therapy certification. "Some education may be a good thing or it may just be a lot of debt."

The problem, Gould and others say, is that many high schools focus so much on college that low-achieving students fall through the cracks. A Public Agenda report this month raises similar concerns about high school guidance counseling. It follows up on a December survey that concluded most young workers who don't have a college degree "are in their jobs by chance, not by choice," and that guidance toward a career path "is hardly clear and purposeful."

She found that low-income students who are qualified to attend selective schools
(based on their board scores and other measures) have a probability of applying
to such schools of just 8 percent. Once they apply, though, they’re likely to
get in and receive a generous financial aid package — and once they receive
their financial aid packages, they are very likely to enroll. But many such
students may be put off by sticker shock.
“A low-income student who applies
to Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton is not going to pay a dime,” she said,
“but it’s not clear whether that message gets out to them.”