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