There are an estimated 37 million Americans who have some college credit but no degree — and Western Governors University is trying to change that. The nonprofit online school is challenging many traditional concepts about higher education with a new approach aimed to help adult students finish college.
And after 15 years in existence, the school is catching on.
Workers are dropping out of the labor force in droves, and they are mostly women. In fact, many are young women. But they are not dropping out forever; instead, these young women seem to be postponing their working lives to get more education. There are now — for the first time in three decades — more young women in school than in the work force.
Prospective college students who have begun the search for their future home may take many factors into account: academic prestige, retention rates, and tuition, to name a few. Life outside of the classroom is an important aspect of the college experience, too, and many students desire a university with a vibrant winter atmosphere—and a lot of snow.
“The snow is beautiful and it adds variety,” says Arielle Brill, a senior at the University of Colorado—Boulder. “I love that I get to do things outside [during the winter] that my friends in Florida can’t do.”
It takes time to learn all the skills needed to be a successful founder, but there are low-cost shortcuts available, including MIT’s new online certificate program.
…Trying and failing at starter businesses is one way, so is going back to school for an expensive degree, but now there’s another lower-cost option to learn useful stuff, courtesy of MIT. The world-class science and tech school just launched a certificate program that lets members of the public get a piece of an MIT education online for next to nothing.
Business leaders depend on community colleges to offer work-force training, but high unemployment and state budget cuts have made it harder for the sector to do that work. That’s the message of a report released on Wednesday by the Education Policy Center at the University of Alabama.
Most American college students are wrapping up yet another semester this week. For many of them, and their families, the past months or years in school have likely involved considerable time, commitment, effort and expense. Was it worth it?
Some evidence suggests that it was. A Pew Research survey this year found that 74 percent of graduates from four-year colleges say that their education was “very useful in helping them grow intellectually.” Sixty-nine percent said that “it was very useful in helping them grow and mature as a person” and 55 percent claimed that “it was very useful in helping prepare them for a job or career.” Moreover, 86 percent of these graduates think “college has been a good investment for them personally.”
It’s getting more difficult for low-income students to climb the economic ladder as the college graduation gap between the rich and poor grows.
While more students from all backgrounds are finishing college, the difference in graduation rates between the top and bottom income groups has widened by nearly 50% over two decades.
College finals week can throw even the most seasoned of college students for a loop. No matter how many times you’ve been through it, finals week is still a major pain in the brain. What is supposed to be the last lap of the semester often turns into a sleep-deprived, caffeine-fueled, stress-inducing cram fest.
While it’s quite a challenge to turn college finals week into something good, with a little planning it can at least be turned into something manageable. Here are some tips:
