THE HIGH SCHOOL BLOG

Reported by Brandi Grissom - El Paso Times

Fewer El Paso students would be eligible for a college grant program under recommendations in a report the state’s higher education board is set to adopt Thursday, a report some lawmakers said will hurt poor and minority students.
“The solution is to fund the program, not make it harder to get a grant,” said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which oversees public universities and community colleges, will hear a report at its meeting Thursday that outlines ways the state could restructure the Toward Excellence, Access and Success, or TEXAS, Grant program.

The report recommends, among other things, increasing academic eligibility requirements for students to obtain TEXAS grants. But Shapleigh and state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said higher education officials should be asking lawmakers to invest more money in the program, not to shrink the pool of students eligible.

Under the recommendations, Shapleigh said, about 20 percent of the students at the University of Texas at El Paso who received the TEXAS Grant last year would have been ineligible for the program.  For the rest of the story, click here.

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Filed under: Financial Aid for Students, Statehouse briefs, Students

Reported by Amy Rolph in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

University of Washington President Mark Emmert wants to expand the university’s freshman enrollment by 1,700 students over the next decade, a plan he says will help temper the university’s increasingly competitive admissions process.

The UW turned away almost 8,000 of 20,000 freshman applicants to its Seattle campus this spring, though the university enrolled its largest freshman class to date. In a statement Thursday, Emmert said there weren’t enough enrollment slots to accommodate every qualified applicant.

“Although we enrolled a record number of students this past spring, we also had to turn away many other qualified students, particularly those applying directly from high school,” he said. “This plan will help address this problem.”  For the rest of the story, click here.

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Filed under: 11th Graders, 12th Graders, Admissions info, Campus Briefs, Future Transfer students, Reecy Reports, Students

I’m proud to announce that a long term dream will finally come to fruition on July 20th at 10:00 am (EDT).  I will be hosting Pay Less For College, a 30 minute call in show that I will make as informative and entertaining as possible.  The show will be brought to you live and will be streaming on the Internet at www.wnjc1360.com.  Shows wll be archived on my website, www.paylessforcollege.com  We plan to have entertaining guests as well.  Listeners can call 856-227-1360 to ask any college admissions and/or financial aid questions.  I welcome all callers.  Talk to you soon!

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Filed under: 10th Graders, 11th Graders, 12th Graders, 8th Graders, 9th Graders, Admissions info, Financial Aid for Parents, Financial Aid for Students, Future Transfer students, Reecy Reports

FL Intn’l raised tuition a total of 15% for school year 2008-2009.  Mostly freshmen and sophomores will get hit with this double increase.  Students with Prepaid tuition plans will be exempt - whew!

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Filed under: 11th Graders, 12th Graders, Campus Briefs, Future Transfer students, Reecy Reports, Tuition Updates

Reported by Scott Travis - South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Florida is the first state to experiment with this system and 9 former community colleges will now be offering 4-year degrees in addition to an AA or AS.  They are: Chipola College, Mariana; Daytona Beach State College; Edison College, Ft. Myers; Indian River State College, Ft. Pierce; Miami Dade College; Okaloosa-Walton College, Niceville; Polk Community College, Winter Haven; Santa Fe College, Gainesville; St. Petersburg College.

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Filed under: 11th Graders, 12th Graders, Admissions info, Campus Briefs, Future Transfer students

Published in the Ada Evening News

Monday is the last chance for students who just completed their sophomore year in high school to enroll in the Oklahoma’s Promise scholarship program that will pay their college tuition for five years after they graduate from high school.

Students must enroll in Oklahoma’s Promise during their eighth-, ninth, or 10th-grade year. The scholarship program cannot accept applications for the 2007-2008 school year after June 30. Therefore, students who just finished their 10th-grade year will not be eligible to enroll after the deadline Monday.

The Oklahoma’s Promise scholarship covers college tuition for up to five years at any public college or university in the state.  For the rest of the story, click here.

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Filed under: 10th Graders, 11th Graders, 9th Graders, Financial Aid for Students, Students

Big Blue is raising tuition and fees for the fall by 5.6%.  Surely they’re not strapped for cash, but c’est la vie!

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Filed under: 12th Graders, Campus Briefs, Financial Aid for Parents, Financial Aid for Students, Future Transfer students, Reecy Reports

This is a group of prestigious schools who admit students solely on a need-blind basis.  These colleges include:

Amherst College
Boston College
Brown University
Claremont McKenna College
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Davidson College
Duke University
Emory University
Georgetown University
Haverford College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Middlebury College
Northwestern University
Pomona College
Rice University
Swarthmore College
University of Chicago
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania
University of Rochester
Vanderbilt University
Wake Forest University
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College

For more information on The 568 Group, click here.

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Filed under: 11th Graders, 12th Graders, Admissions info, Campus Briefs, Reecy Reports

Reported by Amy Rolph - Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The University of Washington Board of Regents approved two controversial changes for the state’s flagship university Thursday — one that will have some students reaching deeper into their wallets and another that already has divided faculty in science departments.

The regents voted to raise tuition 7 percent for most students starting this fall — an increase of more than $400. They also decided to move forward with the creation of a College of the Environment, an umbrellalike school that would group existing science-related programs that deal with environmental issues.

The tuition increase was predictable, given the university’s history of similar increases.

Approval of the environmental college wasn’t quite so certain. Though students still will be able to earn degrees from the schools that exist under the College of the Environment banner, several schools that would be included in the college have opposed the plan.  For the rest of the story, click here.

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Filed under: 11th Graders, 12th Graders, Statehouse briefs

Reported by Janet Frankston Lorin - Bloomberg

A U.S. program to support college lenders is ensuring that students will get the government-backed financial aid they need for the 2008-2009 academic year, after a seizure in the credit markets threatened the flow of funding.

At Michigan State University in East Lansing, 6,042 students have received $26 million in federally guaranteed loans since early May, said Val Meyers, associate director of financial aid, in an interview on June 6. SLM Corp., the largest U.S. provider of education loans, said yesterday it is committed to providing aid to “every eligible” applicant this year.

Financing obtained for summer classes and reassurances from lenders have made college administrators confident that students won’t be denied funds, said Judith Carter, financial aid director at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Aid officers at Fordham University in New York, Trinity University in Washington, and Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, also said in interviews that they anticipate no shortage of money even after dozens of private companies abandoned the business this year.  For the rest of the story, click here.

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Filed under: 12th Graders, Capitol Hill, Financial Aid for Students