Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are relevant and play an essential part in today's higher education. However, how has the role of HBCUs changed over the past several decades? This month, we had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Alvin Thornton, the Senior Advisor to the President for Academic Affairs at Howard University, who addresses issues related to HBCUs. Dr. Thornton discusses the significant role these institutions have played, and will continue to play, in local communities and higher education communities throughout the United States.
After reading here, we invite you to continue the discussion in our LinkedIn group or follow HigherEd Careers on Twitter.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Fraternity & Sorority Life in 2011
Working in the fraternity and sorority system has numerous rewards, such as fostering a student's academic achievement, helping in their personal growth, and guiding them in their career path, but it can also come with challenges, such as drinking and hazing on campus. Our guest this month, Monica Miranda Smalls, the Director of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs at the University of Rochester, addresses some of the key topics on campus today and tips on enhancing your career in Fraternity and Sorority Affairs. Also discussed in our HigherEd Careers Interview are initiatives taking place in fraternity/sorority life through the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors.
After reading here, we invite you to continue the discussion in our LinkedIn group or follow HigherEd Careers on Twitter.
After reading here, we invite you to continue the discussion in our LinkedIn group or follow HigherEd Careers on Twitter.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Health on Campus What are the issues, services and areas you need to consider?
The daily life of a college student may be filled with numerous tasks, from attending class, studying, socializing, sports, work and often much more. In the hustle and bustle of juggling all of this, health issues may be not always be in the forefront, but are obviously important. In this month's HigherEd Careers interview, we are fortunate to discuss health issues on campus with Michelle Burcin, Director, Healthy Carolina, University of South Carolina, Columbia. She shares her thoughts on top health concerns, from stress, to nutrition, to alcohol and smoking on campus, and offers ideas for staff and faculty on how to recognize and address these issues.
Read more over on the main site: http://bit.ly/hkoWmI
Read more over on the main site: http://bit.ly/hkoWmI
Monday, November 15, 2010
Is Accreditation the Conscience of Higher Education? And Should It Feel Guilty?
Accreditation can be compared to a litmus test for the quality of a higher education institution. Since the facets of accreditation are many -- from legitimizing institutions to determining eligibility for funding -- should it feel guilty about the strong role it plays in quality assurance? This month we talk with Associate Professor, Kevin Kinser, Ph.D., from the University at Albany, State University of New York about the history, current functions, and the future of accreditation in both the nonprofit and for-profit worlds of higher education.
After reading, we invite you to continue the discussion in our LinkedIn group or follow HigherEd Careers on Twitter.
Andrew Hibel, HigherEdJobs: Dr. Kinser, you are an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Policy Studies, University at Albany, State University of New York, studying for-profit education and also accreditation. Would you explain why you chose these areas of higher education to study?
Kevin Kinser, University at Albany, State University of New York: When I was a graduate student in the early 1990s, I heard about this new thing called the World Wide Web that was going to make traditional universities irrelevant. So I guess I thought that studying traditional universities would make me irrelevant. My dissertation was about distance education, and one of the key debates at the time was how to accredit these new models of learning that didn't involve typical student-faculty interaction. Actually, that's still a debate today, it's just now everyone is familiar with the technology. As I continued looking at distance education, the 800 pound gorilla was actually for-profit higher education. One day I drove past a University of Phoenix campus, and decided I would just stop in and see what they were doing. That was in 1999. I ended up doing a case study of the campus and their faculty training model, and that got me very interested in the entire sector. The link, of course, is that not only do for-profits do a lot of distance education, but they pose significant questions for an accreditation system based on peer-review. Like it or not, accredited for-profits are our peers and that has to be part of the conversation.
Hibel: In your recent work published in the ASHE Higher Education Report: From Main Street to Wall Street: The Transformation of For Profit Education,1 you discuss the background and history of accreditation, focusing primarily on for-profit institutions. Firstly, would you please provide an overview of accreditation in general and the purpose behind it?
Kinser: Accreditation in the United States is a form of quality assurance for higher education. It has been around for well over a hundred years, and originally was established as a way to identify which of the many postsecondary institutions in the country should be considered colleges and universities. This early organization explains another key characteristic of accreditation: it's non-governmental, in the sense that it is run by colleges and universities as a voluntary membership organization. In other words, institutions can choose whether or not to be accredited. Now for most institutions, that is meaningless, because without accreditation, they have no access to federal financial aid for their students. So that's another purpose for accreditation -- access to financial aid. Since the 1950s, the federal government has relied on accreditation to determine where students can spend their financial aid money. That has always been a controversial role, and it regularly comes up in critiques of accreditation -- that it is not performing its role as a gatekeeper to financial aid. But historically, that was not why it existed, and as non-governmental bodies, they often have a hard time adapting to a government defined role.
Read more here...http://bit.ly/hZPNgE
After reading, we invite you to continue the discussion in our LinkedIn group or follow HigherEd Careers on Twitter.
Andrew Hibel, HigherEdJobs: Dr. Kinser, you are an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Policy Studies, University at Albany, State University of New York, studying for-profit education and also accreditation. Would you explain why you chose these areas of higher education to study?
Kevin Kinser, University at Albany, State University of New York: When I was a graduate student in the early 1990s, I heard about this new thing called the World Wide Web that was going to make traditional universities irrelevant. So I guess I thought that studying traditional universities would make me irrelevant. My dissertation was about distance education, and one of the key debates at the time was how to accredit these new models of learning that didn't involve typical student-faculty interaction. Actually, that's still a debate today, it's just now everyone is familiar with the technology. As I continued looking at distance education, the 800 pound gorilla was actually for-profit higher education. One day I drove past a University of Phoenix campus, and decided I would just stop in and see what they were doing. That was in 1999. I ended up doing a case study of the campus and their faculty training model, and that got me very interested in the entire sector. The link, of course, is that not only do for-profits do a lot of distance education, but they pose significant questions for an accreditation system based on peer-review. Like it or not, accredited for-profits are our peers and that has to be part of the conversation.
Hibel: In your recent work published in the ASHE Higher Education Report: From Main Street to Wall Street: The Transformation of For Profit Education,1 you discuss the background and history of accreditation, focusing primarily on for-profit institutions. Firstly, would you please provide an overview of accreditation in general and the purpose behind it?
Kinser: Accreditation in the United States is a form of quality assurance for higher education. It has been around for well over a hundred years, and originally was established as a way to identify which of the many postsecondary institutions in the country should be considered colleges and universities. This early organization explains another key characteristic of accreditation: it's non-governmental, in the sense that it is run by colleges and universities as a voluntary membership organization. In other words, institutions can choose whether or not to be accredited. Now for most institutions, that is meaningless, because without accreditation, they have no access to federal financial aid for their students. So that's another purpose for accreditation -- access to financial aid. Since the 1950s, the federal government has relied on accreditation to determine where students can spend their financial aid money. That has always been a controversial role, and it regularly comes up in critiques of accreditation -- that it is not performing its role as a gatekeeper to financial aid. But historically, that was not why it existed, and as non-governmental bodies, they often have a hard time adapting to a government defined role.
Read more here...http://bit.ly/hZPNgE
Monday, October 25, 2010
Student Loans: New Subprime Crisis, High-Risk Business or Changed Industry?
This month we speak to Tim Ranzetta, founder and president of Student Lending Analytics (SLA), about student loan reform and student debt. In the news and on the Senate chamber's floor, the topic of student loan reform and mounting student loan debt has been front and center. The future of higher education and careers in higher education depends greatly on how institutions and Congress handle student loans in the coming years.
After reading, we invite you to continue the discussion in our LinkedIn group or follow HigherEd Careers on Twitter.
Andrew Hibel, HigherEdJobs: There is a lot of concern by higher education professionals and graduating students regarding the increase in student indebtedness. Through your work at Student Lending Analytics (SLA), what can you tell us about this student debt crisis?
Tim Ranzetta, Student Lending Analytics: Here are a few facts to consider: two-thirds of students today graduate with an average of roughly $24,000 worth of student debt. Student loan default rates are about 7 percent, based on Department of Education calculations. Those facts don't appear to represent a crisis, since that $24,000 in loans translates into a little over $200/month payment for 10 years (for a federal Stafford loan).
However, beneath these averages lurk what is a crisis for many. There are $50 billion of federal loans in default where students have not made payments for almost a year. This grew about 16 percent last year. An SLA analysis found that over one-third of borrowers were showing some signs of distress in either being late with their payments or requesting that payments be postponed through a process called forbearance or deferment. Recall also that student loans are generally not dischargeable in bankruptcy and they continue to accrue interest and penalties that often lead to loan balances that are multiples of what the student originally borrowed. A student who has defaulted on their federal student loan has a black mark on their credit that persists and will make it difficult for them to rent an apartment, get a credit card, or even find a job since many employers are reviewing credit reports prior to hiring.
Income-based repayment (IBR), which ties a borrower's monthly student loan payment to their incomes, is a step in the right direction in helping borrowers more effectively manage their federal student debt levels (IBR does not apply to private student loans). On the good news front, young workers with college degrees have unemployment rates about one-half of those that don't have degrees. The bad news is that the job market has been particularly difficult for recent grads since 2008 and lender data shows that 80 percent of defaults typically occur within the first year of repayment so their inability to find a job puts them on that track, unless they take the necessary steps to sign up for IBR (income based repayment) or seek a forbearance or deferment.
Hibel: What does SLA consider as its most crucial mission at this time?
Ranzetta: Our principal mission is to help students and families make better decisions about financing their college education. How do we do this? SLA provides independent analysis of the private student loan market to help students and their families make better borrowing decisions. Private student loans are those "gap" loans that help students pay for school after they have maximized other financial aid and federal loan sources first. SLA provides ratings on each lender, based on in-depth research that includes student surveys, mystery loan shopping, and review of all publicly available information that lenders release (such as SEC filings or conference call transcripts). This site is available at www.studentlendinganalytics.com. Importantly, SLA does not receive any compensation from any financial service firm, which provides us with the independence to "call 'em as we see 'em."
SLA analyzes how student loans are marketed, to highlight potential pitfalls, such as lenders who advertise "rates as low as 3.5 percent." Only a very small percentage of borrowers achieve these low rates, so it can be more productive to focus on the lender's maximum rates. SLA's research also highlights the importance of shopping around for a student loan. When I shopped for loans earlier this year (as a cosigner for a nephew who attends an east coast university), I received rate quotes varying from 6 percent to 12.25 percent. This experience clearly demonstrates how a wise consumer can save thousands of dollars by shopping around.
Finally, my experience over the last three years in analyzing the student loan markets has demonstrated to me the importance of improving financial literacy. SLA has gradually moved in the direction of providing more research in this area. I publish a blog that often covers topics such as credit cards, student loans, and the importance of credit scores, and I also do an annual survey on college financial literacy programs. There is no shortage of financial literacy programs out there (some popular websites have hundreds of links and every financial institution seems to offer a program) -- what is missing is a service that highlights those programs that are most effective at improving the link between financial education and financial decision-making. I look forward to playing a role in separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to these financial literacy programs.
Read more here...http://bit.ly/d8aUyp
After reading, we invite you to continue the discussion in our LinkedIn group or follow HigherEd Careers on Twitter.
Andrew Hibel, HigherEdJobs: There is a lot of concern by higher education professionals and graduating students regarding the increase in student indebtedness. Through your work at Student Lending Analytics (SLA), what can you tell us about this student debt crisis?
Tim Ranzetta, Student Lending Analytics: Here are a few facts to consider: two-thirds of students today graduate with an average of roughly $24,000 worth of student debt. Student loan default rates are about 7 percent, based on Department of Education calculations. Those facts don't appear to represent a crisis, since that $24,000 in loans translates into a little over $200/month payment for 10 years (for a federal Stafford loan).
However, beneath these averages lurk what is a crisis for many. There are $50 billion of federal loans in default where students have not made payments for almost a year. This grew about 16 percent last year. An SLA analysis found that over one-third of borrowers were showing some signs of distress in either being late with their payments or requesting that payments be postponed through a process called forbearance or deferment. Recall also that student loans are generally not dischargeable in bankruptcy and they continue to accrue interest and penalties that often lead to loan balances that are multiples of what the student originally borrowed. A student who has defaulted on their federal student loan has a black mark on their credit that persists and will make it difficult for them to rent an apartment, get a credit card, or even find a job since many employers are reviewing credit reports prior to hiring.
Income-based repayment (IBR), which ties a borrower's monthly student loan payment to their incomes, is a step in the right direction in helping borrowers more effectively manage their federal student debt levels (IBR does not apply to private student loans). On the good news front, young workers with college degrees have unemployment rates about one-half of those that don't have degrees. The bad news is that the job market has been particularly difficult for recent grads since 2008 and lender data shows that 80 percent of defaults typically occur within the first year of repayment so their inability to find a job puts them on that track, unless they take the necessary steps to sign up for IBR (income based repayment) or seek a forbearance or deferment.
Hibel: What does SLA consider as its most crucial mission at this time?
Ranzetta: Our principal mission is to help students and families make better decisions about financing their college education. How do we do this? SLA provides independent analysis of the private student loan market to help students and their families make better borrowing decisions. Private student loans are those "gap" loans that help students pay for school after they have maximized other financial aid and federal loan sources first. SLA provides ratings on each lender, based on in-depth research that includes student surveys, mystery loan shopping, and review of all publicly available information that lenders release (such as SEC filings or conference call transcripts). This site is available at www.studentlendinganalytics.com. Importantly, SLA does not receive any compensation from any financial service firm, which provides us with the independence to "call 'em as we see 'em."
SLA analyzes how student loans are marketed, to highlight potential pitfalls, such as lenders who advertise "rates as low as 3.5 percent." Only a very small percentage of borrowers achieve these low rates, so it can be more productive to focus on the lender's maximum rates. SLA's research also highlights the importance of shopping around for a student loan. When I shopped for loans earlier this year (as a cosigner for a nephew who attends an east coast university), I received rate quotes varying from 6 percent to 12.25 percent. This experience clearly demonstrates how a wise consumer can save thousands of dollars by shopping around.
Finally, my experience over the last three years in analyzing the student loan markets has demonstrated to me the importance of improving financial literacy. SLA has gradually moved in the direction of providing more research in this area. I publish a blog that often covers topics such as credit cards, student loans, and the importance of credit scores, and I also do an annual survey on college financial literacy programs. There is no shortage of financial literacy programs out there (some popular websites have hundreds of links and every financial institution seems to offer a program) -- what is missing is a service that highlights those programs that are most effective at improving the link between financial education and financial decision-making. I look forward to playing a role in separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to these financial literacy programs.
Read more here...http://bit.ly/d8aUyp
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Online Learning and the World of For Profit Education
Is online learning the wave of the future? How are proprietary institutions different than traditional universities? What is all the recent press regarding for-profit institutions? The answers to these questions, the addressing of misconceptions and much more are discussed in this month's conversation with Gary E. McCullough, the President and CEO of Career Education Corporation. The colleges, schools and universities that are part of the Career Education Corporation offer education to over 116,000 students across the world in a variety of career-oriented disciplines. We examine the aspects of online education and for-profit education and how it affects students, faculty and administrators in today's market.
After reading, we invite you to continue the discussion in our LinkedIn group or follow HigherEd Careers on Twitter.
Andrew Hibel, HigherEdJobs: Mr. McCullough, you are currently the President and CEO of Career Education Corporation. Prior to joining the company, you served in leadership roles in traditional Fortune 500 companies. What prompted you to make the switch to the world of higher education?1
Gary E. McCullough, Career Education Corporation: When I was first approached about the CEO position at Career Education Corporation, I was skeptical about proprietary education. So I did some homework, which included my own "mystery shopping" of schools. I posed as a parent of a prospective student and had a very positive experience. That convinced me to leave the security of what I was doing and join Career Education. I appreciate the challenge of helping our company evolve as a true leader in postsecondary education. Most importantly, it's tremendously rewarding to see how we're changing lives through education.
Hibel: As mentioned in Career Education Corporation's background statement on your website, over 40% of your students attend web-based virtual campuses.2 Why do you think it is so important to offer this option to students?
McCullough: It's a challenging economy and most adults recognize the need to stay current, whether their field is accounting, information technology, health care, business or education. Today, for many people it is simply not an option to take a leave of absence or quit a job to complete a degree. People have commitments, whether at work or at home caring for children or other family members.
Online education provides busy people the convenience and flexibility of a 24/7 platform for learning. The majority of our students are working adults over 30 who have returned to school to get a degree to help advance or change their careers. They appreciate the opportunity to receive an education while balancing family and work. It is our responsibility to meet their needs by delivering high-quality education.
Read more here...http://bit.ly/dB5XJx
After reading, we invite you to continue the discussion in our LinkedIn group or follow HigherEd Careers on Twitter.
Andrew Hibel, HigherEdJobs: Mr. McCullough, you are currently the President and CEO of Career Education Corporation. Prior to joining the company, you served in leadership roles in traditional Fortune 500 companies. What prompted you to make the switch to the world of higher education?1
Gary E. McCullough, Career Education Corporation: When I was first approached about the CEO position at Career Education Corporation, I was skeptical about proprietary education. So I did some homework, which included my own "mystery shopping" of schools. I posed as a parent of a prospective student and had a very positive experience. That convinced me to leave the security of what I was doing and join Career Education. I appreciate the challenge of helping our company evolve as a true leader in postsecondary education. Most importantly, it's tremendously rewarding to see how we're changing lives through education.
Hibel: As mentioned in Career Education Corporation's background statement on your website, over 40% of your students attend web-based virtual campuses.2 Why do you think it is so important to offer this option to students?
McCullough: It's a challenging economy and most adults recognize the need to stay current, whether their field is accounting, information technology, health care, business or education. Today, for many people it is simply not an option to take a leave of absence or quit a job to complete a degree. People have commitments, whether at work or at home caring for children or other family members.
Online education provides busy people the convenience and flexibility of a 24/7 platform for learning. The majority of our students are working adults over 30 who have returned to school to get a degree to help advance or change their careers. They appreciate the opportunity to receive an education while balancing family and work. It is our responsibility to meet their needs by delivering high-quality education.
Read more here...http://bit.ly/dB5XJx
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Cachet of Cool: Why Your Campus Wants It?
This month, we speak to three experts on the topic of "cool." How can an institution's image impact faculty recruiting? The panel is comprised of Paul Baldasare, President of St. Andrews Presbyterian College, a small liberal arts college in Laurinburg, North Carolina; Jason Cook, Vice-President of Communications and Marketing for the Texas A&M University System, a large research university with tens of thousands of students all across the state of Texas; and Tom Gariepy, District Director of Marketing and Communications for Maricopa Community Colleges, which has ten campuses with nearly 250,000 students.
After reading, we invite you to continue the discussion in our LinkedIn group or follow HigherEd Careers on Twitter.
Questions to All Three Schools:
Andrew Hibel, HigherEdJobs: When considering your school's brand or image within professional circles, what do you try to highlight?
Paul Baldasare, St. Andrews Presbyterian College: I highlight three qualities that are related to one another -- academic excellence, creative exploration, and the value of community. First and foremost, we strive to maintain academic excellence in all that we do, from the professional qualifications of our faculty, to the expectations and demands we place on our students and on one another. With that commitment to excellence paramount, we also encourage and celebrate creative exploration so that faculty and students feel free to study outside their disciplines as broadly as within it; to take advantage of different opportunities, whether attending or participating in a theater production, a musical event, or a sporting event; and to put forward new ideas. We want faculty and students to be analytically critical when listening to a lecture, reading in an area that may not seem at first glance to connect to their primary areas of interest, or simply solving a problem in the classroom, in a residence hall, in a faculty meeting, or in the president's office. There are no ideas beyond consideration and discussion.
Our first response to a new idea is to analyze it. If it seems like a good idea, then the second response is to think about how we might make it work. And here, a good idea from a junior faculty member is treated with the same seriousness as a good idea from a senior faculty member. It's the idea that matters, not the rank of the person proposing it. Finally, our hope is that all of the members of this academic community will be intentional about living and working creatively and cooperatively in this academic community.
We like to think of St. Andrews as "a college where you can..." There are too many places where the greater emphasis is on what you "can't" -- you can't focus on teaching or student advising the way you might want to, you can't develop new courses as easily as you'd like, you can't go a year without a publication, you can't teach an interdisciplinary general education course, and so on. Our ideal is a place where people, opportunities, connections and experiences all come together -- for students as well as faculty members -- to create an exciting, enriching intellectual environment.
Jason Cook, Texas A&M University System: The combination of world-class academics (teaching and research) and our overwhelming spirit of purpose, leadership and service. Typically, universities are strong at one or the other. Here at Texas A&M, we believe that we are strong in both areas.
Tom Gariepy, Maricopa Community Colleges: In terms of the professional circles from which we can attract talented prospective employees, it's important that prospective employees know as much as possible about our mission, vision and values to ensure the best fit possible. So we try to ensure that people know about our emphasis on teaching, learning and student success. We also highlight our size and the fact that each of our colleges has its own proud history and strong ties to its community.
Read more here...http://bit.ly/hyrbOm
After reading, we invite you to continue the discussion in our LinkedIn group or follow HigherEd Careers on Twitter.
Questions to All Three Schools:
Andrew Hibel, HigherEdJobs: When considering your school's brand or image within professional circles, what do you try to highlight?
Paul Baldasare, St. Andrews Presbyterian College: I highlight three qualities that are related to one another -- academic excellence, creative exploration, and the value of community. First and foremost, we strive to maintain academic excellence in all that we do, from the professional qualifications of our faculty, to the expectations and demands we place on our students and on one another. With that commitment to excellence paramount, we also encourage and celebrate creative exploration so that faculty and students feel free to study outside their disciplines as broadly as within it; to take advantage of different opportunities, whether attending or participating in a theater production, a musical event, or a sporting event; and to put forward new ideas. We want faculty and students to be analytically critical when listening to a lecture, reading in an area that may not seem at first glance to connect to their primary areas of interest, or simply solving a problem in the classroom, in a residence hall, in a faculty meeting, or in the president's office. There are no ideas beyond consideration and discussion.
Our first response to a new idea is to analyze it. If it seems like a good idea, then the second response is to think about how we might make it work. And here, a good idea from a junior faculty member is treated with the same seriousness as a good idea from a senior faculty member. It's the idea that matters, not the rank of the person proposing it. Finally, our hope is that all of the members of this academic community will be intentional about living and working creatively and cooperatively in this academic community.
We like to think of St. Andrews as "a college where you can..." There are too many places where the greater emphasis is on what you "can't" -- you can't focus on teaching or student advising the way you might want to, you can't develop new courses as easily as you'd like, you can't go a year without a publication, you can't teach an interdisciplinary general education course, and so on. Our ideal is a place where people, opportunities, connections and experiences all come together -- for students as well as faculty members -- to create an exciting, enriching intellectual environment.
Jason Cook, Texas A&M University System: The combination of world-class academics (teaching and research) and our overwhelming spirit of purpose, leadership and service. Typically, universities are strong at one or the other. Here at Texas A&M, we believe that we are strong in both areas.
Tom Gariepy, Maricopa Community Colleges: In terms of the professional circles from which we can attract talented prospective employees, it's important that prospective employees know as much as possible about our mission, vision and values to ensure the best fit possible. So we try to ensure that people know about our emphasis on teaching, learning and student success. We also highlight our size and the fact that each of our colleges has its own proud history and strong ties to its community.
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