We were overwhelmed this year with the number of quality applications for our Blogging Scholarship. Instead of racking our brains trying to narrow it down to 10 finalists, we decided having 20 finalists was a better option for all those involved.

Here they are, in no particular order:

• Chris Clark
• Randall Booth
• Paul Stamatiou
• Shelley Batts
• Jess Kim
• Kambiz Kamrani
• Kimberley Klein
• Anders Ibsen
• Matthew Burden
• Karin Dalziel
• Liz Funk
• Samuel Arbesman
• Travis Addington
• Grant Brisbee
• Amanda Kern
• Shane Lavalette
• Stephanie Collins
• Sean Clark
• Thomas Peters
• Kevin Lim

Now go cast your vote!

The Undercurrent in Undergraduate Education

As exciting as college prep can be, there is an alarming undercurrent that threatens almost half the population of incoming freshman—attrition. How do colleges and universities keep disillusioned students from dropping out?

The number of college freshman dropouts is typically cited between 1 in 4 or 1 in 5, with some sources positing arguments that nearly half of all college students fail to graduate. Surveys of high school students show no lack of interest for a college degree, in fact 95% of high school students when asked about college indicated a “very strong desire” to complete a degree program.¹ If only a fraction of those respondents actually earns a degree, then what happened to change their attitude and/or desire?

A complex array of contributory factors may be to blame, and a growing stable of remedies offered for their cure. But what are the fundamental causal factors of college freshmen attrition and how can they be more directly halted?

High School Grads Poorly Prepared for Campus Challenges

High schools are generally motivated to make sure students go to college. The drive to go to college has little to do with the success rates of students, however. In fact, a mountain of research clearly illustrates that the motivation to excel in college has little to do with the reality of contemporary campus living. The real meat of the drop out problem is the academic preparation, or lack thereof, that students receive prior to arrival on campus.

High School Seniors that “Blow Off” School Likely to Suffer on Campus

A common practice among high school seniors is to take that last year as easy as possible, blow it off, waste it in easy courses. Perhaps this worked, once upon a time, but today’s high school senior slumming it his or her last year is doing more harm than good, report most studies.² College advisers these days urge high school seniors to avoid “resting on their laurels,” and instead spend their senior year immersed in courses that pose academic challenge. This is the best method for college prep, say administrators. A Department of Education study proved the importance of academic challenge in regards to college performance:

“…the academic intensity of a student’s high school course work was the top factor influencing whether students earned a college degree — more than family income, high school grades, ethnicity or test scores.”³

Even for students that work very hard and then take it easy their final year of high school the odds are not so good. This is a wasted year, time in which every bit of a student’s good work can be undone. Given the fact that studies show students lose learned knowledge over the course of a summer break, it’s understandable how they could become quite academically bankrupt, after a full year of cushy coursework and time off from serious studies. Their GPAs are still high, but academic agility is low.

High School Students Fail New College Admissions Standards

College admissions standards have also become a major hurdle to clear for students. Add on a “lost” year of academics and students that for all intents and purposes should be college-ready, are unable to make the academic cut. Colorado State University system’s administrators decided, out of sheer necessity, to ease new admissions requirements for incoming freshman in the Fall of 2007, or risk losing about 20% of their incoming freshman class.⁴

Why the Strong Desire to Go to College?

Problem: 95% of high school students expect to earn a college degree and indicate a strong desire for the same, but, regardless, more and more incoming college freshman are disastrously unprepared and unmotivated to achieve that goal. What, then, drives them in herds onto America’s campuses every fall?

Those same student respondents that expressed the “of course” attitudes about college, also responded that their primary motivators for pursuing college were: good job, good salary.⁵ Somewhere between the illusion of the American Dream and a Bachelors degree lies the truth. Do students simply expect to earn a degree with little work? It makes sense that students whose educational experiences up through secondary school have been somewhat boring, unchallenging and downright lackluster, may expect that their college experience will be similar. Given this illusion, then of course, most students see a college degree in their future, and are justifiably caught very off guard when their first semester of college rolls around and kicks them squarely between the eyes.

What High-Performing High Schools Know That Others Don’t

Samples of select high school teaching methods and policies, chosen for their success rates with college-ready students, reveal fundamental strategies that consistently nurture college campus-ready high school students:

• High quality, experienced, and flexible teachers.
• Teachers capable of evaluating the teaching-learning paradigm and prepared to adjust techniques given the results.
• Auxiliary mentors, tutors, and after school study assistance, available and engaged.
• Advanced college preparatory coursework “beyond state and district standards.”⁶

Any suggestion from naysayers that these methods would fail in certain high schools is moot– these methods belong to and were observed in practice in a handful of “high-performing” schools in high minority, high poverty areas. Which means, essentially, that if these methods work to develop the skills of high school students in disadvantaged schools, they should work in almost any high school in America. Furthermore, the study that distilled these findings was ultimately presented as a primer for education lawmakers.⁷

Some Students Face Deeper Challenges on Campus

Academic shortcomings notwithstanding, there are student populations that statistically struggle even harder.

Why First Generation Students Face Further Adversity

First-generation college students, especially minorities, face challenges stemming first and foremost from lack of familial support. In fact, the majority of ethnic minority students rate “parental influence” as a number one factor in their “educational choices.”⁸ This is not to say that parents do not want a college education for their children, but parents without experience of academic life beyond high school are less prepared to provide the emotional and psychological support and motivation necessary to keep their first-in-family student on campus. These types of students may also feel disenfranchised from higher education, and out of place with students whose families take college as a matter of course.

Male Freshman May Struggle with College Structure

Males are, on the average, less agile than their female counterparts when it comes to standardizing their on-campus lives, including organizational skills, prioritization and time management, and defining successful study habits and methods. Course assignments tend to fall behind and concrete goals are elusive. When these factors fall apart or are non-existent, males may be unable to remain academically buoyant, further supporting the alarming statistics: for every 100 women that graduate college, only 73 men will do the same.⁹

If so many college freshmen are surprised by the rigors of college academics—in combination with the traditional transition to campus life—that they are at risk for dropping out, then what’s being done to change the freshman experience?

Since America’s high schools are failing to adequately renovate curriculum or recruit (and pay for) the type of teachers necessary to maintain a high-performing program, then it must become the responsibility of colleges and universities to provide the necessary student support.

Freshman Survival: Retention Programs Stem Anxiety

Some college and university administrators are quite concerned that the drop out rate among college freshman is their responsibility. In response, retention programs have begun to spring up. Whether grassroots, campus-created, or pre-packaged Freshmen Survival courses administered by professional educational coaches, retention programs essentially guide students with bumpy campus transitions and connect them to the resources—academic, social, religious, medical, financial—they will need to succeed on campus.

Preparedness for college life goes well beyond the pale of sheer academics. Fueling the need for transition programs. High school students are equally unprepared for the responsibilities of a more “adult” world. Common challenges that await freshman on traditional college campuses:

• Financial matters
• Study and time management
• Personal organization and prioritization

“Give Them Time, They’ll Find Their Way Around”

Students most likely to drop out do so before they reach their sophomore year. Some leave for holiday breaks, Spring Breaks, and summer vacation, and never return, some with little indication they are leaving. The general excitement about college quickly wanes, but many administrators still believe much of the work is done once kids are on campus. As bright an idea as retention programs seem, they are only being used on a fraction of America’s campuses—29%.¹⁰

Factors in College Retention: What Programs Can Be Put in Place to Help Students?

Over the last few years college administrators, as well as students, have tackled the issues inherent to student retention. A large number of colleges and universities of all kinds, collectively assigned the following practices as primary in retention programs:¹¹

• Freshman seminars and courses.
• Academic assistance, from mentors and tutors to remedial courses.
• Available advisors willing to engage with students and offer sooner-than-later guidance on academic goals.

Alternative indicators suggest that there are other factors that make a difference in student engagement and transition:

• Evidence suggests that students with campus-based jobs are less likely to drop out. Perhaps they are more disciplined with study skills and time management.¹²
• Remediation programs, or high school level courses that help bring students up to speed with essential freshman courses. Remedial coursework remains popular in community college systems, a controversial issue in higher education, but possibly a strong reason why an increasing number of students are opting for 2+2 programs, or community college to four-year transfer programs. Some supporters of remedial programs insist the concept must be accepted among four-year colleges, as well, to stem the dropout rate or discourage transfers to community colleges.¹³
• Available advisers are seen by students as “concerned person[s] in the campus community” able to interact and connect with freshman. Student responses have suggested this type of “quality interaction” may be one of the simplest solutions for new students away from home for the first time and feeling lost in the shuffle.¹⁴

Retention Tools

Colleges and universities unable to design and develop their own retention programs may utilize pre-packaged programs or resources from a number of providers:

• Of the 29% of schools that have retention programs, 13¹⁵ so far participate in the “Foundations of Excellence in the First College Year.” Policy Center on the First Year of College administers this program with a mission to inspire college and university campuses to become “engaging” environments for first year students. With tools provided through the Foundations of Excellence program, institutions may conduct careful self-assessment of all aspects of campus life, including “policies and practices.” Eventually changes are developed—the outcome, a totally synthesized campus that embraces first year students and their experiences, instead of excluding and isolating.
• The National Resource Center for the First Year Experience and Students in Transition provides written materials, seminars, conferences, and networking opportunities for institutions interested in creating a “first year experience” worth hanging around to savor. The Center is best known for its University 101 course, an innovative and very successful program that guides new students in their shift to campus life.
• The Center for the Study of College Student Retention provides a stable of resources for institutions. Administrators have access to research specific to the issues, as well as a general guide designed to lead any institution through development of a retention program.

High Dollar Freshman “Coaches” Hit a Mother Lode

Plenty of lip service is paid to for-profit “coaching” services prior to college—professional assistance with admissions forms, guidance during college and financial aid processes, as well as scholarship and grant assistance. But some colleges and universities are paying top dollar for another kind of coaching service—retention coaches.

First year coaches function as a freshman’s guardian angel; they provide motivation when students feel down, guidance in mapping academic goals, and offer tips and advice for improving study habits, managing time, coexisting with roommates, and building successful relationships with campus faculty and advisers.¹⁶

A mere handful of student coaching businesses exist, but plenty more are sure to follow—the money making potential is great and this segment of the education market, so far untapped. But with service fees of “$800 to $1,400 per student”¹⁷, what colleges and universities are paying? Apparently, plenty.

Freshman Attrition: No Easy Answer

Given the disparity of issues facing contemporary college freshmen, it’s clear there is no one easy answer to halt freshman dropouts. Students begin their college careers with little understanding of the impending rigors. Apparently high schools, save for a few high-performers, dish up less than desirable college preparatory curriculum. Admission to a college would also seem to validate a students’ academic record, but this is misleading, as well.

Retention programs are likely to continue spreading among college campuses; they must. Sources suggest that the federal government may soon challenge higher education on the dropout issue, perhaps with fines for high numbers of students that fail to make it to graduation.

First year on campus, given all the factors at work, is a tricky balancing act. Groundwork for first year transitions must be built. On the other end of the spectrum, is it just a dream that U.S. high school education will make the sweeping changes necessary to lead kids to college level academics; to inspire them as opposed to bore them?

¹ National Freshman Attitudes Report, Noel-Levitz, 2007, accessed August 30, 2007,

² Perez, Gayle, “Educators Support Temporary Lower Admissions Standards,” August 17, 2007, accessed August 27, 2007, http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1187335298/6.

³ “Study: One in Five Drop Out of College Before Sophomore Year,” Albany Democrat-Herald, February 21, 2006, accessed August 27, 2007, http://www.democratherald.com/articles/2006/02/21/news/oregon/state03.txt

⁴ “Study: One in Five Drop Out of College Before Sophomore Year,” Albany Democrat-Herald, February 21, 2006, accessed August 27, 2007, http://www.democratherald.com/articles/2006/02/21/news/oregon/state03.txt

⁵ National Freshman Attitudes Report, Noel-Levitz.

⁶ “Preparing All High School Students for College and Work: What High-Performing Schools are Teaching,” ACT, February 23, 2005, accessed August 30, 2007, http://www.act.org/news/releases/2005/2-23-05.html .

⁷ Implications for Policymakers, ACT, 2005, accessed August 30, 2007, http://www.act.org/path/policy/pdf/success_implications.pdf.

⁸ Szelenyi, Katalin, “Minority Student Retention and Academic Achievement in Community Colleges,” 2004, accessed August 29, 2007, http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-4/minority.html .

⁹ National Freshman Attitudes Report, Noel-Levitz.

¹⁰ Draeger, Justin, “An Examination of First-Year College Students,” NASFAA, 2007, accessed August 26, 2007, http://www.nasfaa.org/publications/2007/examinationoffirst-yearcollegestudents.html .

¹¹ Wesley Habley, Randy McClanahan, What Works in Student Retention? All Survey Colleges, ACT, 2004, accessed August 30, 2007, http://www.act.org/path/postsec/droptables/pdf/AllColleges.pdf .

¹² Cermak, Katherine, “On-Campus Employment as a Factor of Student Retention and Graduation,” DePaul University, February 19, 2004, accessed August 26, 2007, http://oipr.depaul.edu/open/gradereten/oce.asp .

¹³ Gehrman, Elizabeth, “What Makes Kids Drop Out of College?” Harvard University Gazette, May 4, 2006, accessed August 26, 2007, http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/05.04/13-dropout.html

¹⁴ “Many U.S. Colleges Overlooking a Potential Cure for College Dropouts,” ACT News, June 23, 2004, accessed August 26, 2007, http://www.act.org/news/releases/2004/6-23-04.html .

¹⁵ “MSU Fights to Retain Freshman Students,” KFYR-TV, August 21, 2007, accessed August 26, 2007, http://www.kfyrtv.com/News_Stories.asp?news=9751 .

¹⁶ DeBare, Ilana, “Executive Style Coaches Put College Students on Track to Success,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 19, 2007, accessed August 26, 2007, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/19/BU2QRJB29.DTL .

¹⁷ DeBare, “Executive Style Coaches Put College Students on Track to Success.”

We have only been notified of a couple submissions for our web design scholarship. Hoping to give more students a chance to discover this opportunity to win $5,000 we have extended the entry deadline until Saturday, August 18th. Please help out by doing one of the following

• applying
• telling any friends that might be interested in applying
• mentioning it on your site if your readers would be interested in applying

Congrats Jerid Kurtz!!!

Political Blogging Scholarship finalists:

• Jerid Kurtz (Democrat)
• Denis Ambrose (Republican)
• Garrett O’Hara (Non-Affiliated)

Voting will start shortly! (check back around 1pm eastern)

If you haven’t been paying attention, Affirmative Action is under fire in the college/university realm. At the epicenter is Michigan, which has recently passed a proposition—a.k.a. the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative,—a la California’s Proposition 209 passed in 1996. California’s landmark law made it illegal for state colleges and universities, as well as any other public institution, to consider college admissions and financial aid on the basis of gender, color, race, creed or nationality.

But for the last few decades that is exactly how colleges and universities have diversified. The last decade itself saw scads of science, engineering and technology (SET) scholarships targeted specifically and unabashedly to minorities and women. If you listen to such watch-dog organizations as the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) then you will likely be influenced to believe that higher education is now turned on its ear racially. Others argue for the gender side—white males are a minority on college campuses, thanks to years of preferential scholarships for minorities and women.

Yes, it’s one big messy Pandora’s Box and everyone has a gripe.

How We Do “Race-Blind”?

“Race-blind” is the new buzzword in college admissions. But the issue encompasses gender as well. For college students all this political rhetoric and positioning portends a muddle of scholarship and financial aid shifts, including careful rewording of applications and criteria and selection rationale. But will it change anything, really?

The New York Times (Colleges Regroup After Voters Ban Race Preferences, Lewin) today suggests that colleges and universities en masse will scramble to find their way around the issues, alter application criteria to include more ambiguous terms all the while staying ON race:

“At Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, a new admissions policy, without mentioning race, allows officials to consider factors like living on an Indian reservation or in mostly black Detroit, or overcoming discrimination or prejudice.”

Popular Vote—Who’s Popular?

Michigan’s Proposition 2, it’s noted, was passed by a “popular vote” of 52 to 48, “despite strong opposition from government, business, labor, education and religious leaders.” Since the issue now polarizes voters, and it’s unclear how many of those are college students registered to vote, the question becomes WHO exactly is getting out the vote?

If you’re looking at colleges, especially public, this will likely affect you, regardless of your color, race, creed or sex. And the issue is becoming pervasive:

“Both defenders and opponents of affirmative action say the lesson of last fall’s campaign in Michigan…is that such initiatives can succeed almost anywhere.”

It would be interesting if the demographics of the vote in Michigan were available; for instance, how many African American, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians, and women voted for the measure? Better yet, how telling it might be to actually see the numbers of registered college voters that participated. Because once all is said and done this may be THE minority group we’re talking about.

Even though the CEO and others may argue that race is sucking the life out of college admissions and financial aid, there are just as many others that argue killing Affirmative Action will assuredly set off a juggernaut of racial inequality on campuses across the U.S. How do they suppose that?

Race-Blind Undoes Diversity Measures

Follow-up to the California Proposition 209 and similar measures in Texas have proven the theory. UCLA’s numbers on Blacks, Hispanics and Asians entering next gen classes have been incrementally dropping since 209 was passed. In fact, according to the NYT Black freshmen at UCLA are at a “30-year low.” Texas universities revealed similar scores, which subsequently impelled officials to once again include race in the admissions criteria for public universities.

Since it seems that nationwide campus diversity will continue to be a bugaboo for institutions regardless of the “popular vote,” which I’d argue is largely post-college, what can be done to maintain fairness and diversity?

Wayne State University in Detroit set one of its law professors on the problem. His job was to develop a workable plan that jumps through Michigan’s new legal measures, while at the same time it discreetly circumnavigates the brouhaha. Carefully worded language and rephrased criteria that summarily avoid the word “race,” instead troll for students based on:

“…first in the family to go to college or graduate school; having overcome substantial obstacles, including prejudice and discrimination; being multilingual; and residence abroad, in Detroit or on an Indian reservation.”

New Age of Scholarships and Financial Aid

Yes, there are changes afoot, but how drastically they will change is hard to say. Colleges and universities know they must find a way to stay the course with diversity measures at the same time they must respect the law. In the future you will find that your “disadvantage,” whatever it may be, must be approached from a more subtle aspect. Students who mention race, gender and any other Affirmative Action-related labels and terms may be pushed aside in the name of the law.

Do you write about politics?

If so, please submit your application for the chance to win $2000 towards your college education.

You can read more about this contest at The Political Scholarship page.

Also, you may nominate a friend if you yourself are not eligible. Good luck to all!

Congratulations Stephen Yellin of Drew University!!!!

Stephen is our Grand Prize winner and will be receiving $5000 for his college education.

But there’s more…

We have decided to award our 2nd and 3rd place finalists with $1000 each! So congrats to Paul Stamatiou and Shelly Batts.

Stop by and congratulate them:

Stephen Yellin
Paul Stamatiou
Shelly Batts

There’s even more..
All of our other finalists will be receiving $100!

See our complete list of 10 finalists here.

Our Other Scholarships:

Don’t forget about our foundation’s other 6 scholarships. They are each awarded 4 times per year. See our complete list of scholarships.

More Financial Aid Options:

If you like to hunt for all possible funding opportunities, we also provide a huge categorized list of additional scholarship and grant resources.

We’re also finishing up on a Google-powered topic specific search engine for all college related financial aid. More to come soon…

We Want a Resident Blog Writer

20-30 posts per month at $1000. Read all about it here.

Next Year’s Blogging Scholarship:

Please leave constructive comments below about what we should do next year for an even greater Blogging Scholarship. A perfect example would be the comment from Jim Benton. The first comment here is a copy of his comment from another post.

In our previous post we linked through to the blogs of the finalists for The Blogging Scholarship.

If you or a friend were nominated as a finalist, make sure you ask friends, family, and classmates to vote. You may also be able to increase your chances of winning by blogging about the scholarship or asking your readers to blog about you. Please don’t directly stuff the ballot box though because we track the votes using IP addresses, cookies, etc.
Best of luck to everyone. The poll closes at midnight Eastern time on November 5th. The winner will be announced on the morning of November 6th, 2006.

Update: The Winner has been announced!
Read the rest of this entry »

I want to personally thank everyone who helped with this new scholarship: fellow bloggers, professors, college faculty members, and certainly all of you who submitted an application or nominated someone else.

We received many great applications over the past week and after making some difficult decisions, we have compiled our list of finalists.
Here they are:

• Shelly Batts
• Matthew Himler
• Kambiz Kamrani
• Benjamin Kimball
• Pranam Kolari
• Lisa Marie
• Matthew Mireles
• Paul Stamatiou
• Jennifer Wong
• Stephen Yellin

FYI – Some of our finalists are group bloggers, in which case we link to a profile page on the website where they make blog posts.

Go here now and cast your vote!