Programs For Education

According to the Department of Education, there are 2364 four-year colleges in the United States. Of those, 612 are public colleges. I dare say that about 300 of them would be at least somewhat familiar to about 80% of the public.

What about the 2064 “unknown” colleges. Which of these colleges are worth exploring?  When all is said and done, does it matter that much where one goes to college?  If you are not looking for a specific program only offered at a particular college, it matters less than you think. What really matters is what you do when you get there.

Some students realize that it might not be a bad idea to look at two-year colleges as well. And some of them are looking at two year colleges outside of the region in which they live. If there is a community college that is beyond commuting distance but has a specific program you are interested in taking, you can rent an apartment near the campus. Many colleges such as Greenfield Community College in Massachusetts or the Ivy Tech Community College system in Indiana, can recommend student housing for such students.

Occasionally I like to step back and look at the colleges whose offerings make them stand out. It does not mean they are right for you. But one or more of them could be.

Let me take you on a brief tour of just five of them now.

They are not in any particurlar order, but # 1 on the list is a two-year college. In fact, this two-year college is tougher to gain admission than is Harvard. Though they are shocked at first, I get a kick out of telling some extremely bright students that they will not have a prayer in being accepted to this college.  Here is why.   

1.)  Deep Springs College accepts only thirteen men into its two-year program each year. It is a rigorous admissions process including several interviews and multiple essays. (The average applicant’s SAT score is 2200.) It is a working cattle and alfalfa ranch but one with a rigorous liberal arts curriculum in the High Desert region of Southern California.

It was founded by an early California pioneer, LL Nunn in 1917 on his idea that the three pillars… academics, labor, and self-governance help young men prepare themselves for lives of service to humanity. The school’s 26 students, along with its staff and faculty, form a close community. The college operates on the belief that manual labor and political deliberation are integral parts of a comprehensive liberal arts education.

Plus, it is FREE. Each student attends for two years and receives a full scholarship valued at over $50,000 per year. Afterwards, most earn their undergraduate and graduate degrees at the world’s most prestigious four-year institutions. It is practically a “slam dunk” admission transition. Getting a first class education, and saving up to $110,000 in the process is not a bad way to invest two years. 

Now you know why I can say to some students that they will “not have a prayer” to being admitted. Ladies…that would be you. One intellectually curious young woman I shared this fact with, was undeterred. Because her goal is to become a college English professor, she saw that as way to be part of the Deep Springs community. (Professors from schools like Stanford, Harvard and Yale go there to teach periodically for a semester or two.)

But if you are a male and intrigued by the concept, why not take a college road trip like none other right now.   

2.) Another college that is respected for its’ philosophy of combining work with learning is The College of the Ozarks. COFO is committed to a five-fold mission of encouraging academic, Christian, cultural, vocational, and patriotic growth in its students.

All full-time students work rather than pay for their tuition. The college discourages debt and, like Hillsdale College, does not participate in any government loan programs. On the other hand COFO does participate in federal grant programs so the FAFSA will need to be filed, to determine eligibility. (Hillsdale does not use the FAFSA.)

Academic offerings are surprisingly broad as you can see here. This combined with the strong work program makes it a valuable experience and excellent preparation for a fulfilling life.

By the way, College of the Ozarks has been named a “Stone-Cold Sober School” by the Princeton Review for ten consecutive years.  Alcohol and drugs are strictly prohibited on and off campus. Therefore, a student who applies to the school with the nickname “Hard Work U.” and looks forward to spring breaks in Cancun, is unlikely to be a good fit for this college.

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Another “Age Old Question” 

If you are a current college student, are you always being asked, “What is your major?” 

If you have one, why did you pick that one?  Does the question annoy you because you feel that you are going to have to explain your decision? Perhaps you are not even sure why, thus making you feel more uncomfortable. 

I completelly understand if you are. But if you have already completed our insightful self-assessment and still are not comfortable with your academic direction, return to that online link now. It is resource to access all during your college years. (Call me if it has been misplaced.) One of things that we help students with while they are still in high school is to identify their innate characteristics. That is, what are their natural strengths and weaknesses that make up their core personality?  

Personalities, (barring some chemical changes in the body) pretty much remain the same throughout our lifetime. Interests, aptitudes and attitudes change. So, why not understand and appreciate who you are and explore the possibilities that stem from there? 

Our educational system is set up to take us from secondary school, where we are supposed to get a solid grounding in the basic academic subjects, and then on to college where we get to pick the courses we want.  Assuming college is necessary, however, are you in college to learn what you want, or are you there to learn what someone else wants? Whether it is a well-intentioned parent or prospective employer in a field that you are told, “pays well”? 

Recent Stanford University graduate, Scott Keys, has shared what I believe to be a very helpful insight relating his observations and recommendations. Hopefully, you are getting the kind of advice from your college advisors as to choosing a major that is personal to you and not “cookie cutter”. 

As he says, choosing a major is an important decision and “students are right to seek outside counsel when figuring out what they want to study”. Give us a call or contact us at the right, if you want to explore the possibilities. It all starts with a FREE “get acquainted” conversation.

Stop Asking Me My Major 

By Scott Keyes 

One of my best friends from high school, Andrew, changed majors during his first semester at college. He and I had been fascinated by politics for years, sharing every news story we could find and participating in the Internet activism that was exploding into a new political force. Even though he was still passionate about politics, that was no longer enough. “I have to get practical,” he messaged me one day, “think about getting a job after graduation. I mean, it’s like my mom keeps asking me: What can you do with a degree in political science anyway?” 

I heard the same question from my friend Jesse when students across campus were agonizing about which major was right for them. He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to study, but every time a field sparked his interest, his father would pepper him with questions about what jobs were available for people in that discipline. Before long, Jesse’s dad had convinced him that the only way he could get a job and be successful after college was to major in pre-med. 

My friends’ experiences were not atypical. 

Choosing a major is one of the most difficult things students face in college. There are two main factors that most students consider when making this decision. First is their desire to study what interests them. Second is the fear that a particular major will render them penniless after graduation and result in that dreaded postcollege possibility: moving back in with their parents. 

All too often, the concern about a major’s practical prospects are pushed upon students by well-intentioned parents. If our goal is to cultivate students who are happy and successful, both in college as well as in the job market, I have this piece of advice for parents: Stop asking, “What can you do with a degree in (fill in the blank)?” You’re doing your children no favors by asking them to focus on the job prospects of different academic disciplines, rather than studying what interests them. 

It is my experience, both through picking a major myself and witnessing many others endure the process, that there are three reasons why parents (and everyone else) should be encouraging students to focus on what they enjoy studying most, rather than questioning what jobs are supposedly available for different academic concentrations. 

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Borrowers Beware

Recently I have been asked to help recent college graduates who are faced with enormous student debt. In some instances they have had taken co-signer loans while in college. Those lenders like Sallie Mae were offering them in incredible amounts over the last 10 years. The rules varied as to when (and if) the credit worthy cosigner would be released from the obligation.

In 90% of the cases that will never happen and the lenders know that.  

This article is about the misinformation and complex terms in college lending. Unfortunately, Congress over the years has been heavily influenced by the lending companies (now being bailed out by taxpayer money) and the colleges themselves.

None of them have the student’s long-term best interest as a priority. That is a shame. To get a quick understanding of the problem listen to this.

At Programs for Education, we have options ambitious students can take advantage of to pay off their debt faster. If you know of any student facing enormous debt now or in the future, give us a call.  Many families are paying for college from cash flow alone with this program.

In addition. all current students can learn about the various loan forgiveness and debt relief programs for graduates entering certain fields of employment. In the meantime If a student is considering future college costs, now is the time to do a “Dry Run” to see how much they may have to borrow, if at all.

Not everyone would willingly choose to become the public face of the debt-ridden. Alan Collinge didn’t exactly choose to do so, defaulting on $38,000 in student loans only after a series of missteps and strokes of misfortune, but he has embraced his situation with gusto, founding StudentLoanJustice.org to advocate for distressed borrowers and now writing a book, The Student Loan Scam (Beacon Press).

Collinge’s tactics have at times been controversial — he has been criticized for personally attacking student loan lobbyists, for instance — but with the Obama administration putting the student loan programs front and center in its higher education agenda, the industry he writes about and his views are likely to remain relevant. In an e-mail interview, Collinge discussed his personal experiences and his assertion that none of the policy changes currently being debated will make a difference for borrowers without reform of federal bankruptcy laws.

Q. Can you give our readers the 1-minute version of how you ended up getting into such a jam with student loans? How much of your situation evolved because of your own (potentially flawed) decisions, and how much because of the unfair practices or policies or rules by other parties?

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6 Scams That Target College Students

By Kim Clark , US News & World Report 

Operating on the theory that it takes a thief to steal from a thief, a group of Internet scammers has been targeting students who illegally download music, books, and video.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has reported on an apparently bogus collections agency that sent out letters to Bucknell students demanding $500 to settle the students’ alleged illegal downloads.

That’s a new twist on an old strategy of targeting college students. Prosecutors say there are at least six common scams students should watch out for:

1. Fake scholarship promises: The Federal Trade Commission warns against advisers and Web services that charge big fees in return for help locating scholarships.

2. Dodgy student loans: U.S. News’s Kim Palmer documented how some students have been misled by official-looking documents that were really ads for expensive loans.

One silver lining of the recent economic downturn is a reduction in expensive private loans and lenders. But the FTC says students still need to make sure they stick with low-cost, legitimate education loans. The best deals, says the Project on Student Debt, are the federally backed student loans such as the Perkins (which charges just 5 percent in interest) and Stafford loans. (more…)

Colleges Move to Organize Retention Efforts

By Beckie Supiano

Colleges are organizing their efforts to improve retention, but the resources they are using may not be equal to the task. That’s the assessment Jerome A. Lucido, vice provost for enrollment policy and management at the University of Southern California, shared at a session of the College Board Forum in New York this past Friday.

The session used data from a survey conducted as part of the College Board Study on Student Retention in partnership with the Project on Academic Success at Indiana University at Bloomington and the Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice at the University of Southern California, which Mr. Lucido directs. The researchers hope their study of institutional practices will provide a base line for analyzing which retention practices are effective.

Connecting colleges’ retention efforts to their results can be difficult, said Mary Ziskin, senior associate director of the Project on Academic Success, because “institutions that have low retention rates tend to put more efforts into retention.”

The survey was sent to 1,484 colleges nationwide, of which 442 responded. It built on the results of a pilot survey conducted several years ago. (more…)

Do you have a student or are you a student with aspirations to be a Doctor of Medicine? With all the talk about health care issues and challenges, our basic western system of allopathic medicine continues to frustrate both the patient and care giver.

My philosophy of placing more emphasis on prevention rather than treatment is making more sense as costs become more unmanageable. It is all about the “ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.” Particularly when the “cure” is simply designed to manage the symptoms and not address the real cause of disease.

Future Docs Are Confused, Too

October 2, 2009

Struggling to understand the national debate over health care? You’re not alone — your future doctor may well be baffled, too.

A study published in the September issue of Academic Medicine found that nearly half of all medical students believe they have been inadequately educated about the “practice of medicine” — especially related to medical economics.

“Our patients expect us to understand the system,” said Matthew M. Davis, one of the researchers and an associate professor of pediatrics and internal medicine in the Child Health Evaluation and Research Unit at the University of Michigan’s medical school. “If we don’t, that can result in poor patient care. And if we don’t expect doctors to understand the health care system, who is going to?”

The study, by Davis and two colleagues at Michigan, examined tens of thousands of survey responses from medical students about the extent and perceived quality of their training in an array of curricular areas, including clinical care and decision-making and the practice of medicine — with the latter including health care systems, managed care, and practice management, among other areas.    (more…)