Undergraduate college student borrowing has risen dramatically in recent years. Graduates who received a bachelor’s degree in 20081 borrowed 50% more (in inflation-adjusted dollars) than their counterparts who graduated in 1996, while graduates who earned an associate’s degree or undergraduate certificate in 2008 borrowed more than twice what their counterparts in 1996 had borrowed, according to a new analysis of National Center for Education Statistics data by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project.
Increased borrowing by college students has been driven by three trends:
ï‚· More college students are borrowing. In 2008, 60% of all graduates had borrowed, compared with about half (52%) in 1996.
- College students are borrowing more. Among 2008 graduates who borrowed, the average loan for bachelor’s degree recipients was more than $23,000, compared with slightly more than $17,000 in 1996. For associate’s degree and certificate recipients, the average loan increased to more than $12,600 from about $7,600 (all figures in 2008 dollars).
- More college students are attending private for-profit schools, where levels and rates of borrowing are highest. Over the past decade, the private for-profit sector has expanded more rapidly than either the public or private not-for-profit sectors. In 2008, these institutions granted 18% of all undergraduate awards, up from 14% in 2003.2 Students who attend for-profit colleges are more likely than other students to borrow, and they typically borrow larger amounts.
Other key findings from the Pew Research analysis:
- One-quarter (24%) of 2008 bachelor’s degree graduates at for-profit schools borrowed more than $40,000, compared with 5% of graduates at public institutions and 14% at not-for-profit schools.
- Roughly one-in-four recipients of an associate’s degree or certificate borrowed more than $20,000 at both private for-profit and private not-for-profit schools, compared with 5% of graduates of public schools.
- Graduates of private for-profit schools are demographically different from graduates in other sectors. Generally, private for-profit school graduates have lower incomes, and are older, more likely to be from minority groups, more likely to be female, more likely to be independent of their parents and more likely to have their own dependants.
There are two major forces driving education today. The first is the economic reality that forces schools to
make the most effective use of dollars to improve student outcomes. The second is the exponential growth in digital tools — and subsequently digital content — that provides the foundation to transform and improve how instructors teach and how students learn. Let's address the economic driver first. For far too long the education sector has lagged behind the private
sector in adopting efficiencies and capabilities derived from technology. Virtually every other sector in the economy has been computerized, modularized and transformed over the past 30 years. Although there have been leaders for change, as witnessed by the efforts we applaud in this Yearbook, change has been difficult and delayed. The recent recession has only forced this issue to the forefront.
The second driver is technological. Digital content, more sophisticated assessment tools and myriad personal and mobile computing devices are emerging and taking center stage — all aimed at improving student achievement and preparing students to thrive in the careers of a digital economy. These emerging technologies, led by a cadre of educational technologists, are leading us down the right path. This Yearbook aims to help the education community continue on the right path. The first part of the Yearbook takes a look at IT spend, funding opportunities and top trends of the 2010-2011 school year to shed some light on what technologies are top of mind and how to fund them. The second part highlights 50 education innovators that have led the way and provided best-practice models to imitate. This look at what was done, who is doing it and where we are going is intended to provide inspiration and guidance to education leaders on their own innovative quests in education.
This research report examines how PLAR as an asset-based practice might broaden the participation of adults in lifelong learning, particularly those adults who are under-represented in existing learning activities.
Specifically, the report uses short composite narratives to describe how PLAR users (academic and workplace settings), PLAR service providers, and PLAR stakeholders (persons from literacy organizations, human resources, career development, and government) understand the effectiveness of PLAR as an asset-based approach to adult learning. These composite narratives are derived from data documented in a 2008 report, Effectiveness of PLAR: A qualitative study of the voices of Canadians, prepared by the Canadian Association of Prior Learning and Assessment (CAPLA).
SUMMARY
This paper analyses business-driven innovation in education by looking at education-related patents. It first draws a picture of the challenges for innovation in the formal education sector, which suffers from a poor knowledge ecology: science is hardly linked to core teaching and administrative practices. It then turns to a common indicator of innovation: patents. In the case of education, patents typically cover educational tools. An analysis of education-related patents over the past 20 years shows a clear rise in the production of highly innovative educational technologies by businesses, typically building on advances in information and communication technology. While this increase in educational innovations may present new opportunities for the formal education sector, the emerging tool industry currently targets the nonformal education rather than the formal education system. We shortly discuss why business entrepreneurs may be less interested in the market of formal education.
RÉSUMÉ
Cet article porte sur l’innovation entrepreneuriale dans le secteur de l’éducation, à partir d’une analyse des dépôts de brevets dans le secteur éducatif. Premièrement, il propose un tableau des défis de l’innovation dans le secteur de l’éducation formelle, dont l’écologie du savoir est faible : la science y est peu liée avec le cœur des pratiques pédagogiques et administratives. L’étude porte ensuite sur un indicateur courant de l’innovation : les brevets. Dans le cas de l’éducation, les brevets couvrent généralement des « outils » éducatifs. L’analyse des brevets éducatifs durant les vingt dernières années montre une claire croissance de la production de technologies éducatives hautement innovantes par des entreprises privées, qui s’appuient souvent sur les progrès des technologies d’information et de communication. Bien que cette croissance des innovations éducatives puisse donner de nouvelles opportunités au secteur formel de l’éducation, l’industrie émergente d’outils éducatifs cible actuellement les secteurs informels d’éducation. Nous discutons brièvement les raisons pour lesquelles les entrepreneurs privés semblent moins intéressés par le secteur de l’éducation formelle.
When teachers think the best, most important way to improve their teaching is by developing their content knowledge, they end up with sophisticated levels of knowledge, but they have only simplistic instructional methods to convey that material. To imagine that content matters more than process is to imagine that the car is more important than the road. Both are essential. What we teach and how we teach it are inextricably linked and very much dependent on one another.
This special report features 11 articles pulled from the pages of The Teaching Professor to help you discover new ways to build connections between what you teach and how you teach it. The report offers tips on how to engage students, give feedback, create a climate for learning, and more. It also provides fresh perspectives on how faculty should approach their development as teachers.
It’s been said that few things can enhance student learning more than an instructor’s commitment to ongoing professional development. Here’s a sample of the articles you will find in Effective Strategies for Improving College Teaching and Learning:
• Faculty Self-Disclosures in the College Classroom
• A Tree Falling in the Forest: Helping Students ‘Hear’ and Use Your Comments
• Understanding What You See Happening in Class
• Can Training Make You a Better Teacher?
• Striving for Academic Excellence
Although there is no single best teaching method, approach, or style, this special report will give you a variety of strategies to try. Those that work effectively with your students
you should make your own.
How S y s t e m s I m p r o v e : A C o n s t e l l a t i o n o f F o r c e s
Students from a number of groups remain underrepresented in Ontario’s universities and colleges, including low-income students, Aboriginal students, first generation students whose parents did not attend a post-secondary institution, rural and northern students, and students with dependants. Improving access to higher education for these and other underrepresented groups is widely acknowledged as essential to building a more equitable society and to competing in the increasingly knowledgebased economy. Indeed, Premier McGuinty has stated his desire to see 70 per cent of Ontarians complete post-secondary education, and achieving this target will require a concerted effort to reduce participation gaps.
Trends in post-secondary education participation in Canada continue to show that Aboriginal1 people rely significantly on
Canada’s publicly-funded colleges, institutes, polytechnics, cégeps, and universities with a college mandate (hereinafter
referred to as “colleges”). ACCC is the national voluntary membership association which serves Canada’s publicly-funded
colleges and informs and advises various levels of government, business, industry and labour. Aboriginal peoples’ access
to post-secondary education, inclusion and community development has been one of the Association’s strategic priorities
since its creation in 1972.
A few years ago my teaching life had reached what felt like a dead end. Daily, I would see newspaper announcements about the retirement of public school educators who had the same number of years of experience as I had. Subsequently, I found myself longing to be in those photographs or articles. A significant challenge existed in that I was not old enough to touch my retirement funds plus I lacked another viable source of income—a major financial dilemma. At the time it seemed that I was going through the motions of my teaching job, and I had definitely lost a sense of joy.
The 2015 Engineers Canada Labour Market Study provides supply and demand projections for 14 engineering occupations. The report highlights a large and growing need to replace retiring engineers as they exit the workforce. This is particularly relevant for civil, mechanical, electrical and electronic engineers as well as computer engineers. Replacement demand for engineers
is an important theme that will be relevant for the next decade as the baby boom generation retires.
Canadian universities are granting an increasing number of engineering degrees to Canadian and international students and creating new entrants to these occupations. Ontario and Quebec universities are granting many of these degrees. However, economic activity is shifting to western Canada and shifting the demand for engineers in that direction. Engineers Canada would like to highlight the growing importance of inter-provincial migration for engineers. In addition, federal government immigration policy such as the new Express Entry program is important to help streamline international migration of engineers to meet the country’s future workforce requirements.
Students are more likely to strive for and achieve success when they believe that their personal effort matters—when they think they can exert significant influence or control over the outcomes of their life and their future success (Bandura, 1997; Chemers, Hu, & Garcia, 2001; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Elias, & Loomis, 2002; Multon, Brown, & Lent, 1991; Solberg, et al.,
1993).
Joe Cuseo
Professor Emeritus, Psychology; Educational Consultant, AVID
([email protected])
This research uses the Youth in Transition Survey, Reading Cohort to compare participation in postsecondary education (PSE)in Ontario to other Canadian regions. We begin by presenting access rates by region, which reveals some substantial differences. University participation rates in Ontario are in about the middle of the pack, while college rates are relatively high. We then undertake an econometric analysis, which reveals that the effects of parental income are quite strong in the Atlantic provinces but much weaker elsewhere, including within Ontario. We also find that the relationship between high school grades and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test scores (measures of academic performance and ability differ by region and are generally strongest in Ontario. From this perspective,Ontario would appear to have a relatively “meritocratic†system, where those who are more qualified are more likely to go to university and where attendance rates are less affected by family income. Interestingly, the effects of parental education, which are generally much stronger than those of family income, are similar across regions. Understanding the reasons underlying these patterns might warrant further investigation.
This research was funded by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO), which also provided useful feedback throughout the project, but the authors retain all responsibility for the paper and opinions expressed therein. This work is based on earlier research carried out for the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation through the MESA project.
Love or hate it, group work can create powerful learning experiences for students. From understanding course content to developing problem solving, teamwork and communication skills, group work is an effective teaching strategy whose lessons may endure well beyond the end of a course. So why is it that so many students (and some faculty) hate it? Although the students may not state their objections verbally, the nonverbal reactions are truly eloquent. They just sit there; only with much urging do they look at those sitting nearby and move minimally in the direction of getting themselves seated as a group. This lack of enthusiasm is at some level a recognition that it is so much easier to sit there and take notes rather than work in a group and take ownership. The resistance also derives from past experiences in groups where not much happened, or where some members did nothing while other did more than their fair share of the work.
Often very little happens in groups because students don’t tackle the tasks with much enthusiasm, but group ineffectiveness also may be the product of poorly designed and uninteresting group tasks. This special report features 10 insightful articles from The Teaching Professor that will help you create more effective group learning activities and grading strategies as well as tips for dealing with group members who are “hitchhiking†(getting a free ride from the group) or “overachieving†(dominating the group effort). Here’s a sample of the articles in the report:
. Leaders with Incentives: Groups That Performed Better
. Dealing with Students Who Hate Working in Groups
. Group Work That Inspires Cooperation and Competition
. Better Understanding the Group Exam Experience
. Use the Power of Groups to Help You Teach
. Pairing vs. Small Groups: A Model for Analytical Collaboration
The role of academic deans is critical to the success of higher education academic institutions. This study
illustrates the leadership approach of Ohio’s academic deans. This quantitative study researched and analyzed
whether differences exists between the leadership styles of academic deans and the independent variables of age,
number of faculty supervised, and the number of years of experience.. Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid was utilized for this study. Blake and Mouton theory is based on five predominate leadership styles: Data for this study was gathered using a researcher designed instrument along with the Styles of Leadership Survey to gather information about the academic deans. The surveys were administered through U.S. mail to the deans’ office
address. ANOVA methodology was used to analyze the data. It appears from the results of this study that no
significant independent differences exist among the leadership styles and the independent variables.
Keywords: Leadership, Academic Deans, Managerial Grid, Chief Academic officer, University
Post-Secondary Education in Ontario: Managing Challenges in an Age of Austerity – Eastern Ontario Results January 2013
This paper examines the implications of expanding the number and scope of college-to-university transfer arrangements as a means of meeting the demand for undergraduate degrees in Ontario. It focuses on two research questions:
1. What are the differences in the learning outcomes of students in college-to-university transfer arrangements compared with those in four-year university programs?
2. What are the differences in the cost per student for college-to-university transfer arrangements compared with four-year university programs?
While the most traditional metric, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), measures all goods and services produced by a country, it has two critical shortcomings. First, by focusing exclusively on the economy, GDP fails to capture areas of our lives that we care about most like education, health, environmental quality, and the relationships we have with others. Second, it does not identify the costs of economic growth — like pollution.
To create a robust and more revealing measure of our social progress, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW) has been working with experts and everyday Canadians since 1999 to determine how we are really doing in the areas of our lives that matter most. The CIW measures overall wellbeing based on 64 indicators covering eight domains of vital importance to Canadians: Education, Community Vitality, Healthy Populations, Democratic Engagement, Environment, Leisure and Culture, Time Use, and Living Standards. The CIW’s comprehensive index of overall wellbeing tracks progress provincially and nationally and allows comparisons to GDP.
Comparing the CIW and GDP between 1994 and 2010 reveals a chasm between our wellbeing and economic growth both nationally and provincially. Over the 17-year period, GDP has grown almost four times more than our overall wellbeing. The trends clearly show that even when times are good, overall wellbeing does not keep up with economic growth and when times are bad, the impact on our wellbeing is even harsher. We have to ask ourselves, is this good enough?
Project Background
In 2008, the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) issued an open Request for Proposals (RFP) to Ontario colleges and universities that would allow them to evaluate interventions that already existed at those institutions and that were designed to promote student success in various ways. Brock University was involved in a total of four research projects that were approved for funding at that time, including this project. This research project also has the distinction of being the only one in the RFP which involved a re-examination of institutional financial aid policies.
Project Purpose
Institutional financial aid applications ask a wide range of questions dealing with both the personal and financial history of the student and his/her family. This process can take a significant amount of the student’s time, and may even intimidate some. Moreover, the level of financial detail required in the application may be a deterrent to students who might be either embarrassed to disclose family details, or uncomfortable asking their parents about the financial situation of their family.
It is believed that the complex and potentially discouraging application process that exists at many postsecondary institutions (and many government financial aid programs) can be simplified by including fewer fields in the application for funding. This would benefit both student applicants and institutional administrators, and could likely be done without significantly altering
the output that would have been generated using the original full application.
The purpose of this project is to compare two approaches to calculating student financial assessed need for the purposes of determining eligibility for the Brock University Entering Student Bursary. The research question being addressed in this project is whether a simplified approach to calculating assessed need would lead to similar outcomes in terms of identifying
eligibility for the Entering Student Bursary as the original application process that had been in place for years at Brock University.
It is often the case that research questions in education involve units of analysis that can be naturally grouped or placed within hierarchical or multilevel configurations. This type of grouping is referred to as nesting. It results in the exposure of the lowest-level units of analysis to common environments that are likely to impact their behaviors, outcomes, or levels of performance. These lowest-level units are commonly referred to as level-1 units. Typical examples of these units are students nested within classrooms. Classrooms are the nesting structure, constituting a second-level unit or level-2 unit. Following this rationale, researchers could further model level-3 units consisting of classrooms (comprised of students) nested within schools. Notably, this logic can be further expanded to higher order levels. The successful identification of units situated at different levels prompted the development of techniques designed to model this phenomenon. These techniques are known as multilevel modeling.
The National Student Financial Wellness Study (NSFWS) is a national survey of college students examining the financial attitudes, practices and knowledge of students from institutions of higher education across the United States, and was developed and administered by The Ohio State University. The purpose of the 2014 NSFW is to gain a more thorough and accurate
picture of the financial wellness of college students.