The Huffington Post released an article recently discussing the importance of the ever growing number of Latino students in America. In the article they touch on many things, including why it is important that more Latinos start earning their degree. I have included an excerpt of the article below and you can follow the provided link below to read the whole article.

Perez sees the dilemma his family faced as one confronting many Latino families. Especially during a rough economic times, the short-term gains of an immediate paycheck can often outweigh the longer-term benefits associated with a college degree. While unemployment rates for college graduates remain lower and starting salaries are higher than for those with only a high school diploma, rising amounts of student debt, combined with low graduation rates for many Hispanic students enrolled in college, are of concern to many weighing whether or not to make the investment.

The current statistics for young Latinos are particularly grim: Almost one in four school-aged American children is Latino, but a report released earlier this year by the White House showed those children achieve "the lowest education attainment levels" in the country. One out of every three will finish high school, and one out of every eight will graduate from college.

A recent Pew report found not only do Latinos have a significant high school dropout rate -- 18 percent -- they are also least likely to opt for the GED, which is a vital "second chance" credential when it comes to increasing college-going numbers. Only one in nine Latino dropouts will go on to earn a GED.  Continue reading...

Source: Huffington Post

DePaul University becomes the largest private university to not require ACT or SAT scores. Starting for the freshman class of 2012, students will be able to answer essay questions instead of submitting test scores. The essay questions will be used to determine if the student has the "noncognitive" traits to make them successful in college. Those traits include leadership, commitment to service and the ability to meet long-term goals. University officials hope that this new initiative will help draw more diverse applicants and students who are more likely to graduate.

"Admissions officers have often said that you can't measure heart," said Jon Boeckenstedt, associate vice president for enrollment management. "This, in some sense, is an attempt to measure that heart."

It will be interesting to see how this new policy helps or hurts them. Either way, this is a bold approach that opens the doors to a lot of high school students who didn't do well on their admissions tests. We will continue to follow this story and report back with any updates that DePaul releases. In the mean time, feel free to learn about the ACT and SAT tests in our Resource Center, or apply for our Scholarship giveaway.

On Wednesday, the University of Texas officially announced a $300-million dollar deal with ESPN to start a TV network devoted solely to covering Longhorn sports. They also claim this will cover cultural and other non-athletic campus events, but that is yet to be seen and definitely is not the money maker in this deal. This is by far the biggest college TV deal in history and it is amazing that it could be done in a state that is trying to slash their budgets by $100+ million dollars.

The new network will spend the majority of its time showcasing its men's and women's "Olympic sports". Of the 200 athletic events that will air beginning in September, most of them will be in baseball, softball, golf, soccer, and other sports programs that don't see a lot of air time currently. Football and men's basketball games will not be shown very often because they are already locked into a deal with the Big 12 Conference. The new network will be allowed to show 1 Texas football game a year, and 8 men's basketball games.

You can read more about this in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Image courtesy of the Austin Business Journal.

Word came down this week that Harvard University will be inviting back ROTC to its campus for the first time in 40 years. What caused the sudden change? The armed forces can thank Congress for repealing its ban this week on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.

This change will end a 40 year old stalemate between the military and one of the country’s best universities. Some quick history on this, the Vietnam War was the catalyst of the initial change and it continued over the last few decades due to student, faculty and Harvard administrators believing that it was unfair that the armed forces were discriminating against gays and lesbians. This has some profound implications on the military now that it will be able to recruit some of the brightest young minds in the country on campus.

University administrators will start up talks soon with high ranking military officials about the timetable for getting them back on campus. It seems as if the “don’t ask, don’t tell’’ policy was the last hurdle they needed to overcome to get Reserve Officers’ Training Corps started up at Harvard again.

Here is what Drew Faust, the president of Harvard had to say; "I look forward to pursuing discussions with military officials and others to achieve Harvard’s full and formal recognition of ROTC," and, "I am very pleased that more students will now have the opportunity to serve their country." So it looks like school officials are definitely on board with this. One thing is for sure, the brain trust in the military is about to get that much smarter over the next decade or so.

Read the Full Story at the Boston Globe. You can search for your own ROTC opportunities on AnyCollege.

With a record number of students heading to college in America, we thought it would be cool to take a look at what the average college student could expect. This is a great breakdown of information ranging from tuition prices, drinking and the importance of social networking. It's crazy that 85% of college students are on facebook, but I guess that's not surprising. Also pretty interesting was that 1 and 10 admissions counselors look at a perspective students facebook page before deciding their fate. So make sure your social profiles aren't too crazy while you are going through the admissions process. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think it is accurate?

“Remember remember the 5th of November…” Students of Washington State University sure will. A student turned hacker, turned V from V for Vendetta, hacked the school’s academic media system which controls all the in-classroom presentations and distance learning technology. The still yet to be identified culprit(s), programmed the projector screens to automatically deploy and play the 5 minute video message every hour on the hour.

The V wannabe, brandishing a Guy Fawkes mask just like in the movie, used their 5 minute video to criticize the IT department and to encourage the student body to lead a revolt against the squirrels that live on campus grounds. “V” believes that the squirrels are freeloaders and do nothing but “eat, drink and breed”.  It is unclear at this time if his message resonated with any of the students in the 12 or so classrooms that were affected. The leader of the squirrels was unavailable for comment when asked about the incident.

Darin Watkins, a spokesperson for the University stated that the school administrators were not amused, and that “Childish pranks don’t have a place anymore”. He would go onto say that “What may have been seen as cute and clever years ago, really doesn’t get that kind of reaction today.” He also believes that the perpetrator(s) would face “serious charges” once they were identified.

In the movie V for Vendetta, “V” channels his inner-Guy Fawkes to lead a revolution against the sitting British government that that ruled the public with serious fascist undertones. V’s antics, which ultimately lead to violence against the government, made school officials fear that the hackers could possibly be up to more than just hacking a dozen projectors. In the post-9/11 era, they were not going to take any chances and went into full alert to bring an end to the hack. They were able to shut it down after a few hours and one official was quoted as saying that it “was a rather sophisticated program” and at some point they just started unplugging hard drives to get the video shut down.

It seems as if most of the students that saw the video were more amused than worried. In fact, it has brought about a spirited discussion about current issues on campus. Some of those topics include tuition increases, the cutting of courses and overall university governance. Whether or not the video message will evoke any actually change to any of that listed topics is yet to be seen.

The full fallout of this escapade has yet to be realized, but rest assured, the 5th of November will always be remembered on the campus of Washington State. Or as their resident V might say, “Remember, remember the 5th of November. The media projector hack, and plot. I know of no reason why the media projector treason should ever be forgot.”

To find a college where you can experience interesting occurrences such as this one, visit AnyCollege.com.

 I came across an article recently discussing America's Most Expensive Colleges. In this article Forbes.com lays out the 10 most expensive schools in the country. It amazes me that America can be in the midst of a recession and these colleges can still recruit students to their campuses. For the amount it costs to go to some of these schools for a year, you could have paid for four years at other colleges. 

Here is a peek at the Top 10:

Courtesy of Sarah Lawrence College

Courtesy of Columbia University

Noah Sheldon/Bard College

Courtesy of Wesleyan University

 
Luis Anthony Munoz

Click here to see the rest of the Top 10 on Forbes.com. To find a college that may be more in your price range, visit our college search engine at AnyCollege.com.  

A week after we posted about the Top 10 College Pranks of All Time, a group of students from the University of Michigan hacked a Washington D.C. voting site. What did they do once they were in? They programmed it to play the Michigan fight song. So why did they target this particular site? They didn't, the websites administrator sent out an open invitation for people to attempt to find vulnerabilities in the website. Well they obviously found one. The site was designed by The Board of Elections in Washington D.C. to give American Service Members and other Americans living abroad an easier way to vote from overseas. NPR has the full story if you would like to know more about it.

With the rise of video games in today’s culture it was just a matter of time before they started showing up in classrooms. The New York Times recently published an article talking about this very subject. Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom follows a journalist who visits a non-charter middle school in New York City that is on the forefront of this burgeoning frontier. This particular school would probably remind you of any other middle school if it weren’t for the fact that video games play a role in their everyday curriculum.

“It is a radical proposition, sure. But during an era in which just about everything is downloadable and remixable, when children are frequently more digitally savvy than the adults around them, it’s perhaps not so crazy to think that schools — or at least one school, anyway — might try to remix our assumptions about how to reach and educate those children.”

The article raises a lot of good points and concerns. It seems that this could be a powerful learning tool moving forward, but it has some evolving to do. Definitely worth checking out if you have the time. Once you have read it swing back by AnyCollege and leave your thoughts.