Student Loan Blog : California

‘Discriminatory’ UC Admissions Policy Angers Asian Community

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:58:00 GMT

A new University of California admissions policy intended to increase the diversity of the school system’s student body may actually do the opposite, boosting the number of white students while decreasing the size of the Asian population, reports the San Jose Mercury News (“New UC Admissions Policy Gives White Students a Better Chance, Angers Asian-American Community,” March 27, 2009).

Under this new admissions policy, the UC system no longer requires the SAT subject tests, which Asians tend to excel at and which many low-income and minority students do not take, and places more weight on the SAT reasoning test, which tends to favor the white student population in admissions.

Community leaders and educators have characterized the new policy as poorly publicized, ill-conceived, and discriminatory. “It’s affirmative action for whites,” said Ling-chi Wang, a professor at UC-Berkeley. “I’m really outraged ... and profoundly disappointed with the institution.”

Although Asians currently make up only 12 percent of California’s state population, they represent 37 percent of the UC system’s admissions population — the school system’s single largest ethnic group — but may only end up comprising 7 percent of the UC system under the new policy, according to UC’s own estimate.

The admissions rate for white students, on the other hand, may rise by as much as 10 percent, while the number of black students would go up a negligible amount, and the number of Latino students would only modestly increase, Asian activists pointed out at a recent higher education conference in San Francisco.

UC administrators say that they’ve struggled to create a better cultural balance across all campuses for more than a decade in an effort to adhere to Proposition 209, which prohibited the state’s public institutions from promoting racial preference.

But this new policy has triggered a wave of suspicion throughout the Asian community not seen by the UC system since the 1980s, the Mercury News reports, when a similar policy caused a decline in Asian-American undergraduate enrollment.

“I fear a general sense that there are too many Asians in the UC system,” said Patrick Hayashi, former UC associate president. “It is a fatal mistake to think it will blow over.”

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College Grads in New Hampshire Get $8,000 Incentive to Work in the State

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:24:00 GMT

Hoping to entice more college students to work in the state after graduation, the University System of New Hampshire is partnering with the state’s employers to offer students an incentive to stay.

New Hampshire graduates who work for an employer participating in the school’s new Stay Work Play Incentive Program and agree to work in the state for at least four years could receive up to $8,000 from their employer to help pay down their student loans, the New Hampshire Union Leader reports (“Push On to Keep Grads in NH,” March 2, 2009).

On average, New Hampshire college graduates leave school with $25,000 in student loan debt — the second highest level of student loan debt in the nation, according to the Project on Student Debt, a California advocacy group.

The Stay Work Play Program, slated to begin this fall, is open to employers who hire entry-level workers in the state.

Participating employers — who will make payments directly to a graduate’s student loan provider — will contribute $8,000 toward the federal student loans of graduates who received a two-year or a four-year degree from a New Hampshire college or university within the last 36 months. Graduates will receive $1,600 a year during their first two years on the job, and $2,400 a year during their last two years.

The state is hopeful that the new initiative will entice more college graduates to begin careers in New Hampshire, reducing the “brain drain” typically seen when graduates seek out-of-state employment. And employers, looking to fill vacant engineer and technician positions left by retiring baby boomers say the new program could also prove to be cost-effective. By helping employers find local talent instead of recruiting qualified candidates outside of the state, employers could save on relocation and training expenses.

Tom Daly, chief technology officer at Dynamic Network Services, an Internet services provider, says that the new incentive program could give recent college graduates a good reason to stay in the state.

With less student loan debt, employees may be able to better afford to buy a home in New Hampshire, Daly says. “If we can get that level of commitment, we’re not going to have brain drain.”

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Students Brace for Largest Tuition Jump in Years

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:18:00 GMT

Tuition increases at the nation’s colleges are inevitable.

However, in the current economic climate — where states are slashing budgets to the bone — public colleges are being forced to raise tuition at rates that haven’t been seen in years, reports The Associated Press (“Families Await Sharpest Tuition Increases in Years,” Jan. 15, 2009).

Public, state-supported institutions have hiked tuition fees by 8 to 10 percent during economic recessions of the past in order to make up for reductions in government contributions, according to Nick Johnson of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington.

“This recession is worse. This state fiscal crisis is worse than last time, so we would expect state tuition increases to be larger than in past years,” Johnson said.

With severe budget cutbacks in the governor of California’s new budget proposal, for example, university fees are expected to rise by at least 10 percent at California state schools. And the New York state government’s recent announcement of an unusual midyear increase to state public college tuition made it clear that the state’s budget crisis was so severe it couldn’t afford to wait until fall to impose a 14-percent tuition hike.

John Hayek, interim vice president of finance for the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, says although the state announced it will hold tuition increases below last year’s, which ranged from 6 to 10 percent for in-state students, the state still plans to raise tuition by about 5 percent at community colleges and between 7 and 10 percent at public universities.

Families Uncertain How to Cover Extra Costs

For the four out of five American college students who attend public schools, these tuition increases have become a cause for concern, particularly in regard to their families’ ability to afford their college education.

Since many families lost savings in the stock market or can no longer tap home equity loans due to the real estate crash, says Jim Boyle, president of advocacy group College Parents of America, paying for college next year may be a particularly painful process with fewer means of financing college available.

“We’re probably going to have to take some options off the table (for the other children) unless things change,” said Donna Kopec, whose daughter’s college mutual fund lost a third of its value.

Kopec says that the drop in the market has created a funding challenge for all three of her college-bound daughters. She hopes President Barack Obama will follow through on campaign promises that include increasing Pell Grant amounts and implementing programs that award college grants in exchange for community service.

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California Legislators Act to Block Administrators From Censoring College Publications

Student Loan Girl — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:34:00 GMT

In a move that may soon further the free-speech rights of students writing for the state’s college newspapers, California legislators passed a bill on August 5 that would make it unlawful for school administrators to retaliate against college newspaper advisors, reports the San Francisco Chronicle (“Calif. Bill Protects Student Journalism Teachers,” Aug. 5, 2008).

If signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bill, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Leland Yee, would prohibit the dismissal, transfer, or disciplining of college or high school journalism teachers who are attempting to protect the free-speech rights of their students.

Journalism teachers have been punished at least 12 times since 2001 as a result of opinion pieces or stories written by student reporters, according to the California Newspaper Publishers Association.

The new bill comes two years after Gov. Schwarzenegger signed anti-censorship legislation into law, granting student reporters free-speech protections comparable to those held by professional journalists. The so-called “Hosty bill” came in response to a 2005 federal ruling by the 7^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that gave university officials the same authority as high school administrators to review and censor student publications.

Although the University of California had originally taken the position that it probably wouldn’t adopt the provisions of the newly passed bill, administrators for the state school system have since reconsidered after further discussions with lawmakers.

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Trade School Students No Longer Protected Under California Law

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:50:00 GMT

California students at for-profit colleges now have fewer legal rights if their institution goes out of business. The state law that regulated for-profit colleges, which enroll some 400,000 students, expired at the end of June and lawmakers recently rejected a bill that would replace the law, according to a Chronicle of Higher Education article (“California's Oversight of For-Profit Colleges Lapses as State Law Expires,” July 1, 2008).

The rejected bill would have provided tuition refunds to California students at for-profit colleges through a state-run reimbursement fund and would have dropped the requirement that colleges place 70 percent of their graduates in jobs. The law would have also restricted students from suing their school over grievances.

Lawmakers, consumer advocates, and schools have battled for three years to negotiate terms of the new law without success. Advocates claim that some of these schools misrepresent the value and quality of their job-oriented educational programs, which causes students to incur large amounts of debt and leave many without viable options for employment.

Corinthian Colleges, one of the larger for-profit schools in California and a school that has been at the center of this controversy, recently settled a lawsuit requiring the school to pay $6.5 million for a charge that Corinthian exaggerated its job- placement record, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times (“Oversight of For-Profit Trade-Schools Expires in California,” July 1, 2008).

Robert Johnson commented that the for-profit college oversight bill that expired in June had so many requirements that he feared it would cripple smaller trade schools not part of a national chain like Corinthian. Johnson, the executive director of the California Association of Private Postsecondary Schools, said that the bill “was 112 pages of punishment.”

Lawmakers believe that the bill may reemerge later this year in a different form, although Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger may veto it, due to opposition from his Consumer Affairs Department. If the bill were to pass, it could go into effect as early as January 2009.

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Millions in Grant Money Go to California Colleges for Stem-Cell Research

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:44:00 GMT

Twelve academic institutions in California recently received approximately $271 million in grant money from a state agency to construct laboratories for stem-cell research, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“In California, Millions Are Distributed for Stem-Cell Research,” May 8, 2008).

The funds, divided into 12 grants, represent the largest single chunk of money distributed from a $3 billion bond authorized by Californians in 2004 to help make the state the world leader in stem cell research.

The University of California system is the largest recipient of the grant money, where 9 of its 10 campuses were grantees. Such well-known institutions as Stanford University, The Scripps Research Institute, and the University of Southern California also received funding.

"We're very excited about what has been made possible today," said Arnold Kriegstein, director of the Institute for Regeneration Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, another grant recipient.

The grants will be used for the construction of approximately 800,000 square feet of research labs, which will be manned by about 2,200 graduate students, faculty members, postdoctoral researchers, and scientists.

Scientists will use the new facilities to study stem cells, the precursors to every type of cell in humans, in an effort to better understand diseases and to develop clinical studies of new therapies and grow replacement tissue for the body, according to the Chronicle.

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$50 Million Given to California Community Colleges to Aid Needy Students

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:30:00 GMT

In what may be the largest gift ever donated to the nation’s community colleges, the San Francisco–based Bernard Osher Foundation recently announced that it has pledged up to $50 million to help needy students attending California’s two-year institutions, writes Matt Krupnick of The Mercury News (“Endowment to Aid Needy Students,” May 5, 2008).

The gift funds will be placed in an endowment that will be managed by the Foundation for California Community Colleges, with $25 million to be paid immediately and the remainder to be paid over the course of the next three years. In order to receive the second $25 million, the FCCC must raise $50 million on its own during that three-year time period.

California’s community colleges serve nearly 25 percent of the nation’s community college students, with 2.6 million students enrolled each year, and comprise the world’s largest public college system.

To Bernard Osher Foundation President, Mary Bitterman, it had become clear that the state’s community colleges needed more financial assistance than the four-year universities to which the Foundation has already given millions.

“The more we have focused on the needs of California, we have really begun to look at the critical role community colleges play,” Bitterman said. “Our trustees decided that we would really like to help community college students.”

The Bernard Osher Foundation followed its initial donation with the announcement of an additional pledge of $20 million to multiple campuses within the University of California and California State University systems, to establish endowed scholarships for students transferring from California community colleges.

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Congress Joins States and Colleges in Efforts to Reduce Soaring Textbook Costs

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:09:00 GMT

With the average college student now shelling out between $900 and $1,000 each year for textbooks and supplies, according to the College Board’s latest Trends in College Pricing report, schools, states, and now Congress are getting involved in the crusade to control the spiraling costs of college textbooks.

Propelled by studies that show the prices of textbooks are rising faster than the rate of inflation, the House of Representatives included provisions in the recently approved College Opportunity and Affordability Act that are specifically targeted at making textbook costs more manageable, reports Elia Powers of Inside Higher Ed (“Different Tacks on Textbook Choice,” Feb. 19, 2008).

The House bill (H.R. 4137), which passed the House on February 7 and renews the Higher Education Act, would have colleges provide advance information in their course schedules about required books to give students time to plan for expenses and comparison-shop for the most cost-effective options.

Also approved by the House was an amendment (H.AMDT.951) proposed by Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio that would create a pilot competitive grant program to assist a select number of colleges in setting up textbook rental programs.

States Enacting Their Own Textbook Legislation

H.R. 4137 would also require textbook publishers to provide more information about pricing and changes from previous editions, which follows bills already passed by some state legislatures, writes Powers.

Last April, for example, Washington state House Bill 2300 was signed into law, requiring textbook publishers to disclose retail prices and a history of revisions from edition to edition when presenting any materials to faculty.

In June, Oregon passed its similar Senate Bill 365 into law. In addition to charging publishers with providing retail prices and a list of all previous versions of a text to potential adopters, the Oregon measure requires publishers of textbook “bundles” (textbooks packaged with an accompanying CD-ROM or study guide, for instance) to make each component of the bundle available to students separately and to disclose the retail price of each piece.

In California, Assembly Bill 1548, known as the College Textbook Transparency Act, likewise calls for publishers to provide a list of revisions made to new editions, as well as for college bookstores to release the wholesale prices of textbooks. The California bill was signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in October and goes into effect in 2010.

Changes at the College Level

In response to the increasingly vocal concerns of students, families, and legislators, not all schools are waiting on Congress or state officials to adopt changes to textbook pricing and marketing practices. Some schools, writes Powers, have already instituted book rental, buyback, or other programs in a move to extend textbook affordability.

At Rio Salado College in Arizona, for example, a partnership with Pearson Custom Publishing allows professors to “build” custom textbooks, drawing material from multiple sources. Administrators believe this program could save students up to 50 percent on reading materials.

The University of Virginia, in addition to expanding its textbook rental and guaranteed buyback programs, is increasing its selection of e-books, which can save students as much as 30 percent over print versions of new editions. And a growing number of U.Va. professors are choosing to purchase older editions of books in cases where the new material isn’t a necessity, a move the university says cuts an average of 75 percent off new book prices.

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LEGO Turns 50

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:49:00 GMT

LEGOs have entertained millions of children and adults, spawned tons of knock-off brands, and even inspired a series of LEGOLAND theme parks. And now, LEGO just celebrated its 50^th birthday on January 28, 2008.

The LEGO brick, which was honored with the “Toy of the Century” award by Fortune Magazine and the British Association of Toy Retailers, stands as a symbol of creativity and the power of simplicity.

Play Well: A LEGO History

The LEGO legacy has its unassuming beginnings in 1932, when Ole Kirk Christiansen opened a tiny wooden-toy factory in a small town in southern Denmark. Christiansen invited all his employees to enter a competition to find a name for his company, only to come up with the winning name himself: LEGO, coming from the Danish words leg (“play”) and godt (“well”).

Fifteen years later, Christiansen bought the country’s first injection molding machine to begin manufacturing plastic toys. Two years after that, in 1949, Christiansen developed the brick design that would become the LEGO prototype.

There have been slight tweaks and adjustments over the years, but the basic LEGO brick of today still fits the bricks of 1958.

Now with over 2,400 brick varieties, LEGOs are sold in more than 130 countries.

The company maintains a commitment to environmental responsibility, melting down unsold LEGO products to create new bricks.

The Michelangelos of LEGO

As a tribute to 50 years of LEGO ingenuity, here are some truly impressive LEGO brick creations.

LEGO Volvo XC90
Constructed by LEGO Master Model Builders, the elite team that designs, creates, and maintains the thousands of LEGO brick models at LEGOLAND California, this LEGO replica of Volvo’s award-winning SUV is the official vehicle of LEGOLAND California.

LEGO Harpsichord
Built by Henry Lim, this 150-pound, 6–by-3-foot harpsichord, with the exception of the strings, is made entirely out of LEGOs — more than 100,000 of them.

LEGO Difference Engine
Charles Babbage’s 19th century difference engine was the first computer. This LEGO replica built by Andrew Carol can solve second- and third-order polynomials and may possibly be smarter than you.

LEGO Pinball
After spending 300 hours building it and using over 20,000 LEGO bricks, Gerrit Bronsveld and Martijn Boogaarts unveiled this fully functional pinball game at the 2005 LegoWorld exhibition in Zwolle, Netherlands.

The next three LEGO sculptures have been created by Nathan Sawaya.

LEGO Man Opening Himself Up

LEGO Man with Reflection in Mirror

LEGO Replica of the Iwo Jima Memorial

Sawaya was commissioned to build this replica for permanent installation at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. The sculpture uses over 100,000 LEGO bricks.

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“Reduce, Re-Use, Re-Ride”: Sell and Trade Your Surfboards, Skateboards and Snowboards Online

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:40:00 GMT

ReRip may not show you how to transform your old boards into something completely unboard-like, the way IKEA Hacker overhauls furniture, but ReRip does share with IKEA Hacker the goal of making the stale new again, giving old boards a second chance at life with different owners.

“Reduce. Re-use. Re-ride.” It’s ReRip’s official slogan.

ReRip, as the company explains on its website, “wants to pull used but rideable surfboards, skateboards and skis out of people’s garages and put them under the feet of those looking for a ‘new’ ride.” ReRip’s founders hope their venture will translate into fewer boards made, fewer toxins emitted and fewer materials discarded.

The company, started four months ago by Meghan Dambacher and Lisa Randall of Solana Beach, Calif., hopes to capitalize on the current trend that has consumers going green. In addition to hosting its used board network, ReRip wants to promote eco-friendly boarding businesses for those customers looking for new equipment, according to a story by David Berlin that appeared in The San Diego Union-Tribune (“New Life for Old Gear,” Aug. 26, 2007).

Start Small Until You’re Ready for the Big Leagues

Dambacher and Randall, as the ReRip homepage says, aim at “raising awareness one board at a time,” developing their business plan that can appeal to both eco-conscious and cost-conscious consumers.

“The idea is to make it easy for people to recycle equipment instead of throwing it away or buying something brand new,” writes Berlin. Dambacher and Randall acknowledge that “[i]t might not save the polar ice caps all by itself, but it could help.”

Much like frugal parents who start their musically inclined children on pawn shop instruments, or money-strapped college students who troll garage sales, eBay and online classifieds for affordable finds, wannabe extreme sportsters can turn to ReRip to find secondhand starter boards or trade up once they master new tricks—all while saving money and the environment.

ReRip, as Berlin explains “is essentially a Craigslist.com for action-sports items.”

You can get a 6-foot-4-inch epoxy Retro Fish surfboard for $320 from a seller in Oceanside, Calif. Or learn new moves on a Birdhouse skateboard autographed by professional skateboarder Brian Sumner, available for $165. Or grab a $150 M3 snowboard that’s seen a couple of seasons and is now too small for its owner.

Brian Sumner “Liverpool Tone” skateboard.

But the ReRip interchange doesn’t stop at just boards. Find skis, ski boots and other gear to hit the slope; helmets, longboards and wheels to shred up the park, and wetsuits and fins to ride the waves.

Taking Eco-Boarding to the Next Level

Eventually, Dambacher, a child development counselor, and Randall, a fitness manager, want to expand ReRip from a used product intermediary into a forum where action-sports enthusiasts can also buy new equipment that, in keeping with the company’s green outlook, is made with environmentally friendly products like Biofoam^™.

Homeblown US, which manufactures Biofoam, incorporates the material in its surfboards. These Biofoam surfblanks are made from a mix that consists of 50 percent agricultural products and replace traditional polyurethane surfblanks. Homeblown claims that using Biofoam produces 36 percent less global warming emissions and reduces non-renewable energy use by 61 percent.

Homeblown US Biofoam surfboard (left) and Biofoam surfblanks (right).

By promoting eco-minded companies like Homeblown, which is generating press for its Biofoam boards, ReRip hopes to attract boarders who support green initiatives but may not necessarily want to confine themselves to used equipment.

As Dambacher says in Berlin’s article, “We understand people want new things, but we want to say, ‘OK, if you’re going to buy it new, buy it from this company because they’re doing X, Y and Z, and it’s easier on the planet.”

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