Student Loan Blog : College Board

Cost of College Continues to Climb, Even in a Recession

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:14:00 GMT

Even as the recession has depressed consumer prices and the cost of living has fallen over the last year, college tuition rose in 2009, with the largest percentage increases coming at community colleges and public four-year schools — the mounting expense of an education revealed in the College Board’s latest reports on financial aid and the cost of college, released yesterday (“Trends in Student Aid 2009” and “Trends in College Pricing 2009”).

Squeezed by state budget cuts, public colleges and universities have found themselves forced to raise tuition prices. Tuition and fees at public four-year institutions rose by 6.5 percent for in-state students, to an average of $7,020 in the 2009–10 school year from $6,591 in 2008–09, and by 6.2 percent for out-of-state students, to $18,548 from $17,460.

The rise in community college tuition, to $2,544 this year from $2,372, although only a little shy of $200, represented the sharpest increase percentage-wise, a jump of 7.3 percent.

Costs at private four-year universities also crept upward, although at a slower rate of 4.4 percent, to $26,273 from $25,177.

“Given the financial hardship of the country, it’s simply astonishing that colleges and universities would have this kind of increases,” said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. “It tells you that higher education is still a seller’s market” (“College Costs Keep Rising, Report Says,” The New York Times, Oct. 20, 2009).

Noting that the high school graduating class of 2009 was the largest in history, Callan went on, “Colleges and universities are capitalizing on that more than any other institution in the economy. If you walk around a shopping mall, nobody else is raising prices at the same rate” (“College: More Expensive Than Ever,” CNN Money, Oct. 20, 2009).

The Impact of Financial Aid

Only about a third of students pay these published “sticker” prices, however, underscored Sandy Baum, a senior policy analyst for the College Board and author of the two reports. Most students’ actual out-of-pocket costs are thousands of dollars lower because they receive some type of financial aid in the form of scholarships, grants, and student loans.

“If you look at net prices students pay, considering the grant aid and tax benefits, students at public two-year institutions are actually paying less, in inflation-adjusted dollars,” Baum pointed out. “Even though the sticker price, adjusting for inflation, is up 20 percent in the past five years, the net price is actually lower than it was five years ago.”

Net prices are also down at both public and private four-year universities.

Student Loans Still on the Rise

This drop in out-of-pocket costs notwithstanding, the gap between families’ available resources and the overall cost of attending college remains on a steady incline. Grant funding hasn’t kept up with the hikes in college costs, leaving students in a position of having to take out ever-larger amounts of money in student loans, particularly in the current economic climate, as more families struggle with unemployment, stagnant wages, and curtailed sources of credit.

“There’s a certain cruelty to a rise in education costs amid an economic slump,” observes Randy James, in a piece for TIME. “It makes the single most effective tool to help the underemployed and jobless out of their rut become all the more unreachable” (“The Incredible Climbing Cost of College,” Oct. 21, 2009).

Total education borrower increased by 5 percent from 2007–08 to 2008–09, the latest year for which student aid data are available. The volume of federal student loans — Stafford loans, Grad PLUS loans, and parent PLUS loans — grew by $14.7 billion last year.

“The level of debt we’re asking people to undertake is unsustainable,” said Callan.

In one bright note for student debt watchdog groups, this surge in federal college loans was accompanied by a sharp decline in nonfederal education loans. Nonfederal private student loans tend to have less flexible repayment terms, typically carry higher interest rates, and are generally more costly than federal student loans.

The volume of private student loans shrunk by half last year, to $11.9 billion.

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Attention Freshmen and Transfer Students: Colleges Still Have Openings

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:25:00 GMT

Almost 260 colleges and universities around the country still have openings for students, and most of these schools still have ample financial aid available, according to survey results from the National Association for College Admission Counseling (“NACAC Survey: Space and Financial Aid Still Available for Students On College Campuses,” May 2009).

Results from this year’s NACAC annual survey, Space Availability Survey: Openings for Qualified Students, indicated that schools still have spaces available for both freshmen and transfer students who may have not been accepted to their first choice schools or who have yet to apply to college. And, 97 percent of the institutions said they had housing space remaining.

The survey, conducted shortly after the May 1 “decision date” deadline, by which many schools require students to confirm their attendance and submit deposits, is designed as a tool for families, counselors, and teachers to help students who have not yet completed the college admissions process.

More than 70 percent of the 258 NACAC member schools that, in the survey, said they still had spaces available were private institutions. Many of these schools had anticipated lower enrollment numbers this fall after a separate survey found that the recession was forcing one out of six students to change their college plans (“Will the Economy Really Change Students’ College Plans? Signs Say Yes,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 24, 2009).

That survey, conducted by the College Board and the higher-education consulting firm the Art & Science Group, indicated that 41 percent of students were seriously considering a public college closer to home over a private institution.

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Citing the Economy, Students Transfer from Private to Public Schools

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:29:00 GMT

Public colleges and universities are experiencing a greater influx of transfer applications from private school students as the flagging economy heightens students’ concerns about their ability to pay for college, Bloomberg reports (“Rutgers Sees 50% Jump in Transfers as Economy Sours,” March 5, 2009).

“Students seem to be price shopping,” said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. “People are hedging their bets financially. There is a real economic motivation.”

According to the College Board, students at four-year private colleges pay, on average, $34,130 for tuition, room, and board, while students attending a four-year public school generally pay only $14,340 — a price discrepancy prompting more students to switch schools as the recession lingers.

Schools See Sizable Jumps in Transfer Applications

Rutgers University is just one of a growing number of public schools, including state universities in Texas, Indiana, and Florida, that is seeing more transfer requests coming from students attending private institutions; this year it has received 632 transfer student applications, which is a 52-percent increase from the 416 applications it received last year.

At Florida Atlantic University, a public school where state residents pay just $3,662 in tuition for a 30 credit-hour semester and are eligible for state scholarships that cover 75 percent of their college costs as long as they maintain a B average, transfer applications have increased 37 percent for the summer term and 22 percent for the fall semester. For its summer session starting in June, the school has already received 265 transfer applications from students at private colleges, a figure that will easily surpass last year’s total of 277.

“I’d love to take credit for it all, but I know the economy has to have some part,” said Barbara Pletcher, Florida Atlantic’s director of admissions.

While admissions officers have noticed that transfer applications have increased more than in past years and that a greater number of them have come from students at private colleges, they are quick to point out that applications don’t always translate into enrollments. Students often don’t realize they can’t afford to pay for school until they receive their tuition bills, by which time it’s too late to transfer and too late to take out additional student loans to cover the expenses they didn’t account for.

“After they get their tuition bill, you’re going to see a group scrambling and we will be full,” said Jason Langdon, director of admissions at Montclair State University in New Jersey, which has received 22 percent more transfer applications this year. “The earlier in the process they can get everything lined up, the better off they’ll be.”

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Note to Families: Financial Aid More Competitive, But Not Out of Reach

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:09:00 GMT

With more families applying for financial aid — applications are already up 10 percent above last year’s record — and lending for private student loans drying up, families’ ability to find available financial aid is becoming more difficult, reports the Associated Press (“College Financial Aid System Facing Stiff Test,” Jan. 25, 2009).

Traditional sources of college funding are no longer available: Home values are dropping, making it difficult for families to get a home equity loan, college savings accounts are dwindling, and private lenders are leaving the student loan market.

Currently, only 21 of the 60 third-party student loan lenders who issued $19 billion in federal and private student loans last year are still lending, and most of the lenders still issuing loans have severely tightened their credit criteria, according to Finaid.org, a college funding resource site.

Families face limited financial aid options at a time when state funding shortages have forced numerous state colleges to cut their financial aid budgets and replace grants and scholarships with student loans in their financial aid offers. Colleges are also increasing tuition, in some cases, by double digits.

“There are no sure answers because we’re in new territory,” said Bruce Hammond, a college admissions consultant based in Washington, D.C. “But students with high need and lesser credentials are going to have to brace themselves for less aid.”

Financially Needy Students Should Know Their College Funding Options

While the financial atmosphere for college students and their families may seem more dismal this year, things “are not as scary as people might think,” says Lauren Asher of the non-profit California-based Institute for College Access and Success.

Students and parents can take advantage of expanded federal financial aid offers. The U.S. Department of Education has already made $95 billion in grants, loans, and work-study assistance available to nearly 11 million students and families and Congress has increased annual borrowing limits for unsubsidized Stafford student loans, which are not tied to financial need, by $2,000. And President Obama’s proposed stimulus package could offer families even more financial aid.

Cash-strapped families and students could consider attending lower-cost public schools and community colleges to avoid taking on large amounts of debt. On average, tuition and fees at a two-year public school cost about $2,300, while tuition and fees at a four-year public school cost about $6,000, according to the College Board.

And while a number of the nation’s top colleges and universities, including Harvard , Yale, and Duke, have seen their endowments take a huge hit this year, none of these schools have gone back on their commitment to offset their high tuition costs by extending financial aid offers to a greater number of low- and middle-income families.

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Student Loan Lending Still Going Strong

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:34:00 GMT

Despite being hampered last year by a lack of investors and a lack of access to credit, federal student loan lenders are surviving the economic crisis — making the student loan market one of the few lending industries still able to thrive this year, The Wall Street Journal reports (“Tuition Ammunition: a Happy Lesson on Lending,” Jan. 6, 2008).

Proactive and swift action by the federal government, which guaranteed 18.6 percent more student loans for the 2008-09 academic year than the previous year, has helped the student loan industry avoid the decreases in volume seen by the mortgage and banking industries.

In addition to a move by the Treasury Department to infuse tens of billions of dollars into U.S. banks so lenders could issue new student loans, Congress passed legislation that allowed the federal government to buy up student loan securities from cash-strapped lenders.

The Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act (HR 5715) was intended to help student loan lenders, allowing the government to buy loans directly from these lenders, and may have contributed to a 9.4-percent climb in loan originations for the 2008–09 academic year by lenders in the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). While the legislation has been in place, the government has purchased about $97 million in student loans and invested nearly $10 billion in student loan trusts, figures that are expected to grow before the end of this school year.

“What we’ve seen so far is that programs we have put in place are having the desired effect,” said Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. Although she’s optimistic that the government’s efforts to boost student lending are working, she said she’s not ready to “declare any victories.”

Credit Markets Hinder Private Student Loan Lenders

While federal student loan lenders seem to be riding out the economic storm, observers say it’s unclear whether the private student loan market, which is suffering greatly from the credit crunch, will experience the same success.

After the market for selling bundled student loan securities dried up, the Federal Reserve initiated a $200 billion program in the hopes of encouraging investors to continue buying these securities. Analysts say, however, that these efforts may not be enough for the private student loan industry to compete with the demand for and the availability of low-cost federal student loans.

Last school year, private student loans accounted for about $17.6 billion, just one-fifth of the $85.9 billion in total student loan lending, according to the College Board. This year, lenders and analysts estimate that private student loan lenders have done 25 percent less business.

Already 39 lenders have stopped making private student loans, and others have tightened their lending criteria, both of which may force financially struggling families to pursue more affordable higher education options, said Tim Ranzetta, president of Student Lending Analytics, an independent research and advisory firm. “The cloud of this financing issue,” Ranzetta said, “will push more [students] to state public universities and community colleges.”

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College Board Settles Inquiry into Its Student Loan Practices

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:40:00 GMT

The College Board, which administers the SAT, ACT, and AP college admissions tests, has agreed to resolve an investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal into its student loan practices.

As part of the settlement agreement, the College Board — which exited the student loan business last year — will allocate $675,000 to developing a set of tools, including calculators, that would help families and financial aid administrators across the country to compare student loan offers (“College Board Rapped for Student Loan Marketing,” North County Gazette, Dec. 8, 2008).

The tools will “help parents, students and educators with the college loan process” by identifying the lowest cost student loan options, said Jennifer Topiel, a spokeswoman for the College Board, in an emailed statement.

“Our investigation of the student lending industry revealed arrangements — concealed from students and families — between the College Board and financial-aid offices at several schools,” Blumenthal said in a statement December 8. “The College Board provided discounted equipment and services to the schools in exchange for a coveted spot on the schools’ preferred-lender lists.”

Cuomo characterized the College Board’s loan arrangement with colleges as deceitful, although he did say that the testing company, with “its national reach and extensive expertise in higher education,” was well-suited to help parents and students “borrow smartly” (“College Board Resolves Two State Student-Loan Probes,” Bloomberg.com, Dec. 8, 2008).

“Loans are hard enough to come by these days; the last thing we need are deceitful arrangements like this one that stand squarely in the way of students and parents getting the facts,” Cuomo said. “We should be doing absolutely everything we can to guide students to the least expensive, least complicated option for affording higher education.”

Code of Conduct Seeks to Protect Students

Should the College Board ever resume its college lending programs, it has said it will abide by the Attorney General’s Direct-to-Consumer Marketing Code of Conduct, which prohibits lenders and marketers of student loans from using deceptive marketing practices.

The code of conduct is the result of Cuomo’s investigations into the student loan industry that have uncovered widespread conflict of interest practices among colleges and student loan lenders. Colleges and financial aid officers received both payments and perks from lenders in exchange for placement on schools’ preferred lender lists.

Cuomo spokeswoman Emily Browne said that 22 lenders and 26 institutions have pledged to sever financial ties and abide by a code of conduct that prohibits accepting gifts or payments from lenders.

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Colleges With Highest Tuition Wary of Economic Downturn

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:57:00 GMT

After years of ranking among the nation’s top five most expensive schools, Sarah Lawrence College — a private, liberal arts school in Bronxville, New York with a tuition price tag of more than $53,000 a year — is now the priciest school in America, beating out George Washington University and New York University, according to a new College Board report.

With such a hefty cost of attendance, the former all girls school, like many private colleges and universities, is concerned about its financial outlook in today’s economy (“Even at Costliest College, Unease Over Downturn,” The New York Times, Nov. 1, 2008).

Unlike public schools, which receive state and federal funding, private institutions like Sarah Lawrence depend on their tuition and fees, their fundraising efforts, and their endowments to pay for the bulk of their operational expenses.

Sarah Lawrence’s endowment, which the school uses to supplement its $80 million operating budget, has shrunk 16 percent from $77 million since May 2007. Yet, Sarah Lawrence still manages to offer 53 percent of its students some sort of financial aid — an expense that makes up 21 percent of the school’s budget.

While Sarah Lawrence has yet to see an uptick in the number of requests for financial aid this year, school president, Karen Lawrence, is wary of the economic pressures bearing down on the middle-and-upper-class families who may soon be or are already putting their kids through college.

“It’s really hard to tell how much we are going to be impacted,” Lawrence said. “Some students are struggling more because family finances are changes. We are trying to help them out.”

But, Lawrence said, the school’s small $65 million endowment, which pales in comparison to the $34 billion endowment of fellow liberal arts school Harvard University, is making it more difficult to help families meet Sarah Lawrence’s rising tuition costs.

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College Tuition, Student Borrowing On the Rise In Down Economy

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:50:00 GMT

A new report has found that last year’s increases in college tuition were more on pace with rises in the Consumer Price Index — the measure of the average price of consumer goods and services. But despite the relative steadiness of college affordability, students still received record amounts of financial aid and borrowed more in student loans, according to findings of the College Board’s 2008 Trends in Higher Education Series.

The 2008 Trends in College Pricing report, which covers this academic year’s college costs, found that while the CPI rose nearly 5.6 percent this year, the average in-state tuition and fees at public four-year institutions increased by 6.4 percent to $6,585. Average tuition and fees at two-year public colleges jumped 4.7 percent to $2,402, and increased 5.9 percent at private four-year colleges and universities to $25,143.

“College prices are doing what other prices are doing. They’re not going up more rapidly; they’re just keeping pace,” said Sandy Baum, a senior policy analyst for the College Board and a Skidmore College economics professor (“Downturn Expected to Drive Tuition Up,” The New York Times, Oct. 30, 2008).

Lagging Economy Could Spark Increased Demand for Financial Aid

The concern among education experts is that while tuition increases were milder and closer inline with the CPI this year, these numbers may already be out of date. Since the data was gathered before the economy began its downward spiral, students at both public and private institutions may be in for even larger tuition hikes and even more borrowing next year.

The current economic crunch has led many states to slash their higher education budgets. In order to compensate for the loss of state funds, public colleges and universities in more than 12 states have been forced to raise their tuition costs.

But the flagging economy hasn’t just affected state schools; private colleges and universities have had difficulties raising funds from private donors — their largest source of financing — and have had to push any increased costs onto students.

“Private colleges face a real quandary,” Baum said. “Everybody’s going to have more people applying for financial aid, and it could really be that they’re going to lose enrollment if they can’t meet the need.”

According to the 2008 Trends in Student Aid report, part of the College Board’s Trends in Higher Education Series, graduate and undergraduate students received more than $143 billion in federal financial aid last year, and borrowed $19 billion from state and private lending sources — figures that are expected to rise as the cost of college increases.

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SAT and ACT Tests Not the Best Predictors of College Success, Study Finds

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:12:00 GMT

The colleges and universities that use students’ SAT and ACT standardized test scores when making college admissions and financial aid decisions should base these decisions on tests that more closely reflect a student’s high school achievement and understanding of the high school curriculum, according to the recommendations made by a new commission comprised of influential college admissions officials.

The commission, led by William R. Fitzsimmons, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Harvard University, recently completed a yearlong study that questioned the relevancy of SAT and ACT tests for college admissions (“College Panel Calls for Less Focus on SATs,” The New York Times, Sept. 21, 2008).

“It would be much better for the country,” Fitzsimmons says, “to have students focusing on high school courses that, based on evidence, will prepare them well for college and also prepare them well for the real world beyond college, instead of their spending enormous amounts of time trying to game the SAT.”

Admissions officers should rely instead on exams that are closer linked to high school curriculum like the College Board’s Advanced Placement tests and SAT Subject Tests and the International Baccalaureate exams when making admissions decisions, Fitzsimmons says. Unlike the SAT and ACT exams, he argues, these other tests have fewer ties to the billion-dollar test-prep industry.

Test Scores Indicate Students Who Are Well-Off Have An Advantage

Fitzsimmons’ research group, convened by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, found that the nature of standardized testing places less emphasis on students learning their high school curriculum and more emphasis on test preparation — a discrepancy that favors affluent students who can afford test-prep resources.

The commission’s report found that standardized test scores emphasized the socio-economic differences of the SAT’s and ACT’s test-taking population and were reflective of a student’s race and ethnicity, socio-economic class, and their family’s level of educational attainment.

“Society likes to think that the SAT measures people’s ability or merit,” Fitzsimmons says. “But no one in college admissions who visits the range of secondary schools we visit, and goes to the communities we visit … can come away thinking that standardized tests can be a measure of someone’s true worth or ability.”

Testing Companies, Schools Disagree on Report’s Findings

Representatives from the College Board — which administers the SAT exam, taken by 1.6 million high school students this year — and ACT Inc. — which is responsible for the ACT exam, taken by 1.4 million students this year — both disputed the report’s findings. The companies contend that their tests do measure students’ understanding of classroom material, not just their test-preparation skills, according to a Bloomberg article (“Colleges Shouldn’t Rely on SAT, ACT Tests Study Says,” Sept. 22, 2008).

“Hundreds of national research studies show that the SAT is a valid predictor of college success,” the College Board wrote in a statement. “We have long advised that the use of the SAT in the admission process is in combination with high school grades.”

Prior to the report’s recommendations, only 280 four-year schools, including Wake Forest University, Smith College, Bates College, and the University of Wisconsin, had stopped requiring the standardized tests for admissions, and the report calls for more schools to follow suit.

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New SAT Policy Gives Students Control Over What Scores Colleges See

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:32:00 GMT

A new SAT scoring policy will give high school students the option to show only their best SAT score to college admissions officers and to prevent these school officials from seeing test-scores that were less-than-stellar.

Under the new policy, which goes into effect next year, students can take the widely used college entrance exam multiple times and send only the scores they want admissions officers to see, unlike the current policy in which colleges receive scores every time a student attempted the SAT.

The score-reporting change recently announced by the College Board, the nonprofit organization that administers the test, comes at a time when universities are placing less emphasis on standardized testing in choosing prospective freshmen and when the rival ACT exam is gaining popularity, according to the LA Times (“SAT Will Let Students Pick Which Scores to Show Colleges,” June 21, 2008). The new SAT scoring option emulates the ACT’s long-standing score-choice policy.

“It’s clearly a marketing move to try to fend off the growing perception that the ACT is a more consumer-friendly product,” says Robert Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, an organization that monitors standardized tests for signs of bias (“Kids Can Pick Which SAT Scores a College Sees,” U.S. News World Report, June 24, 2008).

Changes Giving Affluent Students a Boost, Critics Say

Some high school counselors and college admissions officials have raised concerns that the SAT score-reporting change will give students who can afford to retake the $45-test multiple times an edge, writes U.S. News reporter Lucia Graves. But College Board officials say the criticisms are unfounded, contending that “there’s no advantage to taking the SAT more than twice, and our fee waivers let low-income students take the test [free] twice.”

The SAT’s score-reporting change is the latest shake-up to the standardized test that has been a college admission staple for decades. Just last week, the College Board announced that despite dramatic changes to the SAT that were designed to help colleges and universities better predict a student’s academic performance in college, the adjustments did not improve the overall reliability of the test.

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New SAT Test Fails to Show Improvements, College Board Finds

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:09:00 GMT

Despite dramatic changes to the SAT that were designed to help colleges and universities better predict a student’s academic performance in college, the adjustments did not “substantially change” how accurately the test predicts first-year grades, according to data collected by the College Board, the nonprofit organization that administers the test.

Validity studies conducted by the board showed that the changes to the test, which included updated mathematics questions and the addition of a writing section, did show that more emphasis has been placed on writing instruction in the classroom, but didn’t do much to bolster the overall reliability of the test, wrote Inside Higher Ed reporter Scott Jaschik ("The New SAT: Longer, But No Better?," June 18, 2008).

The studies, Jaschik wrote, also support the findings of research conducted on the previous version of the SAT, that the single best way to predict a high school student’s performance during their freshman year of college is their high school grades, not a standardized test.

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Banks Become More Selective, Leaving Some Colleges Without Student Loans

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:49:00 GMT

Students at community colleges, for-profit universities, and other less competitive institutions may have trouble finding a lender willing to offer them federal student loans as some of the nation’s biggest banks pare down the list of schools they serve, according to an article that appeared today in The New York Times (“Student Loans Start to Bypass 2-Year Colleges,” June 2, 2008).

Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, PNC, and SunTrust are no longer offering student loans to certain colleges — schools that the banks have determined tend toward higher default rates, fewer borrowers, and small loan amounts that make business less profitable.

More than 6.2 million — over 40 percent — of the nation’s undergraduates attend community colleges. These students, according to the College Board, borrow an average of $3,200 a year.

In late May, Citibank, one of the nation’s largest providers of student loans, announced its student lending division, the Student Loan Corporation, would temporarily suspend lending to schools whose borrowers tend to have college loans with “lower balances and shorter periods over which we earn interest.” Citibank also announced it would cease lending to schools it anticipated to have minimal loan volume.

“The logic is so flawed, that for us to have volume with them in the future, we have to have had volume with them in the past,” said Korey Compaan, financial aid director at William Jessup University in Rocklin, Calif. To deny federal student loans to students based simply on the college they attend, he said, is “totally and completely unethical.”

Sallie Mae and Nelnet have recently reaffirmed their commitment to offering federal college loans regardless of the institution a student attends. And Wells Fargo has contacted financial aid administrators at schools dropped by Citibank to express a willingness to lend to their students.

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College Board Helps College Recruiters Target Low-Income Students

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:38:00 GMT

As part of a College Board pilot program nearly 30 colleges and universities will be allowed to buy the names and personal information of low-income high school students — a data set that has been off limits since the early 1980s, according to the Chicago Tribune (“Colleges Recruit Low-Income Students,” May 24, 2008).

The College Board currently sells data to colleges that it collects from the SAT and other College Board–administered exams, including high school students’ grades, test scores, race, religion, and other demographic information. The nonprofit college membership association stopped offering family income data nearly 20 years ago after it found that some schools had misused that information to target admissions offers to students who could afford full tuition.

But in response to lobbying by colleges and universities that are “trying to bring more economic diversity to their overwhelmingly affluent student bodies,” the College Board is now making the income data partially available again, writes Chicago Tribune reporter Jodi Cohen.

“We are using it for good, not for evil,” said Bruce Poch, dean of admissions at Pomona College. “The myth of unaffordability has become a nightmare, and we can’t directly speak to kids or their families unless we can really target them.”

To ensure that students’ privacy isn’t violated and that the information isn’t misused, schools cannot request a search that would reveal which students have family incomes above or below a certain level. College admissions officers can only request the names of students who live in low-income communities, determined by their high school and nine-digit ZIP code.

While the College Board will not disclose the names of colleges currently participating in its expanded pilot program, Amherst College, Williams College, and Wellesley College were three of the schools that tested the system last year. Amherst Dean of Admissions Tom Parker said 1,000 more low-income students received direct mail from Amherst after using the program.

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College Board to Eliminate Four AP Programs by Next School Year

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:26:00 GMT

The College Board’s decision to drop four Advanced Placement classes and subject exams by the end of the 2008–09 academic year is expected to affect about 12,500 students and 2,500 teachers worldwide.

The AP program allows high school students to take college-level courses at their high schools. AP students can earn college credit at most colleges and universities by scoring high enough on national AP tests given at the end of each academic year.

The AP program currently offers 37 courses and exams across 22 subject areas, but officials of the nonprofit College Board have announced plans to eliminate Italian, Latin literature, French literature and computer science AB from the AP program.

Lack of Student Participation Spurs Cuts

The decision came after officials discovered only a fraction of underrepresented minority students take AP exams in those subject areas, writes Education Week reporter Scott Cech (“College Board Intends to Drop AP Programs in Four Subjects,” April 4, 2008).

Italian, which officials say might still be saved if the program receives outside funding, was 400 percent over budget due to the small number of students taking the exams.

“For us, [the question is], are we able to achieve our mission of reaching a broader range of students?” said Trevor Packer, College Board vice president of the AP program.

Budgets of Remaining AP Programs Expected to Grow

Packer said the decision to eliminate the four programs was not connected to the results of a recently released national quality-control audit intended to gauge whether the rapid expansion of the college-preparatory program over the past decade had led to a decline in the rigor for which it has been known.

Of the 146,671 AP courses submitted for review nationwide, 136,853 — 93 percent — were approved, reports The Washington Post (“Nearly All Area AP Teachers Get Passing Grades in Audit,” March 25, 2008).

The 33 remaining AP programs are expected to have their budgets increased.

“We don’t want any AP subject area to be deemed a so-called second-class citizen,” Packer said. “Our top funding requirement should be … professional development and instructional materials.”

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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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