Financial Aid

Time running out on applying for financial aid. More from Registered Rep.

It's that time of year again. With February just around the corner, many parents of college-age children are scrambling to complete their financial aid applications. While technically there is no official Deadline for the federal form, called the Free Application for Federal Student Aid Form (FAFSA), most schools give priority to applications received by March 1.

At eight pages and 85 questions long, filling out the FAFSA is not a fun task. Plus, most private schools require that parents complete another lengthy form, as well. But, with the average cost of a four-year private school for the 2004-2005 year a whopping $20,082-up 6 percent from the year before, according to the College Board-it's also something most parents need to do. About $122 billion in financial aid, including grants and loans, was awarded in the 2003-2004 school year, according to the most recent figures from the College Board, an increase of 11 percent over the year before.

Education as a product

Via Enrollment, a story that highlights the shift in academic power structure online university courses may cause.

Most online learners are working adults, and "the market overwhelmingly favors professional education," he says. That has led to "a growing commoditization of the curriculum and a tendency for schools to market education as a 'product,'" he writes. Many institutions now develop curricula that can be reused and repackaged, with little or no further input from instructors.

One distance-education instructor whom Mr. Wright interviewed compared some online curriculum development to sweatshop work. "You have these busy people creating these objects — like multiple-choice tests, or little games, or learning objects — these are people who are paid nothing, whereas other people are paid a lot for overseeing it, like factory owners," said Susan Nash, associate dean of liberal arts at Excelsior College.I'm somewhat concerned about marketing 'education as a product' just like any other product. One of the problems I think is that currently many online university programs, since they are growing so fast, accentuate the marketing aspects of appealing to students with limited time, professional lives, etc., without developing a tradition of big E education, where the education is the most important aspect.

I'd like to hear what others are thinking about this.

Here is more critical commentary about distance education from the Salon.com article highlighted here.

Hunt, a history professor at the nearby Community College of Aurora, had Accepted a friend's invitation to attend the University of Phoenix graduation ceremony for its Denver-area students. Hunt was keen to take a closer look at Phoenix, the for-profit juggernaut whose booming distance-learning programs were changing the calculus of higher education at schools nationwide, including his own. Outside the Aurora faculty lounge, dark rumors were swirling of state bureaucrats talking up a troubling notion: the "professor-less classroom."

That phrase, Hunt says, "just sent chills down my back."

Online vs. Traditional

Why not a little of both? They shouldn't be mutually exclusive at all.

A story from Metro News out of Canada about the growth of online learning.

Techno-phobes may prefer to learn in a traditional classroom, but online education is only a click away and offers virtual advantages that transcend time and space.

Video conferencing, webcasts, message boards, blogs, chatrooms, and e-mail now provide various platforms of communication for students and instructors.

Kaplan University Holds First Commencement Ceremony

From PRNewswire.

Kaplan University, a regionally accredited university, held its first commencement ceremony for online graduates this morning, January 23 at 11:00 a.m. Andrew S. Rosen, President, Kaplan University, presided over the ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Pier Sixty-Six Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Harold O. Levy, Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Kaplan, Inc., and former New York City Schools Chancellor, delivered the commencement address.

"Today we celebrated the success of our graduates and the exponential growth of our school, which has doubled enrollments each year since our inception in 2000," said Kaplan University President Andrew S. Rosen. "This event was a wonderful opportunity for our online graduates to gather together to celebrate their achievements in person."

B-School Consultants

Sandy Kreisberg at Ask Sandy's Blog offers information on business schools, consulting and other business related information. Here he links to an article from the Wall Street Journal about using business school consultants to help write and rewrite admissions essays. Kreisberg quoted in the article which is excerpted below.

Despite the cost — between $20 and $400 an essay, depending on the length, and up to $3,000 per M.B.A. application — these are boom times for online essay companies. And they're just part of the growing college-preparation market. Some estimate the total market for test prepping, essay editing and application consulting could be as high as $1 billion a year.

"The reason you hire an editor is the same reason you don't teach your own child to drive. It is just better done with a third party," says Cambridge Essay's Mr. Kreisberg, 55 years old, who taught a course on writing personal essays to Harvard College freshmen from 1981 to 1989.What a service can do best is "stop the applicant from saying something damaging or politically incorrect," Mr. Kreisberg says. He advises students to steer away from "outward bound" or "climbing the mountain" essays. He says an essay can go back and forth 30 times before he and the client are satisfied.

Blogging education

Here are a number of other education weblogs I've come across.

Education Blog has a few nice resources listed.

Alternated points us to a resource directory.

Here, at Online University Degree are also a number of good items, including an FAQ.

Teaching Life Skills With Video Games

From the BBC.According to researchers at Futurelab, a British nonprofit investigating how technology can be used for innovative learning, video games have the potential to be highly effective tools for holding students' attention and teaching them about a variety of topics. This sentiment echoes recent findings of the London Institute of Education, which said video games have educational potential. "Games teach life skills such as decision making [and] problem solving," according to Futurelab's Martin Owen. One company, Lateral Visions, saw an opportunity in the educational potential of video games and developed
an auto-racing game called Racing academy. In it, players build and maintain the cars they race, using data to try to improve their performance.
The game allows players to use chat rooms to exchange information and ideas, and Owen finds this aspect of the game particularly promising for developing student learning. Futurelab researchers who have been testing the game in two secondary schools have had a positive response from most students, and the researchers have generally been supportive of using the game to enhance learning.

Fighting crime, online

From VNUNet.

Police officers in England and Wales are to receive basic training in tackling computer and internet-related crimes.

Officers will receive training to tackle rising instances of identity fraud, extortion, piracy and child pornography.

Thomson Education Direct – Medical Office Assisting

Keri O. at Learn Outside the Box on her course with Thomson Education Direct. Hopefully in my searching I can find more testimonials like these for other students to read. So if you're in an online uni, and have something to say, give me a shout out and I'll post your comments on this weblog.

I just received a course today in the mail I signed up for by Thomson Education Direct. I am taking their Medical Office Assistant program.

This is a distance learning course, so I will be sent my course materials in the mail, and will send my tests and any other work in to be graded. I've also taken some college courses for credit through distance learning, and while it is a great way to learn, I suggest you only use it for topics you are interested in. If its something that you will have difficulty paying attention to – like math for me – then I suggest you got through a more structured environment.

Cheaper textbooks

Through online vendors. A story at The Daily Orange.

Strained by the burden of increasing textbook costs, students are increasingly looking to fill their orders online.

"We've seen sales increase from 6,000 to 10,000 online orders this semester alone," said Dan Yunghans, textbook supervisor at Follett's Orange bookstore.
Also, from The Crimson, via Distance Educator, a new website which allows students to rate professors and exchange textbooks.

While the professor ratings are the centerpiece of the site, students can also use thecampusbook.com to arrange to buy and sell used textbooks. Though the site does not facilitate online payment, it allows students to post the titles of textbooks they wish to sell or to search for posts about books they wish to purchase.

Once a buyer and seller find each other, they can use thecampusbook.com to arrange an outside means of carrying out the actual sale. Shraga said this service can save students " literally hundreds of dollars.&lrquo;