Higher Education

Single Student Parents Face Financial Difficulties, Debt, Without Adequate Aid

Submitted by asklar on Fri, 05/04/2012 - 10:24am

Parents with dependent children were nearly one quarter of students enrolled for credit at American postsecondary institutions in 2008. These students face significant challenges to remaining enrolled and graduating, including limited access to affordable child care, difficulty balancing the demands of school with the demands of work and family, and financial limitations that make it difficult to remain enrolled. Student parents are more likely than traditional students to say that financial difficulties are likely to result in their withdrawing from college (Miller, Gault, and Thorman 2011).

by Kevin Miller, Ph.D. (May 2012)

URL:

http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/single-student-parents-face-financial-difficulties-debt-without-adequate-aid

Member Organization:

Institute for Women’s Policy Research

Housing Resources and Programs for Single Student Parents at Community and Technical Colleges

Submitted by asklar on Fri, 05/04/2012 - 10:19am

Parents with dependent children now make up almost one in four students pursuing higher education in the United States (Miller, Gault and Thorman 2011). Single parents face particular challenges pursuing higher education, including securing safe and affordable housing. Single mothers often must spend over half of their income on housing expenses, leaving them with less money for educational expenses and vulnerable to housing crises that can easily derail their pursuit of a degree (Bush 2010). An analysis of effective strategies to support single student parents identifies affordable housing as one of the most important factors to ensuring student success (Women Employed 2011).

URL:

http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/housing-resources-and-programs-for-single-student-parents-at-community-and-technical-colleges

Member Organization:

Institute for Women’s Policy Research

Georgetown University will not offer student contraception coverage

Teaser:

Georgetown University president John J. DeGioia announced that the school will not adjust student health care plans to cover birth control.

Editorial:

From Catholic News Agency:

The president of Georgetown University cited the importance of Catholic identity in his announcement that student health care plans will not be adjusted to include coverage of birth control.

However, he also indicated that the D.C.-based Jesuit university will continue its practice of offering such coverage to employees.

In an April 26 email to the university community, President John J. DeGioia said that after “thoughtful and careful consideration,” the administration has decided to “continue our current practice for contraceptive coverage in our student health insurance for the coming year.”

DeGioia also said the university will not change its approach to contraceptive coverage for employees in 2013.

Georgetown’s current student health plan does not cover birth control for contraceptive purposes. But according to the National Women’s Law Center, employees of the university can choose between multiple plans, including some that include birth control coverage.

[...]

Source:

Catholic News Agency

URL:

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/georgetown-university-will-not-offer-student-contraception-coverage/

Date:

May 2, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Out-of-Bounds Relationships

Teaser:

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is distributing a publication to all its member institutions urging athletic departments to create policies that “unambiguously and effectively” prohibit sexual relationships between coaches and student-athletes.

Editorial:

From Inside Higher Ed:

Of course, these relationships create conflicts of interest. But the issues run deeper than that, argue authors Deborah L. Brake, a University of Pittsburgh law professor, and Mariah Burton Nelson, executive director for the American Association for Physical Activity and Recreation.

The authors state that such relationships do not necessarily constitute sexual harassment because some of the relationships are consensual. But regardless of whether they are consensual, these relationships are a form of sexual abuse (though not necessarily criminal assault) because the employee holds a position of power over the athlete – rendering an athlete’s consent, stated or unstated, illegitimate. “The public understands that children can be manipulated into ‘agreeing’ to behaviors that are inappropriate and even criminal because they are, relative to adults, powerless,” the document reads. “Whether the student-athlete is 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, or older, she or he is significantly less powerful than a head coach, assistant coach, athletics trainer, sport psychologist, athletics director, or other athletics department staff with supervisory control or authority over student-athletes."

[...]

Source:

Inside Higher Ed

URL:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/01/ncaa-asks-colleges-prohibit-romantic-relationships-between-athletes-coaches

Date:

May 2, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Close, but No Degree

Submitted by asklar on Sun, 04/15/2012 - 12:45am

Even in New Jersey’s highly educated workforce, with 44 percent of adults possessing at least a two‐year degree, almost a fifth of adults age 25‐64 have started college but never finished.

Inexpensive policy changes can enable the state’s agencies and colleges to improve college completion rates in the state and simultaneously meet workforce goals, according to a new report,Close, but No Degree, by the Center for Women and Work (CWW) at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University.

URL:

http://smlr.rutgers.edu/cww-report-close-but-no-degree

Member Organization:

Center for Women and Work

Tools for Student Parent Success: Varieties of Campus Child Care

Submitted by asklar on Thu, 04/12/2012 - 10:11am

This toolkit is the first in a series by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). It introduces the wide variety of child care services that exist at institutions of higher learning. Rather than an exhaustive study of campus child care programs, it is an introduction to possible options. It is for those seeking to provide quality child care at colleges or universities and for those considering how to expand or rethink existing services.

URL:

http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/tools-for-student-parent-success-varieties-of-campus-child-care

Member Organization:

Institute for Women’s Policy Research

Keeping Score When It Counts

Submitted by asklar on Sun, 04/08/2012 - 11:52pm

The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, at the University of Central Florida releases its “Keeping Score When It Counts" series periodically. It documents comprehensive analysis of statistics involving the graduation rates of Division I collegiate athletic teams in selected sports.

In 2012, the study of graduation rates for teams in the women’s college basketball championship tournament found higher numbers than those in the men’s event and a smaller disparity between white and black players.

URL:

http://www.tidesport.org/ncaagraduationrates.html

Strengthening the diversity of top academic leaders

Submitted by asklar on Tue, 03/27/2012 - 10:31am

Findings and insights from Egon Zehnder International’s Global Academic Leadership Survey

Most leading academic institutions are strongly committed to diversity, a commitment visible in their policies on staff recruitment and student admissions, as well as in their academic programs. Yet how diverse are their leaders? A survey by Egon Zehnder International of over 300 top universities and research institutions worldwide shows that the most senior level of academic leadership remains overwhelmingly male and locally-born.

URL:

http://www.egonzehnder.com/us/clientservice/diversityandinclusion/thoughtleadership/publication/id/17500687

Hello, Cruel World

Teaser:

What the Fate of One Class of 2011 Says About the Job Market

Editorial:

From The New York Times:

The 1.7 million members of the Class of 2011 witnessed, within the four-year span of their college careers, one of the greatest bull markets in United States history and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Last spring, they shed their caps and gowns and joined a kind of B.A. bread line. Unemployment among recent liberal-arts graduates, at 9.4 percent, was higher than the national average, and student-loan debt, at an average of nearly $25,000, had reached record levels. Worse still, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics was reporting that only 5 of the 20 jobs projected to grow fastest over the coming decade would require a bachelor’s degree. Though the statistics still show that a college degree correlates with both higher income and lower unemployment in the long run, diplomas didn’t seem very valuable when they were handed out last May.

Graduating seniors at schools like Drew University in Madison, N.J., have felt the stresses of the job market acutely. For all its merits — including a much-admired theater department and a prestigious Wall Street internship program — Drew ranks 94th among 178 private liberal-arts colleges on U.S. News & World Report’s annual list. The middle of the collegiate pack is not where you want to be when you’re competing for a diminishing number of entry-level jobs.

Members of Drew’s Class of ’11 are typical of their peers nationally in that their success in the job market seems to have less to do with their G.P.A.’s or their persistence and more to do with their family connections, fields of study, networking skills and luck. How else to account for the unemployed Phi Beta Kappa waiting by a silent phone? Or the anthropology major who is forgoing grad school to become a dog groomer? Or the English major who can’t earn enough money to make the monthly payment on her $128,000 student loan? (Drew is unusually expensive; tuition plus room and board run more than $50,000 a year.) Equals on campus, the 309 members of Drew’s Class of ’11 are already being divided into the 99 percent and the 1 percent. Seven months after graduation, The Times Magazine spoke with 226 of them about their rough journey into the real world.

[...]

Source:

The New York Times

URL:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/what-the-fate-of-one-class-of-2011-says-about-the-job-market.html

Date:

March 23, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Increasing Opportunities for Low-Income Women and Student Parents in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math at Community Colleges

Submitted by asklar on Tue, 03/20/2012 - 10:52am

Jobs in science, engineering, technology, and math (STEM) fields are expected to grow by 17 percent between 2008 and 2018, nearly double the growth of all other fields.

URL:

http://www.iwpr.org/initiatives/student-parent-success-initiative/increasing-opportunities-for-low-income-women-and-student-parents-in-science-technology-engineering-and-math-at-community-colleges-1/view

Member Organization:

Institute for Women’s Policy Research

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