Education

The Rise of College Student Borrowing

by Rebecca Hinze-Pifer and Richard Fry, Pew Research Center
November 22, 2010

Overview

Undergraduate college student borrowing has risen dramatically in recent years. Graduates who received a bachelor’s degree in 2008 borrowed 50% more (in inflation-adjusted dollars) than their counterparts who graduated in 1996, while graduates who earned an associate’s degree or undergraduate certificate in 2008 borrowed more than twice what their counterparts in 1996 had borrowed, according to a new analysis of National Center for Education Statistics data by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project.

Increased borrowing by college students has been driven by three trends:

More college students are borrowing. In 2008, 60% of all graduates had borrowed, compared with about half (52%) in 1996.

College students are borrowing more. Among 2008 graduates who borrowed, the average loan for bachelor’s degree recipients was more than $23,000, compared with slightly more than $17,000 in 1996. For associate’s degree and certificate recipients, the average loan increased to more than $12,600 from about $7,600 (all figures in 2008 dollars).

More college students are attending private for-profit schools, where levels and rates of borrowing are highest. Over the past decade, the private for-profit sector has expanded more rapidly than either the public or private not-for-profit sectors. In 2008, these institutions granted 18% of all undergraduate awards, up from 14% in 2003. Students who attend for-profit colleges are more likely than other students to borrow, and they typically borrow larger amounts.

Other key findings from the Pew Research Center analysis:

• One-quarter (24%) of 2008 bachelor’s degree graduates at for-profit schools borrowed more than $40,000, compared with 5% of graduates at public institutions and 14% at not-for-profit schools.
• Roughly one-in-four recipients of an associate’s degree or certificate borrowed more than $20,000 at both private for-profit and private not-for-profit schools, compared with 5% of graduates of public schools.
• Graduates of private for-profit schools are demographically different from graduates in other sectors. Generally, private for-profit school graduates have lower incomes, and are older, more likely to be from minority groups, more likely to be female, more likely to be independent of their parents and more likely to have their own dependents.
• Although private for-profit schools specialize in different fields of study than do public and private not-for-profit schools, the differences in borrowing patterns persist within fields of study. For almost every field of study at every level, students at private for-profit schools are more likely to borrow and tend to borrow larger amounts than students at public and private not-for-profit schools.

Read the full report at pewsocialtrends.org.

Let’s Play A Game

Editor’s Note:  It may be enticing to click on the video screen first, but please browse at this first link first.

http://www.americasarmy.com/

Call of Duty, Black Ops Trailer – Product release date set as 11-9-10 -

Yesterday, it was the Counter Culture. Today… it’s
Tuesday, September 7, 2010

More Here @ 3 pm (PST)

Est. 1964 Re-Incarnated by Public Demand

This is the original, 60’s, counter culture, LA Free Press. Today’s Best Alternative View & Our Old Hippie Headlines, Too! A Head Trip for Smart Minds.

(This article refers directly to today’s issue of the Los Angeles Free Press. If you have not yet seen it, please, before reading further, click HERE.)

Yesterday, it was the Counter Culture. Today it’s…

…all about: How we’ve let the war in and, if we’ll ever, again, want to say “Nevermore”?

by Steven M. Finger

Not just commentary, today, but also a secret that the literati have long hidden from us… surely, its revelation will be met with protest.  Already, I see it is time for me to move from here… but by nightfall I will publish that, as well.

As promised, our revelation…

Little known, and held closely as a secret, Edgar Allan Poe, favored peace to such an extent that he covertly supported the anti-war movement with hidden messages throughout his work, much as did Michelangelo.  Further, and very much the darker secret, again like the great Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer that few know as a poet, many of his thoughts related directly to the old testament and other Hebrew texts, such as the Kabala.

(Michelangelo’s use of Judaic texts, their ancient Hebrew language, along with kabalistic principles is well documented by various books and authors, among them is the The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo’s Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican (HarperOne), co-authored by Rabbi Benjamin Blech, assistant professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University and Roy Doliner, a Vatican docent.

The book purports, for instance, that the paintings covering the Sistine Chapel, the largest fresco painting on earth in the holiest of Christianity’s chapels, not only does not contain a single Christian image but, rather, the faces of Old Testament heroes and heroines; the forbidden Tree of Knowledge is not an apple tree, but a fig tree, as written in the Talmud; the altar where Mary was supposed to appear, has the Jewish prophet Jonah, whose hands and legs form two Hebrew letters – an embedded messages of brotherhood, a direct challenge to the repressive Roman Catholic Church of the time.  His messages were for peace and brotherhood.)

Leonardo da Vinci, is also well-known for his use of misdirection.  His paintings often lead an observer in one direction, though the realization of a hidden meaning can suddenly transform the picture into a message of, often forbidden, knowledge.

As with Poe, a detailed examination of his works reveals the magnitude of his genius.  (Astonishing, there is a great deal of complexity hidden behind what appears to be so simple a poetic rhyme that one can almost carry it themselves as if it were only a tune!)

For these reasons, much of Mr. Poe’s work has been mis-interpreted, and thoughts closer to the truth have been discouraged.  For instance, in the case The Raven, it was initially said that it was written without allegory (a representation conveying meaning other than the literal). Of course, that was preposterous; most readers easily recognizing the Raven from other texts as a ‘devil’s bird’.  But the repeated opposition kept many from making the transition to the next level, as had Poe.  And that was even though seventh stanza (a significant number in the Old Testament) clearly says the Raven carried himself as ‘a lord’.

The further development of the metaphor, through the allegorical device, transforms this Raven which spoke only one word – Nevermore – into a Lord of War who, actually, spoke volumes.

And never, out loud, is the translation of the three significant and most repeated words  – in all their singular and compounded uses – mentioned.  Here, is that key that, when placed correctly into the poem, converts it into a stark, anti-war message.

The secret conversions: The word ‘Never’ must be understood as ‘always’, ‘more’ as ‘war’ and, finally, the ‘name’ of what is persistently perceived as a true woman (Lenore) is, instead, the sadly lost concept of ‘end of war’.

As his craft would demand, these words perfectly maintain the rhyme and meter.  And that is true in both the most overt sense – the second line (each stanza having six) and the last line, as well as the intricate ‘internal’ rhyming that as been explored in many critical works.

Finally, we note, that in a last testament to the choice of peace over war, Mr. Poe made sure that the poem extended to exactly 18  stanzas – the numerical connotation in Hebrew ‘for life’.

We have now provided – in the posting that immediately follows this one – the entire text of the poem so that you may print it and apply the conversions. Our thought being that narrator’s anguish would be a cool juxtaposition of those slick commercials which, instead, encourage war.  (Let us know here!!)

Here are the keywords to our thinking today: Family, Community, Public Service, Military Service, U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corp, U.S. Air Force,  Changing Society, Self-Improvement, Social Change, Society & Culture

Here are links to today’s items:

[1] Why Your Kid is Going to Join the U.S. Air Force

[2] Why Your Kid is Going to Join the U.S. Navy

[3] Why Your Kid is Going to Join the U.S. Army

[4] Why Your Kid is Going to Join The U.S. Marine Corp

[5] War or “Nevermore”?

Patriot Act Stands Over Students

Following is a statement by young people associated with the American Civil Liberties Union of how the Patriot Act and other Post-911 government policies have adversely affected students.

Librarians Push Against Patriot Act

By Lauren Barack — School Library Journal, 11/30/2009

When it comes to the Patriot Act, there’s little dissension among librarians.

As of late November, 32 state chapters of the American Library Association (ALA) passed resolutions that call for Congress to allow section 215 of the law to sunset, instead of Capitol Hill reauthorizing it before December 31, 2009.

ALA’s Lynne Bradley, director of the American Library Association’s Office of Government Relations.

Section 215 allows the federal government to demand tangible records from any business, organization, entity, person—and even the public library—and then places a gag order on them about speaking of the demand. Many believe this act violates the right to privacy, broadly alluded to in our nation’s Bill of Rights.

“It’s often called the library provision because the ALA made such a stink about this when no one else would,” says Lynne Bradley, director of the American Library Association’s Office of Government Relations in Washington, DC.

ALA passed the first resolution against the section at its national meeting in July. Vermont followed as the first state chapter in September, tweaking its resolution to include opposition to Section 505, which allows the FBI to use National Security Letters to demand similar information within a gag order as well.

Michigan, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Kentucky are the latest four states to pass resolutions, too, and ALA heads expect all 50 state chapters to pass similar acts before the end of the year.

While no one is allowed to speak about whether they’ve been served with a Section 215 order, Bradley says a handful of libraries have received them, and a few have even challenged them in court.

“But before the challenges were heard, the FBI withdrew the orders before the information was made public,” she says.

As to whether Congress will be swayed by the library resolutions, Bradley appears unmoved. She notes that the White House appears supportive of the Department of Justice recommendations, which would prefer to have all sections re-ratified.

Besides Section 215, these include Section 206, which deals with roving wire taps, and Section 6001 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 called “Lone Wolf,” which isn’t part of the Patriot Act, but lets intelligence groups investigate single suspects—which many groups fear could be used against protesters.

“I’m normally a betting woman, but I’m not betting on this one,” says Bradley. “We are very disappointed that the White House appears to be have accepted the recommendations of the Department of Justice to move forward with very little changes. And that’s more than a disappointment.”

This article originally appeared in SLJ’s Extra Helping “https://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/subscribe.asp?screen=pi8″

Students Are Voting Again to Build a Movement

Lindsay McCluskey

President, United States Student Association

August 30, 2010