Election Day!

Election day is finally here and I hope everyone that hasn't voted yet took the time to cast their ballot. Voter turnout may be affected here due to gloomy weather and rain but lets hope everyone just put put on some rain boots and jackets and voted anyway. I know I voted last week but I saved some stickers and took full advantage of free Starbucks and Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Shame on you to all of you non voters who don't want your voice to be heard. According to CNN Obama is in the lead right now with 174 electoral votes and McCain with 64 but since it is only 9:23 many states including a few swing states are still processing their votes so we can't count our chickens before they hatch. With all the excitement from the election one thing is for sure, there will be many disappointed voters tomorrow morning , but there will also be many ecstatic voters as well. As for who will be happy and who be sad, I guess we will just have to wait and see...

One Last Look at Candidates Views on Student Loans Before Election Day

It's almost election day and it looks like the race is heating up. Before everyone goes out to vote tomorrow, I just want to review the candidates stance on financial aid one last time and make sure everyone has an idea of what is going on.

John McCain views the federal aid application and tax benefits as "too complicated" and as often deterring "eligible students from applying for financial aid." He wants to simplify tax breaks and consolidate aid programs so students can track their options more easily. McCaint has not called for expansion of grant programs like Obama, but he has suggested an increase in the lender-of-last-resort capability of the federal government to back loans. McCain also proposed using community colleges to "retrain displaced workers" but hasn't yet set specific goals.

Obama also believes in simplifying the federal aid system, but also propses The American Opportunity Tax Credit, which would ensure $4000 dollars of college tuition in return for 100 hours of communtiy service. Obama also believes in Pell Grant increases and funding for community colleges. His Community College Partnership Program would attempt to reward community colleges for sending students to four-year institutions.

While all of these are great ideas, there is one problem, the budget deficit. Both candidates proposals, particularly Obama's require money, which the government is short of right now. Obamas tax credit would cost the Treasury an estimated $10 billion, which might not be the best idea with the state of the economy right now.“Whoever wins will not have any money to do anything new,” said Thomas G. Mortenson, a longtime independent analyst of student financial aid program. The bottom line is, even with great ideas, it's kind of hard to get anywhere without the cash flow to support them.

Further Reading

The following links provide excellent information for anyone wishing to research student loans and education further.

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/education/index.html
The New York Times has the latest news about all kinds of issues locally, regionally, and internationally. This specific link provides the most recent and most important articles on all things education including elementary, college, private, public, and anything in between.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/
Obamas website presents his platform and here you can learn his views on education and how he plans to change the education system.

http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/19ce50b5-daa8-4795-b92d-92bd0d985bca.htm
McCain presents his ideas and views here and this link takes you straight to his education platform so that you can look at his views for yourself.

http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2008012500
CQ Researcher provides all sorts of information on student aid as well as many useful links top different sites about student aid.

http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/fafsa.jsp
This website allows students to fill out the FAFSA form as well as tells about the federal aid offered to students.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/issues/issues.education.html
This webpage from CNN also discusses the views and stance of the 2008 presidential candidates on education policy.

http://www.nextstudent.com/student-loan-blog/blogs/sample_weblog/archive/2008/10/30/1366.aspx
This blog on student loans is updated often and helps student to know what is going on as far as financial aid is concerned. It also gives advice to students on how to recieve loans and what would be best for them.

Self-Analysis

This blog project has brought a unique perspective to the thinking and writing process. It has allowed me to not only research my own topic, but to form opinions of other issues dealing with the election by reviewing my peer's blogs. For example, I learned about health care from Kelli, taxes from Robert, energy from Tommy, immigration from Emily, and many others issues and blogs that I simply haven't named. I really enjoyed being able to learn more about the election because it helps me make educated decisions on who would be the best president for both America as well as for my family. Blogs are a great way to supply information and present your opinion on matters. I really like that instead of writing a works cited page with in-text citations, I can simply insert a link that will take the reader straight to the web site that the source was found on. I also enjoy being able to write and receive comments from my class mates on my own time rather than in the classroom. This allows me to better organize my thoughts and put together a better post. I think this project disproves Nicholas Carr's theory that the internet inhibits our deep thinking and reading patterns. The blogs had to be carefully read and analyzed to develop ideas and opinions and have caused me to really think about and debate the dilemmas being discussed.

Don't get me wrong, blogs are not perfect. Many sources that seem perfectly creditable are often not and sometimes I found that there wasn't as much talk about student aid as there might have been in the past so updated information and articles became harder to find as the project progressed. I do agree with Carr that the internet does offer many distractions. The other day, I was discussing with my friend how I was supposed to be doing homework but I got distracted by Facebook and she mentioned that "Facebook is the downfall of all college students". I thought this was funny because it is so true, all of my friends agree that Facebook is very distracting when it comes to doing homework and blogs allow instant access to such distractions.

As far as the election is concerned, this blog really helped to sway my vote. Before beginning my research, I was undecided on who to vote for president, but leaning towards McCain simply because most of my friends were voting for him and they had the greatest influence over my decision. When I actually began researching, I found that I agree with many of Obamas plans more than I agree with McCain's and when I voted early on Tuesday, I decided to cast my ballot for Obama. Although both candidates have similar views on education and want to improve it, Obama, who was able to recieve an education though scholarships, is the more ardent supporter of student aid and mending the "No Child Left Behind Act".

Through this blog, I have also been able to develop my thoughts on not only higher education, but lower education too. In my first post, I wrote about merit-based student aid versus need-based aid. I believed need-based was important since it allows for more diversity in colleges but after thinking about it, I also see that the need for need-based stems from lower-level education and family background. In order to help students have equal opportunities, I believe that programs such as charter schools should be put into effect by the government. These schools would help low-income and minority students learn skills, which are to middle and upper-class children by their parents, that are important for both school and the real world and will hopefully help under privileged kids to operate on the level as their upper and middle class peers. Everyone is created differently and some people are smarter than others, but some are also just as smart but have less privileges. It isn't fair that some kids never get to go to college because they weren't taught basic skills such as manners and socialization skills. My hope is that some day charter schools and other organizations will help all children to have the same opportunities that were given to me by my parents.

Icreased College Tuition

Although federal and state governments are doing the best they can to support the economy, it looks like tuition prices for college could take a nasty spike in the next few years. Recent reports from College Board's annual survey of tuition and fees showed relatively modest increases in tuition costs for the 2008-2009 academic year, with costs rising 1 percent to 3 percent above inflation. But the report also was based on data collected before June and does not reflect the economic issues now embroiling the nation. According to the report, tuition for the year climbed 6.4 percent for in-state students at public four-year institutions to an average cost of $6,585 and 5.9 percent to an average of $25,143 for private colleges. Amazingly the cost of attending community colleges actually declined, after adjusting for inflation, by 0.8 percent to $2,300 for the year. Although financial aid, including both grants and federal loans, increased for the year, particularly from public programs and federal student loans which jumped 6 percent, the number of private loans for higher education, which had been climbing, began to shrink even before the current credit crisis. Experts such as the American Council on Education, a coalition of more than 1,600 college and university presidents, warn that conditions are increasingly ripe for some of the biggest tuition jumps in more than a decade. The main reason is that "state governments, struggling to balance budgets at a time of plummeting tax revenue, are beginning to slash appropriations to post-secondary institutions. Private schools are also having problems as their endowments decline in the stock market and donors grow more cautious with their giving" the group said.

Because of the economic crisis, people are losing jobs and money. Many parents, even in well-off families that normally wouldn't be anxious, are worried about paying for their kids education and in states such as New York, more and more parents are actually pushing their kids toward SUNY(State of New York University) less-expensive, public schools rather than cherished yet costly Ivy League schools such as Harvard that they normally would have supported. Not only are tuition prices going up but applications have increased by roughly 50% so far this fall.
As stated by the New York Times, "Clearly along with the high stress level that comes with a record number of students applying to colleges, there’s the even higher stress level that comes with the realization that in tough times, affording college is no given and there are things that trump fancy windshield stickers from brand-name colleges." Although parents care about what's best for their kids, they also need to be sensible financially, and if that means sending them to top ranked public schools rather than private, it definitely seems too be the better plan.

High School Dropout Rate Increases

According to recent studies kids today are more likely to drop out of high school than their parents. Approximately 1 in 4 kids has been dropping out of school for the last 5 years, and approximately 1 out of 3 minorities drops out of school. Researchers are not positive of the reason for the increased number of dropouts but some evidence points to the increase of disadvantaged children and the influence that family background has on children's shaping educational and adult outcomes. As discussed in my previous post, if the number of poor children continues to rise it will reduce productivity and increase inequality within America.
Many states are taking measures to boost high school graduation rates back up. New Jersey has developed a yearlong, multi-agency plan, called New Jersey High School Graduation Campaign, to boost the state’s graduation rates. It will be led not by the state’s Department of Education but by the state attorney general’s office, with funds from businesses like Verizon and Prudential, among others. New Jersey’s campaign is part of a national effort to reduce dropout rates by America’s Promise Alliance, a Washington-based children’s advocacy group founded by Colin Powell in 1997. Since April, the group has awarded grants of $25,000 to 14 states, including New Jersey and New York, to hold summits to develop communitywide plans for reducing dropout rates. According to spokeswoman Colleen Wilbur, dropouts are more than just a problem for schools, because those students are more likely to become a burden to society — ending up in jail, on welfare rolls or without any health insurance. Solving the dropout crisis will require not only the schools and parent's support, but the support of the entire community, including businesses and churches.
Hopefully if schools can increase their graduation rates and the government can support programs to decrease the number of disadvantaged children in America, more children will be able to attend college and therefore receive better jobs that will propel the out of their lower-class slump. Also if drop-out rates are decreased, welfare programs and the number of people in jail will decrease as well, which would help out the American economy. Another benefit of increased college graduates would be that the united states would be able to keep up with the high-tech competition from other countries and stay ahead in its modern inventions and technology.

Implications Post

In my theory post, I mentioned how lower level education and the No Child Left Behind Act affect students abilities to get into and succeed in college. I also mentioned another factor that affects higher level education: family background. Many low-income and minority Americans are finding it harder to go to college because of the rising inequality and polarization of society. A greater fraction of young Americans are graduating from college, but at the same time a greater fraction is also dropping out of high school. More children are being born into disadvantaged environments and are receiving relatively less stimulation and resources to promote child development than those born into more advantaged families. Without the resources and backgrounds of more advantaged children, these kids are never able to truly compete on a level playing field and are always behind their more knowledgeable peers in school and in the basic survival skills of life.
There are some options being researched to fix this situation. Three major advocates of of poor children are James J. Heckman, Susan B. Neuman and Geoffrey Canada. Heckman developed the theory that poverty is a problem of skills and poor children grow into poor adults because they are never able, either at home or at school, to acquire the abilities and resources they need to compete in a high-tech service-driven economy .Heckman stresses that these skills are both cognitive (the ability to read and compute) and noncognitive (the ability to stick to a schedule, to delay gratification and to shake off disappointments). According to Heckman if intervention into poor childrens lives is started in infancy and continued through childhood, the skill gap between poor and middle class will be diminished.
That is where the work of Newman and Canada come into play. Neuman has spent several years crisscrossing the nation, examining and analyzing programs intended to improve the lives of disadvantaged children and is publishing a book in November called “Changing the Odds for Children at Risk," that describes nine nonschool interventions. She includes the Nurse-Family Partnership, which sends trained nurses to visit and counsel poor mothers during and after their pregnancies; Early Head Start, a federal program, considerably more ambitious than Head Start itself, that offers low-income families parental support, medical care and day-care centers during the first three years of the lives of their children; Avance, a nine-month language-enrichment program for Spanish-speaking parents, mostly immigrants from Mexico, that operates in Texas and Los Angeles; and Bright Beginnings, a pre-K program in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina that enrolls 4-year-olds who score the lowest on a screening test of cognitive ability and manages to bring most of them up to grade level by the first day of kindergarten. These programs all yield positive results but are scattered throughout the country and only influence the first few years of a child's life meaning once students are takne out of the programs the effects begin to diminish.
Canada has designed an agency called the Harlem Children’s Zone that offers integrated social and educational services for thousands of children at once. His program begins with Baby College, a nine-week parenting program that encourages parents to choose alternatives to corporal punishment and to read and talk more with their children. Under his organization students progress through an all-day prekindergarten and then through a charter school,where they have continuous access to community supports like family counseling, after-school tutoring and a health clinic, all designed to mimic the often-invisible cocoon of support and nurturance that follows middle-class and upper-middle-class kids through their childhoods. The goal, in the end, is to produce children with the abilities and the character to survive adolescence in a high-poverty neighborhood, to make it to college and to graduate. So far his results have been uplifting. When the charter schools’ inaugural kindergarten class reached third grade and took their first New York state achievement tests: 68 percent of the students passed the reading test, which beat the New York City average and came within two percentage points of the state average, and 97 percent of them passed the math test, well above both the city and state average.
My point is that unless America does something to help it's poor children, the discrepancy between poor and middle class will continue to grow. How is this applied to higher level education? Colleges are always trying to create more diversity within their campus's by increasing the number of poor and minority students who attend, but if Americas poor children are not well educated or don't have the necessary skills to succeed then that makes college diversity harder to obtain. Not only that but it creates a nearly impossible barrier for poor students to get ahead in life. With Americas growing emphasis on college education, we should look into these different programs and help our poor children obtain the levels of education received by middle and upper class kids. Obama has looked into at the reforms I mentioned above and while they could be expensive, they will also allow poor kids to have the same opportunities as everyone else when they graduate. If America is really about freedom and equality, then these programs should definitely be taken into consideration because unless they are able to receive the benefits that middle and upper class children have from their parents and schools, there is not equality or freedom for poor kids in America.