Notes From The Edge - Military Times Edge

It’s been eight years since I finished college, and, even with seven years of higher education under my belt, I find the idea of a return to the classroom intimidating.

Why? In this rapidly evolving digital age, so much has changed in higher education that I’m not sure I could keep up. Some examples:

* According to an article in U.S. News & World Report, a growing number of college professors are using Twitter to communicate with students and encourage classroom participation.

* Christopher Newport University in Virginia is closing its campus bookstore and opening a textbook Web site instead. According to school officials, online competition for discounted books, e-books and textbook rentals drove the decision.

* In the future, bookstores may not be the only casualties on college campuses. FastCompany.com reports that Stanford University’s engineering school library is becoming nearly bookless, as more publications are being offered in digital-only format.

* Freshmen roommates aren’t even random anymore. According to an article in The New York Times, more and more schools are giving the power of “roommate self-selection” to their students. Some are contracting with matchmaking companies like RoomBug and Lifetopia. What happened to hating your randomly assigned roommate as a rite of passage of freshman year?

* Citing low usage among tech-savvy college-goers who’d rather use their cells, seven colleges in Indiana are doing away with landline phones in dorms.

The list could go on. Obviously, if/when I ever return to the classroom, I?ll fall under the label of “non-traditional student.” Could I even keep up with the young whippersnappers right out of high school? And I’m curious ? is it just me being a technophobe, or does anyone else think there are areas where higher education and technology make for an intimidating — sometimes even crazy — mix?

When it comes to online degrees, do students care more about convenience or cachet? A growing number of traditional schools are banking on the hope that they care about both.

Online higher education is big business — and it’s only getting bigger. More than 4.6 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2008 term — a 17 percent increase over the previous year, according to a Sloan Consortium report on online education.

Private for-profits have led the way in online learning, but other schools are catching up. Recently, the Boston Globe took a look at the growth in online offerings from so-called brick-and-mortar schools. These schools are offering something many for-profits can’t — the chance to pursue a “hybrid” higher-education degree by combining traditional classroom-based courses with online learning.

Another enticement? According to the Globe article, many students prefer the status conferred by a degree from an established school. After all, schools don’t differentiate on your diploma whether a degree was earned in the classroom or online. And a degree from, say, the University of Massachusetts or Boston University may garner more respect than one from a newer online-only institution.

What do you think? All other things being equal, would you pursue an online degree from a well-known traditional institution over an equally well-known, but newer and less-prestigious, online-only school?

The trend of community colleges offering four-year baccalaureate degrees keeps growing. Currently, 17 states allow community colleges to award bachelor’s as well as associate degrees. Florida schools lead the way in the movement, with 18 of the state’s 28 community colleges currently offering 111 four-year degrees, according to InsideHigherEd.com.

Higher education officials are somewhat at odds over the emerging trend. While many acknowledge that four-year community college degree programs are necessary to help meet high demand in certain disciplines — think nursing and education — others argue that community colleges are involved in so-called “mission creep” — putting their own traditional missions in peril, as they encroach on the turf of traditional four-year schools.

The idea of a four-year degree from a community college holds a lot of appeal for many non-traditional students. Many such students are attracted to the lower costs, the flexible class schedules and the more personal feel of community colleges.

But with these positives come some negatives. According to a New York Times article on the subject, some critics are concerned that the practice of offering bachelor’s degrees at the community-college level will drive up costs and lead to low-quality degrees.

And then there is the issue of bias. Many people continue to be dismissive of the quality of education and degrees received from community colleges. Comments responding to the InsideHigherEd.com article included, for example, “Saying ‘I graduated from a community college’ doesn’t have a nice ring to it, as saying, ‘I graduated from a University,’ ” and “If you’re going to [the] cheap school then you had better learn something as your diploma won’t open any doors.”

What do you think? Are community college four-year degrees legitimate, respectable and necessary? Or should community colleges leave the bachelor’s degrees to the true four-year institutions?

One chart in a recent poll on recruiting and employing veterans caught my eye.

The Society of Human Resource Management asked HR professionals what they considered the benefits of hiring military veterans, and the pros gave vets high marks for responsibility, leadership, work ethic, professionalism, problem-solving … I could go on, but you get the idea. In a nutshell, they have a high opinion of your intangible skills.

This is not what surprised me.

What intrigued me was how the responses were broken down. Respondents were divided into organizations that had hired veterans, organizations that had made an effort to hire veterans, and organizations that had not made an effort to hire veterans.

The poll showed that HR managers at organizations that had not made an effort to hire veterans value vets? skills just as much as those whose companies have actually hired vets. In fact, they rated veterans more highly in 12 of the 16 criteria.

For whatever reason, it seems that a high opinion of veterans as employees does not necessarily translate into tangible efforts to employ them.

Do you have any ideas why hiring managers who are not actively recruiting veterans would have an even higher opinion of vets than those who do?

For-profit colleges are a popular choice among military students. The percentage of military undergraduates attending for-profit schools doubled from 2000 to 2008, rising from 6 percent to 12 percent — a rate three times that of traditional undergrads, according to the American Council on Education.

While many military students report excellent experiences with these institutions, a new report on their marketing practices from the Government Accountability Office should serve as a serious reminder to let the buyer beware. GAO investigators, applying undercover to 15 for-profit schools, found that all 15 made deceptive or questionable statements to applicants, giving misleading information about things like tuition costs, anticipated earning and accreditation. At four schools, applicants were encouraged to commit fraud on financial aid forms in order to qualify for federal aid.

In one case, an applicant was falsely told by a Florida for-profit — schools were not identified by name in the report — that the school was accredited by the same organization that accredits Harvard University and the University of Florida. In another, admissions reps at a certificate program in the Washington, D.C., area claimed that barbers can earn as much as $250,000 a year. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, most barbers earn less than $43,000 annually.

The report also described a pattern of, for lack of a better word, stalking by recruiters at some for-profits. According to the GAO report, “One fictitious prospective student received more than 180 phone calls in a month. Calls were received at all hours of the day, as late as 11 p.m.”

When investigating schools, prospective students would do well to remember the old adage: If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Prospective students need to be prepared to be their own best advocates. Some key things to remember:

* Never sign anything you haven’t read — and read carefully – first. If you are feeling pressured to sign something, leave and take the document with you. Read it later, when you are not under such close scrutiny.

* Never lie on any formal document involving financial aid, college application or otherwise.

* Always verify for yourself that a school is properly accredited and accredited as it claims to be by going to the Council for Higher Education Accreditation’s database of properly accredited institutions and programs.

* Talk to a military education services officer or other trusted mentor if you feel you are being misled by a school.

* Finally, pay attention to word of mouth. The military is a tight-knit community. Listen long enough, and you’ll start to know which schools have a good reputation for dealing fairly with military students, as well as which schools it is best to avoid.

The Military Spouse Career Advancement Accounts program, a popular spouse education funding program, will resume Oct. 25, Defense Department officials announced July 20.

The program, known as MyCAA, had been halted temporarily in order to undergo a review after enrollment surges raised concerns about funding.

Excitement over the reinstatement has been tempered by concern surrounding some program changes. Under the old program, all spouses of active-duty service members could receive a $6,000 education benefit. Under the new program:

* Only spouses of active-duty service members and activated reservists in pay grades E-1 to E-5, W-1 and W-2 and O-1 and O-2 are eligible.

* The maximum financial benefit is $4,000 for up to three years from the start date of the first class, with a $2,000 annual cap.

* The funds must be used for associate degrees, licensures or certifications.

According to the Defense Department, the changes bring MyCAA back to its original intent of assisting spouses of junior service members in achieving portable careers. They also better ensure the program’s fiscal health.

While many are glad to see the program sustained in any form, one concern is for those currently in the program who will no longer be eligible for funding after Oct. 25. Others criticize DoD for failing to realize how popular the program would be and making adequate provisions for it. “This is not the way to show military families that they are supported,” one blogger noted.

About $210 million has been budgeted for 2010 for the program, with an increase to $250 million for 2011. In subsequent years, officials are estimating a budget of about $190 million per year.

Educational opportunities for military spouses are limited. DoD should consider ways to restore this promising program to its original levels.

College is a huge investment of time and money, and choosing the right school and major are two of the more important decisions you’ll make in life. Making the wrong choice can, at best, lead to academic struggles and dissatisfaction with your higher education experience. At worst, it can affect employability and future career success.

Too often, I hear from students who chose a school for the wrong reasons ? just because a buddy went there, for example, or solely because it has an on-base presence. As an education writer, I’m always on the lookout for Web resources that can make decisions about college easier and better-informed for prospective students.

Unfortunately, the volume of education-related sites available on the Web is overwhelming ? and it’s often difficult to tell the difference between legitimate sites with useful information and unscrupulous ones that lure prospective students in with misinformation to get their money.

That’s why it was so great to come across Lynn O’Shaughnessy?s recent blog post on U.S. News & World Report with her choices for the Top 10 college websites. Most of the sites she highlights have data about thousands of schools, as well as advice on how to fund one?s higher education. But O’Shaughnessy has some fun, too ? a favorite of mine, for example, is Unigo, which as she puts it, “serves up the unvarnished scoop on schools from the students themselves.”

I highly recommend you read O’Shaughnessy?s blog entry, and bookmark each of the sites she profiles.

I wrote recently about whether or not a college degree is a necessary foundation for career and financial success. Now, comes another interesting argument in the “Is college necessary?” debate.

According to a recent article in The Washington Post, a growing number of college-educated men and women are leaving the typical post-graduate law school, grad school or corporate career path and becoming skilled manual laborers instead. From plumbers and pipe-fitters to electricians, jobs in the trades are in demand, have great employment outlooks, and deliver paychecks that often meet or exceed salaries in jobs requiring a college degree.

As a testament to the growing popularity of skilled-labor jobs, competition for the apprentice programs is becoming fierce. According to the Post, apprentice programs in the Washington, D.C., area are swamped with applicants. The electricians’ union program, for example, has 2,500 applications for 100 slots.

There will always be value in a college education, as evidenced by another recent article, this one from The Wall Street Journal. But so, too, will there always be other career options for those not interested in a college degree.

Are traditional textbooks too old-school for today’s college classroom? Perhaps so ? especially for students enrolled at for-profit online colleges. According to an article on higher education website InsideHigherEd.com, the use of e-textbooks is growing at a remarkable rate at online for-profits.

Citing e-textbook usage rates at schools such as Kaplan University, Capella University and the University of Phoenix, the article points out that “the traditional book is becoming obsolete” at these schools.

Conversely, e-textbook usage in nonprofit online programs and at traditional colleges is very low.

While some in higher education have criticized the push for e-texts as largely motivated by economics, some for-profit online schools say their role as innovators is driving the change.

The verdict is still out on the impact e-texts may have on student learning. And as for student preference ? many who are using e-texts would rather use traditional college textbooks, according to any internal survey of students by the American Public University System that the article cites.

What’s your take? Do you attend a school where the use of e-texts is common? What are your experiences and preferences?

For many college students, summer school is a necessary evil along the path to degree success. Maybe you have to retake a class you failed during a regular session. Or perhaps you want to take a particularly difficult course during the summer months, when you have a lighter course load and more time to study.

Whatever your reasons, proceed with caution. Summer school isn’t for everyone. And if you have competing interests — like a full-time job and/or a family — you need to consider carefully whether you can succeed in a fast-paced summer environment.

Then, consider the costs. If you qualify for military education benefits, check to ensure that they cover the costs of summer school, or that you have enough money left to take summer classes. Military Tuition Assistance has a cap of $4,500 per fiscal year, for example, and some programs, like Iowa’s National Guard Education Assistance Program, don’t cover summer classes.

That said, there are lots of good reasons to forgo a summer break for summer books. This article details 10 good ones, from better prices to better parking. If you find yourself convinced, wander over to eHow.com for these tips on how to succeed in summer school.