ACUHO-I News Blog

Last week, Public Agenda and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation released a study, With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them, on why students drop out of college. The report, the first of a series of three, says their study found that students leave college for financial reasons, to work to support themselves or their families. Many survey respondents said they couldn’t afford to return to college even if their tuition and books were paid. The report also noted that the students may have not chosen the best college for them, as students who are financially independent have fewer resources to make these decisions, and that most don’t realize the impact dropping out will have on their lives.

These are interesting results, but commenters at Inside HigherEd had a different take when a brief article about the study was posted last week: While there are some students who definitely have financial need, some seem unable to discern between needs (food) and wants (dinners out).

At the Chronicle of Higher Education, some commenters also brought up the needs/wants argument; some wondered if some of these “dropouts” later return and finish their degree (the study was silent on this) and others said they saw these problems at their institutions.

What’s your take?

Earlier this week, the Institute of International Education released its Open Doors report, and the results show the largest percentage increase (almost 8 percent) in international student enrollments in the United States since 1980 and the third straight year of significant growth. The earth gets flatter.

Survey results show there were 671, 616 international students in the United States for the 2008-2009 school year. The top five countries sending the most students to the US were India (103,260), China (98,235), South Korea (75,065), Canada (29,697), and Japan (29,264). These five countries comprised half of all the international students in the United States.

Where do these students end up? Survey results show more than 93,000 of them in California (primarily at the University of Southern California) and almost 75,000 in New York (primarily at New York and Columbia universities).

As for American students studying abroad, 262,416 students received academic credit outside the US in the 2007-2008 school year. That’s an increase of 8.5 percent over the previous year. The US student participation in study abroad has tripled over the past 20 years.

And where do they go? The top five countries are the United Kingdom, Italy, Span, France, and China. The surprise there was that there was a 19 percent increase in the number of students who traveled to China.

The Institute of International Eduaction is celebrating its 90^th anniversary this year, as well as 60 years of the Open Doors survey. You can read the full report (as well as more easily digestible “fast facts”) at their Web site.

The American Council on Education has created a Web site to help veterans use their educational benefits to their best possible advantage. Many veterans have found it confusing to navigate the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs while also attempting to navigate college or university life. The aim of the website is to simplify the decision-making process. The site helps differentiate between the post-9/11 G.I. Bill and the Montgomery G.I. Bill and provides success stories from other veterans.

For more information on helping veterans adapt to life back on a college campus, check out the most recent Talking Stick, with an article from NASPA president Gwen Dungy.

Morehouse College, an institution for African-American men, has instituted a dress code. President Robert M. Franklin has stressed the “five wells”: to be well-read, well-spoken, well-traveled, well-dressed and well-balanced. The clothing aspect of this philosophy is receiving more attention lately, as Morehouse just instituted an “appropriate attire” policy, which specifies that low-slung pants, d0-rags, t-shirts with derrogatory messages, baseball caps indoors, and women’s clothing may not be worn. In addition, dressier clothes must be worn for special events.

The code won’t force most students to change their style, Franklin points out; on average, Morehouse students are snappier dressers than other college students. However, some gay students have objected to the dress code, as there are a handful of gay students who wear women’s clothing on occasion.

Morehouse is a private institution, which means they have considerable latitude to implement a dress code to fit their vision of the “Morehouse Man,” and encourage their students to dress more formally. Do the protesting students have a case? Where’s the line between institutional standards and personal freedom?

A study, discussed in the article “Parental Transfers, Student Achievement and the Labor Supply of College Students,” has determined what many student affairs administrators have likely figured out: Many college students work, and most of the four-year students work about 20 hours a week, mostly for daily necessities and spending money. The article, by Charlene Kalenkoski and Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia, will appear in the Journal of Population Economics.

The researchers found that 46% of students at four-year institutions and 72% at two-year institutions were employed during their initial semesters in college. Four-year students averaged 22 hours a week; two-year students averaged more than 30 hours. The researchers noted that if parental contributions dropped, the students’ working hours increased nominally–not nearly enough to make up the difference. They also found that attending a more expensive institution, or rising fees, did not prompt students to work significantly more. The researchers hypothesize that while many students do pay for their education, they’re doing it after the fact–by taking out loans during college and repaying them later. The structure of a job seems to be a benefit: Students who worked about 20 hours a week had higher GPAs than students who worked more, and students who didn’t work at all.

A great article in The Chronicle of Higher Education dissects all those who are dissecting the Y Generation, the Millennials, the Me Generation, etc. Who are these cultural theorists? Do their ideas actually bear out in real life?

The Task Force on Gambling Policies has released “Call to Action,” a report on college and university efforts to curb problem gambling. The task force was created by the Cambridge Health Alliance’s Division on Addictions, which is affiliated with Harvard University and funded the National Center for Responsible Gambling, the charity branch of the American Gambling Association. (The NCRG’s logo is made to look like slots. Cute.)

Several studies on college student gambling are cited in the report. One, from 2003, found that 42 percent of college students had gambled the previous year; others suggest that between 3 and 11 percent of college students have a serious gambling problem. The report states that only 22 percent of colleges and universities have formal gambling policies. The report offers ten recommendations for colleges and universities, and can be read in full here.

Have you had cases where student gambling — anything from football pools to online poker — has posed an issue on your campus?

Veterans are eager to take advantage of their generous GI Bill benefits, and institutions are eager to welcome them. But the wide-open world of higher education is quite different than regimented life in the military, where details from sleeping and waking to eating and socializing are managed so soldiers can focus on their jobs. Some vets are haunted by memories of their military experiences; others just find the transition between two worlds jarring. Here are some accounts of how veterans, states and institutions are handling the change:

Washington Post “‘I felt real isolated, like I didn’t belong,’” said [Sgt. Chris] Day, 23, a physical education major who still keeps his hair cropped military-style. “‘I’m not super-old, but I spent 27 months in Afghanistan, and I feel super-old because of that.’”

Yale Daily News “At this time last year, Jon Heavey SOM ’11 was working as a battalion surgeon in Khadamiyah, a neighborhood in Baghdad. Heavey described the job as partly routine, mixed with ‘waves of mass causality.’”

The Philadelphia Enquirer “‘It’s not easy to get on your feet and back into school,’” said New Jersey National Guard Army Sgt. Marie Exley, 30, of Voorhees, who served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and from 2007 to last year. “‘This program sounds like it would make the transition easier. You wouldn’t get discouraged and lost in the shuffle.’”

Columbia Daily Tribune “’Veterans didn’t really know each other around campus,” he said. “The networking experience wasn’t really there for them. This class helps get veterans together in one place, so they know who each other are around campus.’”

The Salt Lake Tribune “‘We talk about concepts like honor, courage and mortality … in many cases these are abstract ideas for people coming right out of high school.’” But to those who have served at war, [Professor Richard] Badenhausen said, “‘these are questions they’ve actually struggled with.’”

The National Retail Federation reports that families are spending more per college-bound student, but fewer people are planning to attend college this year, so overall back-to-college revenue is down. College students and their parents will spend an average of $618.12, up from last year’s average of $599.38. Total spending will decrease, by just over 30 million.

The National Retail Federation has something to say about this, of course: “The economy is forcing young adults to make hard decisions about which schools to attend, where to live, and what’s really a “necessity” for college,” says Tracy Mullin, President and CEO of the National Retail Federation. “This year, college students are just as focused as their parents on finding good deals and making smart choices with their money.”

Among the choices students are making is where to live. More students are opting to live at home rather than in residence halls or off-campus, according to the National Retail Federation. Of the respondents to the survey, 12.8% said the economy is affecting where their student lives this year. Students living at home will be 58.5% of the college population up from just over 54% last year and 49.1% in 2007. Students choosing to live in a residence hall make up 15.8% of the student population, down from 18%, and students living off-campus are down to 22.4% from 24.3%.

One question was left unanswered by the National Retail Foundation, but NPR came to the rescue: Are parents of incoming freshmen are still baffled by those extra-long sheets? (Yes.)

Here are some move in stories. Have fun helping everyone get settled!

The Methodical Madness of Move-In Day: How do institutions manage the overpacking, politicking and crying that is move-in?

Roomie Matches Made in Cyberspace: Students match themselves up and meet for the first time, arms filled with bedding, shower caddies and posters.

Preventing Flu in Focus During Virginia Tech Move-In: Move-in is a good time to start off flu-prevention right.

Rules Tail Raucous Students Off Campus: Keeping tabs on them even when they aren’t in your halls.

 An opinion piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Linda Sax discusses the differences between men’s and women’s college experiences.

I know what you’re thinking. I was thinking it too. Sax beat us both to the punch:

“The popular messages are oversimplified,” she writes. ”Gender equity has been achieved, women are an academic success story, and men are experiencing an educational crisis. Each of those messages has some truth, but they tend to convey the status of women and men as a zero-sum game: If one gender is succeeding, the other must be failing. The reality is that both genders face obstacles and challenges in their pursuit of higher education, and we need a deeper understanding of the nuances and implications of the gender gap in college.”

Having re-oriented her readers to her subject, Sax goes on to discuss the benefits and deficits that women and men each bring to college, and the ways the higher education affects each.

Here are a few highlights of particular interest to housing professionals:

• Connection to home and family: Until recently, it was assumed leaving home and developing an independent lifestyle was an important milestone for both men and women, writes Sax. However, recent studies seem to show that for men, living close to home or far away doesn’t make a difference in their college development. However, it is important for college women to leave home; college women forced to cope without the support of family develop academic confidence, leadership skills and emotional resilience.
• Academic and social involvement: Perhaps the above facts can be explained, in part, by the differences between men’s and women’s academic and social lives before, and during college. During high school, and even in college, women tend to take on more responsibilities within their families. While this can be a source of support, it can also be stressful, and limit how much the student can become involved in college. Perhaps women who live further away from home are freed from these responsibilities, either because they are living far away, or because they were able to live far away. Men are less likely to have such obligations. Both before and during college, men report spending considerably more time relaxing: watching TV, playing video games, partying, etc., than women do. A goal for colleges, writes Sax, is to encourage men to be more socially and intellectually involved during their free time–anything from volunteering to an internship–while encouraging women to relax a bit more.A fact that we’ve all heard has an interesting corollary. It has been often-repeated that women have better study habits in high school and in post-secondary education. However, when men do study, their gains, in interest in the subject and their academic ambition, are much greater than those of women. How can men be encouraged to study more? How can women be encouraged to study more deeply?
• Diversity programs’ disparate impacts: Men are more unnerved by diverstity experiences and programs. This grouping includes informal experiences, such as having a roommate of another race, to a class project on diversity. Interestingly, men also benefit more from diversity experiences as well, becoming more interested in the topic and how they can affect race or ethnic relations. Women are not as emotionally challenged by diversity experiences, but they are also not as changed by them, either.
• Crisis of confidence:Despite usually being more diligent students, women report lower academic confidence than men do. This occurs at the beginning of college, and then the gap grows during the following four years. Why is this? Are the women under-reporting, out of an obligation to modesty, or are they less confident for other reasons?

For more of Sax’s discussion, see the Chronicle’s website. It’s refreshing to read an article about gender differences in education without pitting women and men against each other. After all, men and women aren’t in separate vacuums, but going through this experience together. Perhaps their different perspectives can be used to each others’ benefit.

That’s what I’ve started calling the Beloit College’s Mindset List. It’s supposed to be a helpful tool for those who work in colleges and universities, but really its true purpose–and effect–seems to be to make anyone who isn’t 18 or younger feel old. Old. Older every year. Perhaps Beloit’s counseling services get a little bump after the list is released, thanks to middleagers who had a crisis after realizing they clearly remember the car they were driving when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister; the day they traded in a tube for a flat screen, or watching Saved by the Bell. This writer is too old to even have a Mindset List of her own; the first produced was for the class of 2002. (Ohio University, BSJ, 2000)

Yes, even our cheerful computer-girl up there seems to be saying “Ha ha! I’ve never used a card catalog to find a book!”

In a way, it’s funny that our culture reveres a lack of perspective and ignorance of societal touchstones (Jack Kevorkian, the KGB, a unified Korea), that this naivete is actually honored in our society, but this isn’t a sociology or philosophy blog, so take a big breath –sigh!–and read the list. 

After that, women can cheer themselves up by watching the excellent Sarah Haskins take on advertising’s view of aging women (men will likely find Sarah amusing too). After all, there’s only one alternative to getting old, and it’s not a good option.

What’s the most frequently-asked question for Western Illinois University’s housing professionals? Is it about the availability of single rooms? Air-conditioning? Towel service? No. Students most want to know if they can have mini-fridges and microwave ovens in their rooms so they can cook,according to John Biernbaum, head of housing and dining services.

Students have devised ways to make meals on hotplates and in mini-microwaves. They covet halls with kitchens, or suites where they can have their own cooking space. Some institutions offer in-residence cooking lessons. The meme of the ramen-eating college student may become a thing of the past; unless someone discovers that ramen goes well with goat cheese and fresh basil.

1. Tips for Parents of College Freshmen: These are good, solid, if not ground-breaking tips: Establish ground rules about money; sbe helpful but don’t try to fix everything; it’s okay if your son or daughter is undecided about a major or changes it (once or a few times). What would you add to this list? Do you provide such lists for parents of incoming freshmen? Do you think parents rely on them?

2. Advice from Those Who Have Been There, Done That: College graduates offer their advice to incoming freshmen, from “join an extracurricular activity” to “bring the things you really care about, even if they’re ‘childish.’” Once again, we ask: What would you add to this list?

3. 10 People You Should Know on MU’s [the University of Missouri] Campus: Who are the 10 people on your campus that freshmen should know?

4. The fourth is this list! Very meta of us, huh?

Here’s a charming essay from an associate professor of English on the unusual bond that formed when he taught a two-semester freshman course. He mentions that his visits to the students’ residence halls helped him understand their lives in a better, more holistic way, and this improved his teaching.