Minnesota’s state budget ax has fallen hard on higher education, forcing the U of M and MnSCU to reduce departments, programs, and instructors, resulting in fewer class offerings.

Here’s what’s in the trash bin:

• Minnesota State University–Mankato cut 28 programs and will reduce many more;
• St. Cloud State University is eliminating 26 programs, including its geology major, a masters’ physical education program, and a minor in Soviet and Eurasian studies;
• Winona State University cut majors in French and German, but still offers beginning level courses in both languages;
• The University of Minnesota’s College of Liberal Arts alone will cut 145 class sections.

While staff and faculty layoffs grab headlines, often overlooked are the direct program, department and class cuts that significantly impact students’ futures. Academically, it means some students will have to find new courses to meet graduation requirements, while perhaps others will have to find an entirely new major. Career-wise, it could affect whether or not they get the job. Some students worry about what kind of value a degree from a non-existent program possesses.

St. Cloud State’s Student Government President Michael Jamnick summed up students’ feelings perfectly when he told MPR:  “‘Well, I’ve got this degree from this institution that decided my program didn’t make the cut.’”

Significantly cutting courses or even entire programs is not beneficial to these students; it might turn out to be more detrimental than anything. We need to invest into our future, immediately and these college students are our immediate future.

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By now you’ve heard about the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) probe into for-profit colleges. This undercover investigation looked into 15 for-profit colleges in six states and Washington, D.C.  The GAO selected these colleges based on several factors, including the fact they all received 89% or more of their revenue from federal student aid. The findings allege these for-profit colleges engaged in deceptive practices or fraud.

The report recently caught a U.S. Senate Committee’s attention — the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee.  That’s because bigger and bigger chunks of students and federal dollars are going to these colleges. For-profit higher education now teaches 10% of all college students, with a share of federal loans and grants now totaling 23%.  In 2009 alone, students at for-profit institutions received more than $4 billion in Pell Grants and more than $20 billion in federal Department of Education loans.  Unfortunately, their students are more likely to default on loans.

Undercover investigators found aggressive recruiting tactics, deception about career and salary prospects, and in some cases outright fraud. Some schools received loans or grant payments for students no longer enrolled. Certain schools manipulated data so that they appeared to be meeting federal student aid requirements, including an incident when a college rep encouraged an undercover applicant to list false dependents on federal aid forms.

A Florida college rep falsely told an undercover applicant the college was accredited by the same organization that accredits Harvard and the University of Florida.  In another case, an admissions rep falsely claimed that barbers could earn up to $150,000 to $250.000 a year, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 90% of barbers make less than $43,000 a year.

This is not to say that all for-profit colleges do this. We should not look at for-profit colleges in Minnesota and automatically assume that they are untrustworthy. Fortunately, Minnesota-based for-profit colleges were not mentioned in the GAO report, but there’s no indication how many Minnesota students attend the report’s problem colleges.

Finding the right post-high school path is difficult, especially students not heading in the traditional college direction.  The actions of a few have made that tough task much more complicated.  But it doesn’t have to be. In many cases, schools like Minneapolis Technical and Community College, Metro State and other state-funded learning institutions provide the same academic opportunities as for-profit colleges at a bigger bargain.

Instead of allowing some for-profit colleges’ flaws to distract the education debate, let’s invest in and better promote our state-funded resources to grow a new generation of highly-skilled workers, without burdensome debt loads.

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The fall semester is almost upon us and hopefully most college students have their finances in order for the school year. Unfortunately some of these students might be paying more in the long run for school than they need to because of loan program they might not have seen.

In 2008, Congress passed the Higher Education Opportunity Act to better regulate the loan industry and alleviate other regulatory issues, such as the mishandling of funds by state loan programs. Unfortunately, an unintended side-effect is hindering state loan programs that actually do a good job assisting students.

Because of the changes, fewer students are finding out about Minnesota’s Student Education Loan Fund Program (also known as a SELF loan). The new rules prohibit financial aid officials from promoting any private loan, which includes SELF. This means that it cannot be bundled in with financial aid information or placed on financial aid award notifications.

Technically it can still be promoted, however, the U.S. Department of Education hasn’t yet written the rules on how to go about that. Due to this uncertainty, schools have opted to find a way to advertise it.

The SELF loan, administered through the state’s office of higher education, is a cheaper finance option for students who’ve exhausted all other aid resources. It has no origination, insurance, or processing fees. Its interest is set at a same low rate (currently at 3.9%) for all borrowers and is not dependent on personal credit scores. It also allows undergraduate students to borrow up to $7,500 per academic year.

Similar to a whole class of students getting punished for one troublemaker’s actions, we need to ensure that programs, like SELF, are not grouped into the blame category and suffer as a result. Instead, we must ensure those who need them are aware they exist and knowledgeable about all of their benefits and requirements.  Doing so improves access to education for all.

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In Minnesota, as seen throughout the United States, college drop-out rates have stagnated over the years, though enrollment has increased. The University of Minnesota brings in a little more than 5,000 freshmen each year, however, it has an average annual freshmen retention rate of 87.2% from 2005-2008, one of the lowest in the Big Ten.

With the market demanding that nearly 70% of  workers attain higher educations by 2018, we need to increase the number of students who come back for the second year and reduce the overall drop-out rate as soon as possible. Experts often cite academic pressures and financial issues as reasons for dropouts. So how we minimize these factors?

One possible solution: cooperation between high schools and colleges. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan talked about this integration while in Minneapolis last month. “Higher education can’t succeed without both engaging K-12 and improving K-12 … and also without having high school graduates come to college ready to succeed,” Duncan said, according to MPR.  This requires both academic and financial preparation.

Fortunately, Minnesota is already working toward this issue. Both public and private colleges in the state are actively engaging students as young as 6th grade, getting them to start thinking about college. Academically, this engagement gives students an idea of what they need to accomplish to be college ready. Financially, it provides them and their parents a little more planning time.

The unique Post-Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program also prepares students for college success. PSEO, found only in Minnesota and Ohio, allows high school juniors and seniors to pursue courses at a college or university for both high school and college credit. According to the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, during the 2007-08 school year, a total of 27,966 Minnesota high school juniors and seniors participated in PSEO. These students branched out and broadened their education, as well as gained college credit before graduating high school.

However, even after preparing students in high school and gaining admissions into college, this doesn’t ensure that they will graduate. Though seventy percent of Minnesota high school graduates go on to college, one in five drops out after a year.  Freshmen year is truly a make or break time in a student’s college career because it is a transitional stage between the teen years and adulthood. To come out with a strong first year can be crucial to completing a degree. Luckily, some colleges and universities have been trying a more proactive approach with their support services.  Both the University of Minnesota and MNSCU track students more intently than ever before, looking to catch at-risk students (academic and/or financial) before they drop out.

Minnesota schools are on the right track, but there is still more work to be done before we see significant changes in the drop-out numbers. Creating a strong link between secondary and post-secondary education prepares our students more  thoroughly, ensuring they will not only get into college, but graduate.

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It’s projected that Minnesota employers will demand 2.1 million workers with a higher education by 2018. However, we are seeing many more high school grads exported to out-of-state institutions than Minnesota can import.

The states that Minnesota high school graduates are enrolling for college are, naturally, our neighboring states: Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas.

As alarming as losing more than we are gaining sounds, there might not be a reason to panic. Those four bordering states have issues with holding onto students after they graduate. Each has felt the brain drain effect over the years. In Forbes’ Worst State for Keeping College Graduates rankings, North Dakota (#2), Iowa (#6), and South Dakota (#10) made the list. With regards to these states’ big schools, North Dakota State University is able to retain only 29% of its alumni, University of Iowa keeps 34%, and South Dakota State University maintains only 40% of its alumni.

Unfortunately there’s limited research on where college graduates head after receiving their degrees. To find possible answers, the Minnesota Private College Research Fund looked to the case study of Ohio, another state that has similar issues with retaining its residents.  It found many Ohioans were leaving or were considering leaving the Buckeye State in search of career opportunities and an atmosphere that is “active, exciting and fun.”

Unlike Ohio, these results play into the favor of why college graduates would and should head to the Land of 10,000 Lakes.  Minnesota has received top rankings in being an attractive place for opportunities. The Twin Cities itself was recently marked by Forbes Magazine as the 3^rd best place for young professionals boasting a low unemployment rate, a below national average cost of living, and a robust business environment. Minneapoils and St. Paul suburbs are also listed as hot spots with five cities (Eden Prairie, Plymouth, Woodbury, Eagan, and Apple Valley) making the top 20 of  this year’s Money Magazine’s Best Places to Live rankings. Along with the high rankings, the majority of these cities also have significant job growth.

Beside economic incentives, the sights and sounds that the Twin Cities offer are also appealing.  From sporting venues and well-maintained recreational lakes to an active night life with dining and shopping opportunities, Minnesota has it all.

Certainly opportunities do exist in Minnesota and this does make for an optimistic future, but we should not assume that everything will work out over time. We need to work hard at creating a strong educated workforce by getting high school grads to choose in-state schools over out-of-state ones, and ensuring that college grads, Minnesotans and non-Minnesotans alike, choose Minnesota as their location for long-term career development.

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What do you think of when you hear the word college? Do you think of a stationary institution, professors, and high tuition costs? Well then the Experimental College of the Twin Cities is certainly not what you would expect.

Macalester College students started the Experimental College of the Twin Cities (EXCO) in 2006, responding to what they saw as an unfair admissions policy change at their own school.   Co-founder and volunteer organizer David Boehnke says at the time, he saw EXCO as a “vision of free, diverse, and participatory education intimately tied to the process of people coming together to meet each other, strengthen networks, build movements, and create the world they would like to see in the present,” according to a Minnesota Daily article.

Heading into its fifth year this September, EXCO continues to take on that vision, by committing itself to transforming education on the principle that everyone can teach or take classes and that all classes are free. Fortunately, the program gets $15,000 in annual funding through its student chapters at area schools. However, that is only enough to cover class supplies and $300 stipends for instructors, who might otherwise not be able to teach these classes.  This funding does not supply the program with permanent classrooms. Instead, classes are located at the U of M, Macalester and throughout the community, such as libraries, churches, community centers, parks, etc.

After starting with only six classes, EXCO has expanded to more than 40 classes per semester, ranging from the seemingly ordinary (Introduction to the New Testament: Historical Context of Early Christianity; Renewing Our Future: Energy, the Economy, and Climate; and Creative Writing for the Non-Creative) to the unusual (Anarchist Anthropology, Imprinted Sexual Fantasies: A New Key for Sexology, Basic Bike Maintenance).

Along with the growth of class selection, the program itself has also grown to include chapters at the University of Minnesota and the Academia Comunitaria for the Latino community.

EXCO illustrates how education can thrive through a community-based approach, due in part to the assistance of the chapter groups from Macalester, the University of Minnesota, and Minneapolis Community and Technical College.  This backbone of support includes students and staff.

Though it does not fit the definition of a typical college, nor do the credits atomically count toward a degree, EXCO does demonstrate the belief that education is for everyone regardless of financial circumstances. This is something we should all remain committed to.

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Summer time means internship time for many college students. Internships provide great on-the-job learning and access to contacts, giving students a valuable boost in the job market. However, in a world where having an internship before entering the real world is almost a must, obtaining one is becoming increasingly difficult, and paid internships are even rarer.

The recession has limited paid learning opportunities in Minnesota. Companies, such as Cargill, Toro and Target, have decreased their number of paid internships and/or increase unpaid internship positions. The rise in unpaid positions doesn’t sound too terrible. However,  the loss of paid internships is negatively affecting many students who don’t have the financial independence to take an unpaid position.

In addition to the recession, new laws regulating internships have exacerbated the loss of both paid and unpaid internships.  According to the Department of Labor’s (DOL) new guidelines — issued in April — a person may be considered an unpaid intern and not an employee if all of the following six criteria are met:

1. The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
2. The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;
3. The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
5. The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
6. The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

Over all, these guidelines are there to protect the intern and prevent employers from abusing labor laws. Though they appear to be working, it is unfortunate that the results seem to cause more harm than help.

To stay within the new guidelines and avoid DOL penalties, many businesses have toughened up their qualifications for internships, such as requiring all interns to receive academic credit for the positions. Even the rise seen in unpaid internships could potentially start to drop due to the inability to meet the DOL’s criteria for being considered an unpaid intern. In extreme cases, some businesses are eliminating their internship programs all together. Of course, the main side effect is denying opportunities to recent college graduates and students.

Some blame the DOL’s strict rules. However,  people should instead focus on businesses.  It is because of some businesses’ internship practices that the guidelines were issued in the first place, and it is the fault of many businesses for the shrinking amount of DOL-approved internship positions.

Ultimately, the prospective interns pay the biggest price. This group of individuals is losing out on great opportunities. Hopefully, businesses realize the immense talent they’re losing and tap back into that talent pool in a responsible way that benefits the interns.

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Many news stories lately have been on high schools considering dropping class ranking from their transcripts in order to help students get into competitive colleges that might otherwise overlook them.  So what do colleges think about this?

Information collected on 18 Minnesota universities and colleges — an even split of public and private — reveals that ten list class ranking as an admissions criteria. Among these schools were all nine public universities and one private college.

It is important to note that though some of the institutions have selected class ranking as an admissions criteria, it is one of the criteria looked at more loosely, where a high SAT or ACT score could easily substitute for a low ranking. Out of the these nine schools, the majority stated that an applicant’s class ranking needed to be in the top 50% of his or her high school class, while only two wanted class ranking in the top 30-35%.

The colleges that did not list class ranking as an admissions factor focused mainly on GPA and past coursework. Two schools in particular stood out in my research: Carlton College and St. Olaf College.

Carlton College, which does not use class ranking, is one of Minnesota’s toughest schools to get into, with a freshmen acceptance rate of 27.5% (Fall 2008).  The institution focuses on GPA and an applicant’s academic curriculum. Its admissions page states: “The most important part of your application is the transcript which lists the courses you have taken and how you have performed.”

St. Olaf College also doesn’t  use class ranking as an admission criteria, but focuses its attention on high school coursework. The college looks at two things when evaluating a transcript: difficulty of the classes taken by the applicant and the grades received in those classes.  Instead of focusing on just high marks without regard to the difficulty of the class, St. Olaf prefers “…to accept applicants with lower grades in more challenging classes to ones with very high grades in easier classes.”

This demonstrates a very interesting conclusion. Private colleges, which are generally seen as harder places to attain acceptance appear to be the majority of colleges in Minnesota that do not focus admissions on class ranking. However, even when class ranking is listed as a criteria, it does not seem as high a priority as students might assume.

This is something both highly competitive colleges and those not as competitive alike should pay attention to. Put less emphasis on peer comparative statistics; instead focus on students’ individual achievements because in the end it will provide a better indication of the stronger applicants.

(The schools looked at in this piece were: University of Minnesota, MSU – Mankato, St. Cloud State, Bemidji State, Augsburg, Gustavus Adolphus, St. Olaf, Macalester, CSB/SJU, UMD, Carlton, St. Thomas, Bethel, MSU – Moorhead, Winona State, Metro State, St. Kate’s, and SMSU.)

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During this recession, revenue losses seem to dominate the headlines. However, there is one thing that continues to positively impact our state’s economy: international students.

According to NAFSA: Association of International Educators, around 9,000 – 10,000 international students enroll at Minnesota post secondary institutions each year, making it the 18th most popular destination in the United States for foreign-born students. The majority of international students come from China (1,617), India (1,139), Nepal (966), Republic of South Korea (929) and Canada (363).

Of these students, about 4,100 attended the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, which is ranked the 20^th top institution in the United States with the highest number of international students.  Here in Minnesota, the U of M is followed by  St. Cloud State University (1,350), Minnesota State University at Mankato (636), Minnesota State University – Moorhead (408), and the University of St. Thomas (326).

Over the past 30 years, the number of international students studying in the U.S. has continuously gone up except for a significant drop right after September 11. But since the 2001/2002 academic year, the numbers have steadily climbed back and continue rising.

Initially, when some think about who benefits from international students studying in the U.S., they think of the students themselves and the universities hosting them. On one end, the students gain an amazing study-abroad experience with endless academic possibilities. The experience could potentially help them secure a job back home since the U.S. is seen as one of the best places to get an education. On the other end, the universities receive tuition, fees, living expenses as well as a reputation for having worldly talent coming from their esteemed institutions.

Additionally, as stated above, it is beneficial to the state of Minnesota, as well as the nation as a whole. This comes primarily through universities’ tuition and fees as well as various spending the students do in Minnesota. Many may think that international students spending would not amount to much. However, during the last school year, the net contribution to Minnesota’s economy by these students and their families added up to $232 million. Nationwide, international students put $17.6 billion dollars into the U.S. economy. Another positive,  according to an International Trade Administration report, is that the recession does not look as if it is affecting U.S. revenues from international students. This means that there is no decline in the amount of international students studying in the U.S. or the amount of money they and their families spend within the U.S.

With the promising future of an ever increasing supply of international students wanting to study in the U.S., we need to continue to keep our doors open to these students so that not only Minnesota, but the nation can receive the greatest amount of economic impact possible.

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The economic downturn’s silver lining comes in the form of an increase in volunteerism, with Minnesota among those leading the way. Earlier this month, The Corporation for National and Community Service came out with its annual Volunteering in America report, showing us something that might not seem obvious: In bad times, people volunteer.

The report confirmed what Minnesotans have known for a while, we’re dedicated to helping those in need and causes in which we believe. It ranked Minnesota the third highest state in volunteer engagement with more than 37% of residents volunteering in 2009 alone.  First place and second place are held by Utah (44.2%) and Iowa (37.8%) respectively.

Minnesota raked in 171.1 million hours of service, with 42.1 hours/year per resident, which ranked the state 12^th over all in that category.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul area ranked first among large cities with 37.4% of residents volunteering, followed by Portland, Oregon (37.1%) and Salt Lake City, Utah (35.8%).  With 43.9 hours/year per resident, the Twin Cities came in at 6^th place among 51 large cities.

Overall, Minnesotans focused the majority of their volunteer hours with religious organizations (34.6%), along with educational (26.1%), and social service organizations (14.2%).

There are many possible reasons behind the jump in volunteering. Many have linked it to an increased sense of civic duty due to the current economic circumstances or President Obama’s call to service. However, it could also be due to the fact that volunteer work can help those unemployed stay plugged into the job market. The CEO and Co-Founder of City Year, a service learning organization, stated in The NonProfit Times that “…volunteering helps the unemployed get training and skills they would not be able to secure elsewhere” and that “it’s a way to get generic job skills and continue to have opportunities that are very close to employment…”

Whatever the reason or reasons are, a rise in volunteerism is always a positive thing to see. In the end, we should all be proud of the rankings that Minnesota has achieved and to continue working hard at being a leader in volunteerism. With that said, let’s get out there and volunteer!

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