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Colleges With Spots
If you are tired of the annual media hype over how it's impossible to get into college, or if you are a counselor with a student who is still looking, be sure to check out the new edition of "College Openings Update" from the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
The annual study is published around this time every year with a list of the colleges still accepting applications for enrolling in the fall. Some of the colleges have housing, and some of them still have aid available.
Just over 400 colleges are on the list this year. Some recent years have had more colleges on the list and others have had smaller numbers. But because NACAC allows any member to appear on the list and doesn't track down all members (and those that have been on previous lists), the ups and downs of the list are not a scientific measure of how many colleges are still looking for students. But the consistent pattern is that there are hundreds of colleges each year that are still searching for students.
Parents' Opinions -- and Emphasis on Careers
Parents place a high priority on colleges' helping their children be prepared for jobs -- and many are open to alternatives that would do so, according to a new survey by Kaplan University Partners.
Among the findings:
- Most parents (79 percent) say that a top goal of colleges is to teach "students marketable skills."
- Less than half (47 percent) of parents say that colleges are doing a good job at preparing their children for the workplace.
- More than half of parents (57 percent) question "whether college costs justify the value of a degree."
- If parents could place their children in a program in which their children go straight from high school to full-time paid jobs while earning a bachelor's degree, nearly three-fourths (74 percent) would do so.
Understanding Adult Learners
EAB has released the findings of a survey of nearly 800 current and prospective adult learners.
- Cost (40 percent) and family commitments (23 percent) were the biggest barriers to enrollment.
- A majority (61 percent) said that career or financial factors were the primary reason for their interest in enrolling.
- Forty percent said that they had not taken any graduate admissions tests.
