The decade after high school graduation is filled with lots of dreams. Then real life sets in — and sometimes turns those plans upside down. Such is the premise of the new ABC series My Generation , which revisits a group of classmates from Austin 10 years after their high school graduation in 2000. The documentary-style show imagines that a filmmaker who followed them just prior to graduation and recorded their hopes for the future is now back in their lives to see how things worked out. “In some ways, what’s good about revisiting these characters is it’s the first real moment of adulthood,” says My Generation writer/creator Noah Hawley, 42. In the show, these 28-year-olds’ plans for school, marriage, kids or life in general didn’t quite happen the way they had envisioned. And for real-life 28-year-olds, the same is often true. In one Baltimore-area Class of 2000, which was followed for 13 years by USA TODAY, two students got pregnant. One is almost $300,000 in debt from school. One moved back home for almost a year. One is a caregiver for an ill parent. These Millennials (considered the oldest year of the generation sometimes called Generation Y ) do exhibit a significant characteristic of their generation: an optimism for the future and ambition to make it happen, suggests historian and demographer Neil Howe, whose books on this age group include the most recent Millennials in the Workplace, published this year. “Despite what the recession has done to them — and this is striking — they still have not given up. They have ambitious lifetime goals,” he says. “This generation remains strikingly optimistic long-term, and they believe in staying on a path with long-term goals, despite very high unemployment and a tough economy.” In 1987, USA TODAY began following 17 students in a kindergarten class at Swansfield Elementary School in Columbia, Md., who would be the Class of 2000 when they graduated from high school. Of the original 17, just eight were still in the area when we wrote about them in 2000. Now, we check back in with those we were able to contact to see what their lives are like at age 28: Ashkan Dorri He moved to California in third grade and lived in L.A. until last year. After a year in AmeriCorps and an MBA, he got a government job in information technology but was laid off last year. Then his dad had a stroke, and he moved to Reston, Va., to help out. “Sometimes things in life throw you on a different tangent. Those give you more character, and you learn from it. I’m optimistic something will happen.” Chanelle Matthews She still wants to teach, but a degenerative eye disorder forced her to quit community college for a corneal transplant. She has a 2-year-old son and has worked full time for the past decade as a telecom coordinator in Columbia, Md. She also takes a full-time load of classes online. “I have the same expectations I had,” she says. “I thought I’d go on to a four-year university. I had minor setbacks, but I’m still trying.” Chad Jensen After graduating from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, he planned to be a pediatrician, then a pilot, but 9/11 changed that. He’ll finish dental school in May 2012. “I’ll be over $300,000 in debt,” he says. He got married in 2006 and lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and 4-month-old son. “I wish I was a little bit further along in my schooling, but life is a journey.” Marissa Schwartz She studied psychology at High Point (N.C.) University but got pregnant sophomore year and put school on hold. She lives in Plantation, Fla., near the father of her two daughters, 8 and 6. She’ll finish studies in August to be a dental hygienist and is working on a bachelor’s. “I thought life was going to be different, but I’m more mature because I had to grow up.” Dave Earley A psychology grad from Salisbury University, he moved back with his parents from November 2004 to October 2005. He lives in Essex, Md., and started his current job in clinical research in 2005. He’s getting married Saturday. “In a lot of ways, I am definitely where I thought I would be at 28,” he says. Matt McCathorine A graduate of the University of Maryland in College Park, he is now an engineer, as planned. Five years ago, he bought a house in Owings Mills, Md. “I’m kind of in a position where I feel like I have all these grown-up responsibilities at work and I own a home, and still I’m a single guy in between the being-married-with-kids life and the college life,” he says. “When you’re young, you think 28 is old. But once you get to 28, you realize you’re not old. You’re young,” he says. Where are you? Class of 2000 members Lorrie Crizer and Paul Sutusky, left center in 2000 photo, could not be reached for an update. READERS: Do you know anyone who graduated high school in 2000 or thereabouts? What do you think distinguishes them as a generation? Are you among them? Share your experiences and views in the comments below:

Drury University junior Garret Shelenhamer ditched his car and gets to his classes and volunteer commitments using a shiny, new bike provided by the school. Shelenhamer is one of a number of students across the USA taking advantage of free or low-cost bike-sharing programs, which have become increasingly popular. Drury students agreed to pay a $20-a-year sustainability fee, which funds the bike program. The Springfield, Mo., school purchased 40 new bikes for use by students in time for the fall semester. “It’s helped me so much. It’s been fun,” Shelenhamer said. BIKE POWER: Gyms retrofit bikes to produce electricity DENVER: Bike-share program takes off Nearly 90 American universities, from New York University to the University of Alaska-Anchorage , offer some form of campus bike program, according to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. Programs have launched or will launch this year at a wide range of universities, including Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville; John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio; the University of Cincinnati ; Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C.; Samford University in Birmingham, Ala .; Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken , N.J.; and North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C . “The demand is coming from students,” says Jeremy Friedman, manager of sustainability initiatives at New York University. This summer, NYU kicked off a pilot bike share program with a fleet of 30 bikes available for free checkout from the front desk of many residence halls. Fueling the demand are the public embrace of biking culture, new miles of bike lanes and the economic recession that has many tightening their spending, Friedman says. “In the future, we may find ourselves in the role of trying to encourage more biking, but for now, we are behind the demand,” he says. “We’re just trying to keep up.” Wendy Anderson, director of campus sustainability at Drury, says the bike program appeals to students, who are active and likely to grumble about costs associated with a car. “I think universities are trying to keep up with the increasing competitive nature of higher education,” Anderson says. “I’m not saying this is a recruiting tool, but it offers a richer experience in student life.” At College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn., students came up with the idea for a bike program and made it a reality in April, college spokeswoman Diane Hageman says. The program offers 30 bikes for free, daily checkout until the first snowfall, Hageman says. Paul Rowland, executive director of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, says bike programs have found fertile soil on college campuses. “One thing about the campus is it has a fairly high density of individuals, students as well as staff. It is relatively defined, and there are a lot of movements every hour or every half an hour,” he says. Bikes help alleviate traffic congestion, improve campus safety and reduce greenhouse gas emission, Rowland says. In 2008, faced with a parking crisis, the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine, raised parking permit fees and began to give away free bikes to freshman students who promised not to bring cars to campus, university spokeswoman Kathleen Taggersell says. Since then, the university has given out 530 bikes and, as a direct result of the program, turned a 95-space parking lot into a basketball court with a river-view tent for university events, Taggersell says. University bike programs are usually funded by an internal grant or a student fee, Rowland says. Bikes are checked out differently. Some programs require membership, some are free, and some charge a rental fee. Though many schools rely on staff to check out bikes, some have gone high-tech. This fall, Washington State University in Pullman installed a $140,000 automated system for its bike program, says Jamie Bentley, the environmental well-being coordinator at WSU. Students swipe their identification cards to unlock a bike from one of the four docking stations on campus, Bentley says. The convenience has drastically boosted the use of the bike program: 454 people checked out a bike in the first two weeks this fall, compared with 583 users last year, Bentley says. Tang reports for the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader .

All great businesses start with a bright idea. The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine today release their eighth rankings of 25 top graduate and undergrad university programs for budding entrepreneurs, whose bright ideas can turn into successful businesses. The rankings are posted online at Entrepreneur magazine’s website, http://www.entrepreneur.com/topcolleges with facts about each university. The schools will be featured in the October issue of Entrepreneur magazine. The Princeton Review selected these 50 programs from about 2,000 surveyed, saying they satisfy multiple criteria within three main categories: students and faculty, academics and requirements, and enriching experiences outside the classroom. The top schools stand out because they have a high number of experienced faculty, students launching businesses after graduation, and experiences outside of the class room, says Princeton Review senior vice president and publisher Rob Franek. “Students are working with successful entrepreneurs who are working with the primary source and then bringing that experience back down to the classroom for that student,” says Franek. He adds that these schools often offer entrepreneurship competitions and classes to students of any major, creating a “culture of entrepreneurship.” Over the past few years, the number of entrepreneurial programs has grown tremendously, especially as universities recognize the value of interdisciplinary studies, says Franek. Arthur Warga, dean of the University of Houston’s C.T. Bauer College of Business, ranked as the No. 1 undergraduate program, says a full entrepreneurship program, rather than just a couple of classes, is vital to provide “a really comprehensive group of mentors and resources that they can turn to for advice during the process of building a business.” The Princeton Review’s list of the top 25 best graduate and undergraduate entrepreneurship programs: Top 25 graduate programs 1. Babson College , Wellesley, Mass. 2. The University of Chicago 3. University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, Mich. 4. Brigham Young University , Provo, Utah 5. University of Arizona , Tucson 6. Rice University , Houston 7. University of Virginia , Charlottesville, Va. 8. Stanford University , Stanford, Calif. 9. University of Texas at Austin 10. Washington University in St. Louis 11. Acton MBA Entrepreneurship, Austin, Texas 12. DePaul University , Chicago 13. Tulane University , New Orleans 14. University of Southern California , Los Angeles 15. Drexel University , Phildelphia 16. Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. 17. University of Washington , Seattle 18. Temple University , Philadelphia 19. University of Wisconsin-Madison 20. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 21. Syracuse University , Syracuse N.Y. 22. Simmons College , Boston 23. Wake Forest University , Winston Salem, N.C. 24. University of Illinois at Chicago 25. University of South Florida , Tampa Top 25 undergraduate programs 1. University of Houston , Houston, Texas 2. Baylor University , Waco, Texas 3. Babson College, Wellesley, Mass. 4. Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 5. University of Southern California, Los Angeles 6. University of Dayton , Dayton, Ohio 7. Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y. 8. University of Notre Dame , Notre Dame , Ind. 9. Washington University, St. Louis 10. DePaul University, Chicago 11. Xavier University , Cincinnati 12. University of Arizona, Tucson 13. Temple University, Philadelphia 14. Northeastern University , Boston 15. University of Oklahoma , Norman, Okla. 16. Lehigh University , Bethlehem, Pa. 17. City University of New York , New York 18. Belmont University , Nashville 19. Drexel University, Philadelphia 20. Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 21. The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Ala. 22. Loyola Marymount University , Los Angeles 23. University of Wisconsin-Madison 24. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 25. Chapman University , Orange, Calif.

For the typical student attending a four-year public university, the financial investment in college begins to pay off at about age 33, a report says Tuesday. Compared with a high school graduate, the typical four-year college graduate who enrolled in a public university at age 18 has earned enough by then to compensate for being out of the labor force for four years and for borrowing enough to pay tuition and fees without grant aid. Unemployment rates have increased faster among people with a high school diploma but no college degree, the report says, and college grads are more likely to exercise, volunteer, vote and read to their kids, and are less likely to be obese or smoke. “Questions have intensified about whether going to college is worthwhile,” says Education Pays , released by College Board Advocacy & Policy Center. “For the typical student, the investment pays off very well over the course of a lifetime — even considering the expense.” This is the third such report since 2004; the 2008 report was criticized by Charles Miller, former chair of a higher-education commission under President Bush , as being a “cheerleader” instead of giving “a clear and accurate picture of the dangerous financial deterioration of our higher-education system.” This year’s report says the solution is not to advise students to skip college but to provide better information and advice — and more generous financial support. “If it wasn’t clear before, it should be abundantly clear now that a college graduate is far more competitive in today’s workplace,” College Board president Gaston Caperton says. Among findings: •Median full-time earnings with a bachelor’s degree in 2008 were $55,700, $21,900 more than high school graduates. •The unemployment rate for college graduates rose from 2.6% to 4.6% between 2008 and 2009, while it rose for high school graduates from 5.7% to 9.7%. •In 2008, 8% of high school graduates 25 and older lived in households getting food stamps, vs. just over 1% of those with a bachelor’s degree. •14% of male high school graduates earned as much as or more than $65,800, the median earnings of male four-year college graduates in 2008, and about 20% of male four-year college graduates earned less than $39,000, the median earnings of high school graduates. Estimated cumulative earnings: Age High School Graduate Associate Degree Bachelor’s Degree 18 $22,724 $0 $0 19 $44,787 $0 $0 20 $66,207 $23,683 $0 21 $87,003 $46,677 $0 22 $107,194 $69,001 $25,718 23 $126,796 $90,675 $50,687 24 $145,827 $111,717 $74,929 25 $170,661 $141,208 $109,573 26 $194,772 $169,839 $143,208 27 $218,181 $197,636 $175,863 28 $240,908 $224,624 $207,568 29 $262,973 $250,826 $238,348 30 $284,395 $276,751 $268,232 31 $305,193 $301,921 $297,246 32 $325,386 $326,358 $328,274 33 $344,990 $350,083 $358,398 34 $364,024 $373,117 $387,644 35 $385,122 $398,802 $424,613 36 $405,607 $423,738 $460,504 37 $425,494 $447,949 $495,350 38 $444,803 $471,454 $529,182 39 $463,548 $494,274 $562,027 40 $481,748 $516,430 $593,917 41 $499,418 $537,941 $624,877 42 $516,574 $558,825 $654,936 43 $533,229 $579,101 $684,119 44 $549,399 $598,786 $712,452 45 $565,622 $619,403 $740,133 46 $581,372 $639,420 $767,008 47 $596,663 $658,854 $793,100 48 $611,509 $677,722 $818,433 49 $625,923 $696,040 $843,027 50 $639,917 $713,824 $866,905 51 $653,503 $731,091 $890,088 52 $666,693 $747,855 $912,595 53 $679,499 $764,130 $934,447 54 $691,933 $779,932 $955,662 55 $703,901 $795,167 $975,834 56 $715,521 $809,959 $995,419 57 $726,802 $824,320 $1,014,434 58 $737,755 $838,262 $1,032,894 59 $748,388 $851,799 $1,050,817 60 $758,712 $864,941 $1,068,218 61 $768,735 $877,700 $1,085,112 62 $778,467 $890,088 $1,101,514 63 $787,915 $902,115 $1,117,438 64 $797,087 $913,791 $1,132,898

The University of Florida is considering a proposal that would give incoming students the option of taking classes during the spring and summer terms only, bypassing the fall semester, to ease the strain on its crowded facilities. Though most on campus seem to be in favor of providing an opportunity for nontraditional scheduling, a state law must be altered for the university to move ahead with the plan. Joseph Glover, the university’s provost, pitched the idea at a Florida Board of Governors meeting last week; he described it as a productive, efficient way to admit more students to a university for which there is high-demand. “U.F. is a large institution and, basically, in the fall semester the Gainesville campus is full to capacity,” Glover said. “We do have extra capacity in spring, after winter graduation, and lots of capacity in the summer. So the thought came to us, what’s so sacred about fall-spring? What if we offered our students the ability to be spring-summer? We see more and more students who are opting for innovative programs. I think there would be a market for students who would be interested in doing this for a variety of reasons.” ON THE WEB: In the midnight hour MORE FROM INSIDE HIGHER ED: School’s (NOT) out for the summer The idea is still in its nascent stages, but Glover imagines that the university would give applicants the option of stating their preference for fall-spring only, spring-summer only, or either up front. Students in spring-summer format would not be blocked from taking fall classes altogether, just courses in residence. In other words, students on this alternative schedule could do things like study abroad or enroll in distance education courses. This limitation would apply for the entire time these student spend at the university — and thus differs significantly from the way many colleges admit some first-year students for the spring semester, but those students are from then on enrolled on a standard schedule. This year, the university has nearly 6,400 first-time freshmen, and Glover notes that the incoming class size has remained relatively static for the past three years. If the spring-summer option is offered, he said the university would expand its incoming class by about 250 students who would take advantage of it, while maintaining the average 6,400 students in the traditional fall-spring model. Glover added, however, that the university is considering yet another option: limiting the spring-summer scheduling option to incoming transfer students only. In either case, student leaders on campus seem to appreciate the administration’s move to give them more control over their own scheduling. “I think it’s a great initiative to maintain enrollment from our students in these semesters where there seems to be a drop,” wrote Virlany Taboada, senior and treasurer of the Student Government, in an e-mail. “I’ve been a student that has gone to school fall, spring, and summer for my four years here and I can definitely say that taking classes in the summer has helped not only my [grade point average] but it’s a more relaxed environment that I think has contributed to my academic success. My hope would be that by having students not take classes in the fall we’ll see an increase in grade point average and perhaps a decrease in stress and anxiety levels.” Faculty leaders are also open to the idea. “It’s an innovative idea,” said Mary Ann Ferguson, chair of the Faculty Senate and professor in the university’s College of Journalism and Communications. “I’m glad to see the university is trying to better utilize our resources. I have some concerns about how that it’ll work with programs where students take an intro class in the fall and a more advanced class in the spring. Otherwise, I don’t see any serious downsides. I’m sure we’ll work through those issues.” As most university faculty members are nine-month employees, some would have to be encouraged to teach summer classes to help boost offerings for these students. Still, they would be paid on a supplemental contract for their extra work. “I suppose if faculty felt pressure to teach during the summer, there would be issues,” Ferguson said. “But I haven’t heard any strong resistance. We’re always able to find those willing to teach during the summer.” In order for the university to make this offer, however, it will have to ask the state legislature to change a statute. Current state law bars public institutions from requiring students who bring in at least nine credits of college credit upon entry — such as those from Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes — to attend at least one summer term. At the University of Florida, “virtually all” freshmen bring at least nine credits with them. Without revoking this exemption, the university, technically, would not be able to require students who voluntarily select the spring-summer enrollment option to take summer courses. “We need to speed student progress toward graduation and maximize use of our facilities,” said Glover, who noted that officials from other state institutions at the board meeting noted their support for institutional control over their own summer term policies. “This change would enable us to create this program.” Kelly Layman, board spokeswoman, confirmed the board’s support of this push for legislative change. She said this, in addition to a rewording of board policy, would ensure that Florida students that have Bright Futures Scholarships — the state’s lottery-funded merit-based scholarship — would still receive funds if they took advantage of the spring-summer scheduling. Currently, those receiving these scholarships are not eligible for funds if they enroll in summer courses. “We need higher baccalaureate attainment in Florida,” Layman said. “If this helps increase that, then the Board of Governors is for it.”

The difference between the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Applied Engineering and Technology Library and other science-focused libraries is not that its on-site collection is also available electronically. It is that its on-site collection is only available electronically. The idea of a libraries with no bound books has been a recurring theme in conversations about the future of academe for a long time, and it has become common practice for academic libraries to store rarely used volumes in off-campus facilities. But there are few, if any, examples of libraries that actually have zero bound books in them. UNTESTED: Can college students learn as well on iPads, e-books? Some libraries, such as the main one at the University of California at Merced, and the engineering library at Stanford University , have drastically reduced the number of print volumes they keep in the actual library building, choosing to focus on beefing up their electronic resources. In fact, some overenthusiastic headline writers at one point dubbed Stanford’s library “bookless.” But that is “a vision statement, not a point of fact,” says Andrew Herkovic, the director of communications for Stanford’s libraries. San Antonio says it now has the first actual bookless library. Students who stretch out in the library’s ample study spaces — which dominate the floor plan of the new building — and log on to the its resource network using their laptops or the library’s 10 public computers will be able to access 425,000 e-books and 18,000 electronic journal articles. Librarians will have offices there and will be available for consultations. ON THE WEB: Is a campus library valuable? INSIDE HIGHER ED: The joy of stacks Students used to get their engineering and technology books from a collection at the campus’s main library. That collection is still there, and books from it are available upon request. But at the new library dedicated to that specialty, the only dead trees are in the beams and furniture. The fact that San Antonio has actually built a literal version of what many in the industry hold up as symbol of the inevitability of electronic as the prevailing medium in academe may be commendable, but it is not “earth-moving,” says Roger Schonfeld, the managing director of Ithaka S+R, a nonprofit that promotes innovation in libraries and elsewhere. Many libraries, especially science and engineering ones, have started moving their print volumes out of the building and into remote storage. Lisa Hinchliffe, president of the Association of College and Research Libraries and head of the undergraduate library at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, says that her institution, along with several others, has embedded librarians in various department buildings. Their offices in those building, it could be argued, constitute bookless libraries inasmuch as they are places where students and professors go to learn about how to use campus collections that can be accessed from anywhere. More interesting than the fact that San Antonio’s newest library has no printed books in it is the fact that more and more libraries are devoting less space to printed books, and are thus reimagining the physical space of the library, Hinchliffe says. Whether the building houses half of its former print collection or none of it, the evolution of the library as a physical hub is something nearly every library is dealing with. As a shared space for discovery, socializing, and studying, the library is still very much relevant and in demand, says Krisellen Maloney, dean of libraries at San Antonio. That is why the university invested $82.5 million in a new library building instead of just putting librarians in offices around campus, Maloney says. “You study and work in the library,” she says. “That’s how libraries have always been. When people come to the library with books, they’re not necessarily using the books. They’re also there for the services — to consult, get instruction, find content, and use the content.”

For many community colleges around the country this fall semester, the song remains the same. Yet again, enrollments are at an all-time high, and waiting lists for classes remain long, but the search continues for ways to accommodate the growing demand. In California , where public institutions have struggled mightily amid a well-documented budget crisis, the number of students being turned away from open-access institutions is swelling for a second straight year. Many of the state’s community colleges have had to cut sections, meaning that enrollment is down. Demand, however, is higher than ever. Take Los Rios Community College District, in greater Sacramento , for example. Classes at its four colleges started four weeks ago, but the institutions have a total of 40,000 students on various waiting lists for courses — or about one for every two students actually enrolled in a course. ON THE WEB: Defining the enrollment boom MORE FROM INSIDE HIGHER ED: Access to what? “We had to cut course offerings by about 6% this fall (which equals about 850 class sections) and so our enrollment is down by nearly 5,000 students from last year,” wrote Susie Williams, associate vice chancellor for communications and research at Los Rios, via e-mail. “We have 85,593 students enrolled this year compared to 90,563 who were enrolled at the same time last year. Given that for a number of years we have seen annual growth between 5% [and] 6%, we should have increased enrollment by 5,000 to 6,000 students this fall.” Maximizing class space One state eastward, state budget cuts have made their mark at the College of Southern Nevada, located in metropolitan Las Vegas, but they have not forced the institution to turn away students by the thousands like some in California. Instead, sacrifices are being made in other areas to accommodate for the 5% or so growth in the college’s enrollment. “Nevada, like much of the country, is experiencing a very serious budget crisis (shortfall could be $3 million in the next biennium — 50% of the state budget), thus adding large numbers of new faculty positions to add a plethora of new class sections is simply not possible,” wrote Darren Divine, vice president of academic affairs at Southern Nevada, in an e-mail. “Having said that, we are trying to keep our entire full-time faculty lines already in the budget staffed, and are relying on part-time employees as much as ever to try and squeeze every single class section we can into the schedule.” Divine explained that the college is offering some “specialized courses with lower demands” on a less frequent basis so faculty members are freed up to teach “higher-demand classes.” In keeping with this move, he noted that the college is seeing increased interest in general education classes that are “designed to meet core degree requirements and transfer efforts” in addition to entry-level courses in “more applied” disciplines. Though Southern Nevada does not maintain waiting lists per se — it does not have registration software capable of handling them — it does keep track of the number of “attempted enrollments” past the capacity point of its classes. By this measure, college officials note that their efforts to maximize classroom space are making some progress. Take biology 187, a key “gateway course” for many science majors at the college. Last fall, the course’s 22 sections had 925 students. Another 1,691 tried to enroll but did not get a spot. This fall, the course has 27 sections and a capacity of 1,082 students. The number of students who tried to enroll but did not garner a spot declined to 1,541 — still, of course, more than the total who actually got into the course. There were similar declines in attempted enrollments in some of the college’s other gateway courses, including commerce, sociology, and psychology 101. Some of the new sections offered at Southern Nevada this semester, however, meet at some very nontraditional hours. Last year, inspired by a string of institutions that had done the same, the college introduced late-night classes between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. Now, enrollment in these sections is up and the college is offering 20 different courses at these unconventional times. Devine said that these late-night offerings are here to stay for the foreseeable future, as at least one way to keep students from being turned away from the college. Temporary fixes Growing enrollment — in many cases continuing year after year — is testing many community colleges nationally. At Central New Mexico Community College, in Albuquerque, enrollment has grown by more than 25% in the past three years. Currently, at 26,689, enrollment is at an all-time high. Interestingly, though, noted Phillip Bustos, the college’s vice president for student services, students are taking more credit hours than they did in the past, by nearly a class or two per semester. This accounts, he added, for some of the waiting lists in the college’s core courses, such as introductory English and math. Sections of these courses during what Bustos calls the “bottleneck times” of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 7 p.m. usually have about 50 students still waiting at the start of the semester. To accommodate those who cannot get into a section of a course essential for graduation, transfer, or continuance to a higher-level course, Bustos said, the college is getting some faculty and students to work together for something akin to an “independent study” — meaning faculty do additional one-on-one work with a few students. Also, though the college has not done so yet, Bustos said, it may alter its traditional practice of keeping classes to less than 30 or so students before the beginning of spring registration. Meanwhile, at Calhoun Community College, the largest two-year institution in Alabama, students are being advised differently than in the past if they are unable to get into the class of their choice. Recently, the college topped the 12,000-student mark for the first time in its history — up about 6% from last fall. Alicia Taylor, the college’ vice president for instruction and student success, noted that the college is increasingly granting more students the ability to substitute equivalent courses within programs of study for one another if they are a course or two short of graduation or transfer. This offer is never made for “core” or “general education” courses; it is most often used for “prescribed electives” within disciplines. “Let’s say a computer science student missed taking a Java course, we would let them take a C programming or advanced Visual Basic instead,” Taylor said. “These equivalent courses would prepare them for the market, albeit with a slightly different slant. We’ll allow this mixing and matching as long as it’s not impacting students in the overall training.” At Tulsa Community College, in Oklahoma, the answer to meeting increased demand is more adjuncts. This fall, the college had a 35% increase in the number of first-time students. The college’s overall enrollment, now 20,000, is at an all-time high. But, perhaps more telling of today’s economy, the enrollment for its Tulsa Achieves program — which waives tuition for many local residents — is also serving an all-time high of 1,637 students, up 187 students from last year. “So far, we have been able to keep up with the growth,” said Lauren Brookey, college spokeswoman. “Our state budget got cuts last year, the year before and our employees haven’t had raises in two years. But we haven’t had to lay off employees.” The college is, however, relying on more part-time faculty, Brookey noted. The college has seven more full-time faculty members than last year, pushing their number up to 300; meanwhile, it has 48 more adjunct faculty members, for a total of 1,185.

Average national SAT scores for the high school class of 2010 fluctuated slightly by section compared with last year, but remained unchanged overall, a report says. Asian students continue to post the greatest average increases among racial and ethnic groups, and average scores for students from wealthy families were highest of all. The report also highlights a gap in average scores between students who completed a core academic curriculum, and who took honors or college-level coursework, and those who didn’t. “This report confirms that there are no tricks and there are no shortcuts to college readiness,” says Gaston Caperton , president of the non-profit College Board , which released the report today. “Students who take more rigorous courses in high school are more prepared to succeed in college and beyond.” Test takers averaged 1,509 points out of a possible 2,400 in three sections, the same as last year. Nearly 1.6 million 2010 high school graduates took the test, a record. The report says SAT performance remained “stable” this year even as a larger and increasingly diverse number of students took the test. Typically, average scores drop as more students, and a more diverse range of students, take the test. Since 2000, math scores have climbed 2 points while critical reading scores have declined 4 points. Over 20 years, critical reading scores have increased 1 point and math scores 15 points. But critics of standardized testing say aggregate scores of both the SAT and ACT over the last several years suggest that the federal No Child Left Behind law has failed to reform education. The law, which went into effect in the 2003-04 academic year, requires states that want to receive federal funding for schools to develop assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in certain grades. SAT scores released Monday show a steady decline in average reading scores since 2004, from 508 to 501, and a 2-point drop in that time in average math scores, from 518 to 516. Writing scores have dropped 5 points since that section was added in 2006. Average composite scores on the ACT college entrance exam have fluctuated between 20.9 and 21.2 (out of 36) since 2003-04; this year’s scores, released last month, averaged 21.0. At the same time, gaps in SAT and ACT scores by racial and ethnic groups are widening or, at best, remaining steady. Those data “contradict the claim that more high-stakes testing improves educational quality and equity,”says Robert Schaeffer, spokesman for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, a critic of standardized tests. “We keep adding more and more high-stakes tests (but) have left more children further behind.”

DETROIT — Many college students are carrying more than a heavy class load this fall. Total student loan debt exceeds total credit card debt in this country, with $850 billion outstanding , according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and FastWeb.com, websites that provide information about student aid and scholarships. Consumers owe about $828 billion in revolving credit, including credit card debt, according to seasonally adjusted numbers in a report on July credit from the Federal Reserve . DEBT: Credit card use keeps falling amid economic uncertainty YOUR MONEY: Student loan program changes affect rates, repayment Finaid.org says it first happened in June. Oddly, some students don’t even know how much they owe — or to whom. “I’m scared to know,” said Carla George, 20, of Detroit, a junior majoring in biology at Wayne State University . She knows that her mother, at one point borrowed about $10,000 through a federal Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students. The PLUS loan lets parents borrow for costs not covered by a financial aid package. George estimates that she has taken out at least $10,000 in other loans. “I think it’s a whole bunch more,” she said. A college diploma and a good job are supposed to be the payoff for years of hard work in school. But for thousands of today’s students, there’s going to be a payback, too — as those loans come due after graduation. Some college students are failing financially long before they get a diploma — or a grown-up paycheck. “Students are far worse off today with student loan debt,” said Alan Collinge, who runs a website called StudentLoanJustice.org, where students discuss their troubles with college loans. With tuition far outpacing inflation for the past 20 years, student borrowing has continued to grow — a whopping 25% last year. Some students who are borrowing never expected to, but their parents have lost jobs or suffered other financial setbacks in the recession. Dramatic drops in home values also have made it far tougher for some parents to cover college costs by simply taking out a home equity loan. For many college grads, that monthly student loan payment is turning into quite a scary number. Kate Baker, 30, pays $600 a month — and has watched less-encumbered friends her age buy houses, travel and generally enjoy more disposable income. Baker doesn’t regret borrowing huge sums to major in government and urban studies at Smith College , a private liberal arts school for women in New England. She’s convinced that her Smith degree has given her an edge and could be the main reason she has been employed for the past 10 years — even if, she jokes, she’s also going to be in poverty until she’s 50. “As you look longer term, it’s scary that my retirement account is basically non-existent,” said Baker, who makes about $50,000 a year as a development director for Wayne State University Press, and another $5,000 as mayor pro tem for Ferndale, Mich. What can you do to hold down your debt so you’re not digging out of it for years after graduation? Get a handle now on “the number” — what you will need each month for loan payments. If, for example, you have $30,000 in student loans, your could be paying about $350 a month for 10 years — if they’re Stafford Loans at a current unsubsidized rate of 6.8% and have 1% in fees. Including interest, you’d be paying off nearly $42,000. To swing this without hitting the lottery, you’re going to need a job that pays far more than the minimum wage. One estimate, according to a calculator at www.Finaid.org, is an annual salary of $42,000, assuming you use 10% of your monthly gross for loan payments. If you start out making $25,000 a year or less, get ready to move back into Mom and Dad’s basement to make those loan payments. Candy Wright, group manager credit counseling for GreenPath in Farmington Hills, Mich., said many young grads are having a hard time lately finding a job that can pay enough to cover their loans. She warns them to be realistic about borrowing. A visit to your college career office can provide a look at estimated salaries in your chosen field and region of the country. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

IOWA CITY — The hour when Ariana Kramer will begin her college career is fast approaching — and her parents are in an office supply store, disagreeing about hanging files, of all things. “She’ll need them,” her mother says. “I don’t think so,” her dad counters. Ariana, meanwhile, walks dreamily through the store, offering no opinion on this particular decision. She is, in fact, confident that she will have what she needs when she starts her freshman year at the University of Iowa . FRESHMEN: Class of 2014 doesn’t know cursive, Clint Eastwood BY THANKSGIVING: Some first-year students want to call it quits NAVIGATING COLLEGE: Authors offer updated advice She has mom, the family organizer, with her, and dad, the calm encourager. And they have “the list,” which mom printed from one of those “what-you’ll-need-at-college” websites. New laptop. Check. Comforter with matching sheets. Check. Laundry detergent. Body wash. Antacid. Check. Check. Check. Mind you, Robin and Paul Kramer aren’t those crazy college parents — not like the mother who, as relayed by one dean of students at one California college, stayed in her daughter’s dorm room with her for four nights to help her adjust (until the daughter’s roommate complained). Nor have they ignored barricades intended to keep parents from trying to register for classes for their children, or crashed student-only orientation events, which officials at universities across the country say happens more and more. Still, even for average parents, the letting go is difficult — more so, they and many others say, than it was for parents of college-bound freshmen in decades past. Robin Kramer recalls how her own parents, who never attended college, dropped her off with a trunk full of belongings at Drake University , also in Iowa, in 1978. She set up her room and attended orientation without them there. “It’s just what you did then,” she says. It was much the same for Paul, whose father took him to the University of Wisconsin in 1977 and then went fishing. “It was a culture shock,” he says. “I wasn’t sure I was going to survive.” Perhaps that is part of what makes this “process of leaving,” as Robin calls it, more difficult. It is, all at once, overwhelming and exciting for everyone involved. But some say it’s often hardest for parents, who remember the days of college when there were fewer support systems in place for students. “I’m supposed to shed a few tears and then send her to the world, right?” the rational Robin tells her emotional self as she considers 18-year-old Ariana, the eldest of their two children. That remains to be seen. ‘Cut the cord!’ So how did we get here, anyway? It’s not that saying goodbye was easy for parents of past generations. But these days, moms and dads have gone from reading books that tell us how to raise The Happiest Baby on the Block to new handbooks such as The Happiest Kid on Campus: A Parent’s Guide to the Very Best College Experience (for You and Your Child) . YOU and your child? Linda Bips, a psychology professor who advises parents on letting go, used to carry scissors into workshops. “Cut the cord!” she would tell them. It evoked the chuckles she was looking for. “But I don’t do that anymore, because no one would listen anyway,” says Bips, a professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., and author of Parenting College Freshmen: Consulting For Adulthood . The process, she has learned, has to be gradual. Marshall Duke, a psychology professor at Emory University in Atlanta, has been giving those kinds of talks for three decades and also has noted more parents struggling. For one, they’re more connected than ever, by Facebook and text messages and, increasingly, online video chat. They’re also often paying huge sums of money on their children’s education. “So they think that gives them license to intervene as they would in other investments,” says Duke, who also encourages parents to take a step back, even when it goes against the fiber of their very being. He wants them, in effect, to let their children falter, to figure things out for themselves, to become adults. For Ariana Kramer, it means giving up the comfort of what she freely calls the “bubble” she grew up in, the quiet home and highly ranked schools in suburban Chicago where her main task in life was to study hard and get herself where she is today. In physical distance, it wasn’t so far from the working-class neighborhoods where her parents grew up. The Kramers both marvel at the freedom they had as kids, riding city buses as preteens and able to stay out with friends until the street lights came on. That was their signal that it was time to go home. They went to neighborhood schools. Their friends lived across the street. They walked home for lunch. “When we were growing up, there were no Amber Alerts,” says Paul, who is 50. After they finished college and married, the Kramers eventually moved to their current home. Paul worked his way into medical sales and Robin, who is 49, created an at-home job for herself by managing businesses of lawyers and other self-employed professionals. It became apparent how different their children’s lives would be when they found themselves arranging “play dates” and driving them from activity to activity. “You had to be so much more involved,” Robin says — partly because, like a lot of people, they had fewer children to focus on than the average family of generations past. Ariana worked in the summers, eventually becoming a counselor at a Wisconsin camp she attended for years. That helped her become more independent, she says. But even she’ll acknowledge that the thought of taking the train or bus into the city, as her parents did, is still daunting. Over this past summer, she took on household duties — doing laundry, loading the dishwasher, learning how to write a check — to help prepare her for that real world she’s anticipating. In August, she moved in to her dorm at Iowa on the first day possible, so she had extra time to get her bearings. “I like simple,” she says. “I need simple.” Times are a-changin’ By many estimations, the Kramers are a low-drama family. But even they are having their prickly moments when they arrive in Iowa City, and that’s to be expected in this time of heightened emotions, experts say. Ariana rolls her eyes, for instance, when her mom suggests that she put her class assignments in her BlackBerry calendar. “Mom, I’m not like you. You’re way, too, uh …” — Ariana pauses and chooses her words carefully when she remembers her words are being monitored by a reporter — “better organized than I am.” It’s all part of the subtle push and pull that has been happening all summer, her mother says. One minute it’s “I can do it myself!” The next, Ariana is asking, “Mom, can you help me with this?” Robin is having her own internal struggles, trying to step back but finding it a challenge. “Let’s be real. As a mom, sometimes it’s just easier to do it yourself,” she says, as she stands amid boxes and unpacked suitcases in the room Ariana will share with a roommate. It’s nothing fancy, your basic 1920s-era dorm room, upgraded with an air conditioner that is welcomed on a late summer day in muggy Iowa. “Thank God I have you guys. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to do this,” Ariana says, as her mother deals out tasks. Per Robin’s instructions, mother and daughter unpack her clothes first, as Paul sets up the clock radio, the portable telephone and the microwave. For him, the dorm room and this whole visit make him a bit wistful: “I wish it were me,” he says. That, too, is a normal parental response to this transition, says Bips, the Muhlenberg College psychologist who’s also a baby boomer and remembers “never trusting anyone over 30″ back in her own college days. “Life is more serious as you get older. There’s more loss. There’s more responsibility,” she says “So I would guess people in their 50s, who have to pay for college and worry about their jobs and the economy — yeah, wouldn’t it be nice to go back?” Some parents also feel nostalgic as the realization hits that their role — one of their main purposes in life — is changing, says Duke, the Emory psychologist: “If it’s a first child — my gosh, that’s a sobering signal about the progress of life.” Increasingly, colleges and universities have noted the support parents need in letting go, so much that they are starting to formalize the goodbye. At St. Olaf College in Minnesota, incoming freshmen are shown a video with their smiling, crying parents waving goodbye as one big group. First-year students at the University of Chicago, meanwhile, walk their parents to the university gate as bagpipes play in what some university staff call the “parting of the seas.” At Drexel University ‘s LeBow College of Business in Philadelphia, a goodbye reception includes an unofficial “crying room,” set up with tissues and a counselor. It’s kind of a gentle joke, but one that’s meant to send a message. “The idea was that we understand this is a major change for everybody,” says Ian Sladen, LeBow’s assistant dean of undergraduate programs. “It’s just as tough for parents — probably tougher, really.” But in the end, the message from universities and colleges is the same: Parents, please go home. At the University of Iowa, there is no formal goodbye ceremony. The university does, however, have an orientation and newsletter for parents and an advisory board, where any concerns are addressed. Meanwhile, Ariana also is taking a class called “The College Transition,” a relatively new course that helps freshmen ease into college life. “I clearly need a course like that to survive,” she says, her eyes widening for emphasis. Courses like these, often referred to as “University 101,” are becoming more common on college campuses. The aim is to turn out students who are independent and ready for the workplace — without their parents in tow. “It was almost a badge of honor 30 years ago when students couldn’t make it,” says Sladen at Drexel. “No one would be proud of that today.” And that should help put parents at ease, he says. ‘Make the most of it’ After nearly three days together in Iowa, the moment for Ariana to say goodbye to her parents and 16-year-old brother Chase finally arrives. Her parents get a little philosophical over sushi. “If they ask you ‘What’s the best time of your life?’ I think everybody will say college,” her dad says. “So make the most of it.” “Have fun,” her mom adds. “But don’t forget about the academics.” As her parents say goodbye, Ariana takes on the role of comforter. “I’ll call you,” she says as she hugs her mom, who begins to tear up. Ariana grabs dad and then her brother, who’s also starting to cry. She teases him: “If you break anything in my room, you’re in trouble.” They laugh. Chase, of anyone, has seemed the saddest about his sister leaving: “I think she’ll be OK as long as she copes with everything,” he had said the day before. “Oh, she will,” her mom assured him. “She’s a coper.” And it is true, Robin and Paul have faith in their daughter. “Basically, I think she’s very grounded and has a good head on her shoulders,” Robin says. She pauses. “But I’ll still be thinking, ‘Did she remember to do X, Y and Z?’” Ariana’s family departs, and the new freshman looks content, if not a little lost. She leaves her door open (that’s how you meet people, her resident adviser said). She looks around her room. “It’s weird,” she says. “What do I do now?” It won’t be long before she phones home. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.