RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia’s Education Department approved a textbook that wrongly claims thousands of black troops fought for the Confederacy. The agency is now warning schools about the mistake after a fourth-grader’s parent discovered the error in the Civil War chapter of Our Virginia: Past and Present . The parent, Carol Sheriff, is also a history professor at the College of William and Mary . Sheriff says blacks occasionally took up arms to defend their masters, but it was illegal to use blacks as soldiers in the Confederacy until toward the war’s end. None of those companies saw action on the battlefront and most worked involuntarily as laborers Our Virginia author Joy Masoff told The Washington Post that she found the passage on the Internet. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Graduate schools are seeing steady growth as both recent college graduates and people already in the workforce seek to boost their job prospects in a still-dragging economy. “We see an increase in graduate school applications and enrollments whenever the economy really turns south,” says Nathan Bell, director of research and policy analysis for the Council of Graduate Schools. In its report last month, it said the number of applications to U.S. graduate schools grew 8.3% from 2008 to 2009. The council has tracked grad school enrollments annually since 1986 and surveyed 699 schools in 2009. Total enrollments increased 4.7% in 2009, compared to 3% the previous year. Last year more students than ever took the GRE, the exam required for many graduate programs, and this year may set record highs again, says David Payne, vice president of Educational Testing Service , the non-profit that develops, administers, and scores the GRE. Concern about the job market — and wanting to put off paying back student loans — were major factors for University of California-Davis senior Daniel Yeshiwas, who says he changed his plans to work for a few years before attending graduate school. He plans to apply for fall 2011. “I don’t really know exactly what I want to do yet, but going to graduate school, it’s still moving me towards a career, and it’s something to further put off that question of what I’m gonna do for the rest of my life,” says Yeshiwas. Danielle McManus, a pre-professional and pre-graduate program advisor at the UC-Davis, says reasoning like Yeshiwas’ is not uncommon; she adds that many students apply to grad school as a backup plan, in case they can’t find a job. “Graduate school seems better than the specter of aimless unemployment. If these students do manage to find a job, however, they might prefer to start making money right away,” she says. In just the past two years, “students have become so hyper-focused on career opportunities that these programs can provide for them,” says Rob Franek, publisher of The Princeton Review test prep and research company. “They are thinking about the value of professional experience through a recession lens.” The Princeton Review’s new guidebooks, The Best 172 Law Schools , The Best 300 Business Schools , and The Best 168 Medical Schools , can help students evaluate whether a graduate program’s value is worth the investment, says Franek; a “career prospects” rating, is included in both the law and business school guides. That rating combines several employment statistics, such as how many students are employed upon graduation, average starting salaries, career services offered, and the number of students employed a year after graduation. Advice for those considering grad school: •Leave at least six weeks to study before any qualifying exams like the GRE or the LSAT, says The Princeton Review’s Rob Franek, and consider different schools’ admissions criteria, (includeded in the company’s guides). •Trying to decide which program to pursue? “Think about which classes you’ve done best in and what you are most interested in, particularly because graduate school is so targeted and so specific,” says UC-Davis adviser Danielle McManus. She also recommends that students ask professors for advice. •Get free practice GRE questions through the ETS website; many MBA programs now accept the GRE, not just the GMAT, says ETS’ David Payne. “With employers, the undergraduate degree is becoming pretty much a required certificate or credential for entry level positions. To advance, a masters degree is becoming more the preferred,” he adds. “Best Career Prospects” Law schools 1. University of Pennsylvania 2. Northwestern University 3. New York University 4. Vanderbilt University 5. Harvard University 6. University of Chicago 7. University of Virginia 8. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 9. Boston College 10. Boston University Business Schools 1. Harvard University 2. Stanford University 3. Northwestern University 4. Georgetown University 5. University of Pennsylvania 6. University of Virginia 7. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 8. Duke University 9. University of California-Berkeley 10. Carnegie Mellon University Source: The Princeton Review’s Best 172 Law Schools and Best 300 Business Schools 2011 Editions (Based on institutional data on graduates’ employment and average starting salaries, and student survey data on how much practical experience and career services support their law and b-schools offered.) More details on the rankings at The Princeton Review .

Despite an increased understanding that kids learn differently, a majority of Americans still do not completely understand what conditions are related to learning disabilities, a new poll says. The report by the Tremaine Foundation, which supports programs in arts, environment and disabilities, is based on a telephone poll of 1,000 adults. The report says that 79% of parents and 80% of non-parents incorrectly associate mental retardation with a learning disorder. A majority of Americans also incorrectly associate attention deficit disorder (ADD), emotional disorders and autism with learning disorders, all of which are unrelated to learning disabilities. “We still see a great confusion among the public and among the teachers as to what learning disabilities are and are not,” says Tremaine Foundation president Stewart Hudson. A learning disorder does not affect a person’s intelligence but rather “affects the brain’s ability to process, store, and respond to information,” according to the National Center for Learning Disabilities. Dyslexia, difficulty reading and processing language, and dyscalculia, difficulty processing math, are two common learning disabilities. These misconceptions may lead to shortcomings in addressing learning disabilities in schools. “It makes us wonder — if there’s a lack of understanding at this level, how does this play out in the classroom where the rubber meets the road?” says James Wendorf, executive director of the National Center for Learning Disabilities. Signs in children, like language difficulties and trouble with letters and numbers, do not always indicate a learning disability, but parents should address problems early, says Virginia Buysse of the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Linda Randall says her daughter, Randi-Lyn, a student at Radford University in southwestern Virginia, is not a “die-hard” follower of the Highlanders sports teams. Even so, by the time Randi-Lyn graduates in 2012, her parents probably will have paid an average of nearly $1,000 a year in fees to the school’s athletics department. They just didn’t know it from the school’s billing statements or website. “We’re looking at five years because she changed majors. That’s $5,000,” Randall says. “That’s one of her loans. That would have paid rent off-campus for a year. It’s kind of disheartening. I don’t think I’d have as much of a problem with it if I knew I was paying it. With what we’re paying, it doesn’t seem right.” Like most other schools in NCAA Division I, Radford relies on student fees to help support ever-expanding athletics budgets. Many schools, including Radford, do not itemize where those fees go for those who pay the tuition bills, USA TODAY found in an ongoing examination of college athletics finances. The amounts going to athletics are soaring, and account for as much as 23% of the required annual bill for in-state students. Students were charged more than $795 million to support sports programs at 222 Division I public schools during the 2008-09 school year, according to an analysis of thousands of pages of financial documents. Adjusting for inflation, that’s an 18% jump since 2005, making athletics funding at public schools a key force in the rapidly escalating cost of higher education. CHAT TRANSCRIPT: Discussion of college athletics and student fees STUDENTS: Unaware of usage of fees and less interested in athletics DISCLOSURE: Laws in place in Virginia and Tennessee ANALYSIS: percentage of tuition that goes to athletics DATABASE: What NCAA schools spend on athletics At nearly all schools, various mandatory fees are tacked on to tuition, and can cover everything from student health care to computers. But the largest portion often goes toward running the school’s athletics department. In exchange, students typically get free or reduced admission to sporting events. But when demand exceeds available student seating, some students can get shut out. Many aren’t interested in the games anyway. “She does go to some of the games,” Linda Randall says of her daughter, “and it’s nice that they let them in free. … But she’s going there for the (academics); she’s not going to fund athletics.” There were 42 Division I athletics departments that reported receiving no student-fee money in 2009, but some of those schools say student-fee money is included in institutional funding provided to athletics programs. Many schools help cover the gap between their athletics departments’ expenses and revenue because they regard sports teams — especially football and men’s basketball teams — as important parts of campus life and excellent vehicles for generating publicity and alumni support. A University of California-Berkeley faculty group seeking ways to reduce the campus’ financial support of athletics acknowledged in a recent report that besides having a “significant” impact on the school’s $250 million in annual academic fundraising, Cal’s wide-ranging and successful sports program “adds to campus spirit and unity, provides free advertising for the campus, helps in branding, and provides a link and outreach to alumni.” But at NCAA Division I schools, athletics spending has been rising at a faster rate than increases in academic spending, prompting various higher-education groups to call for a change in priorities. At least six schools — all in Virginia — charged each of their students more than $1,000 as an athletics fee for the 2008-09 school year. That ranged from 10% to more than 23% of the total tuition and mandatory-fee charges for in-state students, the primary customers at most public universities. Sandy Baum, a policy analyst for the College Board and co-author of the organization’s annual Trends in College Pricing report, asks: Is athletics “10% of what you’re getting out of college?” At least five states, including Virginia, ban or limit the use of public and/or tuition money for athletics. For some schools in those states, relatively large fee charges become an alternative. In other states, on top of dedicated fees that might or might not have been approved by students, athletics departments often get other financial support from their schools. The Randalls are not the only parents who were unaware of the scope of the athletics fees. Among the 20 schools nationally that had the highest estimated per-student athletics fee charges in 2009, based on a USA TODAY analysis, 15 schools confirmed that they do not disclose their per-student athletics fee charges on their billing statements, websites or in other official school publications. Officials at four of those 15 schools — Radford, James Madison , Longwood and Norfolk State, all of which are in Virginia — said the information could be found in an appendix of a state report. At Virginia Military Institute, the athletics fee figure is “buried in our budget,” says Col. Stewart MacInnis, a spokesman. “I had to go dig it out myself. It’s not where anybody would go look for it. You’ve identified a weak spot.” Some schools don’t reveal how much students pay toward athletics, to try to avoid controversy. “Why would you?” asks Jack Boyle, vice president for business affairs and finance at Cleveland State, which was just outside the top 20 in estimated per-student athletics-fee charges. ” …Whenever we spell something out, somebody decides they don’t want that service. We don’t spell out in tuition that 1.8% of it goes to run the religion department. ‘I’m an atheist. Why should I pay for them? I’d never go to any of their courses.’ ” ‘A matter of transparency’ Schools’ reluctance to make public how much athletics departments get from student fees runs counter to federal, and some state-level, efforts to require greater transparency of college costs. The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 this year began requiring schools to annually report to the Education Department separate figures for tuition and required fees. (They had been allowed to report a combined figure.) Starting in July 2011, schools with the largest percentage increases in price over the previous three years will be listed by the department and required to report the reasons for the increases and what will be done to cut costs. In May, the University of California system voted to force greater disclosure of how its schools use money from a fee that can fund certain programs, including athletics. Each campus will have to maintain a website that says how the spending of that money compares with the spending recommended by the campus’ student-fee advisory committee. In June, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics advocated making student fees apparent as a means to reform athletics spending. “At a time when the cost of attendance at college is going up at a very high rate, it’s a matter of transparency and fairness and equity that people ought to know what they’re spending their money on,” commission co-chairman William E. Kirwan , chancellor of the University System of Maryland, said at that time. “I think that is a way of bringing pressure to bear — this transparency and this exposure of revenues and expenditures — and beginning to put a hold on, to tamp down, the rate of increase (of spending) in intercollegiate athletics.” After Kirwan’s comments, USA TODAY found that two schools in the Maryland system were among the top 20 in estimated per-student athletics fee charges in 2009. Maryland-Baltimore County specifically disclosed its athletics fees on its website and the university system’s; Towson provided only the amount of what the bursar’s office’s website called a “University Fee.” “We do not itemize each cost or fee,” bursar Thomas Ruby says. “We do not get into that detail. That’s how this university operates.” Kirwan said in early August that Towson’s athletics fee is “in the public domain” because it was discussed at a system board of regents public meeting, but “it isn’t as transparent as I think it should be. It ought to be more transparent on the website, and it will be addressed.” Within two days, Towson’s athletics fee — $767 per student for the 2010-11 school year — had been posted on the university system’s site; it remains unspecified on Towson’s site. (Following this story’s original publication on Sept. 22, Towson began showing its specific athletics fee information on the university’s web site.) The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a Washington, D.C.-based research group, plans to survey students to see how many are aware of athletics fees. But even the center acknowledges that increasing accountability is tough — mostly because even if students are aware of the fee, they rarely are clear on the true cost, administrative director Matthew Denhart says. Many students pay their college bills with loans, so they don’t think about what the true cost will be. And third-party payers — parents, scholarships, Pell Grants — pass on the cost to someone else. “There’s a lot of, ‘I’m not paying for it anyway, so why fight it?’ ” Denhart says. ‘Absolutely getting nothing’ from fee There are those who are trying to fight athletics fee increases or the fees themselves. Kentucky state Rep. Joni Jenkins filed a bill this year to prohibit public universities from charging commuter students mandatory athletics and meal-plan fees. Her bill was never taken up by a state legislative committee, but she says she plans to refile the bill soon so it will be heard in the next legislative session starting in January. “I represent a middle-class district where parents are struggling and students are struggling,” Jenkins says. “So many of the students from my district are part time because they can’t afford to go full time, and they have to work, and they are absolutely getting nothing out of that athletic fee.” She believes commuter students and others should be able to opt out of paying athletics fees, although she acknowledges that for “some of the smaller schools that don’t have the same revenues, (an athletics fee) does keep their non-revenue sports going.” At Montana, however, the student body rejected a proposed athletics-fee increase, overriding action by elected student leaders. Representatives from the Associated Students of the University of Montana (ASUM) approved a plan to boost the athletics fee to $144 annually from $92, but other students were so outraged that they forced the issue to be put to an all-campus vote in May. The plan was defeated by a 2-to-1 ratio. ASUM President Ashleen Williams, who supported the fee increase, predicts the issue will come up again in the fall. “Sometimes you have to make hard decisions,” she says. Relying heavily on ticket revenue to fund athletics is a “really risky game” because sales — which have been Montana’s largest or second-largest revenue source each of the past five years — can wane if teams don’t win. Hawaii’s athletics department had been trying to rely on the $23 million a year it generated from ticket sales, donations, television and marketing, plus an additional $10 million in direct and indirect support from the university. But by this summer, the department had accumulated about $10 million in debt and was adding to that at a rate of $1.5 million to $2 million a year. Over the objections of undergraduate and graduate student organizations, the state board of regents voted in July to impose an athletics fee for the first time. Beginning in January, students will be charged $50 a semester, an amount that is projected to increase the athletics department’s net revenue by about $1.8 million a year; the fee money will be available for any purpose except staff compensation or benefits. “It showed a pretty messed-up sense of priorities,” says Amy Donahue, chairwoman of the University of Hawaii Graduate Student Organization’s advocacy committee. “If we’re going to pay, it should reflect the priorities of the university and benefit the entire university community.” Associate athletics director Carl Clapp says the department hopes the fee will have such a benefit. Athletics “is by no means the most important part” of the university, Clapp says, but “a strong, successful athletic program is very important to the connection with alumni, donors and leaders in the state, and it magnifies the university not only in Hawaii but beyond the state. That’s the visibility that the athletics program can have.” ‘We don’t ask where it’s going’ At some schools, students have been willing to approve fee increases for a variety of purposes. In March 2009, Bowling Green students voted to approve a $60-per-semester fee to help finance the construction of a new campus arena/convocation center — and the measure carried by a ratio of more than 2 to 1. (The school won’t collect the fee until the arena’s completion, scheduled for 2011.) Also that month, Utah State students voted 53% to 47% to more than double their athletics fee to nearly $120 a semester as part of a funding plan to help the school have a more viable program in the NCAA’s elite-level Football Bowl Subdivision. There are students who say they don’t mind paying sizable athletics fees, regardless of whether the fees are specifically disclosed. James Madison University was another school among the top 20 in estimated per-student fee charges that did not disclose its specific athletics fee ($1,080 in 2008-09, according to the state report the school cited). Student body President Andrew Reese says that “it’s not cause for much concern for (students)” because the school provides free admission to events, puts student sections in prime seating areas, and “athletics is a very big part of the student culture.” Cleveland State junior Andrew Sobczak says, “I personally would like it if I knew what I was paying for — and where the money was going.” But he has no problem with most of his overall fee money going toward intercollegiate athletics: “How much? That can be questionable. But I think it should. If you want to go to school, part of the whole school atmosphere is sports as well.” If students know little or nothing about general fees, Sobczak says, it’s partly their own fault for not being more educated consumers. “We don’t question it, we don’t ask where it’s going, we don’t do any of that. So it’s definitely partly our fault that the system works that way.” Boyle, Cleveland State’s vice president of business affairs and finance, says that if students don’t want their money going toward sports, there are options such as online schools and schools such as the University of Phoenix that do not have sports. At Cleveland State, general fees are considered part of tuition, Boyle says. The money from collected fees generally is sliced up three ways, he says. About 40% goes to paying off debt from new student buildings. About 45% goes to athletics. The rest funds activities such as student government. Linda Randall says being told about Radford’s athletics fee “up front would have been better. We still would have sent her there. She loves it. She’s happy. But it would have been nice to know.”

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.

Hoping to portray themselves as more affordable and all-around better neighbors, private colleges from Appalachia to Boston are sweetening financial aid packages for students from their own backyards. The latest and most prestigious example is Northwestern University . By targeting local students in financial need, Northwestern is seeking to boost minority enrollment, strengthen local ties and stay competitive in the college admissions race at a time when many private schools are increasing aid based on student merit instead of financial circumstances. “You may be thinking globally about your education curriculum,” David Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, said of such efforts. “But you’re increasingly acting locally with respect to students.” Northwestern’s “Good Neighbor, Great University” scholarships will be awarded starting in fall 2011 to about 100 incoming freshman who graduated from high schools in Evanston , Ill., home to Northwestern’s main campus, and Chicago , site of its medical school. About 2,000 first-year students enroll at Northwestern annually. Students whose families show financial need — there is no income cut-off — will be eligible for scholarships replacing loans and payments from work-study. The majority of students who qualify will receive enough aid to fully cover the cost of Northwestern’s $40,223 annual tuition and fees, said Michael Mills, associate provost for university enrollment. The program was recommended by a university task force on diversity and inclusion, which was formed following racial tensions on campus, including a controversy last fall over two students who dressed up in blackface for Halloween. After its black student enrollment peaked at nearly 10% during the Carter administration , Northwestern experienced a slow and steady decline, Mills said. This year’s incoming freshman class is about 7.2% black, up from 4.5% three years ago, which Mills attributed in part to better outreach to Chicago Public Schools and waiving the $65 application fee for its students. The university expects to enroll 60 CPS graduates in this fall’s freshman class, up from 28 in fall 2008. Turning again to Chicago for the new scholarship program seemed a logical step considering the city’s racial diversity and the strong Chicago connections of faculty and board members, he said. Joshua Williams, 22, a 2010 Northwestern graduate who graduated from high school on Chicago’s South Side, sought Northwestern out rather than being courted. A debater and poet who was raised by his grandmother, Williams settled on Northwestern as a high-school sophomore, attended a summer debate camp there and won financial aid to cover tuition. “Now we see a Northwestern that has a new face, that is more proactive, reaching out to public schools,” said Williams, who is African-American and served on the diversity task force. In developing the new scholarship program, Mills said Northwestern also was searching for answers after watching too many accepted students take merit-based scholarships at comparable and lesser schools. “You’ve got all the evidence in the world to show kids you’ve recruited are smart enough to get admitted and predisposed to attend Northwestern, then you watch them sort of get plucked away,” he said. The program should help local families that traditionally have earned too much to get a free ride and too little to afford Northwestern, said Patrick Tassoni, college coordinator at Chicago’s Northside Preparatory High School. “Many colleges are saying, ‘You’re accepted, please send your $20,000 check to …’” Tassoni said of the plight of middle-income families. “That’s when families really start to compare the different financial aid packages at schools. Maybe now, more moderate-income families will be less apprehensive to apply to Northwestern.” Among other private colleges that are going local with new or expanded financial aid, some directly tied to students’ financial need and others not: • Last fall, Davis & Elkins College in rural West Virginia started offering discounted tuition to freshmen from seven nearby counties to make its cost comparable to that of West Virginia University . The small Presbyterian college says it was seeking to both reach enrollment targets and deepen ties to the area, which has low median household incomes and college attendance rates. The freshmen class from those counties grew from 16 in 2009-09 to 87 in 2009-10, and this fall is projected at 122, officials say. • Also last fall, the University of Evansville began offering up to $18,000 a year, for up to four years, to all high school graduates or permanent residents of Vanderburgh County, Ind., its home county. School officials say their main motivation is to get more students living on campus and fully experiencing college life. Living in campus housing is required. • Boston University in 2008 announced expanded aid to Boston Public School students, replacing loans with grants to eligible students who meet academic targets and do 25 hours of community service per semester. The average family income of recipients is $68,000, said Laurie Pohlm, vice president for enrollment and student affairs. Along with keeping up local relations, Pohlm said BU is seeking a competitive edge for the best students in its primary markets — more important because the number of high school graduates nationally is projected to dip in the next five years. • In Worcester, Mass., the red brick buildings of the College of Holy Cross literally loom over the city, seemingly out of reach of many working-class residents. So in 2008, the 2,700-student college began offering free tuition to city residents whose families earn less than $50,000 a year — also roughly what it costs to attend Holy Cross each year. “Our local kids felt, ‘Holy Cross, ooh, that sticker price,’” said Lynne Myers, director of financial aid. “We wanted a clear understanding that we are your neighbor, we’re sitting right here on the hill, and we want to be accessible to you.” Annie Le, raised by a single mother on disability and welfare, is one of 23 students who have taken the offer. “I’m the first girl in my family to go to college. My mom didn’t want me to go away, and now she’s just a few minutes away,” said Le, who was also able to keep her job waitressing at a pancake restaurant. “It just made it a lot easier.” Eric Gorski, a national writer for The Associated Press based in Denver, can be reached at egorski(at)ap.org. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 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If community colleges were to find all the formerly enrolled students whose academic records qualify them for an associate degree and retroactively award them the credential, then the number of associate degrees awarded in the United States would increase by at least 12%. This compelling projection by the Institute for Higher Education Policy is one of the primary reasons why it is working with the Lumina Foundation for Education to roll out the three-year, $1.3 million Project Win-Win. This initiative will financially support 35 community colleges and four-year institutions in six states — Louisiana , Missouri, New York , Ohio , Virginia and Wisconsin — so they can track down and retroactively award qualified students associate degrees who, for whatever reason, never received one. It also will help these institutions identify students who have recently dropped out who are “academically short” of an associate degree by nine credits or fewer and re-enroll them to finish a degree. ON THE WEB: Movement, but miles to go MORE FROM INSIDE HIGHER ED: Why reverse transfer? “Project Win-Win has the potential to make a considerable down payment on increased degree completion goals set by state governors and the Obama Administration,” said Michelle Asha Cooper, IHEP president, in a statement. Last year, nine of the project’s institutions ran a pilot of this program during a seven-month period; they awarded nearly 600 associate degrees and identified almost 1,600 students who were just shy of earning one. The pilot, however, revealed a number of difficulties that institutions face when attempting to retroactively award degrees. “It’s not as easy as it sounds,” said Stephanie Tarver, dean of enrollment management at McNeese State University, which awards associate degrees as well and was part of the pilot program. “We were kind of bumbling around in the dark a bit. When you pull data, it doesn’t always match up like you thought it would. You have to have a lot of staff to dedicate to a project like this to keep it going.” Then, even when candidates for degrees and those just shy of them were identified, reaching them proved just as challenging. “At that point, we don’t have as much control as we do in the other areas because these students have been out for a while,” Tarver said. “We didn’t know if the contact information we had for them was accurate. We didn’t know how to get accurate information without spending lots of money to find it. Also, when we finally did make contact, some of the students were leery of us. ‘You’re calling me out of the blue and saying I’m qualified for a degree and want to offer it to me? What’s the catch?’ ” Eventually, though, McNeese awarded about 15 associate degrees, out of approximately 150 former students who met degree requirements. Officials also tracked down about 300 students who were just short of graduation and are in the process of helping those who wish to complete find a way to do so. “A lot of the students who dropped out of school didn’t realize just how close they were to finishing,” Tarver said. “The success stories we’ve had are truly heartwarming, especially for those who didn’t realize they were qualified for a degree. We made an immediate impact on their lives. Rarely have I felt we’ve impacted students as we did through this project.” Though many of the institutions participating in the project had never before made efforts to retroactively award degrees, a few of them have been doing it for a while and have found ways to integrate this into regular degree audits for current students. Anna Flack, registrar at Suffolk County Community College, in New York, noted that her institution has made it a point to search for these “lost graduates” at least once every year for the past decade. “We did this on a small scale,” Flack said. “It was really part of office procedure. {hellip} We made it part of the daily responsibilities of the degree audit staff.” With students who are just a few credits short of earning an associate degree, Flack said, the college has adopted a no-pressure approach in approaching them. “We’ve just sent letters to students, saying that can finish if they’d like to,” Flack said. ” ‘Here are the different ways you can reach that degree.’ There’s no convincing, no strong-arming, no sales pitch. ‘We just see this, and we’d like you to know about it.’ ” Those pushing the project at the national level argue that, despite some of the challenges in the degree audit process, this is a relatively easy way to boost graduation rates around the country. “This is an issue that hasn’t been raised,” said Cliff Adelman, senior associate at IHEP. “We’re saying to these institutions, ‘Hey, guys, you haven’t paid attention to people based on your criteria who’ve crossed the degree threshold. You’ve been asleep at the wheel.’ There’s all this talk about awarding these degrees, but they’re just making a lot of noise. This is low-hanging fruit.”

ATLANTA (AP) — The University of Georgia won a national title this year — top party school. The Princeton Review announced Monday that Georgia is the No. 1 party school on its now infamous annual ranking. The school of about 30,000 students has been on the list 10 times since the ranking was created in 1992, but this is the first time the university has taken the top spot. For the campus — surrounded by nearly 100 bars in tiny downtown Athens — parties are just part of life from August to May each year. Many students gear up for the weekend on Thursdays and sometimes don’t rest until Monday morning. “That’s what people look forward to starting Thursday — Thursday night is the new Friday night,” said junior Andrew Chappell, 20. “The party atmosphere is such a big part of Georgia.” University of Georgia spokesman Tom Jackson said the list is not one the school wants to lead. He said he’d rather emphasize that the school made Princeton Review’s top 50 “Best Values” list or the “Green Honor Roll” of the most environmentally conscious campuses. BEST VALUE COLLEGES: Top 100 for 2010 PRINCETON REVIEW: 286 greenest colleges BEYOND RANKINGS: Scores on student engagement Georgia beat out Pennsylvania State University, West Virginia University and University of Florida — which were the top party schools over the last three years. Those three made the top 10 this year, while Ohio University ranked second. The ranking comes after several years of work by University of Georgia administrators to curb drinking on campus and tone down the party atmosphere. Since 2006 — when a student died of an overdose of alcohol, cocaine and heroin in his dorm room — university police have been hauling underage drinkers to jail rather than simply giving them a ticket. School administrators call parents on the first offense and suspend a student for two semesters after the second alcohol violation. “The University of Georgia takes student alcohol education programs very seriously and will continue to do so,” Jackson said. Those efforts weren’t helped when athletic director Damon Evans stepped down last month after being charged with drunken driving. Evans had appeared in a video message played before home football games urging Georgia fans not to drink and drive. The ranking is based on e-mail surveys of 122,000 students at more than 370 colleges across the country. It combines responses on alcohol and drug use on campus, hours spent studying outside class and the popularity of fraternities and sororities. The surveys are filled out voluntarily by students, and on average about 325 students from each campus respond, said Rob Franek, author of the 800-page book put out by Princeton Review each year with nearly 60 categories of rankings. Other rankings include best campus food, least accessible professors and most religious students. “I want to make sure we’re giving any college-bound student a very clear example of what life could be for them at any of the 373 schools in the book,” he said. Colleges dismiss the rankings as unscientific and complain that they glorify dangerous behavior. In advance of Monday’s announcement, University of Colorado President Bruce Benson sent a letter to the Boulder, Colo., Daily Camera newspaper criticizing Princeton Review and the rankings. “What I get really upset about is this is headline-grabbing, and it’s extremely unscientific,” Benson told the newspaper. His school ranked 16th on the party list this year and No. 1 in 2003. This year, Brigham Young University topped the list of “Stone-Cold Sober Schools” for the 13th straight year. The Princeton Review is a Massachusetts-based company known for its test preparation courses, educational services and books. It’s not affiliated with Princeton University. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Starting the school day earlier may lead to more car accidents involving teenagers, new research suggests. The study, which looked at schools in two cities in Virginia with different start times, found an association between earlier classes and more crashes among sleep-deprived students. “Teenagers need over nine hours sleep a night, and it looks like a large number of teens don’t get sufficient sleep … part of that relates to the time that high schools begin,” said study author Dr. Robert Vorona, an associate professor of internal medicine in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Va. The findings were to be presented Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Sleep Societies, in San Antonio. “There are data that demonstrate that lack of sleep has negative consequences for teens,” he said. “And some data show that younger drivers are more likely to have crashes when they have inadequate sleep.” The study compared crash rates in 2008 for high school students with widely varying school starting times in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, two adjacent cities with similar demographics. Virginia Beach’s classes started at 7:20 a.m.; Chesapeake’s began at 8:40 a.m. While the overall accident rate for all drivers was higher in Virginia Beach, the difference between teens in the two cities was stark, Vorona said. Chesapeake had 46.2 crashes for every 1,000 teen drivers, compared to 65.4 per 1,000 teen drivers in Virginia Beach — a 41% difference. The statistics are significant, Vorona said, even though they did not prove a direct relationship between school starting times and roadway safety. “We think the Virginia Beach students may be sleep-deprived,” said Vorona, “and that is perhaps the reason for the increased crashes.” Vorona said that the amount of sleep teens get largely depends on what time they get up in the morning. “They tend to go to bed later no matter what time they get up,” said Vorona. Other research shows teens who start school later get more sleep. He recommended high schools look at starting the day later. Beyond the impact on driving, early start times probably affect other important areas, Vorona said, calling for research on how they affect teenagers’ moods, tardiness and academic performance. “If you think about something like calculus, we’re asking teens to perform complicated mental functions when their minds are probably not fully alert yet,” he said. Dr. Barbara Phillips, of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, agreed. Teens are “biologically programmed” to get sleepy and wake up later than adults, said Phillips, a professor with the school’s division of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine. “They truly can’t help it. They’re just not going to get sleepy at 10 p.m., so it’s hard for them to get the eight to 10 hours of sleep they need to get when they have to catch the 7:30 bus.” Phillips is co-author of a study that compared car crash rates and increased sleep for adolescent drivers in Lexington, Ky., when the school district instituted a later school day in 1998. Data were analyzed from the two years before and after the change. The study found that when teens increased their sleep, crash rates declined 16.5% during a period when teen crash rates throughout the state increased by 7.8%. “Younger, inexperienced drivers don’t fare well with additional handicaps such as impaired alertness caused by having to get up earlier than is natural for them,” said Phillips. She noted that schools often resist starting the school day later because it affects bus schedules, sports and other after-school activities. “Changing high school start times is important and difficult,” she said. “It can’t happen without commitment and work on the part of parents and school officials. Teens are not in a position to set their schedules. We need to help them.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

DAVIE, Fla. (AP) — Professor Derron Bowen teaches high school math to college students, patiently chalking equations on the board on basic arithmetic topics such as the speed of a driver on a 20-hour trip. Bowen’s class at Broward College in South Florida is for students who didn’t score high enough on an entrance test to get into college-level math. In all, about two-thirds of students entering the community college need to take at least one remedial course in math, English or reading. Nationwide, about a third of first-year students in 2007-08 had taken at least one remedial course, according to the U.S. Department of Education . At public two-year colleges, that number rises to about 42%. Education observers worry that the vast numbers of students coming to college unprepared will pose a major roadblock to President Barack Obama ‘s goal for the United States to once again lead the world in college degrees. COMMUNITY COLLEGES: 6 states aim to reform remedial programs “We don’t get there from here,” said Bob Wise , president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia . In October, the Education Department reported that many states declare students to have grade-level mastery of reading and math when they do not. In a 2007 ACT National Curriculum Survey of college professors, 65% said their states poorly prepare students for college-level coursework. The survey found that professors want students with stronger skills in specific areas, while high schools typically impart a less comprehensive understanding of a broad range of topics. In his remedial math class in Florida, Bowen sees students who haven’t been in school for a decade or more, but some haven’t even had time to hang up their high school diplomas. “How were they allowed to go through?” Bowen said. “I’m thinking, ‘If I could have been teaching you back when you were 6, 7, you would be a powerhouse today.’” The Obama administration is pushing states to adopt tougher standards, and governors and education leaders across the country are working together to propose a uniform set of common standards. A first draft was released in March, and a final proposal could come this summer. For others, the problem points to the need to develop alternative forms of job training for people who aren’t academically inclined and are unlikely to finish college. “We’re telling kids you’ll be a third-class citizen if you don’t go to college,” said Marty Nemko, an education policy consultant and author. “And colleges are taking kids who in previous generations would not have gone to college.” Nemko favors an apprenticeship program similar to those offered in Finland , Japan and Germany. That’s a point that Daniel Paz, a student in Bowen’s class, says he can relate to. “College is not for me,” said Paz, who graduated from high school last year and is considering a career in criminal justice. “It’s something I have to do, but if there was another way, than I’d be doing something else.” Some students in remedial courses are older workers trying to jump-start a new career. But a sizable amount are recent graduates who performed well in high school: A 2008 study by the nonprofit Strong American Schools found that nearly four out of five remedial students had a high school GPA of 3.0 or higher. The price of providing remedial training is costly. The Alliance for Excellent Education estimates the nation loses $3.7 billion a year because students are not learning basic needed skills, including $1.4 billion to provide remedial education for students who have recently completed high school. “From taxpayers’ standpoint, remediation is paying for the same education twice,” Wise said. Students who need remedial classes are also more likely to drop out: Those taking any remedial reading, for example, had a 17% chance of completing a bachelor’s degree, according to 2004 Education Department data. At the recent annual American Association of Community Colleges conference, Melinda Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, called improving or reducing remediation the best way to improve completion rates at community colleges, which hover at around 25%. “Right away, your dreams of going to college are deferred, because technically you’re not in college,” she said. “If you start in a remedial class, the odds are that you will never finish a credit-bearing course in that subject.” She pointed to positive models: El Paso Community College, which gives prospective students placement tests while still in high school, and Mountain Empire Community College in Virginia, where there are new lesson plans and textbooks to move students through remedial education faster. The Gates Foundation is spending $100 million to develop new models for remedial education. Advocates say the need for reform is urgent, pointing to studies that show more jobs in the future will require more education, and that people with less education have been hit with higher levels of unemployment during the recession. Nemko doubts the notion that most workers will need a higher level degree. “In every corporation or government agency, there needs to be a small number of people coming out with the great new ideas,” he said. “But for everyone one of those, they need 20 to 50 worker bees who are there to provide the product.” At Broward College, there are signs of improvement: The percentage needing remedial education has dropped, from 85% of first-time college students to 74% in the 2009 incoming class. “I don’t remember learning any of this stuff in high school,” said CaSonya Fulmore, 40, who was laid off from her job as a customer service supervisor with American Express Co. last year. Fulmore is taking a preparatory math class and studying for a degree in social science, with hopes of becoming a counselor. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.