I don't like the title of the article, but there is a lot of good content about college admittance for Asians.

Key Points:

• The area of education, that paramount priority of both communities. The story of parents toiling to create academic opportunity for their offspring (and using guilt, bribery and punishment to ensure that those kids take advantage of it) is the same whether its narrator is named Josh Li or Joshua Leibowitz.
• Asian Americans are disproportionately harmed by current admissions standards, to the point where an effective quota system exists, capping the number of Asians admitted at a virtually fixed level Ð for private colleges, generally well south of 20 percent of the student body
• "Asian applicants have to overcome a particular stereotypical profile that amounts to overt discrimination," says Jennifer Rubin, contributing editor for the conservative Jewish journal Commentary.

The Asian-Jewish connection: Is it really kosher to call Asians the "new Jews"? - SF Chronicle.

Labels: college, college admissions

The state of California is eating it's seed corn. Spending on prisons has grown 200% in the last 10 years to be more than is spent on the UC System for education in California. The amount spent on higher education has gone down, while Prisons have gone up. The result is some Cal States canceled summer school, laying off teachers, and reducing enrollment as more people seek to go to college in California.

It costs as much to have a person in prison, as it does to go to Harvard. More is spent to house 167,000 adults in Prison, than it does to educate 226,000 in the UC System And don't even get me started on why have more UC and Cal States not been built in the So. CA area.

Jeff Bleich, the outgoing chair of the 23-campus 450,000-student California State University system, warns, "California is on the verge of destroying the system [of higher education] that once made this state great." Disinvesting in higher education is an economic mistake says the UC Berkeley law school graduate, "For every dollar the state invests in a CSU student, it receives $4.41 in return."

I find this quote so sad, also from Jeff Bleich:

In the 1980s, 17% of the state budget went to higher education and 3% went to prisons. Today, only 9% goes to universities and 10% goes to prisons.

• A Crown Jewel of Education Struggles With Cuts - NY Times.
• UC on the brink - LA Times.
• State cuts give private colleges an edge - LA Times.
• Prison vs. education spending reveals California's priorities - SF Chronicle.
• Tuition Hikes: Protests in California and Elsewhere - Time Magazine.
• As Calif. Prison Spending Rises, So Do Concerns - CBS
• California's higher-education debacle - LA Times.

Related Posts:

• Panda Express Protests at UC Berkeley
• UC Berkeley - What Are You
• Chinese American Education Expectations

Labels: college

With the decline in education funding, and the continued increase in college costs I can understand Universities Turn to Consultants to Trim Budgets - NY Times. My undergraduate college is a very good school for Engineering (Cal Poly, Pomona). But, due to budget cuts they are asking questions such as do they need a department of philosophy and graduate history. The school due to budget reasons canceled summer school.

The good of hiring a consultant is it gives an outside, supposedly unbiased, expert person, who can lay out hard decisions. And good consulting companies build their knowledge base, so they are constantly improving what they do. And with the current crises in funding, there is definitely a perceived need that is shared by all involved that something needs to change. Having this agreement is key for effectively making changes. After Graduate School was very interested in going into Consulting. A good book is 'The Witch Doctors: Making Sense of the Management Gurus and Dangerous Company: The Consulting Powerhouses and the Businesses They Save and Ruin

Labels: college, college admissions

My daughter is a junior and college costs are scary. A friend's daughter is going to Duke and is paying with tuition and room and board $60,000 a year. After 4 years there will be a sunk cost of $240,000. The Washington Post has this article showing an increase in default rates Well Educated and Flat Broke in student loans.

For ethnic Chinese the name brand school for their children is extremely important and parents will sacrifice an incredible amount for it. This explains the SAT classes, after school classes, and all the other extras and pressures that many ethnic Chinese in the US put on their kids to succeed and go to a great colleges.

Labels: college

I did not realize that so many colleges fail to graduate their students within 6 years... A couple of examples only had 33% of their students graduating within 6 years!

NY Times article. Colleges Are Failing in Graduation Rates

Something else to look at when considering a college.

Labels: college

New UC admissions policy angers Asian-Americans - SF Gate.

And it seems these start the year after my daughter will be applying for college (applies to freshman class of 2012). If I am counting right... She's currently a sophomore, so 2009, 2010, 2011 will be when she graduates.

Even if it did apply to her, I am not sure if this will help her or hurt her. Supposedly this will increase the number of white students, while decreasing the number of Asian students. Since my daughter is 50/50 is it overall better for her?

The actual changes are not requiring two SAT II tests, allowing anyone with a 3.0 or higher to apply, and reduce the amount of students guaranteed admission based on grades and test scores.

Labels: college