Saturday, December 21

Tag: student

Hire A Black Principal To Improve Student Achievement
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EDUCATION

Hire A Black Principal To Improve Student Achievement

Tamara Littlejohn has been a Chicago Public Schools principal for a decade. As a Black woman in that role, she’s part of a small minority. “I really do this work because I want to make sure that, No. 1, the children have somebody who looks like them,” she said. As a child, Littlejohn’s mother was her role model, having served as both a Chicago Public Schools teacher and an assistant principal. “I saw just, like, the dedication and love that she had for her school community,” Littlejohn said. Fifteen years ago, Littlejohn received an opportunity from the national nonprofit New Leaders to train to become a school administrator like her mother. Since 2001, the organization has developed teachers into administrators through its principal preparation program, Aspiring Principals. Littlejohn ...
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An Economist Answers 3 Questions – Who Benefits From A Break On Federal Student Loan Payments?
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EDUCATION, Journalism

An Economist Answers 3 Questions – Who Benefits From A Break On Federal Student Loan Payments?

Although President Joe Biden has extended the pause on federal student loan payments from February 1 to May 1 – a move that includes a suspension of interest on the loans – some advocates want the president to cancel student loan debt altogether. Here, economist William Chittenden illuminates who benefits and who pays when borrowers get a break on paying back their federal student loans. 1. How helpful is this pause to individual borrowers? It depends. 18.1 million borrowers – out of 43.4 million borrowers – were making federal student loan payments prior to the current loan pause. Now, these borrowers will continue to get a break on making payments until May 1, 2022. With an average monthly payment of US$393, the collective direct benefits to these 18.1 million borrowers have been over $...
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Borrowing Parents Taking Out A Student Loan For Their Child Worry More About Finances
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EDUCATION

Borrowing Parents Taking Out A Student Loan For Their Child Worry More About Finances

When people take out student loans for themselves, certain risks are involved. The debt can negatively affect a person’s mental, emotional and even physical well-being. It can also harm a person’s financial well-being. But when taking out a student loan for one’s child, the risk is even higher that the loan could be associated with lower financial well-being. This is what economics scholar Charlene Kalenkoski and I found published in the Journal of Personal Finance. The study – which used a nationally representative federal dataset on household economics and decision-making – involved nearly 12,500 American adults ages 18 and over, with an average age of 48. It is not known whether the parents had taken out private or government loans for their children. By lower financial well-being, w...
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Middle-Class Millennials With Student Debt Have Trouble Buying Groceries Too, It Isn’t A Problem Just For The Poor
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SOCIETY

Middle-Class Millennials With Student Debt Have Trouble Buying Groceries Too, It Isn’t A Problem Just For The Poor

Cassandra M. Johnson, Texas State University When I teach undergraduate and graduate students about food insecurity, I sometimes mention that my perspective is based not only on professional expertise but also on my personal experience. Food insecurity might sound like the same thing as hunger, but that’s not the case. The somewhat technical term food insecurity applies when people can’t get the food they need for themselves or their families because of a lack of money or other resources. Food security, on the other hand, is more of an ideal – being able to access culturally preferred foods to support an optimal diet and health. This is my personal take on the gray area between food security and food insecurity – and how student loan debt blurs the line between low-income and middle-inc...
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A Targeted Approach To Canceling Student Loan Debt Could Help Certain Groups, But Will Barely Boost The Economy
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EDUCATION

A Targeted Approach To Canceling Student Loan Debt Could Help Certain Groups, But Will Barely Boost The Economy

William Chittenden, Texas State University At the end of June 2021, 43 million borrowers – or about 14% of all adults in the U.S. – owed approximately US$1.59 trillion in outstanding federal student loans. Although in many cases the media has focused on borrowers with extremely large balances – such as the orthodontist who owes over $1 million in student loans – the average balance is a more modest $39,351 per borrower with an average monthly payment of $393 per month. The standard repayment period for $39,351 in student loans is 20 years. The amount of student debt outstanding varies greatly based on the type of degree pursued. The average bachelor’s degree debt is under $29,000 while the average dental school debt is more than 10 times higher at over $290,000. In general, those who pur...
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Can A National Student Database Cheapen The College Experience
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EDUCATION, IN OTHER NEWS

Can A National Student Database Cheapen The College Experience

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has proposed that the federal government create a database that includes information on outcomes for individual college graduates, such as how much money they earn after they get a degree in a particular major. That’s according to a report that a commission sponsored by the foundation released in May 2021. I asked the U.S. Education Department if they plan to adopt the proposed database, but did not get a yes-or-no answer. “There are currently statutory prohibitions against the department developing a new national database on student information,” said Melanie Muenzer, chief of staff for the Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal. Muenzer said the department is reviewing the commission’s recommendations. “We anticipate more conversations with comm...
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For Recent Grads Student Loan Debt Is Costing Much More Than Just Money
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BUSINESS, IN OTHER NEWS

For Recent Grads Student Loan Debt Is Costing Much More Than Just Money

President Joe Biden promised to forgive up to US$10,000 in student loan debt during his 2020 campaign. Now, a few months into his presidency, over 415 organizations have urged him to use his executive authority to cancel all federal student loan debt. We assembled a panel of academics to talk about the effects student loans have on recent graduates. How much student loan debt is too much? Kate Padgett-Walsh, associate professor of philosophy at Iowa State University Student debt is too much when it threatens the physical and mental health of young borrowers. Today’s college graduates now finish school with almost $30,000 in student loan debt, on average, an increase of over 300% from 1970 after adjusting for inflation. Research shows that the burden of this debt causes poorer mental heal...
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Undesirable Threats To Student Privacy Plaque Remote Education
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EDUCATION, IN OTHER NEWS

Undesirable Threats To Student Privacy Plaque Remote Education

An online “proctor” who can survey a student’s home and manipulate the mouse on their computer as the student takes an exam. A remote-learning platform that takes face scans and voiceprints of students. Virtual classrooms where strangers can pop up out of the blue and see who’s in class. These three unnerving scenarios are not hypothetical. Rather, they stand as stark, real-life examples of how remote learning during the pandemic – both at the K-12 and college level – has become riddled with threats to students’ privacy. As a scholar of privacy, I believe all the electronic eyes watching students these days have created privacy concerns that merit more attention. Which is why, increasingly, you will see aggrieved students, parents and digital privacy advocates seeking to hold schools an...
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Student Housing Scarce For College Students With Kids
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EDUCATION

Student Housing Scarce For College Students With Kids

Before the family housing program opened at his university, Blake and his two young daughters were couch-surfing at the homes of their friends and family. “They only saw me coming and going,” Blake explains, describing how he had to juggle a job at a local casino, college classes and parenting as a single homeless dad pursuing a career in nursing. When the university opened its family housing program in 2014, Blake and his daughters were among the first to move in. Living on campus changed their lives. The girls claimed a place within the college community. They made friends with people across campus, ate with their dad in the dining hall and did homework together as a family. And Blake was able to better focus on his studies. The program – which has since been discontinued – is a rarit...
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A Student’s Perspective on Finding Hope, Love, Justice, and Common Humanity
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LIFESTYLE

A Student’s Perspective on Finding Hope, Love, Justice, and Common Humanity

Marching in a steady stream of people shouting familiar slogans through face masks, some of them awkwardly trying to socially distance, my first protest was fairly different from anything I’d have imagined before 2020. That didn’t make it any less powerful. The speeches given by religious and local Black community leaders, united after the police killing of George Floyd, drew in the hundreds of passionate, chanting protesters who were occupying City Hall and stunned them into mournful silence. Nor did it make it any less necessary. Mapping Police Violence data found that Black people in America are not only 3 times more likely to be killed by police than White people, they are also 1.3 times more likely to be killed while unarmed, culminating this year with the tragic deaths of George Flo...
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