College Freshmen Study Booze More Than Books
“Nearly half of college freshmen who drink alcohol spend more time drinking each week than they do studying, suggests a survey involving more than 30,000 first-year students on 76 campuses who took an online alcohol education course last fall.”

Students Stop Surfing After Being Shown How In-Class Laptop Use Lowers Test Scores
“Professors increasingly frustrated by students who use laptops for non-class activities—like updating their Facebook pages—may be heartened by news from the University of Colorado at Boulder. A professor there has found that educating students about the negative effect that frivolous laptop use has on their performance reduces class time spent going walkabout on the Web.”

College Applications Now an Open (Face)book
“But, for every member of the Facebook nation, even a successful admissions season poses challenges: Should you post your good fortune on your home page before learning whether your best friend got in? Or check your iPhone for online decisions, with everyone watching? If you put your college wish list online, will you be humiliated if the rejections come thick and fast?”

A New Factor in Making That College: Loving It
“Amid such unpredictability, students who seem excited at the prospect of arriving on campus in the fall are in high demand, admissions officers say. In an ironic twist, the volatile nature of admissions has given students a measure of control over the process.”

Cutbacks Threaten College Experience
“The college your kid just got into may be very different from the one you visited last year. Schools are trimming costs to shore up their finances. And while some changes, like hiring freezes, are temporary, others — such as faculty layoffs or scholarship cuts — could profoundly alter your child’s education.”

Delaying College for a Year Could Have Benefits
“So here is a heretical idea for this year’s high school seniors: Take a year off and go out and do something else. Then, when it is available, see if you can take advantage of that aid money — more fixed-rate student loans and bigger grants to the poorest students.”

An Option to Save $40,000: Squeeze College Into 3 Years
“Although most American students now take longer than four years to complete their degrees, the idea of three-year degrees has been gaining favor in some circles, with several colleges talking about or experimenting with such programs, often involving online courses or summer school.”

Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes
“A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.”

Rethinking College Prep Costs in Tough Times
“But if anything good comes from these stressful economic times, it may be that parents will be forced to rethink the idea that more is always better. Countless test preparation courses and dozens of visits to college campuses are not only expensive but can unnecessarily add to the frenzy already surrounding the process.”

Dirty Secrets of College Admissions
“Current and former admissions officers from colleges and universities across the country talked to the Daily Beast about why attending a good high school can hurt your chances, the perils of too many recommendations, and why white girls from Jersey barely have a chance.”

Importance of the College-Admissions Essay
“To many students, the essay is among the most terrifying aspects of the admissions process, and growing numbers of students are paying consultants hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for help to conceive and polish it.”

The Big Test Before College? The Financial Aid Form 
Amen.

The 15 Strangest College Courses in America
“A lot of the odd courses we found sound like lots of fun, but with tuition costs skyrocketing is it really worth it to spend thousands of dollars on fun diversions? Read on and decide.”

Private Colleges Worry About A Dip in Enrollment
Admissions officers nationwide point to several possible reasons for the drop in applications. Some students have pared their college lists this year. Many more are looking at less-expensive state universities. Many institutions accepted more students under binding early-decision programs, and each such acceptance drains off an average of 8 to 10 regular-decision applications. And some experts suspect that students are delaying their college plans.

The Best Colleges for Making Money
In a new twist on traditional college rankings, SmartMoney took a crack at quantifying the long-term value of a college education. Our goal was to spotlight the relationship between tuition costs and graduates’ earning power. Working with consultant PayScale.com, which recently published a groundbreaking survey on alumni salaries, we first looked at what graduates from 50 of the most expensive four-year colleges earn in their early and midcareers. Then we factored in their up-front tuition and fees. The result? A unique “payback” ratio for each school.

Canada: Passport to Higher Education, Lower Cost
Colleges in eastern Canada report mounting interest this fall among high school seniors from the Northeast, with a recently stronger US dollar making already low tuition costs even more of a bargain for Americans.

On A Tight Budget? Try Applying to Harvard
Those fancy-pants Ivy League colleges have gotten to be so expensive that only the wealthiest families can possibly afford them, especially during bleak economic times like these. Right? Not necessarily.

Painful Choices as College Bills Wallop Families
“Many students are already making painful adjustments, including dropping out, borrowing more to stay in school, transferring to cheaper schools or taking on part-time jobs. A third of parents expect the economic downturn to affect their ability to pay for college this year, according to a survey of 7,000 parents of newly enrolled freshmen by Eduventures, a Boston-based research firm.”

Early-Decision Applications Are Up at Colleges, in Spite of the Economy
“This was supposed to be the year that early-decision applications took a dive. With a recession, the thinking went, selective colleges and universities that use binding early-decision programs to lock in part of their incoming classes would find fewer students ready to commit, and would lose many budget-conscious families to public universities. Indeed, state universities are seeing huge increases in applications.

But many selective private institutions are reporting large jumps in early-decision applicants. Dartmouth, Middlebury and Bowdoin are all up about 10 percent over last year; Haverford, 14 percent; Northwestern, 15 percent; and Pomona 20 percent.”

ACT or SAT? More Students Answering ‘All Of the Above’
“The SAT has long dominated the bustling college-prep market in the District and its suburbs. But the rival ACT is making inroads, buoyed by a shift in conventional wisdom, which now holds that the tests are of about equal value and that a student would be wise to take both. Colleges are driving the trend because admission officers are spreading the word that it doesn’t matter which test students take.”

SAT still a tough student hurdle
“The SAT, the holy grail of college aptitude, is one of higher education’s most perplexing paradoxes.

Despite growing momentum over the last decade to deemphasize it, the SAT (and its counterpart, the ACT) have, in fact, become more important.”

I’m Leaving
“After too many years at this job (I am in my mid-40s), I have grown to question higher education in ways that cannot be rectified by a new syllabus, or a sabbatical, or, heaven forbid, a conference roundtable. No, my troubles with this treasured profession are both broad and deep, and they begin with a fervent belief that most of today’s college students, especially those that come to college straight from high school, are unnecessarily coddled. Professors and administrators seek to “nurture” and “engage” and they are doing so at the expense of teaching. The result: a discernable and precipitous decline in the quality of college students. More of them come to campus with dreadful study habits. Too few of them read for pleasure. Too many drink and smoke excessively. They are terribly ill-prepared for four years of hard work, and most dangerously, they do not think that college should be arduous. Instead they perceive college as an overnight recreation center in which they exercise, eat, and in between playing extracurricular sports, they carry books around. If a professor is lucky, the books are being skimmed hours before class.”

25 Most Expensive Colleges for 2008-09
Just remember it will be even higher next year!

Up, Up, and Away!
“Colleges and universities feel your pain when they send out their bills. Honest. They want to help any way they can. Except, of course, if it means lowering their tuition. Why should they?”

Tight Times Boost Public Colleges
“The faltering economy is forcing many high school seniors who were set on attending private colleges or universities to consider less expensive public ones.”

Students Competing For Slots At Elite Colleges Resorting To “Facebook Sabotage“
“Via anonymous letters mailed to college admission offices, applicants suggest to admission officers that they check out the photos on a rival’s Facebook page before determining whether or not to accept them into the institution. With competition for spots fiercer than ever, the experts cited in that article believe this marks the beginning of a new trend: ‘Facebook sabotage.’”

Colleges Calling Sleep A Success Prerequisite
“But now, alarmed by recent studies tying lack of sleep to poor academic performance, college officials are urging students just to go to bed. More than a dozen Massachusetts schools have begun waging campaigns touting the benefits of sleep through dorm seminars, posters, and catchy slogans like, ‘Want A’s? Get Z’s.’”

Hovering Closer
“In the ever-competitive college application world, parents are not just taking their kids on college tours and signing a few checks. They’re researching schools, helping write essays, and asking the tough questions. Exactly when is it time to let go?”

Social-Networking Sites Viewed By Admissions Officers
“But with some admissions officers confirming in a new survey that they visit social-networking sites, high schoolers say getting into college is no longer only about sky-high test scores and impressive extracurricular activities. Now it means being smart about their online personas as well.” Kaplan Survey Press Release.

Colleges Spend Billions on Remedial Classes to Prep Freshmen
”…a new study calculates, one-third of American college students have to enroll in remedial classes. The bill to colleges and taxpayers for trying to bring them up to speed on material they were supposed to learn in high school comes to between $2.3 billion and $2.9 billion annually.”

FAFSA Frenzy
“The uptick in financial aid interest is widespread. Across the U.S., 8.9 million students filed federal financial aid forms in the first half of 2008, marking a 16 percent increase over the same period last year, according to federal data.”

The Tell-All Campus Tour
“On Unigo, the information is all free — ‘free,’ of course, understood as a synonym for ‘accompanied by advertisements’ — and with the exception of brief editorial overviews of each of the 267 colleges featured at start-up, all of it is voluntarily provided by current students at those colleges.”

College Panel Calls for Less Focus on SATs
“A commission convened by some of the country’s most influential college admissions officials is recommending that colleges and universities move away from their reliance on SAT and ACT scores and shift toward admissions exams more closely tied to the high school curriculum and achievement.”

College Survival Guide
“College is a great time for most people, because it’s a chance to really explore who we are and not feel pressured to do anything we don’t want to do. But inevitably, pressures do arise from other unexpected areas — girlfriends, boyfriends, roommates, frat brothers or sorority sisters, heavy course loads, athletics, exam and paper stress, Internet overuse, gaming too much, parents’ expectations, etc. etc.

The key to a good time at college is to be prepared psychologically for what you are about to face.”

Liberal Arts Tweaked For Careers
“Can liberal arts colleges maintain the distinctive education they provide, while serving students who want a clearer path to a business career?”

ChaCha Service Raises Fears of Cheating Via Cell Phone
“A new cell-phone service that promises to give free answers to virtually any question within minutes has some academics worried that it will be yet another device to help students cheat.”

From Bloomingdale’s to Bloomington
“Now an aggressive new marketing campaign, a determined admissions director and an increasingly cutthroat admissions process have pushed Indiana onto the radar of tony private schools.”

U.S. News & World Report: Best Colleges 2009
The new rankings are out.

For Some College Freshmen, The First Day of School Comes A Bit Late
“Facing a burst of qualified applicants, higher education institutions in the U.S. are increasingly offering midyear enrollment.”

Is College Still Worth the Price?
“After adjusting for financial aid, the amount families pay for college has skyrocketed 439% since 1982.”

Following the Kids to College
“But some parents are investing in college towns in an unexpected new way: they’re following their kids to college. From South Bend, Ind., to Oxford, Miss., from Hanover, N.H., to Knoxville, Tenn., they are buying second homes for themselves near campuses where their children are enrolled.”

Colleges Work to Keep Students in School Until They Earn Degree
“As colleges welcome a record number of students this fall, they are taking steps to ensure more students actually complete a degree.”

A lot of students headed back to college this weekend and even more will head back this week. If you are a high school senior, hopefully you used the summer wisely as you prepare for standardized tests, college visits, and college applications in the fall.

Get Ready For Senior Year
A nice summary of the things you should be doing.

America’s Best Colleges
Forbes jumps into the college ranking business. “In this report, the CCAP ranks 569 undergraduate institutions based on the quality of the education they provide, and how much their students achieve.”

How Much Pocket Money Does A Freshman Need?
More than you think unless you plan to sit around your dorm room studying 24/7.

Survey Finds Growing Number of Recent Grads Return Home
“This year, 77 percent of college grads moved back home with their parents after graduation, up from 73 percent last year and 67 percent the year before, according to a survey conducted by Collegegrad.com.”

Which College Grads Earn the Most?
“BusinessWeek.com used data from the PayScale report to compare top earning alumni across the nation and found that—even 10 or more years into their careers—graduates of prestigious institutions, especially Ivy League universities, earned the biggest salaries.”

Colleges Reduce Out-of-State Tuition To Lure Students
Flagship public universities have long sought a national student body in their quest for the best students and a reputation for excellence. Public campuses in states with shrinking populations have also looked to out-of state students. But now more state universities appear to be doing so — and reducing the differential between in-state and out-of-state tuition to be more appealing.

A Cure For The College-Bound Blues
The transition from high school to college is not what it used to be. Freshmen show up on campus with stress from the admissions chase and parents hovering a text-message away. For them, the gap year is a way to reclaim what has been lost.

Math Suggests College Frenzy Will Soon Ease
Projections show that by next year or the year after, the annual number of high school graduates in the United States will peak at about 2.9 million after a 15-year climb. The number is then expected to decline until about 2015. Most universities expect this to translate into fewer applications and less selectivity, with most students probably finding it easier to get into college.

More College Students Go On Study Abroad Programs
The number of U.S. students receiving academic credit for studying abroad increased 150 percent in the past decade, from fewer than 90,000 students in 1996 to more than 223,500 in 2006, according to Open Doors 2007, a report by the Institute of International Education.

You Want A Recommendation From … Mom and Dad?
When colleges build a freshman class, they check the objective details of students’ high school lives: grades, test scores and the rest. They get more personal with student essays and teacher evaluations. And for still more, some are turning to parents.