Posts Tagged ‘college affordability’
Afford college, tip 9
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010Affording college – FAFSA is key
Monday, May 3rd, 2010More advice from 25 Tips to Afford College:
Paying for college, tip 7
Thursday, April 29th, 2010Saving on college, tip 5: AP classes
Friday, April 23rd, 2010Making college more affordable, tip 4: save on housing
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010How to afford college, tip 2: scholarships
Monday, April 19th, 2010from 25 Tips to Afford College:
CollegeScholarships.org has information for low-income students seeking need-based scholarships. Fastweb.com is another trusted resource for connecting to scholarship opportunities.
Americorps VISTA is another program that can help you fund your education. After a year of service to your community, receive a $5,350 education award to be used for existing student debt or future college expenses. Many institutions will match your higher education award, increasing your scholarship potential to over $10,000. During your year of service, you will also receive a small living stipend and other benefits. See VISTA positions open with the Alabama Poverty Project.
25 tips to afford college – tip 1: budgeting
Friday, April 16th, 2010We love 25 Tips to Afford College, a new site with recommendations for covering college expenses. Videos are available in both Spanish and English.
Tip 1: Budgeting
Millennials: not “the chump generation”
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010Robert J. Samuelson recently penned a column titled “Will Millennials become the chump generation?” speculating that our generation, aged 18-29, would suffer the effects of the recession and the national debt for years to come – but according to Samuelson, we’re too clueless to know it.
Reports from the Pew Research Center show that more than any other generation, we are optimistic about the future. Over 40% of Millennials surveyed are satisfied with the direction our country is headed, compared to only 26% of the over-30 crowd.
It is true that Millennials are feeling the effects of the recession the most, and we do know it. Research from Demos shows that we’re the first generation likely to be less well-off than our parents, we have high rates of unemployment, and many of us are uninsured and in debt.
But our optimism doesn’t mean we are naive. Health care reform expands our access to health insurance and education in ways that will help us and future generations achieve a higher quality of life, while reducing our overall spending.
Part of the new healthcare reform legislation is the student loan overhaul signed into law yesterday, which makes the federal government the primary administrator of student loans. By cutting commercial banks out of the student loan industry, the government will be able to channel more money into the federal Pell grant program, which offers subsidized loans to low-income college students. They will also be able to cap repayment rates at ten percent of the loan recipient’s income.
This will allow more low-income students to afford college, especially at a time when tuition rates are increasing at twice the rate of inflation. It will enable college students to graduate with manageable levels of debt.
Our optimism still may seem misplaced at a time when many Millennials find ourselves unemployed or out of the labor force, according to the Pew research center. Those of us who do find work may feel the effects of the recession in lower wages for decades to come, according to a study by Lisa Kahn at the Yale School of Management.
Despite these bleak statistics for college graduates, students without a college degree are hit the hardest by the recession. It is therefore encouraging to see such a high percentage of Millenials – 63% – saying they plan to get a college degree, or already have one. We know that higher educational attainment draws economic development and raises low-income families out of poverty.
The student loan overhaul may not make college any cheaper, but it will allow more low-income students to finance higher education. It will enable more students to avoid crippling post-grad debt. To this Millennial, at least, that looks like a pretty great reason to be optimistic about the future.
Posted by Robyn Hyden
Alabama the second biggest loser of jobs in the nation
Monday, March 22nd, 2010The Christian Science Monitor reports that Alabama is the second biggest loser of jobs in the nation. (Michigan is the first.) According to US Department of Labor reports, the last time we had so few people working was in 1993.
Why? Alabama leaders have long promoted low-skill, low-wage, non-union workers as our state’s primary draw for employers. As a result our economy depends on industries such as lumber, construction, and textile manufacturing to employ our workers. Yet in the current recession, these industries have declined steeply since 2007.
Meanwhile, higher-skilled jobs in car manufacturing and professional services are going to our neighbors in Tennessee and Georgia.
One explanation? Low educational attainment. Alabama’s high school drop out rate is over 39 percent, and only 23.1 percent of Alabamians have a bachelor’s degree. Our college enrollment rate has “dropped by double digits since the early 1990s.” According to the Southern Education Foundation, if more Alabamians had high school diplomas and college degrees, Alabama could attract more employers from a wider array of industries, including high-skilled manufacturing and professional services sectors.
The good news: as bleak as these numbers are, some cities in Alabama are showing notable job growth. A Moody’s index reported by The Economist ranks several Alabama towns as job hot spots. In a list of 384 metropolitan areas, Huntsville ranked number one in potential job growth, followed by the Auburn-Opelika area in second, Columbus-Phenix city seventh, and Mobile twelfth.
An Economist map of Alabama jobs shows growth in metro Huntsville, Auburn, Phenix City, and Mobile
These areas have attracted jobs by focusing on high-skill, high-wage jobs. Huntsville earns its number one slot thanks to the defense and aerospace industries; Auburn has a thriving university; Phenix City has the Kia plant and Fort Benning; and Mobile benefits from ongoing Katrina reconstruction and the ThyssenKrupp elevator plant. These cities have also been able to take advantage of funding from the federal stimulus package.
In order to remain competitive, we need to develop a skilled workforce. That’s why APP created the Blueprints college access program to equip Alabama high school students to attend college and compete for the jobs of tomorrow.
Posted by Robyn Hyden
We Have a Winner!
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010We are proud to unveil the winning logo for our Blueprints college access program:
It is the design of Christopher Murphy, a senior in UAB’s graphic design department. Chris is a 27-year-old from Birmingham, and his design was chosen out of over 15 entries from his design classmates.
Over a coffee meeting to choose a bright blue color for the logo, Chris talked about his design process. His enthusiasm for the project and his commitment to Blueprint’s mission led me to ask how he personally connected to the project:
“I have to connect with my design,” he said. “I could personally relate to what Blueprints is trying to do. Graduating from High School, I didn’t know what to do, where to go, how to get to college. I could really have used help from a program like Blueprints.”
Chris is not a first generation college student, but he is the first in his family to pursue a career in design – and he “gets” how kids must feel when they are the first in their family to enroll in college. “All the other men in my family are engineers, and all the women are nurses. They don’t really ‘get’ what I’m studying!”
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Above: Chris and Kristina sort through Pantone color samples for inspiration.
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Chris incorporated the color blue into his design from the very beginning, and not just because the program is titled “Blueprints.”
“My nickname is actually ‘True Blue’ – Christopher ‘True Blue’ Murphy. To me the color blue represents faithfulness and loyalty” – two traits that Chris values highly. The Blueprints program is also built on loyalty, commitment and enduring relationships between mentors from Alabama colleges and local high school students. To Chris, the color blue is just another layer of meaning in his design.
After hearing details about the Blueprints mission to equip students for college, Chris was inspired and immediately started sketching. The apple with a fingerprint was his very first idea.
The fingerprint design, aside from playing with the idea of “Blueprints,” also reflects a personal touch from the designer. Chris used his own fingerprint for the logo, inking his right index finger and scanning it into the computer.
This personal touch is something that Chris strives to add to all of his projects. “People need to know you’re reaching out to them in your design,” Chris said. “People need something to connect to.”
One of Chris’s design inspirations is artist Frank Chimero, whom Chris admires because “He talks about design with heart…and says you have to make sure your work has heart, because it is made for the people. It is very important to me that my own designs have meaning and heart.”
After graduating, Chris hopes to find a job in the Southeast working in design. His dream job would be designing packaging for Nike.
Posted by Robyn Hyden