Higher Education News: Test Optional, Tuition Cuts

If you can't get into your in-state dream school, that's OK. An equally, perhaps even more prestigious, school beyond your home state's borders may look upon your application a bit more kindly -- and possibly without the hefty out-of-state costs.

The crowdfunding economy has officially exploded – “crowds” of friends, family and strangers are funding everything from their latest film project to fertility treatments and vacations.

Bucknell University admitted that it inflated its freshman SAT scores for seven years. From 2006-2012, Bucknell omitted some SAT scores which were mostly lower than what was reported. As a result, average scores from Bucknell were 16 points higher than the real average scores.

The mystery really begins with a series of yearly reports from 2009 through 2012 by New York Times writers Elissa Gootman, Sharon Otterman, and Anna M. Phillips: May 4, 2009: “More Children Take the Tests for Gifted Programs, and More Qualify”
 April 30, 2010: “More Pre-K Pupils Qualify for Gifted Programs”
 June 21, 2011: “More Preeschoolers Test as Gifted, Even as Diversity Imbalance Persists”


In my mind, the way to start getting at the crux of the problem of why higher education costs keep going up is to try to put yourself in the shoes of the President of the University of Miami* in Coral Gables, Florida. Currently you’re ranked 47th on US News and World Report‘s “national universities” rankings. Naturally, you know that this is a highly imperfect methodology.

This week, the Wall Street Journal's Ruth Simon reported private colleges are now offering record financial assistance to keep classrooms full. Some schools are now seeing just 20% of the students they accepted actually enrolling, versus the usual rate of 33%.

A recent report by the New York Federal Reserve Bank shed a sobering light on how much debt Americans will carry with them into the new year.