Education

EDU News Curated by Kiosk: Mental health and other higher ed news

College Student Mental Health and Wellness

From Kiosk: Over 60% of college students met the criteria for at least one mental health problem during the 2020-21 school year according to an article in the APA. This high strain on students has a knock on effect to general well being, retention and the ability for students to complete. As the Lumina Foundation-Gallup State of Higher Education 2022 study found, “emotional stress was a major reason currently enrolled students considered stopping out in the fall of 2022.” 

View the full article from Kiosk.

 

The New Plague on Campus: Loneliness

From Inside Higher Education: “In a Gallup poll specifically of college students…39 percent said they had experienced loneliness the previous day. While it wasn’t the top concern for students—that appeared to be stress, which 66 percent of students reported experiencing the previous day—loneliness ranked above sadness (36 percent) and anger (25 percent). The student loneliness epidemic is often associated with the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns, which prevented young people from making connections in their usual classroom and extracurricular settings, but the issue dates to well before 2020.”

View the full article from Inside Higher Education.

 

Yale’s hugely popular happiness course is revamped for teens

From The Washington Post: “A widely popular course at Yale University about the psychology of happiness has been retooled for teens…The course for teens was born from Santos’s college course Psychology and the Good Life, which turned out to be the university’s largest class with more than 1,200 students enrolled in 2018. The next time it was taught on campus, in 2022, it was capped at 485 students because of the pandemic. Also in 2018, a version of the course was released on Coursera, where more than 4 million people have enrolled in it. Santos was a co-author on a study that showed that people who took the online course experienced improved well-being.”

View the full article from The Washington Post.

 

Student Wellness Tip: Helping Faculty Help Students

From Inside Higher Education: “As student mental health concerns grow, faculty members are feeling pressure to provide them with support. A January survey from TimelyCare found 76 percent of faculty members believe supporting students’ mental health is a job expectation. … The University of California, Irvine, established the Faculty and Staff Support Services office in 2016 to provide additional resources for faculty members regarding behavioral health issues, crisis intervention, case management and instructional trainings around well-being. … The goal is to make faculty members feel comfortable engaging in a difficult conversation with a struggling student to understand the greatest need and provide a helpful referral.”

View the full article from Inside Higher Education.

 

Fixing FASFA: Black Students and HBCUs Will Lose the Most

From Diverse Education: “HBCUs, which primarily consist of Black students who rely on Pell Grants (more than 75%), or other forms of federal financial aid (more than 75%), have received little support from states with the uncertainty surrounding Better FAFSA. Many institutions are grappling with budget drafting challenges amidst the unpredictability of enrollment for the upcoming academic year. Additionally, some have faced the threat of institutions being closed and many fear the same. These obstacles and the changes to FASFA are creating a snowball of unanswered questions and increased risks for TMCF member schools and HBCUs more broadly speaking.”

View the full article from Diverse Education.

 

Is Financial Aid the New Affirmative Action?

From Inside Higher Education: “The sticker price of a college degree is higher than ever … But at some of those same institutions, the country’s wealthiest and most selective, the past year has also been one of pronounced growth in financial aid programs—thanks in part to the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action last June. Last month, Dartmouth College nearly doubled its annual family-income threshold for students to qualify for free tuition, room and board, from $65,000 to $125,000. … Vanderbilt University expanded its free-tuition program to include all families making less than $150,000, and will give extra support on room and board fees to many more. The University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina broadened their free tuition programs to cover in-state students from families making less than $100,000 and $80,000, respectively.”

View the full article from Inside Higher Education.

 

Whatever Happened to Building a Metaverse for Education?

From EdSurge: “That buzz has all but vanished, especially when it comes to the idea of setting up shared virtual spaces like the ones imagined by the science fiction author who coined the term metaverse. … ’What’s heartbreaking is there was money, there was money flowing from Meta into education directly … and that tap has been pretty well closed, and that I think is tough,’ Greg Heiberger, associate dean for academics and student success at South Dakota State University says. … Both experts still see important applications for VR in education, and for a concept like a metaverse eventually emerging and bringing more experiential learning to students.”

View the full article from Ed Surge.

 

Sticker prices increasingly fail to capture college costs, research finds

From Higher Ed Dive: “Those prices are an easy metric to track but they’re only paid by a small share of students — and even that share has been declining. In 2019-20, 26% of in-state public college students paid the full sticker price, down from 53% in 1995-96, the analysis found. At private nonprofits, the portion dropped from 29% to 16% during the same period. Lower-income students — whose families earn under an inflation-adjusted $50,000 — who attended public four-year colleges in 1995-96 paid an average net price of $12,500. By 2019-20, that amount rose to $18,000. While these are significant increases, they are eclipsed by the roughly 70% rise in sticker prices across both types of institutions in that time frame.” 

View the full article from Higher Ed Dive.

 

Are Colleges Ready For an Online-Education World Without OPMs?

From EdSurge: “New regulations under consideration in the U.S. Department of Education could require OPMs to give up revenue-sharing and adopt the more conventional fee-for-service, subscription or other approaches instead. … It’s a $4 billion industry, with about 550 U.S. colleges partnering with them and about a quarter of students in fully online 4-year programs enrolled in them. … But according to edtech consultant Phil Hill in a recent blog post, most revenue-sharing ventures have either lost money or barely reached breakeven. Leaders in the sector, including 2U, Coursera and Keypath, never made a profit on the activity, and Pearson and Wiley sold off their OPM offshoots in recent months when the going got rough.”

View the full article from EdSurge.

 

Many in Gen Z ditch colleges for trade schools. Meet the ‘toolbelt generation’

From NPR: “More than half of Gen Zers say it’s possible to get a well-paying job with only a high school diploma, provided one acquires other skills. That’s according to a survey by New America, a Washington Think Tank that focuses on a range of public policy issues, including technology, education and the economy. … pursuing skilled trades can also help “level the playing field,” especially for young people from less-privileged backgrounds and for people of color.”

View the full article from NPR.

 

50+ universities cut jobs as overseas students stay away

From University World News: “More than 50 British universities have confirmed academic job losses as a volatile market for international student recruitment and stalled growth in income from home students force higher education bosses to scrap or slim down less popular academic programmes, with arts and humanities bearing the brunt. … the number of study visas issued last year was down by 5.5% and that the government’s negative rhetoric and hostility towards foreign students is continuing to drive down demand to study in the UK among international students.”

View the full article from University World News.