Universities Weblog

Naomi Rockler-Gladen over at Suite101 has a good article up at the moment on things to consider when you think about changing your major.

Everybody does it. Most students do it a couple of times. Naomi has some SAGE words to offer:

Have you come to truly detest your major? If so, seriously consider changing it. You're not going to get much out of your education if you're miserable. Alternately, it's common for students to develop new interests after they come to college, so you may discover a major you love. if so, this may be the direction for you.

If you're switching from psychology to sociology or from English Lit to Drama, you may not encounter many problems.

Add Cornell and Northwestern to the long list of major universities that have now eliminated student loans from the financial aid packages they offer their neediest students.

Northwestern announced their decision on January 31 in a press release. The university's new policy is designed to give financial aid counselors some latitude in making decision. Loans will get replaced with grants for the school's neediest students. But unlike most other universities that have gone down this route, Northwestern is not setting a dollar amount as the income cutoff to define need. They will look at students on a case by case basis and consider "unusual expenses" (like high family medical bills) in determining need.

The College Admissions Counseling Blog has a good look at Cornell's new policy.

Reader's Digest has published a campus safety report that includes rankings of 285 colleges and universities in the US.

"Is Your College Student Safe at School?" is the name of the piece and it begins with a reference to the Virginia Tech tragedy. It also makes data available on a number of different types of crimes committed on campus during 2004 and 2005.

Among the most reveling information in the report is the number of sex crimes (like rape) involving the use of force on campus.

Union University in Jackson, Tenn., has entered the recovery phase of campus life after a tornado devastated the campus on Tuesday.

An official UU Recovery blog is up and running on the web, and university President David S. Dockery said that the emergency phase of the crisis that left 51 student injured and much of the campus dormitories destroyed is now over.

At the 36-hour mark, we have moved from the emergency phase to the recovery and restoration phase of our efforts…

Tennessee Guard will be working with Union security to retrieve undamaged personal goods from various residence life rooms Feb. 7-8. All personal belongings will be bagged and tagged so that students can retrieve their undamaged personal goods beginning on Feb. 18.

University spokesperson Tim Ellsworth has a post in the blogosphere on ways to pray for Union University. The institution is "the oldest school currently affiliated with Southern Baptist life" in Tennessee, according to Union University's web site.

California's Proposition 92, a ballot initiative that would have lowered community college tuition and increased funding for the state's 109 community colleges, was defeated in Tuesday's election.

The measure went down by a margin of 57% against and 43% in favor, according to a California news source. Timing seems to have played a major role in the measure's defeat. California is in the midst of a major budget crunch and education is one of the hardest hit areas. California voters were unwilling to divert from state general funds the millions of dollars required by the bill.

California's education woes will continue. The current budget crisis has led to a $400 million in midyear cuts this fiscal year in education, a cut of $4.4 billion for K-12 school districts in the 2008-09 fiscal year, and a cut of $1.1 billion for higher education in 2008-09.

USA Today ran an editorial this week on college admissions. Their starting point is simple but scary: the biggest high school graduating class ever (the class of 2007) is applying for college at a time when the percentage of high school graduates going to college is at it's highest level ever.

At colleges, admissions officers are working overtime to process the tsunami of applications. Over the past decade, the number of students sending out more than a dozen applications has doubled, reports the Higher Education Research Institute.

And with the proliferation of applications comes an abundance of rejection letters. At the more selective schools, nine out of ten applicants get a rejection letter. At the top tier universities (the editorial mentioned the University of Virginia) more get in, but over half still get rejected…

Sanguine et Purpure , The unofficial blog of Sigma Phi Epsilon, is reporting that North Carolina state university "will soon start tearing down the aging boxes that line its Greek Court and replace them with a $104 million Greek Village."

According to the blog, NC State is planning to tear down the old and decrepit Fraternity Court that now exists and begin construction on the new Greek Village this Spring. But construction of the new buildings could take as much as a decade. Fraternity Court's frat houses were built during the 1960's and the school rents them to Greek organizations at the moment.

The Associated Press is reporting that President Bush's 2009 federal budget proposal will include a $2.6 billion dollar expansion of the Pell Grant program.

The Pell Grant helps low income students and families pay for college. At the moment it pays up to $4,731 per year to offset college expenses for students who qualify based on financial need. That amount is expected to rise over the next few years to about $5,400 per year that the Pell Grant will pay.

The new Pell Grant funding comes in the wake of cuts to federally funded Student loan programs. While the Pell grant funding will increase by $2.6 billion, the Associated Press says that 47 other education programs will either be cut or eliminated. The cuts come to about $3.3 billion. That means that education finding overall will drop by $700 million.

Among the programs being cut: the Perkins Loan programs.

Bush's 2009 budget leaves education spending flat, with no increase for inflation.