Today, the Los Ange­les Times pub­lished an immensely infor­ma­tive opin­ion piece on the largely ignored impor­tance of com­mu­nity col­leges within higher edu­ca­tion, using California's 110 com­mu­nity col­lege sys­tem as an exam­ple. The authors (Camille Esch and Christo­pher Cabal­don) point out that not only are com­mu­nity col­leges crit­i­cal to the suc­cess of the four-year uni­ver­sity system, […]

Face­book is one of those amaz­ing feats of tech­nol­ogy that does great things—but also opens up the pos­si­bil­ity for sit­u­a­tions like the one in Florida. So what are we to do?

Every­one knows that pub­lic edu­ca­tion has taken huge bud­get cuts in response to the recent state of the econ­omy. As a result, pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties (read: the Cal States and UCs) can no longer accom­mo­date the same huge num­bers of stu­dents as before, while being forced to raise fees and tuition for exist­ing stu­dents. Many students […]

As Bet­ter­Grads will con­tinue to pro­duce col­lege admis­sions and acceptance-related posts for those anx­iously await­ing bulky pack­ages from first-choice four-year schools, we will not fail to serve those prospec­tive col­lege stu­dents look­ing to fur­ther their edu­ca­tion at a com­mu­nity col­lege. This will be a series of posts, and I encour­age read­ers to sub­mit their comments […]

As Eliz­a­beth men­tioned, Feb­ru­ary is a month filled with oppor­tu­ni­ties for bud­ding rela­tion­ships (col­lege accep­tance let­ters) and heart­break. (sigh…rejection let­ters).
In some cases, these same let­ters may force some soon-to-be grad­u­at­ing high schools seniors to revisit a ques­tion they once con­fi­dently answered months before pen­ning rough draft per­sonal state­ments. What's more, the answer to this question […]

Once upon time, Pell Grants, fed­eral loans from the gov­ern­ment, were a great asset to help stu­dents pay for their col­lege edu­ca­tion. How­ever, Kevin Carey, a pol­icy direc­tor at Edu­ca­tion Sec­tor, a D.C.-based think tank argues that this is no longer the case. In a recent arti­cle, he claims Pell Grants are not as beneficial […]

Last week, we came across an op-ed piece in the New York Times about how "Race to the Top," a new government-sponsored edu­ca­tional pro­gram, is chal­leng­ing high schools to not only pre­pare stu­dents for col­lege, but to boost col­lege enroll­ment and suc­cess, as well. In other words, it's putting the respon­si­bil­ity of "grade 13" onto […]

Last week, the New York Times ran an arti­cle on high school stu­dents who deac­ti­vated their Face­book accounts as a way to improve their per­for­mance in home­work, col­lege appli­ca­tions, and other essen­tial education-related tasks. The arti­cle pre­sented anec­dotes of teens who strug­gled with overuse of Face­book, with their grades and abil­ity to con­cen­trate in school […]

The United States' shaky edu­ca­tion sys­tem is a timely, hot-button issue, yes. But rather than sit and stew over the innu­mer­able cracks in the sys­tem, it's refresh­ing to high­light the gems that pop up in schools that need the most help.
The Wash­ing­ton Post ran an arti­cle recently about how col­lege men­tor­ship pro­grams sig­nif­i­cantly increase the collegiate […]

Col­lege rep­u­ta­tions are never a real­ity — or never a com­plete real­ity, at least. Prospec­tive col­lege stu­dents would be very well advised to spend less time "drink[ing] in the tour guide's every word" — on claims of Hog­warts or oth­er­wise — and more time ask­ing tough ques­tions, doing exten­sive research and intro­spec­tion, and, most impor­tantly, engag­ing as many cur­rent col­lege stu­dents and young pro­fes­sion­als for their insights and actual expe­ri­ences as they can.