Financial aid per student has grown 37% (or $5,000) over the past decade

An interesting graphic from NPR’s Planet Money series on the cost of college. That’s a 37% increase in financial aid per student since the 2000-2001 school year. The increase is largely paid for by more federal loans, with smaller contributions from federal grants and private loans. Everything else seems unchanged.  

Students create their own composting program in the dorms

Hauling trash-bags full of coffee grounds and kitchen scraps, two three-wheeled rickshaw bicycles raced past campus foot traffic. The fleet had just finished their first compost pickup. The owner of the cafe, Devon Jackson-Kali, met the students near the cafe to give them leftover coffee grounds…he also gave them pounds of cabbage heads, carrot peelings, …

Google launches Student Search with lesson plans, live trainings, & daily challenges

Google has launched a free tutorial website, Search Education, which will help students learn how to better use Google Search for learning and academic research. The site is aimed at both at teachers and at individual users. The company knows that while its many tools can be useful, not everyone understands how to use them. …

iPads for every kindergartener – early results show a positive trend

This is the nation’s first public school district to give every kindergartener an iPad. And the implementation was done very carefully, with the research component built in from the start, not added as an after-thought. — This fall, the district randomly selected 8 of its 16 kindergarten classes to receive iPads. There’s been ongoing professional …

National Signing Day – February 1st – get your fax machines ready

Today is NLI 2012 and unless you’re a crazy fan of college football you didn’t know that! NLI stands for National Letter of Intent and the first day a recruit can send this in is on February 1. The letter binds the student to school, they cannot switch without incurring stiff penalties, and the school …