Many students unprepared for college, ACT says
Only 22 percent — or 1.2 million — of high school graduates who took the ACT Assessment in 2004 received scores that indicated they were ready for college-level English, math and science, a new report from the testing company said.
Of all ACT-tested students who graduated last spring, only 26 percent achieved scores indicating they could earn a “C” or better in their first biology class, and only 40 percent scored high enough to receive at least a “C” in their first college algebra class. Additional results from different ACT assessments administered to eighth and 10th graders suggest that students who graduate in 2006 and 2008 will be no better prepared for college, the report stated.
The company has called on high schools in the nation to strengthen core curriculum requirements to “improve students’ readiness” for college and jobs. In addition, it urged “supportive intervention” for students who fail to learn through traditional methods.
The problem, ACT Chief Executive Officer Richard L. Ferguson stated, “can’t be solved overnight,” though immediate action must be taken.
The company also suggested that a group of what it calls “Courses for Success” — including traditional science and advanced math classes — could impact student performance and college readiness.
Survey: Some grads unaware of loan consolidation
Almost half of all students who graduate from four-year institutions are unaware of a Federal Loan Consolidation Program that may save them money, and only one-third actually consolidate their loans, a new survey by the Collegiate Funding Services has found.
Only 41 percent said they were aware of the Federal Consolidation Loan Program, which enables student borrowers to combine their federal student debt into a single, fixed interest rate with extended repayment terms that can potentially cut students’ monthly payments by half.
In addition, despite historically low interest rates that make loan consolidation a financially attractive option, only 35 percent of recent graduates have used the opportunity, the company found. For some, it may mean losing an additional 0.6 percent reduction in their interest rate that students receive when they consolidate during the six-month period before their first payments are due.
More than half of recent graduates had not yet paid off their loans, the survey found, and the remaining debt balance, on average, totaled $23,485.
Of the 1,425 individuals sampled, one-third said they were surprised by the amount they were required to pay when their first monthly student loan bill arrived and 36 percent said they were unprepared to pay.
Students create program based on NBC’s ‘Apprentice’
Student government leaders from a community college system in Florida have begun an eight-week competition based on the NBC hit television series “The Apprentice.” Instead of an opportunity to work with New York tycoon Donald Trump, however, participating students win a semester-long internship with a local mayor.
Like in the show, participants in “The Intern” are split into two teams and assigned a series of tasks to demonstrate their “resourcefulness, creativity and critical-thinking skills,” according to a statement from the organizers. One contestant is eliminated at the end of every week and is told by the mayor to “Stay in school!”
The original show uses the catch phrase, “You’re fired!”
Though the television series involves corporate assignments, the tasks in the college contest are more “community-oriented,” involving the improvement of local parks, housing construction with Habitat for Humanity and entertainment of young cancer patients.
The students originally came up with the competition while watching “The Apprentice,” student government member and contest organizer Ray-Scott Miller stated.
Chemists create ‘chaperones’ to direct nanoparticles
Researchers at UCSD have used tiny dust-sized silicone microchips to surround and direct the motion of molecules, cells, bacteria and other tiny objects suspended in drops of liquid, the university announced.
Their development of the small silicon “chaperones,” described in the forthcoming issue of the journal Nature Materials, may some day be used to detect and surround objects like drops of toxic chemicals and cancer cells, chemistry and biochemistry professor Michael Sailor said.
In addition, the new technology may be useful in industrial “microfluidic processes” — used in the assembly and movement of tiny liquid particles — and could eliminate the need for pumps, valves and pipettes.
