Promising College Outcomes & Growing Excellence Gaps

Posted August 2, 2019 | By Cooke Foundation Staff

2019 Cooke Scholars meet their their cohort for the first time at Scholars Weekend.

August 2, 2019 – Here’s what we’re reading this week about the issues affecting high-achieving students. Researchers explain excellence gaps, promise programs, and the student debt trend.

High-achieving high school seniors can now apply for the Cooke College Scholarship Program, and the Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship is accepting applications from community college students preparing to transfer to a four-year institution. Both programs provide up to $40,000 per year, as well as comprehensive educational advising and access to the thriving Cooke Scholar community.

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Elementary & Secondary Education:

  • Jonathan Plucker discusses excellence gaps and talent identification on Today with Miriam O’Callaghan: “In terms of future economic productivity [and] cultural health, excellence gaps are bad for everyone. … We like to think of it as leaving talent on the sidelines.”
  • In Education Week, Melissa Garcia describes how students can internalize their teacher’s harmful implicit biases and shares

 

Higher Education:

  • Carrie Warick provides context for deceptive practices used by families to receive financial aid in The Hill, stating: “The challenge facing policymakers is to ensure a system that limits these individuals’ ability to take advantage of taxpayer spending without creating undue burden on the students who most need this support.”
  • Students with financial need are an increasingly larger portion of borrowers with over $50,000 in student loans. The Hechinger Report examines the implications of this shift.
  • On the Age of Awareness education blog, Daniel Collier explains research outcomes that demonstrate “tuition-free policies may be highly beneficial — both financially and socially — to the federal government, communities, and individuals.”

 

Cooke Foundation Highlights:

  • “It is incredibly helpful that we are starting to split out the net price by income level,” Dr. Jennifer Glynn, our director of research and evaluation, tells the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The article includes insights on college affordability and understanding net price.
  • On The Thomas B. Fordham Institute‘s Flypaper blog, Chester E. Finn, Jr., compares the Foundation’s research using NAEP data with a 2015 analysis of PISA data: “It’s painfully clear, whether we use NAEP or PISA as our reference, that at the high end of student achievement, …the circumstances of students’ births still matter far more than they should.”
  • The Mosby Heritage Area Association, a Good Neighbor Grant recipient, is hosting a family-friendly history event on Saturday, August 3 at its Marshall, VA headquarters. The Middleburg Eccentric has additional details.

 

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Photo header: 2019 Cooke Scholars meet their their cohort for the first time at Scholars Weekend.