Mahir Jethanandani’s California high school offered only a few classes related to business and finance – disciplines he was interested in exploring. So, he turned to massive open online courses, or MOOCs, offered through Coursera to learn on his own.

“It came with an extension of knowledge and fundamental concepts that I felt improved my understanding of subjects that I claimed that I loved” but didn’t have much exposure to, says the 18-year-old. MOOCs also led him to explore other disciplines he was curious about, including law and neuroscience.

To Tina Ellerbee, a former college swimmer, it was apparent when her 11-year-old daughter Allison Goldblatt began besting Tina’s collegiate times and  qualified for the Junior Nationals that Allison was on track to swim on a NCAA division 1, Top-20 team.

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, (SLO) nestled on the California coast, lives and breathes its motto, its core philosophy, ‘Learning by Doing,’ in engineering, business, architecture, viticulture, and all newer majors such as statistics. Classes emphasize activities and discussions, lab and field work, hands-on projects, and collaborative work experiences.

With the shock waves from the William Rick Singer admissions conspiracy still reverberating from the set of ‘Desperate Housewives’ and the walls of PIMCO to the water polo office at USC and the women’s soccer room at Yale, it’s as good a time as any to assess the role of financial influence on college admissions.

At the end of December of last year, Alex Roa, an undergraduate researcher at UCLA, pulled together a well-reasoned set of arguments as to why one should never be shamed by attending a community college. In fact, from a standpoint of return on time and money and personal growth, community college might just be the best payback.  

The current medical school system in the US makes it quite expensive to become a doctor. According to the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) the median current debt of graduating medical students is just under $200,000 and the doesn’t include debt incurred as an undergraduate. Compound this with the opportunity costs, not joining the workforce until many are in their early 30s, and the debt burden truly is substantial.

Any place that has the Banana Slug as its mascot will either attract or repulse. At the University of California Santa Cruz,  for those who are allured,  there is distinctly a countercultural element, initially signaled by the Banana Slug, that is  better developed as one explores what the campus has to offer.

The following is an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education on esports recruiting and on changes in recruiting altogether.

A growing number of colleges like Harrisburg are buying into esports, starting programs and building million-dollar facilities where gamers take on their counterparts on other campuses. And while some observers roll their eyes at the trend — still in its infancy — high-profile esports programs are looking to gain prestige by recruiting gamers like Nget.

"It doesn't matter to me what people think about the sport," he said. "All I know is that I'm getting a full ride to Harrisburg University."

https://www.chronicle.com/article/In-Growing-Wild-West-of/245560?cid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=9dbb73a6eba14e4ca044ab69e65cb465&elq=646c67f4cd5548b782c4d97a452827e7&elqaid=22081&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=10819

Ralph Nader,  consumer advocate and a graduate of Harvard’s Law School and Ron Unz, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and outspoken conservative who  lost his bid for the Senate in 2016, ran with 3 others for positions on Harvard’s Board of Overseers, the college’s second highest governing body, under the banner: “Free Harvard, Fair Harvard.”

Getting into college is a major challenge.  Yet, once in, prepare to work hard to uncover your capabilities and apply yourself. College can be a fabulous launching pad to a successful career or a series of careers.

However, if college plans are not set and thought through, a student can easily get derailed:

On average only 67% of students will return for sophomore year.

Only 19% of students finish a four-year degree in four years.

For the Class of 2015, only 14% had ‘career type jobs’ lined up after graduation, and the average student debt load for each was $35,000.