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Academics are not the only thing keeping college students up at night. A new survey of more than 1,500 undergrads currently enrolled in a two- or four-year institution found that 36% of respondents said time management and 35% identified anxiety as the key factors keeping them from a diploma. Students also listed being overwhelmed with managing responsibilities (31%) and working too many hours (24%) to pay for school as other factors. The survey results may be the tip of the iceberg since so many nontraditional students are heading to college. “We have a lot of students with very complicated lives and they have broader issues,” said Mark Milliron, co-founder and chief learning officer of Civitas Learning, which did the study. “Trying to design the right kind of advising support is going to mean a level of diversification and a level of personalization.” Advising is becoming much more important to students. The study noted that 40% ranked information on career options after graduation ...

Low-income, first-in-family college students sometimes need a little help getting to the finish line. Institutions typically respond with solutions such as tuition aid and academic counseling. That may not be enough, according to speakers at The New York Times Higher Ed Leaders Forum held recently. “The new economics of college goes way beyond tuition; we spend so much time talking about whether tuition is going up, whether it’s frozen, whether that makes college affordable. But the vast majority of the cost of attending college faced by students in the United States are things like books and supplies, room and board, medical expenses, transportation, clothing,” said Sara Goldrick-Rab, professor of higher education policy and sociology at Temple University, in a report about the conference on Education Dive. Goldrick-Rab and other speakers pointed out that some students need assistance covering basic living expenses while they’re in school, yet that gap has been overlooked by colleg...

In an opinion piece earlier this month in Inside Higher Ed, a University of North Dakota professor claimed that rental textbooks limited student access to course materials and stifled critical thinking and conversation. Jason Katzman, CCR, assistant director for academic resource support, CU Book Store, University of Colorado Boulder, says he understands the prof’s points but argues rentals are a symptom rather than a cause. “ Twenty years ago, a student bought a book, sold it back at the end of the semester, and maybe received something close to half (although probably not) of what they had paid if the book was being used again the next semester,” Katzman wrote in his Inside Higher Ed rebuttal . “Of course, professors complained then that the buyback process devalued the educational experience by encouraging students to part with important materials they might need for another class or later in life as a reference. Then, along came the Internet and Amazon, and the model that traditio...

Does renting textbooks save students money or cost them the real value of a college education? Sheila Liming, an assistant professor of English at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, makes a case for the latter in an opinion column  for Inside Higher Education. “A degree used to mean learning from texts and racking up a cumulative store of skills and reference materials along the way,” she wrote. “But with the rise of textbook rentals, the rules of learning are getting rewritten, and not by education professionals, and not in accordance with the needs of student consumers, either.” Her issue with rentals is they’re promoted as a cost-savings option but there are limits to how students can access and use the materials. Those are roadblocks that inhibit critical thinking and conversation, according to Liming. “Rental companies insist that a given book can only be ‘useful’ to a student for the duration of a single semester, and so encourage students to see their own learning ...

Education officials in Tennessee have released data on the Tennessee Promise, a program designed to make community college free for graduating high school seniors in the state. The results were encouraging, but it’s too soon to proclaim a smashing success. Of the more than 13,000 students who participated in the Tennessee Promise class of 2015, 21.5% graduated with a degree or certificate, an increase over the 13.8% of students who accomplished the same thing the year before the program started. The data also indicated that only 8.3% of students who didn’t enroll in the Tennessee Promise in 2015 were able to earn a degree or certificate in five semesters. “I have my degree and zero student debt,” one graduate of the program said in a National Public Radio report . “You do have to pay for your books and your parking passes, but that’s a heck of a deal. You can’t beat that.” On the other hand, the dropout rate for the first Tennessee Promise class was just 2.3% lower than the rate of fre...

Legislative policies may impact states offering free tuition for two-year institutions. Research that looked at 20 existing College Promise programs in 18 states found that some of their requirements could make it harder for some students to participate . “As debates around Promise programs continue, state legislators serious about spurring enrollment, lowering debt, and addressing inequities in our higher-education system should ensure that proposed Promise programs provide both a clear message and a clear benefit to those who need it most,” wrote Jen Mishory, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, in The Future of Statewide College Promise Programs: A State Guideto Free College . The report noted that half the programs studied required students to attend school full time, eliminating part-time students who are more likely to be on their own financially and in need of the additional help to attend. Merit-based requirements and limitations on the degrees or certificates covered by ...

In California’s speed to ensure low-income students could afford at least a year of higher education, some community colleges have ended up with surplus assistance funds. A new state measure just signed into law this month provides funding for students’ first year of studies at California community colleges. The bill was passed in response to former President Barack Obama’s call for community colleges to offer two free years of education under a proposed “America College Promise” program. However, according to a report in the San Diego Union Tribune , a number of community colleges started their own Promise programs before the state did. As a result, some have more money to support first-year students than they need. The San Diego Community College District, for example, launched a pilot program in 2016 and raised $300,000 to pay for more than 200 area students to attend at no cost. The district had planned to raise another $700,000 for the program this year. Palomar College secured $...