Straight Talk: March 2, 2011

Straight Talk:  The StraighterLine e-Newsletter Issue #5, March 2, 2011
Edited by Jeffrey Lee Simons

In this issue…

Calculus in Spanish: 1 of 9 New StraighterLine Courses

Two weeks ago American Council on Education's (ACE) Credit Recommendation Service reviewed and recommended StraighterLine's 9 newest online college courses for credit. Our latest additions will be live for students soon. Click here to be notified the instant they’re available.

  • Anatomy & Physiology I & II both with a lab option
  • Calculo I (Spanish)
  • Calculus II
  • Managerial Accounting
  • Medical Terminology
  • Psychology 

Best of The StraighterLine Blog

More Reasons Why U.S. News Doesn’t Get College Rankings Right
Barry Lenson’s take on Malcolm Gladwell’s seething Valentine’s Day criticism of the U.S. News College Rankings in The New Yorker. Read Full Post

Five Things Working Moms Should Think About before Going Back to School
If you’re a working mother (or anyone else, for that matter!) and you want to get the most from online learning, be sure to ask the right questions before you start. Here are five to get you going… Read Full Post

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No-Risk Free Trial

Do you ever drift off while reading Moby Dick and daydream about becoming an Accountant? Do you lie awake at night fantasizing about Microeconomics, or, dare we say it, Macroeconomics? Stop wondering and find out with a risk-free trial of one of these 6 StraighterLine courses. You’ve got nothing to lose!

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Online Education in The News

For-Profit Colleges Get Boost from Change in Veterans’ Benefits
Bloomberg.com, John Lauerman, 2/23/11

A new law lets veterans get $673 a month for housing while taking college courses online, according to this article on Bloomberg.com.  “The new benefit may entice more veterans to take online courses at for-profit colleges…” Read Full Article

Wikileaks-Style News Portal Seeks to Expose Secrets in Higher Education
International Business Times, 2/28/11 

Okay, so this isn’t exactly about online education. But UniLeaks.org is online, and it is about education, and really, who isn’t at least a little bit curious about a new website that wrote this in a recent letter to American College Presidents: "We welcome the challenge of exposing to public scrutiny the corruption and mismanagement which our sources are in the process of uncovering."

Anonymously, a representative from UniLeaks.org said, "Academics from around the world are drawn to the United States because of its commitment to academic rigor and scholarly excellence. UniLeaks aims to expose those responsible for sabotaging this dream." Read Full Article

The Merits of For-Profit Colleges
The New York Times.com, Judith Scott-Clayton, 2/25/11 

Amidst a flurry of deserved bad press, for-profits are also innovating in ways that traditional education could learn from. For instance, “Online education is another domain in which for-profit institutions have been ahead of the curve. Some, like the University of Phoenix, have developed new learning tools that are cost-effective and appealing to students.”

The article also mentions innovative developments by our partner schools, Western Governors University and WGU Indiana, a non-profit online institution with a public mission. Read Full Post

Straight Answers: This Week’s StraighterLine Survey Question:

Thanks to everyone who answered last issue’s Survey Question, “Which required college course would you rather take online than in a classroom?” Or tried to, anyway. Due to a programming glitch, the survey links were reversed and weren’t collecting data anyway. So we’re repeating last issue’s survey question this issue, because we really want to know your answers!

Let’s try this again:

 



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Burck’s Blast: "Discharge Student Loans at Bankruptcy and 3 Other Ways to Fix Higher Education"

Opinion from StraighterLine's founder, Burck Smith

“#1: Allow all student loans to be discharged at bankruptcy -- This will force lenders -- the private sector and the federal government -- to do better risk evaluation prior to lending money. The risk evaluation would encompass total debt burden, school to which a student is going, occupation in which the student might enter, family finances and other factors. This would make the flow of financing somewhat more rational than it is now and should result in the expansion of better colleges and a reduction of worse colleges…”
Read Full Blast