From September 2008... The first year of college is a difficult one for many students to handle. The new surroundings can be dizzying to absorb, along with all the new material that must be learned. Unfortunately, some colleges and universities, particularly larger ones, make this daunting situation even worse by establishing entry-level courses with less-than-ideal circumstances for learning lessons. Oftentimes, entry-level courses are taught by teacher assistants (commonly known as TAs), whose training is not the same as full-fledged, academically certified instructors. Yet first-year students often have the most questions and require the most assistance in college. How does learning under less-qualified teachers help them in their ...

From September, 2008... According to the College Board, college tuition costs for the last school year (2007-2008) increased 6.3 percent, far outpacing inflation. More specifically: At public four-year institutions, in-state tuition and fees averaged $6,185 for in-state students, or $381 more than 2006-2007, a 6.6 percent increase, and $16,640 for out-of-state students, or $862 more than in 2006-2007, a 5.5 percent increase. At private four-year nonprofit institutions, tuition and fees averaged $23,712, or $1,404 more than last year, a 6.3 percent increase. At for-profit institutions, tuition and fees averaged $12,089, or $703 more than last year, a 6.2 percent increase. Even at public two-year institutions, tuition and fees averaged $2,3 ...

From September, 2008... Have you ever attended an event, spent a considerable amount of time and money learning details from it, and then found that the information you received was useless to you? That is one of the big fears people have regarding any educational opportunity, and we at StraighterLine (SL) are determined to make sure it does not happen to anyone who enrolls in one of our general education college courses. The basic structure for the SL courses comes from SMARTHINKING, Inc., the parent company for SL. SL uses the widely employed and respected McGraw Hill course content that has been redesigned and adapted for SL's unique format by SMARTHINKING's Education Department. This department consists of highly-trained educators ...

From August, 2008... Almost every profession has at least one publication recognized as an authority on dispensing news and information regarding the latest trends and happenings. For academia, that publication is The Chronicle for Higher Education. And we here at StraighterLine (SL) are pleased that the publication recently profiled our newly launched online educational service in a fair and professional manner. In an item that ran June 17, 2008 in "The Wired Campus" section of its Web site, The Chronicle for Higher Education noted that we offer our online introductory college courses and connect students "to accredited colleges who will accept the courses for credit" through our parent company, the online tutorial service SmartThink ...

From August 2008... StraighterLine: A Good Partner to Colleges and Universities The concept StraighterLine (SL) employs is one that is designed to serve as an online educational tool driving students to our partner colleges and universities for future studies once they have completed our introductory courses. That concept is a rather revolutionary one right now, we admit, but nonetheless several accredited institutes of higher learning have joined us and will accept credits from our students who successfully complete our courses. Why are they doing this unprecedented step? Because there are quite a few benefits that we provide our partner colleges and universities. They include the following: 1) We serve as a start-up online inf ...