LSUS online program ranks in Top 10 for affordability

LSU-Shreveport’s online master’s in healthcare degree program has achieved outstanding recognition for its excellence and affordability.

The university has been named as one of the 10 most affordable top ranked online master’s in healthcare administration degree programs by the Best Master’s Degrees’ ranking.

LSUS was ranked as number two out of the most affordable online degree programs that are offered nationwide.

The Best Master’s Degrees’ mission is to help prospective graduate students make informed decisions about what kind of degree to pursue and where to study. The main focus is providing rankings and profiles of degree programs across a variety of the most common master’s degree areas.

The online health administration degree from LSUS combines value with academic excellence. Offered 100 percent online, working professionals find the program flexible and conducive to balancing education with life obligations. Regionally and nationally accredited, the school and its programs are ranked among some of the best institutions in the United States. Low student-teacher ratios and a high rate of professors holding doctoral degrees make the school a top-tier university for academics and value.

The ranking of the top accredited online healthcare administration degrees offers insight on affordability and overall value. The schools listed are all nationally and regionally accredited, offer flexible scheduling, and have been awarded prominent recognitions that factor academic excellence among other criteria. To determine the ranking, information was gathered from reputable websites, including U.S. News and World Report, Best College Reviews, Get Educated, Kiplinger, and Forbes magazine

Coursera is offering a way to get a real master’s degree for a lot less money

Digital learning company Coursera, which has over 15 million people around the world taking its massive online open courses (MOOCs), markets itself to a wide demographic— from curious middle schoolers to mid-career professionals seeking promotions at work.

The company thinks it can do more to help out the latter.

Coursera yesterday (March 30) announced a new program that curiously departs from its prior offerings: a MOOC curriculum that leads to an actual degree. Starting this fall, users will be able to earn a computer-science master’s degree in data science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—whose computer-science graduate program is ranked fifth in the US—through a series of “stackable” online courses on Coursera’s site.

It’s this “stackability” that’s intriguing. Users can test out the program by taking some courses for free and earning specialization certificates. Then, they’ll decide whether they want to pursue additional classes—which include direct contact with the university faculty—for the full degree, at a cost of $20,000 (less than either an on-campus degree or a traditional online degree). There’s no need to commit to anything from the start, as there is with most graduate programs physical or digital.

“The computer-science degree is quite a formidable degree, and students might be a bit unsure whether they can complete the entire sequence,” says John Hart, a University of Illinois computer-science professor. “This program helps people test the waters… It’s part of our plan to appeal to a wider audience.”

Stackable courses already exist in some vocational degree programs—but they’re rarely seen in graduate-level academia. At a time when the worth of an advanced degree is growing ever shakier, Coursera’s new model might prove appealing both to people looking for cheaper ways to improve their job prospects and universities looking to attract more students. It might also appeal to employers, since the flexibility of its online format means workers won’t need to take years off to go back to school.

Coursera’s new program won’t necessarily displace existing graduate programs, though. While research does show that a graduate degree in computer science can yield a $30,000 salary bump—and data science has also been dubbed the “sexiest career of the 21st century”—many employers still like to see brick-and-mortar degrees over online ones. And, at $20,000, Coursera’s new program is cheap but not that cheap.

Yet the company is optimistic, and even expects to launch similar programs in the near future. “There’s a template of what an online degree is, and people tend to gravitate naturally to it,” Daphne Koller, Coursera’s president and co-founder, said. “Most people don’t really think outside the box.” Coursera’s new venture puts it squarely outside of the lines of traditional education; soon we’ll see whether any other players decide to follow.

USD to offers dental hygiene degree online

VERMILLION, S.D. (AP) - The University of South Dakota will begin offering its bachelor’s degree in dental hygiene online this fall.

The South Dakota Board of Regents this week approved USD’s request to offer the degree through online distance delivery. The request was in response to changing entry-level standards for the dental hygiene profession.

School officials say that such programs are often termed “BS Degree Completion” and likely have a market for students for the next five to 10 years, as the field transitions to the standard of a bachelor’s degree from the two-year associate degree.

The school will target those who have already graduated with an associate degree in dental hygiene or who are currently enrolled in an accredited program anywhere in the country.

How To Use Online Course Forums Effectively

Forums are often used in elearning as an easy way to allow learners to communicate with each other, discuss any questions they may have relating to the content, and interact with the instructor

But adding a forum doesn’t mean that your course offering is suddenly better. In fact, it can actually result in a negative course perception if it isn’t implemented properly.

 

Extend K to 12 scholarship deadline, Ched urged

SENATOR Ralph Recto called Saturday on the Commission on Higher Education (Ched) to extend the deadline for the application to the scholarship program that would provide teachers affected by the K to 12 program a monthly stipend of at least P20,000 for the duration of their schooling.
In its website, Ched issued a last call for applicants for the "Graduate Education Scholarships for Faculty and Staff Development in the K to 12 Transition Period," with the deadline set on April 1.
"April 1 was the deadline of the application for this scholarship, which is mainly for private college teachers who would otherwise face low or loss of income during the K to 12 transition period," Recto said in a statement.
"The deadline should be extended by a mere 15 days, to April 15, to give more time to teachers who were busy with final tests to collate the required supporting documents," he added.
College enrollment, Recto said, would go down in June as Grade 10 students are retained in schools for two more years of senior high school, prompting government to package a multi-billion-peso bridge financing program for affected personnel.
As the K to 12 Basic Education program enters the senior high school this year, the Department of Education (DepEd) estimated that around 1.21 million Grade 10 students would remain in school for more two years, "which effectively drains the source of college enrollment."
The Philippine Institute for Development Studies had projected that 33,000 college instructors may be potentially idled until 2018. Another group, a coalition of education workers, pegged the number at 86,000 college teachers plus 15,000 non-academic personnel.
A DepEd briefing paper sent to Congress in 2014 had pegged a lower number of 13,634 teachers, or 12 percent of all college teachers, and 11,456 non-teaching staff, or 20 percent of total.
Recto said the scholarships and other K to 12 programs in higher education institutions (HEI) are funded by a P5.27 billion allocation authorized in the 2016 national budget.
Of the said amount, he said P3 billion would be sourced from travel tax collections and state lotto earnings, pooled under the off-budget Higher Education Development Fund, while P2.275 billion was appropriated in the Ched budget for the provision of scholarship to faculty members and HEI administrators.
“Under the program, full scholarships for master’s and doctoral degrees are being offered to faculty and staff during the transition period,” the senator said.
“In addition, scholarship for master’s and doctoral programs in selected foreign schools select are also offered. Grants for thesis and dissertation writing, professional advancement, and post-doctoral fellowships are also available.”
Recto said faculty scholars who qualify under the scholarship would be receiving a package consisting of tuition and fees; monthly stipend; book allowance; transportation allowance; thesis and dissertation allowance; and group insurance.
According to the guidelines, he said the stipend for those who qualify for scholarships for the master’s degree is P20,000 monthly, while successful applicants for the doctoral program will receive P28,000 per month.
Recto said there would also be a thesis or dissertation allowance for master’s and doctoral programs, amounting to P50,000 and P100,000, respectively. For the teachers staying outside their province, a transportation allowance of P10,000 will be given annually.
“The scholarship has two primary goals according to its guidelines issued by Ched on January 12 of this year: mitigate impact on labor of the K to 12 program and to upgrade qualifications of faculty,” he said. “If these are the objectives, then we should accommodate as many applicants as we can.” (Sunnex)

Need a college scholarship? There’s an app for that

JUDY WOODRUFF: It’s hard to overstate just how expensive college can be, more than $40,000 a year for a private school, over $34,000 for an out-of-state public school.

Many students do qualify for greater financial aid, but a start-up has come up with a way to let high school students earn money for college much earlier.

Economics correspondent Paul Solman has the story. It’s part of his Making Sense series, which airs Thursdays on the “NewsHour.”

PAUL SOLMAN: At the engineering classroom of a top public magnet school in Miami, Terra High School, Sebastian Rodriguez and his team’s entry in a national robot competition.

SEBASTIAN RODRIGUEZ, Student: You have to pick up a lot of Wiffle balls and stack them into this canister here and then be able to propel them upwards into 6-foot-tall tubes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Turns out this whole school is as competitive as the robotniks. You need high grades and test scores just to get in.

You don’t get any extra money for having built a really cool robot, do you?

SEBASTIAN RODRIGUEZ: No, not at all. Just the fun of having to build a robot.

PAUL SOLMAN: And why ask about money? Because, here, kids get paid for achievements through a college scholarship app called Raise.me.

Senior Barbara Groh:

BARBARA GROH, Student: They call them micro-scholarships, and it’s all based on your portfolio, your profile.

PAUL SOLMAN: Right.

BARBARA GROH: So, for different aspects of my profile, I can get different amounts of money from different schools. So these are all my AP classes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Are these your grades?

BARBARA GROH: Yes. For getting an A, you can get $25 to $1,000, depending on the school.

PAUL SOLMAN: More than 140 colleges and universities already, from Florida state to Oberlin, Penn State to Notre Dame, using their own formulas to offer money in the form of an eventual merit scholarship for high school achievements, starting in ninth grade and guaranteed, though only if the student applies and is actually admitted.

Raise.me, a private company funded by venture capital and several foundations, charges the schools annual fees to participate. The scholarship money is provided by the schools themselves.

Take an honors or an advanced course.

BARBARA GROH: Participating in an extracurricular activity, taking the PSATs, SATs, and also for getting good scores, you can get even more money.

PAUL SOLMAN: More money for immediate achievements, says Raise.me’s founder Preston Silverman.

PRESTON SILVERMAN, CEO & Co-Founder, Raise.me: Instead of waiting for four years to find out if you’re going to receive any scholarship, students are getting a short feedback loop each semester, each grade they get.

ANEESH RAMAN, Raise.me: It’s a huge pool of money that colleges are giving out to kids after they have applied, after they have gotten in, now goes to kids starting as early as ninth grade.

PAUL SOLMAN: Yes, it only goes to them as a promise, contingent on acceptance, says Raise.me vice president Aneesh Ramen, but no matter where they go:

ANEESH RAMAN: It motivates them to do better in high school and it prepares them better for college, so, when they go, they actually finish, get a diploma, find a job, live the American dream. That’s the idea.

PAUL SOLMAN: Senior Sabrina Rosell is one of Terra’s typically high achievers. But, like almost all the students here, 40 percent of whom qualify for federal school lunch aid, Rosell needs help to attend the college of her choice, nearby Florida International. It’s relatively inexpensive, but, then, she has four siblings.

SABRINA ROSELL, Senior, Terra High School: It may look like my family doesn’t qualify for financial aid, but it doesn’t mean that I can just dish out the $6,000 for tuition every single year.

PAUL SOLMAN: The $8,000 she’s earned on Raise.me thus far represents a fair chunk of that tuition.

SABRINA ROSELL: It’s just like — almost like a gift in exchange for all of our hard work.

PAUL SOLMAN: Rosell’s fellow students agree.

JUSTIN LEE, Senior, Terra High School: I finally found out something that I can get from working hard, besides just the good feeling from working hard, you know?

PAUL SOLMAN: But if the students at Terra don’t need the motivational nudge of financial incentives, even if most need the money, students elsewhere seriously need both, says Raise.me founder Silverman.

PRESTON SILVERMAN: We spend almost all of our time reaching out to schools and school districts that are serving lower-income populations and schools that serve a large percentage of first-generation college students. Those are the students that we’re most passionate about supporting.

WOMAN: How many of you want to go to college?

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

PAUL SOLMAN: OK, so, next morning, we joined a Raise.me reach-out rally at a distinctly non-magnet school, Carol City High.

MAN: OK. Let’s take some guesses on how you much you can earn for different things on Raise. Everyone who answers right, we will give you a prize.

How much do you guys think you can get for getting an A or a B in class?

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL SOLMAN: Carol City is just a few miles away from Terra, but in terms of academic motivation, a world apart. So will financial incentives work here?

ELONDRA JACKSON, Sophomore, Carol City High School: Yes, I do think people will try harder if they knew, like, the benefits of getting money to go to college and be successful in life.

PAUL SOLMAN: Christina Derby, Carol City high’s valedictorian, doesn’t need the extra incentive. But she too thinks Raise.me will instill and reinforce good habits.

CHRISTINA DERBY, Senior, Carol City High School: I think, as the money accumulates over time, then kids will be like I shouldn’t fall down and get behind in my work. I should actually work harder and do more things, because, in the end, it will pay off.’

PAUL SOLMAN: But Kristin Klopfenstein, who studies the economics of education, worries that, for many kids, Raise.me will simply fall flat.

KRISTIN KLOPFENSTEIN, University of Northern Colorado: A lot of times, kids, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, don’t understand the path from here to there. And so just saying, oh, we will reward you if you pass this test, the kids might get all excited about the incentive, but then they have no idea about how to go about actually achieving that goal.

PAUL SOLMAN: Especially with so many other distractions.

WOMAN: Another instance of violence hitting too close to a Miami-Dade school.

PAUL SOLMAN: Just hours after we left Carol City, there was a drive-by shooting out front.

STUDENT: A bunch of kids just started running, because I heard like a shot, like pop, pop, pop. Security, everybody took — getting inside.

KRISTIN KLOPFENSTEIN: I think those kids face an entirely different situation, where, when you’re in an advantaged background, from an advantaged background, your time horizon can be much longer. You can be looking forward and planning for two, four years down the road: This is the college I want to go to, this is what I want to be when I grow up.

If you talk to kids who are in neighborhoods and schools like you’re talking about, what do you want to be when you grow up, sometimes the kids will scratch their heads, and, you know, I don’t think that far away. I may not grow up.

PAUL SOLMAN: But Klopfenstein does have an alternative.

KRISTIN KLOPFENSTEIN: Rewards for intermediate actions that lead to positive outcomes. So, for reading books or doing positive study skills and behaviors that will lead to higher grades, I will give you $2 for every book you read. That has a tremendous impact on reading comprehension.

PAUL SOLMAN: At nearby Florida International, however, an urban public university with 55,000 students, 60 percent of them Hispanic, director of admissions Jody Glassman says Raise.me had already had a positive impact. It has raised hopes for those who might not have otherwise applied.

JODY GLASSMAN, Florida International University: There’s been so much hype. Is the price of a college education worth it? Are you going to be gainfully employed when you graduate? Are you going to graduate with all of this debt? And Raise.me really helps us portray to students that college is affordable.

PAUL SOLMAN: And even to the high-achieving students at the magnet school, it turns out, Raise.me has had real value. It’s ratcheted up even further the drive that already spurs them.

JUSTIN LEE: We’re just always competing with each other. So if one of them said, hey, I have $80,000 to this school on Raise.me, the other one will say, well, I have $82,000, and we will just keep going at it and trying to see what we can add to it.

PAUL SOLMAN: For the “PBS NewsHour,” economics correspondent Paul Solman, reporting from Miami.

PBS NewsHour education coverage is part of American Graduate: Let’s Make it Happen, a public media initiative made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Danny Marona Scholarship

TWIN FALLS, Id (KMVT/KSVT) Saturday night at CSI Fine Arts Auditorium, 8 finalists will perform to earn the Danny Marona Scholarship. The scholarship is for students pursuing a career in the performing arts. This year all 8 finalists are women. The show starts at 7pm, a 10 dollar donation is requested but not required and a winner will be announced right after the show. Danny Marona explained why he wanted to focus his scholarship on performing arts.

"There is plenty of athletic scholarship money and even math scholarships and what have you. And they are all great you know. I just noticed years ago there are very few performing arts scholarships," Danny Marona said.

Three scholarships will be awarded. First place will receive a five thousand dollars, second place is two thousand five hundred and third is one thousand five hundred.

Jay-Z and Mom Gloria Carter Announce 2016 Scholarship Program

The Shawn Carter Foundation Scholarship provides financial support to high school students as well as undergraduate students entering college for the first time. The purpose of the scholarship is to help under-served students who may not be eligible for other scholarships.

Students who have either graduated from high school or earned their G.E.D. may apply. Minimum grade point average is 2.0. Students must have a strong desire to go to college and earn their degree. Students must also have a desire to give back to their communities.

The scholarship fund was established by Gloria Carter and and her son Shawn Carter (better known as rapper/ business mogul Jay-Z) to offer a unique opportunity to students who have been incarcerated or faced particular life challenges but still want to pursue higher education. The program gives them a chance that most other programs do not offer. The Carter Foundation is a firm believer in helping young people not only reach their career goals but also establish a secure future.

Students up to age 25 may apply. The scholarship can be used for tuition, room and board, books, fees and other college-related expenses. All high school seniors, undergraduate students at two-year or four-year institutions and vocational or trade school students are eligible.

The deadline for this scholarship is on April 30th, and the award amount ranges from $1,500 – $2,500.

For more details and/or to apply, visit:
www.scholarshipsonline.org/2013/05/shawn-carter-foundation-scholarship.html

High School Student Offered Over $1 Million in College Scholarships

Hard work definitely does pay off, or at least it does for one high school student, from Lynn Haven, Florida. Mimi Mallory, a senior at Mosley High School, was offered more than $1 million in merit-based college scholarships.

“It was crazy,” Mallory, 18, told ABC News. “I just didn’t know what to think.”

As one college acceptance after another came in, they were also paired with a lot of cash. Mallory was awarded a combined total of $1,052,400 from the 11 schools where she was accepted.

The highest scholarship Mallory was offered came from Mercer University, totaling $212,000. She also received a full tuition scholarship from the University of Alabama.

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Mallory decided to accept the offer from her dream school, Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, Texas. “It’s crazy to think I can go to SMU," she said. "I wasn’t expecting to because of how expensive it was."

SMU awarded Mallory $166,000 in scholarship money, so she will only have to pay a few thousand dollars each year out of pocket.

Though Mallory was shocked to receive such substantial scholarship awards, she has worked hard in preparation for the college admissions process, maintaining a high GPA and participating in several extracurricular activities.

She is Vice President of the senior class, Secretary of her honors society, President of the productions team that runs the high school announcements, and still maintains a 4.625 GPA on a 4.0 scale. Her weighted GPA comes from Mosley’s Advanced Placement Program for Success, which offers 21 Advanced Placement classes and 19 Dual-Enrollment classes -- a rigorous curriculum she credits as one of the main reasons she earned so many scholarships.

Mallory has also been an equestrian rider since she was in fifth grade. She started as a jumping equestrian but, after breaking her femur in freshman year, she quickly picked up dressage -- when the rider and horse perform a series of memorized movements -- and even placed second in the nation for a national award.

Mallory Family

Besides being a highly active student in school extracurricular activities, Mimi Mallory is also a talented equestrian and has won national titles from the United States Dressage Federation.more +

Mallory also credits her parents for her success and their unwavering support through her busy schedule.

“They never pushed me in school, only praising me for the hard work that I put in,” she said. “I think it contributed to the way I am to be self-motivating, and I definitely owe a lot to them.”

For college, Mallory plans to stay involved in many activities, much like her high school years. She said she will continue riding and plans to be either pre-med or pre-law.