Williams College announced on Tuesday that it will end need-blind admissions policy for international students, Inside Higher Ed reported Wednesday. Williams has seen its financial aid costs increase by more than 200 percent since it opened the need-blind policy to international applicants a decade ago, according to a letter released by the college. Williams will set a limit on financial aid offered to international students, but college officials told Inside Higher Ed that they believe the college will still admit more international students than it did before the need-blind policy was implemented.
Public high schools across eight states, including New Hampshire, will introduce a program next year that allows students who pass a variety of standardized tests in 10th grade to receive their high school diplomas two years early and then enroll in community college, The New York Times reported Wednesday. Students who pass but hope to attend selective four-year colleges will be allowed to remain in high school to continue taking college preparatory courses. The method is based on exam designs found in high-performing European schools. Students who fail the exams, called board exams, will be given opportunities to retake the tests at the end of their 11th and 12th grade years, organizers of the program told The Times. The program is designed in part to reduce the number of high school students in need of remedial community college courses upon graduation. The new effort is being organized by the National Center on Education and the Economy and is funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In addition to New Hampshire, the program will be launched in Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont in the fall of 2011.
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles have found that although an increasing number of students are starting college with plans to study science and technology, these students have lagging graduation rates, Inside Higher Ed reported Wednesday. Graduation rates for science and technology majors are especially low for students who belong to underrepresented minorities, according to Inside Higher Ed. The institute launched the research in 2004, when the team began tracking students who matriculated that fall. The blame for this poor performance lies not with pre-college education, but with the colleges, who lose students between their freshman and junior years, Mitchell Chang, co-author of the report, told Inside Higher Ed. The disparity between graduation rates of students who start college studying science and technology and students who begin with interests in other fields is "alarming," according to the study.
