My travels with College Parents of America haven’t yet brought me to all fifty states, but I’ve had the pleasure of communicating with each of you – who are scattered among all of our states – and of learning the idiosyncrasies related to education in each of your locales. There is much to improve, of course, but also much to celebrate.

And what better time than the 4th of July to share with you 25 reasons to celebrate education across America?

So what follows then is the first half of a complete list of each and every state – in alphabetical order – followed by some positive nugget about education in that state that I have gleaned in my role at College Parents of America. I’ll complete the list of all 50 states, with comments included, in a later July column. So you fact-checkers out there don’t have a field day, let’s just call these “impressions” as opposed to strict, every t-crossed “facts.”

Now, the first half of our alphabetical and educational journey across America:

ALABAMA is home to some of the premier “HBCUs” in the U.S., a term that refers to “Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” public and private colleges and universities that have provided outstanding educations to men and women of all colors, but primarily from the African-American community.

ALASKA provides excellent K-12, and college, education opportunities to members of the Native American community, who sometimes must travel extremely long distances to gain schooling that will provide options for employment or higher education available beyond the reservation or local town.

ARIZONA has been fairly quiet on the Western educational front, but its state schools, such as Arizona State University, grow ever more competitive, thanks mainly to the population explosion in Phoenix and environs. And University of Phoenix continues to be the fastest growing “college” in America.

ARKANSAS is home to Hendrix College, emblematic of a large and growing number of relatively small schools that can provide a great education to a young person who wants to learn in a somewhat laid-back setting with classrooms where everybody knows your name.

CALIFORNIA is a place unlike any other, a veritable “nation state” with one of the world’s largest economies and probably the world’s finest dual system of public higher education – the “UC” schools, and the “Cal State” schools. While both systems are under severe financial stress, securing a place at one of these schools’ honors colleges is often more difficult than securing a spot at one of the most selective colleges in the East.

COLORADO has, for better or for worse, received more attention for its Ward Churchill controversy than for the broader higher educational opportunities offered through its great collection of public and private colleges and universities.

CONNECTICUT’s most well-known public university, UCONN in Storrs, is only one of several state schools that provide a strong education to students from diverse backgrounds, of varying ages and who are pursuing career paths with mostly a very practical – and admirable – intent.

DELAWARE’s flagship state school, the University of Delaware in Newark, not only has one of the most entertaining sports team names – “Fighting Blue Hens” – but is also one of the best examples of the so-called “Public Ivies.” These are large, state-funded institutions that have somehow been able to break through in terms of their reputation for providing wonderful undergraduate educations.

FLORIDA in education, as in so many fields, is sort of a laboratory for the future, as its ever-growing, ever-changing population wrestles with the importance of early childhood education as a precursor to success in school, and as its aging men and women are asked increasingly to help pick up the tab for America’s school bills.

GEORGIA’s Hope Scholarship, which transfers funds from the state’s lottery to help pay college tuitions at in-state schools for those who meet basic entry requirements, has become the lightning rod for discussion of the wisdom of such programs. Most think that Hope is beyond reproach, but others feel it is contributing to a misallocation of finite financial aid resources, from those in need to those who attain certain pre-college educational goals.

HAWAII has caught my attention due to the number of long-standing programs that it has for placing students in mainland U.S. colleges of all stripes, thereby promoting effective cultural exchange that works in both directions.

IDAHO’s Boise State is creating some buzz for reasons beyond the unusual blue color of its football field. This school is increasingly drawing out-of-state residents who are lured by Idaho’s quality of life, and its varied offerings appeal to those who may not necessarily have their minds made up on a career at the time they enter school.

ILLINOIS is home to my alma mater, Northwestern University, which is still the ideal size and location for an undergraduate institution – large enough to offer several high-quality fields of study and relatively quiet on the main campus, but close to the vibrancy of Chicago right next door.

INDIANA is the place where one of the best research institutions in the country – IU in Bloomington – works on the cutting edge in fields too numerous to mention. OK, one that must be noted is higher education itself – warts and all – which is studied by a team of researchers who follow admissions and student trends very closely.

IOWA was the first state to contact us through official channels, asking to partner on the creation of a “College Parents of Iowa,” with a particular focus on the higher educational challenges in that locale. Iowa is also the headquarters of ACT, the well-run service that draws nearly as many test-takers as the College Board’s SAT.

KANSAS, to be honest, has not jumped on my radar screen in any significant way, but I do have a soft spot for the state, as my wife used to work for former Senator (and presidential candidate) Robert Dole. Let’s salute Mr. Dole and all other surviving WW II veterans, as their numbers dwindle every single day.

KENTUCKY’s flagship university, UK in Lexington, is starting to be given a run for its educational – and athletic – money by the University of Louisville, a formerly commuter-dominant school that is working seriously on creating a cohesive campus culture. Those UL Redbirds are really starting to peck away at the Wildcats.

LOUISIANA, like many states, is addressing a serious “brain drain” issue by attempting to strengthen dramatically the quality of its public colleges and universities, and by encouraging more of those who study at its various private schools to stay in Cajun Country when they graduate. Louisiana’s brain drain was, of course, exacerbated by the effects of Katrina, and it could be similarly impacted by the Gulf oil spill.

MAINE benefits from a congressional delegation, led by senior Senator Olympia Snowe, who pay close attention to the interests of the state, but who also take the long view when it comes to the interests of the nation, particularly in the area of education policy.

MARYLAND students and their families have benefited from some very smart judgments on the part of Britt Kirwin, who runs the University of Maryland system, which includes the flagship in College Park. Kirwin has evangelized for years that, in order for colleges and universities to have credibility when raising tuition, they must take a hard line on the expense side of the equation, and try to hold down their costs as much as possible.

MASSACHUSETTS is a trendsetter when it comes to education policy, particularly as it relates to higher education. The high number of colleges in the Boston area, as well as the higher-than-average levels of education attainment among Massachusetts’s residents, makes the Bay State a natural laboratory for education policy debates.

MICHIGAN, my home state, is feeling the effects of what cynics call a “one-state” recession, as its automobile-based manufacturing economy continues to suffer. This puts a squeeze on education-related state spending, both for K-12 and for higher Ed, an issue that extends far beyond this one state.

MINNESOTA is the home base of Scholarship America, emblematic of an extremely large group of non-profit entities dedicated to providing scholarship opportunities to young people entering or in the midst of college. Nearby, this state’s flagship university, UofM, is one of the recognized leaders among public schools in terms of providing support for parents, thanks to the efforts of parent relations director Marjorie Savage.

MISSISSIPPI, like the vast majority of states, was not been tarred with the student loan scandal because the financial aid officials at schools in that state are much the same as their colleagues who work elsewhere – dedicated professionals with the best interest of the students they serve at heart.

Last but not least, concluding the first part of this American education tour is MISSOURI, where an increasing emphasis on career planning out of high school is leading students to better focus on the practicality of post-secondary studies that they may pursue.

As noted, the other 25 states, and Washington, DC, will be covered in a column later this month. I had fun writing up these state-specific items and I hope that you found them of interest.

Best wishes for an enjoyable Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Last week saw non-stop coverage of the Gulf Oil Spill on news channels, and had the World Cup and U.S. Open dominating the sports world.  Amidst that crowded backdrop, a significant Knight Commission report on the future of sports and higher education received scant attention.  The report deserves a closer look and, in my view, our support.

The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics is a project of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.  Eighteen months ago, the commission began an investigation of college sports, which culminated last week in the release of “Restoring the Balance: Dollars, Values and the Future of College Sports.”

While conference realignments have been grabbing headlines in recent weeks, the Knight Commission tried to look at the bigger picture, and to address the fundamental issues faced by schools during an era of escalating athletics spending, shrinking state higher ed subsidies and vacillating performance by university endowment funds as the stock market ebbs and flows.

The Knight Commission examined the broad spectrum of college sports, but it placed a magnifying glass in particular over the schools which make up what is known as the “Football Bowl Subdivision,” (FBS).  The public institutions in the FBS were found to have grown median spending in athletics during the period of 2005 – 2008 at a rate of nearly 38 percent, while median academic spending during the same timeframe advanced only 20 percent.  Looked at another way, the growth in athletic dollars spent was almost twice the growth rate of academic expenditures.

While either side of the spending coin had to grow much at all during a time of negligible inflation is probably best left to a column for another day.  But spending on athletics must be examined closely each and every day, and there is no better time than now for the Knight Commission to release the numbers which, in some cases, are staggering.

For instance, according to the commission report, the ten FBS public institutions spending the most on college sports are on pace to spend more than $250 million annually, on average, in 2020.  At these same schools, median spending per athlete ranges from four to nearly eleven times more than the academic spending per student.

To address these troubling patterns, the Knight Commission offers three general principles for strengthened accountability in intercollegiate athletics.  These are:

1. Requiring public transparency of financial reporting, including better measures to compare athletic spending to academic spending;
2. Rewarding practices that make academic values a priority; and
3. Treating athletes first and foremost as students, and not as pseudo-professionals.

Around these principals, the Knight Commission makes several recommendations, including:

1. Making public the financial reports filed by each institution with the NCAA;
2. Withdrawing championship eligibility for teams, in any sport, not on track to graduate at least half of their athletes;
3. Tying revenue distribution more closely to academic values:
4. Examining scholarship practices and, in some cases, decreasing the number made available, such as in football at FBS schools;
5. Limiting the number of non-coaching personnel tied to specific sports; and
6. Reducing the length of some seasons, as well as the number of events in some sports.

Although the Knight Commission includes a number of distinguished higher education leaders, and it is co-chaired by the chancellor of the University of Maryland System and the president of Southern Methodist University, respectively, its recommendations will not gain traction without public support.  In this instance, the most important segment of the “public” consists of us, tuition-paying parents.

I encourage you to click here to read the entire report and to visit www.knightcommission.org to read statements of support by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, American Council on Education president Molly Corbett Broad and others.  Please add your own comments below or at www.facebook.com/collegeparentsofamerica.  Thank you for your consideration.

In my most recent column, published on May 26, I made the case for the purchase of tuition insurance, which thanks to our partnership with GradGuard, a service of Next Generation Insurance, Inc., is now available as an embedded benefit in College Parents of America membership.

In that column, I touched on the research our organization did as we put together this benefit and I would like to review more of our analysis with you today.

Before I get to the numbers, however, I do want to share with you this thought: the risk of your son or daughter facing a medical withdrawal from college is very real. And, of course, the cost of college is very expensive. So just as you would consider insuring any other expensive purchase, you should also consider insuring your investment in college.

Now, on to the numbers, which clearly bear out the risks I reference above.

Withdrawal refund policies of colleges are highly variable. While some policies stipulate pro-rated refunds, others offer set amounts. Also, refund policies for students receiving federal financial aid can diverge from institutional refund policies, as the return of federal financial aid is highly regulated. Lastly, depending on school policy, some students who are withdrawing for medical reasons may be able to appeal or petition for a greater refund amount, or even for the full cost of tuition and fees, but with no guarantee, of course, of such efforts being successful.

In fact, while some schools may provide an appeal or petition mechanism for grade adjustment due to medical withdrawal, very few have a mechanism for tuition and fee adjustments due to medical withdrawal. Among those schools featuring such an appeals mechanism, the process and refund for students differ greatly.

Some schools, such as Florida State University and the University of Florida, provide a full refund upon receiving medical withdrawal verification. Reed College, a private school in Oregon, has a policy which states “no deviations from the refund schedule will be made except in cases of extreme hardship, of which the college shall be the sole judge.” The University of Missouri’s policy states that students who experience an unexpected medical withdrawal may appeal for a greater refund and that such refund requests are approved on a case-by-case basis.

From the above handful of examples, I hope you can see that not all refund appeals are equal in appeal process or amount, nor are some as automatic as others. Our study included 215 of the largest and most expensive colleges and universities in the country. Of that number, 34 schools, or 16% of those researched, offer an appeals process for students asking for a larger refund either as a standalone process or as part of their medical withdrawal refund policy. And of those schools offering an appeals process, the general withdrawal policy is frequently very strict. For instance, among the 34 schools:

• 25 colleges and universities do not refund any tuition and fees for withdrawal after 5 weeks;
• 4 colleges and universities refund more than zero of tuition and fees, but less than 50%; and
• 5 colleges and universities refund more than 50% of tuition and fees, but not necessarily any other item that is part of what the government considers to be the “cost of attendance.”

The bottom line is this: the cost of attending college today, combined with nationally inconsistent but school-specifically strict refund policies, creates financial risk and vulnerability for families. College Parents of America recently launched the first-ever national group policy for tuition insurance, in order to help families to address this risk.

Everyone knows that college is expensive. Yet very few people know that the cost of college can be insured.

The high cost of college has been building for decades. Withering subsidies at the state level are causing public universities to raise the sticker prices they charge students. Private colleges are also charging more, as their endowment funds still reel from the 2008 financial meltdown and continuing market uncertainty.

Despite the high cost, students and their parents understand in their gut how important a college education is to future success. Somehow they find a way, year after year, to pull together the financial resources to make the college investment. These days, it’s true more than ever. According to the U.S. Department of Education, a record 70.1% of 2009 high school graduates entered a post-secondary institution last fall.

But, as with any investment, something can go amiss. In the case of the college investment, an ongoing risk is the unexpected event of a medical withdrawal.

Exact numbers on medical withdrawals from college are difficult to obtain. But clearly they do occur. A 2009 Student Monitor study found that 27% of students either themselves experienced or had a close friend who experienced a mid-semester withdrawal from college due to student medical condition or a death in their immediate family.

What happens when an unexpected force meets an immovable object? In physics, it’s a collision and, in the case of college tuition, it’s the creation of financial risks and vulnerabilities for students and their parents.

The immovable objects in this case are the understandably strict refund policies put in place by colleges and universities. The high-stakes drama of college admissions at many schools leads their “seats” for students to be extremely valuable. So when one of those seats suddenly becomes empty, due to an unexpected medical withdrawal, the vast majority of colleges are reluctant to give the money already spent, or committed to, back to the student and his or her tuition-paying parent. And when federal financial aid is involved, loans or grants, the refund policies of schools are often guided by strict government guidelines.

With the cost of attendance for the average in-state student at a public university more than $15,000, and the average annual cost for a private school student nearly $36,000, the loss of even a semester’s worth of college investment can leave a devastating mark on a family’s finances, without any result to show for it, other than instructions to retake classes the following semester.

That’s where Tuition Insurance from College Parents of America comes in. We have created the first-ever national group policy for tuition insurance, available to the tuition-payer at any accredited institution of higher education in the U.S.

Tuition insurance is analogous to travel insurance. Travel insurance didn’t exist 30 years ago, but today a Google search for those two words will yield 101 million results. The idea behind travel insurance is simple: an investment in a trip can be quite large, but there is a small chance that an unforeseen event can keep one from being able to travel. Purchasing travel insurance allows the future traveler to prevent against that risk.

The same principle applies to the new College Parents of America tuition insurance product, created by GradGuard, a service of Next Generation Insurance (NGI) Group. Only it’s not just that college “can be” expensive, it is expensive, very expensive indeed. And the risk of losing money when a medical withdrawal occurs is very real, with rare chance for a successful appeal.

To prove this point, College Parents of America recently conducted a survey of 215 colleges and universities across the country, 92 public and 122 private and one, the University of Pittsburgh, “state-related.” Of the 215 schools researched, 181 (84%) have strict refund schedules for medical withdrawal, without a refund appeal mechanism. The other 16% of schools surveyed do have an appeals process for students who are looking for a larger refund.

Looking just at those schools in the survey that do not offer an appeals process, nearly half (46%) stipulate that students not receiving financial aid who file for medical withdrawal receive no money back after 5 weeks of classes in any given term. The remaining schools offer varying levels of refunds after the 5-week mark, with some providing up to 25% of money back and others up to 50%. The survey found that only 41 schools, less than 20% of those researched, offer an automatic medical withdrawal refund of more than 50% after 5 weeks in a term.

Now with a threat of losing money that is this real, you might wonder why there has been nothing done in the marketplace, until now by College Parents of America, to address this problem. The fact is that tuition insurance has been around since 1930, but it was a product so exclusive, you could almost see the blue blood dripping all over it.

Over these past 80 years, until now, tuition insurance was offered only as part of the school-enrollment process at first just a few, then dozens, and now approximately 165 of mostly expensive and selective schools scattered throughout the country. Many of the early adopter schools for tuition insurance are planted squarely among the Ivy-covered walls in the mid-Atlantic and New England.

The differences between the targeted tuition insurance policies at those schools served by vendor private company A.W.G. Dewar, and the new national policy offered by College Parents of America, are several. Examples of two key differences are:

• Tuition insurance at a Dewar school must be taken out upfront, as part of the enrollment contract process, while College Parents of America tuition insurance can be purchased at any time during the year.
• Tuition insurance from Dewar is priced at set amounts to cover the full cost of attendance for a year at a particular school, though the fixed price varies from school-to-school, depending, it appears, on the underwriting history of the institution. Since College Parents of America tuition insurance is available to the tuition-payer for a student at any accredited school, the pricing is staggered and ultimately the amount paid depends on the amount of coverage desired. For instance, an annual College Parents of America standard membership, priced at $89, brings with it up to $5,000 in tuition insurance coverage, while a $299 premium membership provides up to $15,000 in coverage, as well as other several other products and services that make up the GradGuard Student Protection Plan. Also through GradGuard, parents are able to purchase additional levels of tuition insurance coverage, if they wish, all the way up to $50,000 at a price of $599.

The fact is that in today’s world, every college or university is expensive, not just the relatively small number of schools who work with A.W.G. Dewar. And tuition insurance from College Parents of America, provided by GradGuard, and underwritten by Markel Insurance Inc., is now available to every family in America, no matter where your adult child goes to post-secondary school.

Teaching young people — and their parents — how to better save and spend their money is a critical component to increasing college-going rates in the U.S., warned a panel of experts who spoke this week at the National Association of State Treasurers meeting in Salt Lake City.

According to panelist Margaret Clancy, director of the College Savings Initiative at Washington University’s Center for Social Development, it is not enough anymore for K – 12 students to be financially “literate.” To break the cycle of college-going rates being so directly tied to demographics, said Clancy, we must as a nation concentrate on a broader goal of financial “capability.”

Financial “capability,” in Clancy’s view, is both a step beyond financial literacy and a leap beyond simply having the wherewithal to pay for whatever bills may come one’s way.

“One cannot achieve financial capability without first having achieved financial literacy,” said Clancy. “But financial capability also means having access to safe financial products that are accessible, affordable and easy to use. This access constitutes a certain financial inclusion that allows a young person, and their parents, to be confident that they can achieve their life dreams, without going broke in the process.”

Clancy’s call for financial capability offered a ray of hope in an otherwise disquieting session that focused on the many barriers to college attainment in the U.S., and the very low high school graduation rate that squeezes the college pipeline before it reaches the end of 12th grade.

Striking in the clarity of his remarks on the challenges in the K – 12 system was panelist Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, the single largest group of individuals who run public schools and school systems across the country.

“If financial literacy is a necessary step on the path to financial capability,” then we have a real problem,” said Domenech, a former superintendent himself with more than three decades of experience in K – 12 education. “While most teachers are familiar with the term ‘financial literacy,’ their own personal knowledge of it is not well-defined, nor do they rate themselves highly on either the topic itself or their ability to teach it.”

A third panelist, Angela Baier, chief marketing officer of Colorado-based College Invest, added that more than three-fourths of parents in the Rocky Mountain State acknowledge that they are their children’s primary source of personal finance education.

However, Baier said, Colorado parents also note that they feel “less prepared to give their teens advice about investing than they do about sex.”

(Full disclosure: I was the fourth panelist at this event, and I feel ill-prepared to talk to my teens about either investing or sex.)

What is the level of “financial capability” in your family? What is your view on how this problem can be addressed by all the stakeholders in higher education, including parents?