research and stats

Sallie Mae's How America Pays for College 2013 came out recently. Like previous years (the report has been published annually since 2008), it shows interesting trends on both the cost of college and how families are responding to dealing with costs.

Below, we've compliled a few highlights.

Sallie Mae Graphic on Sources of College Payment for 2012-2013 Academic Year

Recently, the Atlantic posted an article called The Myth of the Student-Loan Crisis. It's worth the quick read, but it's also worth a discussion.

We have a continuing theme regarding the first year experience of college students that we are exploring. 

Most families we speak with share with us the anxiety about this transition.   The reality is that families of new college students recognize that the transition to college is a BIG deal.   The transition is a major life event for both students and the family. 

Our last post reported research by UCLA - that about 25% of freshmen students do not progress successfully to become sophomores. 

Last week, we posted College without Completion -- Post #1, which discussed National Center for Educational Statistics's published statistics on cohort graduation rates. We continue the College without Completion thread with this post.

(image by flickr user ben.chaney)

In the last College without Completion post, we shared that, according to NCES, 42.7% of students did not get a bachelor's degree from the college at which they began within 6 years (Source). In this post, we look at the effects of leaving college without a degree.

There are multiple ways in which a student and his or her immediate family might be affected by a student's decision to leave college.

A student's potential earnings, as well as a student's quality of life, can be greatly diminished by the lack of a degree.

• Students who have some college but no degree face a higher unemployment rate and sub-median weekly pay check (Source).
• Students with a bachelor's degree or a higher degree report a lower level of poverty, a slightly higher job satisfaction rate, a lower obesity rate and children that are better prepared for school (Source).