New Quadcast: Thinking beyond elite admissions with Kara Miller
On the Quadcast, Boston Globe correspondent Kara Miller comments on the new report by Raj Chetty, David Deming, and John Friedman, Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges. The report points out the disproportionate admission of affluent students at elite colleges in comparison to students of comparable profiles with less means. Miller questions whether the hyper-focus on who gets into so few schools takes away from the broader issue of opening up more opportunities across the board.
From LearningWell
In LearningWell magazine, Mollie Ames highlights the “Bucknell-on-Purpose” Senior Dinner Seminar, a year-long class focused on “purpose,” in which a small group of 17 students meet weekly to reflect on their college experiences and futures. The class aims to help them “conceive of a more general blueprint by which to live their lives.” Keith Buffinton, dean emeritus of Engineering at Bucknell and co-teacher of the class, says, “We spend a lot of time preparing students academically for their professional lives after graduation but less so on their human development—their values and sense of purpose and how those align with what they decide to do. We chose to offer this seminar so seniors will ask themselves these important questions before they leave here.”
Mental and Behavioral Health
Main Stories
New survey data from Gallup show that female college students are more likely to report high stress and less enjoyment in life than their male peers. Among females, 72% say they felt high levels of stress in the past day, compared to 56% of male students. Men in college are also more likely to have enjoyed at least part of their previous day, with 83% of men reporting feeling enjoyment, compared to 72% of women.
In an op-ed in Diverse Education, Dr. Annelle B. Primm, senior medical director for The Steve Fund, asserts that the organization anticipates the Supreme Court ruling eliminating race-conscious admissions “will dramatically reduce the number of students of color in selective higher education institutions,” and will have a profound mental health impact. “We believe that the discontinuation of affirmative action will increase isolation and decrease a sense of belonging among students of color, both of which pose risks to mental health,” she writes. “In an environment with fewer students of color, these students may experience a sense of otherness, unbelonging, and pressure to represent their race. These can contribute to chronic stress and mental health concerns such as anxiety and depression and can ultimately have a negative impact on academic achievement and graduation.”
Other News
Forbes reports that Dartmouth College is convening all seven living US Surgeons General for a discussion of the nation’s mental health crisis next month. Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock, who is hosting the event, says, “Nationwide, mental health is an urgent challenge that healthcare professionals, educators, and leaders at every level must address head on.” Beilock is a cognitive scientist specializing in the psychological factors that affect human performance and has made improving the mental health and wellness of the Dartmouth community a priority. She adds, “As institutional leaders, researchers, doctors, and thinkers, we in higher education have an imperative to go beyond bestowing knowledge—we have a responsibility to identify and address root causes of the crisis while also providing young people with the tools they need to feel healthy and connected.”
Data released by the CDC show that suicides decreased by 8.4% among 10-to-24-year-olds last year. However, suicide rates overall went up last year, and were highest in older and middle-aged adults. Rates were up by 8.1% among Americans 65 and over, and they were up 6.6% among adults between the ages of 45-to-64.
A new study published in the American Journal of Health Education investigated time management and its relationship with sleep health in college students. Researcher Dr. Adam Knowlden, associate professor of health science with the University of Alabama College of Human Environmental Sciences, found that three factors associated with time management–setting goals and priorities, mechanics of time management, and preference for organization– significantly influenced the overall sleep quality of college students. According to Knowlden, more than 65% of college students describe their sleep quality as poor, and time management explained around 20% of the sleep quality outcomes measured. “College students tend to deal with lifestyle-related sleep problems,” says Knowlden. “For example, balancing academic and social obligations can be challenging for college students. Stress and anxiety also impact college students and we know that stress can impact the sleep quality college students receive by causing insomnia.”
Time magazine reports that parents of teens are struggling with depression and anxiety nearly as much as their children. According to two nationally representative surveys, “About 20% of mothers and 15% of fathers reported anxiety, compared to 18% of teens. About 15% of teens reported depression, alongside 16% of mothers and 10% of fathers.” Overall, about one-third of teens had a parent suffering from reported anxiety or depression. “Our data suggest that we would be just as right to sound the alarm about the state of parents’ mental health as about teens’ mental health,” writes Richard Weissbourd, director of the Making Caring Common Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, one of the authors of the report, Caring for the Caregivers: The Critical Link between Parent and Teen Mental Health.
In The Conversation, Roxanne Prichard, professor of Psychology at the University of St. Thomas, highlights key findings from her recent study which showed that “experiencing discrimination significantly harmed the well-being of Asian and Asian American college students in the U.S. during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Diversity Equity, and Inclusion
In a Dear Colleague letter, the Biden administration offered guidance on how race could still play a role in admissions, offering “do’s and don’ts.” The administration says that a college could consider an application essay about being “the first Black violinist in his city’s youth orchestra,” or overcoming prejudice at a rural high school “where [someone] was the only student of South Asian descent.” The administration also says schools still may consider race among other factors in recruitment as they identify prospective students, and have broad latitude in efforts to retain underrepresented students through diversity and inclusion programs.
The New York Times reports on the rise of the “identity-driven essay,” as admissions offices add question prompts to their applications that use words and phrases like “identity” and “life experience,” and delve into students’ upbringings and backgrounds. In their affirmative action ruling, The Supreme Court warned that a candidate’s race could only be used in the context of their life story.
Inside Higher Ed reports on the “overcorrection” some colleges made in the face of the Supreme Court’s decision on race-conscious admissions. Western Illinois University eliminated a scholarship for students of color, informing students who had been promised funds that they were no longer available, only to reverse the decision and reinstate the scholarship weeks later. James Murphy, deputy director of higher education policy for Education Reform Now, says that more institutions could make similar defensive decisions in the absence of federal guidelines. According to Shaun Harper, director of the University of Southern California’s Race and Equity Center, underprivileged students of color lose the most in those situations. “Colleges will convince themselves there’s a real risk of losing federal funding if they are seen as being in any danger of violating the Supreme Court ruling,” he says. “That’s not a thing that happens. But it is a boogeyman. And when [colleges] are unnecessarily careful, it can lead to a betrayal of the institution’s espoused commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Student Success
In the Conversation, Shelagh McCartney, associate professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Toronto Metropolitan University, and Ximena Rosenvasser, Architecture and Urbanism researcher at Toronto Metropolitan University, discuss their recently-published study on the rise of private student residences over the traditional, shared dorms. They note previous research showing that lack of communal spaces negatively affects students’ academic performance and well-being, and that living on campus is associated with better grade point averages and well-being. According to McCartney and Rosenvasser, “Students’ proximity to campus matters for developing positive relations with faculty and with the campus community [and] common everyday residence life activities, and chance encounters with peers encourages students to meet new people, to socialize and build resilient friendship support networks.”
College Affordability
Higher Ed Dive reports that Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed a budget authorizing $50 million for tuition-free community college, including a program specifically for students ages 25 and older.
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by two conservative groups aiming to block the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan, which would cancel the federal student loans of more than 800,000 people who have been in repayment for more than 20 years.
