Students Make Costly Mistakes With Financial Aid
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One woman used her student loan to make a down payment on a car. Another student charged her entire family’s new cellphones to her new credit card, at the request of her father. Other students overspent their aid at the beginning of the semester and had to get meals from the local food pantry charity [...]
Congress OKs Renewal of Higher Education Act
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With just days to spare before the August congressional recess, Congress on Thursday approved a final Higher Education Act reauthorization bill that would bolster collaboration between school districts and teacher-preparation programs, encourage colleges to hold down tuition costs, and simplify the main federal student-aid application. A bipartisan majority in both chambers approved the bill, the [...]
Fellowships Aim to Nurture Research Talent
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For Kirsten Kainz, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, $35,000 buys a lot of time. Time, that is, to pursue her own research passions, to hone methodological skills, and to learn from and collaborate with mentors or other scholars doing similar work.
Ms. Kainz is among hundreds of education researchers across [...]
20,000 graduates overcharged for student loans
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More than 20,000 graduates were overcharged on their student loan repayments last year. They have forfeited hundreds of pounds in overpayments because money is still being deducted from their salaries despite having paid back the full amount they owe on their student loans. Figures given to MPs for the first time show that 20,900 young [...]
Deprived white boys inspired by ripping yarns, Ofsted says
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White boys from deprived backgrounds need action-packed stories about danger or sport to inspire them in lessons, Ofsted, the education regulator, said yesterday. They do worse at school than any other group, which has increased concerns that white, working-class boys are becoming an educational underclass.
Advice on how schools should engage with such pupils was published [...]
Ed Balls: SATs? It’s gas prices that could wreck Brown’s autumn, warns his great ally
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For a cabinet minister at the heart of a storm, Ed Balls is in a calmly expansive mood. The Schools Secretary has faced scathing headlines about exams that have gone unmarked or in some cases marked erratically. But Balls breezes confidently into his large office overlooking Westminster Cathedral and for the next hour and a [...]
Oxbridge still too exclusive
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David Blunkett, the former education secretary, will this week reignite the row between the Labour Party and Oxford and Cambridge over whether the universities are doing enough to encourage state school pupils to apply.
In an interview, he will accuse Cambridge of only paying “lip service” to widening access to state pupils. He also accuses Oxford [...]
Full Scale of Sats Fiasco Revealed
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As many as one in four pupils could have their test scores reviewed because of the fiasco engulfing the exam system, head teachers have warned. A mass remark on this scale – potentially involving the papers of 300,000 children – would plunge the exam system into new chaos and call into question the competence of [...]
Jewish schools should join state sector says report
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Orthodox Jewish schools should join the state sector so they receive public funding, but be exempt from part of the national admissions code for five years, a report said yesterday. The Commission on Jewish Schools also voiced concern about the significant proportion of parents who were unwilling or unable to offer voluntary contributions to state [...]
A-Level students given chance to swap university
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Students who do better than expected in their A levels will be given five days to trade up to a better university from next year. The reform will provide a vital second chance for pupils whose teachers have wrongly underestimated their A level grades or who were not confident enough of their own academic abilities [...]
