Dear Common Application CEO Jenny Rickard: In advising transfer students, I discovered several incongruencies which, although did not prevent a student from submitting his applications on time, created undue stress and confusion in the hours before the deadline expired. I offer the following feedback for you and your colleagues to consider, as a means of continuous improvement to provide the…
In spring when high school juniors begin devising their lists of colleges in preparation for fall applications, panic can quickly arise, when asked the typical first question, “What do you want to study in college?” which to a teenager translates to: “I must choose a career, right now at seventeenish years old, sign my name in blood and risk sacrificing…
As the numbers of diagnosed COVID cases wanes and more Americans are being vaccinated, the desire to re-open schools seems to be increasing. In a recent Pew Research poll, more Americans believe that students need in-person interaction to continue their academic progress: Yet, in the same poll, 59% of respondents also believe schools should wait to reopen until all teachers…
Artie Shaw, the renowned Jazz clarinetist said, “Success is an opiate.” Success is not what people think of you, not what you do, the awards you receive or the material trappings you have collected. Instead, confidence in one’s purpose, a calling that defines a higher esteem, an evolution of our spirit, often requires a Guru to show us the path. …
Starting in March 2020, first former President Trump, then President Biden have automatically suspended accrual of Federal student loan interest, as well as deferred student loan repayment for every borrower. According to Federal tax law, all borrowers can claim a deduction of the student loan interest paid during the previous tax year. Yet given the automatic deferment of interest for…
The most recent underemployment figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, indicating that 43% of 22-27 year old college graduates who are working in jobs that do not require their university degrees, show a nearly 2% increase from February 2020, pre-COVID economic disruption. Yet, as college graduates are usually the last cohort to be more widely affected in…
On January 21, 2021 by executive order, President Biden continued the suspension of all Federal student loan payments as well as interest until September 30, 2021. With President Biden’s extension, student loan borrowers will be granted a total of 18 months of loan and interest deferment, since payments were suspended since the enactment of the CARES Act in March 2020. …
The sentiments of a current second-year college student attending a public flagship university in California when reflecting on the perils of the academic meritocracy: Rewarding/punishing requires less effort [by faculty and students] though, making it the easier default [system for measuring academic performance]. Assigning expectations, whether positive or negative, is a low-effort path that leads to lots of power/authority [on…
So, said Warren Buffet, net worth $86 billion. Tuition can be a measurement of value, as in, “What’s the value of the education for the number of dollars exchanged?” When families question the “affordability” of a particular college, as in, “Do I have enough money to pay for X College?”, they’re in essence determining the value of one college’s education for…
Confirmed COVID cases are rising at different rates amongst the different regions in the United States and globally just as many college students will be released from their campuses at the Thanksgiving Break. As they begin traveling home, students may have to quarantine once again, just as they did to start the school year, but in their home states or…
To discuss the successes and implications of Bowdoin College’s iPad initiative to deliver education and maintain community ties, Bryan Alexander of the Future Trends Forum hosted Michael Cato, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Bowdoin College and Creative Marbles’ Jill Yoshikawa EdM. Michael discussed Bowdoin’s ambitious program, distributing an iPad, Apple Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil 2, as…
For the first time in four weeks, less than 800,000 people filed new unemployment claims (those who have lost their jobs and now seek financial relief from either state or federal government) during the week ending October 17, 2020. Yet, the pre-COVID job market is slow to recover post the March 2020 financial tantrum, as the reduction can mean a…
The Modern College, a place where students guided by mentors, supported by peers, experiment with adult responsibilities, free to discover their life’s purpose, only impersonates its Pre-COVID self. To mitigate health risks of the pandemic, in March and again in Fall 2020, university administrators are restricting students’ freedoms, for which they believe they must, yet, in doing so, their actions…
The 2020-21 virtual K-12 schooling experiment, born of necessity from the wholesale disruption of the modern educational process and haphazardly planned and implemented by an institutional elite that does not have to practice managing entrepreneurially since the educational industry is relatively monopolistic, is failing for a variety of reasons. Although I admit that the sample of students I’ve polled (public…
Creative Marbles’ Jill Yoshikawa was a featured guest on Your California Life, a local morning telecast in Sacramento, California, discussing the COVID-related disruption of education on high school and college students, as well as their families. For more information about how Jill Yoshikawa, EdM, a UC San Diego and Harvard alum, helps students and parents navigate the complex college admissions…
