University System News:
www.arcamax.com
Merging colleges to cut costs and still boost graduation rates
https://www.arcamax.com/currentnews/newsheadlines/s-1941994?fs
Sophie Quinton, Stateline.org
WASHINGTON — Students who apply to Georgia State University no longer receive a rejection letter if they don’t get in. Instead, they’re invited to enroll in Georgia State’s Perimeter College — the former community college that was absorbed by the Atlanta university last year. Now that the two schools are one, students who attend classes on one of the five Perimeter College campuses can easily transition to complete a four-year degree at the university. Georgia State expanded its system for advising and tracking students to Perimeter College and used money saved through the merger to hire more people to counsel them. In just a year since the schools consolidated, the graduation rate for first-time, full-time students in two-year programs at the college doubled, from 6 to 12 percent. As state policymakers nationwide consider merging colleges to cut costs, Georgia is proving that it’s also possible to use mergers to help students succeed. Preliminary research suggests that the first four mergers in the university system, out of 14 total since 2011, have made students more likely to stay in college. The state’s consolidation strategy may not work in other states. And merging two- and four-year colleges may be the hardest consolidation to pull off. But Tim Renick, who leads Georgia State’s efforts to keep students on track to earn their degrees, said it’s worth asking if it might. The University System of Georgia has fielded calls from policymakers in 10 other states who want to find out how the state has combined colleges so successfully, said Shelley Nickel, executive vice chancellor for strategy and fiscal affairs at the university system.

www.chronicle.com
Here’s a Map of ‘Free College’ Programs Nationwide
http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/heres-a-map-of-free-college-programs-nationwide/117479?elqTrackId=ef07fd112e344fc7aa9646b5a724808d&elq=39eb5e03607444bfb6a174aff7c4066b&elqaid=13207&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=5473
by Chris Quintana
Lawmakers and public-policy advocates are increasingly looking to raise attainment at public colleges and universities through high-profile “free college” efforts, such as one proposed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, that cover basic costs for students attending state institutions. The University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate of School of Education has created an interactive map that highlights programs “designed to increase college attainment in particular places.” The researchers called them College Promise programs and included notable ones like the Tennessee Promise, which guarantees two years of free community college. The programs and their scope vary from providing the full cost of tuition to matching scholarships that cover whatever costs remain unmet after other funding sources are tapped. Many programs are specifically for community colleges, while others include four-year public colleges.
Georgia
GO TO WEBSITE
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Georgia HOPE Grant
Description
ACTIVE
The Georgia HOPE Grant was established in 1993 for residents of Georgia. Awards are given on a first dollar basis and vary based on type of institution. High school graduates must meet merit requirements and can attend any in-state public or private college, university, or vocational program. The program is funded by Georgia’s Lottery for Education.
GO TO WEBSITE
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Georgia HOPE Scholarship
Description
ACTIVE
The Georgia HOPE Scholarship was established in 1993 for residents of Georgia. Awards are given on a first dollar basis and vary based on type of institution. High school graduates must meet merit requirements higher than the Georgia HOPE Grant and can attend any in-state public or private college, university, or vocational program. The program is funded by Georgia’s Lottery for Education.

www.myajc.com
Bragbook for March 31
http://www.myajc.com/news/local/bragbook-for-march/WkUQPF0Mz4F4yWoopYRZyN/
By Shelagh MaRee Hardrich – For the AJC    0
Deborah Choi of Atlanta, Jennie Huynh of Duluth, Nathan Cenatus of Jonesboro, David Nguyen of Lawrenceville and Sagar Rijal of Marietta were part of a team of students at Georgia State University that took first place in the inaugural Healthcare IT Slam hackathon this fall at the university’s Center for Health Information Technology.
Robert Hatcher of Brookhaven, Adesuwa Imafidon of Milton and Michael Carter of Stone Mountain placed among the top four finishers in the Clayton State University Personal Elevator Pitch Competition. They earned $500, $100, and $250, respectively, for their accomplishments.
Rebecca Sullivan of Decatur was awarded the Amanda G. Hyatt Fellowship by the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.
Lori Jouty of Stone Mountain was awarded the Public Management and Policy Scholarship by the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.
Ivie Osaghae and Lashanah Thomas of Atlanta were among the representatives of Georgia State University’s Black Student Alliance that received the university’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian award.

www.albanyherald.com
New buses part of Albany State University Transit plan
City, ASU looking into campus-to-campus Albany Transit bus routes
http://www.albanyherald.com/news/local/new-buses-part-of-albany-state-university-transit-plan/article_58712100-8280-5af6-9cbf-af24db2b3ea7.html
By Carlton Fletcher
ALBANY — Tuesday night’s Albany City Commission meeting offered a mixed bag of city business: everything from the purchase of new buses to shuttle students to and from from Albany State University’s east and west campuses; …The $1.5 million approved by the commission for the purchase of three new Transit buses will, City Manager Sharon Subadan told the board, allow the department to add shuttle service between the two Albany State campuses to its schedule. “We’re in the process of discussing with Albany State incorporating transit service between the two campuses and downtown,” the city manager said. “Two of the new buses would be used for that service, while the other would replace an aging bus in our fleet. And student fees (collected at ASU) would pay for the service on the campus.” Subadan also pointed out that 80 percent of the funding for purchase of the buses will come from federal funds, 10 percent from the state and 10 percent local.

Higher Education News:
www.jbhe.com
Ten Centers for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Coming to College Campuses

Ten Centers for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Coming to College Campuses

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) announced that it will develop 10 Centers for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation at higher education institutions across the country. The centers will engage and empower campus and community stakeholders to break down racial hierarchies, to create positive narratives about all members of the community, and to prepare the next generation of strategic leaders to carry this work forward. The effort is being funded with a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

www.insidehighered.com
Handshake Deal
The rapid growth of Handshake, a career-services platform, is also raising questions about whether some students’ grades are made visible to employers without permission.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/30/career-services-platform-handshake-sees-quick-growth-also-questions-about-data?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=d99e039fa5-DNU20170330&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-d99e039fa5-197515277&mc_cid=d99e039fa5&mc_eid=8f1f949a06
By Carl Straumsheim
College career centers are seeing big boosts in interactions between students and potential employers — a development they credit to Handshake, a talent-recruitment start-up. But many students who have profiles on the platform say they don’t remember listing their grades or even signing up, and some privacy experts are raising questions about the site’s terms of service. Handshake was founded in 2014 by three engineering students at Michigan Technological University in an effort to give students access to a larger number of potential employers, no matter their location, head of business Jonathan Stull and co-founder Garrett Lord said in an interview. …For students, Handshake works a lot like LinkedIn, the professional networking site. Students can build profiles highlighting their academic accomplishments, skills and extracurricular activities, and then make those profiles visible to companies on Handshake that have connected with their university.

www.insidehighered.com
Education Dept. Defends Gainful Employment
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/03/30/education-dept-defends-gainful-employment?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=d99e039fa5-DNU20170330&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-d99e039fa5-197515277&mc_cid=d99e039fa5&mc_eid=8f1f949a06
By Andrew Kreighbaum
The Trump administration defended the gainful-employment rule in federal court Wednesday, suggesting that it may not quickly roll back the regulation designed to crack down on programs graduating students unable to pay down high student loan debt loads. …Republican lawmakers have been outspoken in their criticism of the gainful-employment rule, which was issued last year after two rounds of negotiated rule making and multiple court battles. DeVos declined in a January confirmation hearing to commit to enforcing the rule in response to questions from Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat. The department earlier this month pushed back deadlines for programs to submit appeals of debt-to-earnings ratios, raising concerns among proponents of the rule that the administration would not aggressively enforce it.

www.chronicle.com
Trump’s Proposed Cuts Threaten Colleges’ Key Job-Training Programs
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Trump-s-Proposed-Cuts/239640?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=56858fc8c7e24993bb160b752c582c96&elq=39eb5e03607444bfb6a174aff7c4066b&elqaid=13207&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=5473
By Katherine Mangan
A Valencia College instructor wearing a helmet fitted with virtual-reality goggles demonstrated his welding techniques as the nation’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, looked on. The simulator emitted a sizzling sound of metal joining metal before posting his results — 91 percent accurate — on a computer screen. Clearly impressed, Ms. DeVos tweeted that the Orlando, Fla., college’s advanced-manufacturing training programs, which feed graduates to employers as diverse as Lockheed Martin and Walt Disney World, “prepare students for high-demand careers.” Given her boss’s focus during the presidential campaign on putting Americans back to work, it might seem natural that the secretary’s first college visit would be to a job-training site. But it came just a week after Mr. Trump released a “skinny budget” for the 2018 fiscal year that some fear could put job-training programs on a starvation diet. The proposal, just the starting point for negotiations that are bound to be contentious, would slash the Department of Labor’s budget by $2.5 billion, or 21 percent. It would cut federal support for job-training and employment services, shifting more responsibility to states, cities, and employers.