The envelope finally comes in and you get into your dream school. All that hard work has paid off as you have gotten into Rutgers Camden.

Fast forward four years and you are graduating from Rowan University even though you did not apply there, transfer there or for that case have any sake in that matter.

Well a situation like this is playing out in southern New Jersey. Rutgers Camden is merging with Rowan University, much to the chagrin of many at both universities.

The exact reasons for the merge are unknown but since they are both public universities, finances have to be at the heart of the controversial joining of the two universities.

Well, alright, you say that I don’t go to Rutgers and have never heard of Rowan so why should I care? You should care because this is a new development and one that has a chance to shakeup the college landscape.

Could this be a trend or is it an abnormality? Only time will tell.

A heated debate is going on in New Jersey with both sides bringing up interesting points in favor and against the merge.   I question you, the reader, how would you feel if your college merged with another university?

Would it bother you? After all, think about all those new college sweaters and t-shirts you’d have to by!

Would you feel like you lost your sense of self-identity? Do you really care?

Well time to go ride my bike over the Ben Franklin Bridge into Rutgers Camden. Or wait is it Rowan now? 

~Rich

By the time you reach your mid forties, college is often a distant memory. It is something that you reminisce over, laugh about with friends and share war stories.

Well………There is something else that you do. You pay off your student loans. A recent report found that there is a good chance that college graduates will still be more than $20,000 large ones in debt by the time of age 45.

That’s right, you’ll lose your hair before you lose your student loan debts. Even worse is that 4 out of every 10 adults, above the age of 35, who took out student loans, are still paying them off.

So while you are supposed to be saving up to send your kid off to college you are paying off the balance of your college education. This gives reason to think about how you make your college choices.

Analyze outcomes, choose wisely and save money so that you are not a statistic and a part of the 40% of 35+ year olds who are still paying off student loan debts.

College Miner is here to help choosing the correct college to maximize your investment for you. Get researching!

Matthew Harris, the Co-Founder of College Miner will be one of five panelists at the UMass Boston Center for Innovation and Excellence in eLearning Launch Event on Thursday May 3^rd. The panel will be discussing the methods, challenges, and potential for “The Future of Learning Analytics at UMass”.

The keynote speaker is Todd Rose from CAST (the Center for Applied Special Technology) and with the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He will be talking about the future of education and big data.

The event info is below. If you are unable to attend, the event will be streamed live.

Date: May 3, 2012, Thursday
Time: 10:00am - 12:00pm
Location: Ryan Lounge (McCormack Hall, 3rd Floor)

Live Stream: http://vpc.umb.edu/ciee3may2012launch

Twitter: hashtag #cieeLA

UMass Boston CIEE Launch Event website
http://www.umb.edu/academics/uc/centers/ciee/events/

How would you like to take a free class at Princeton? What about Penn?

No, you do not have to be extremely talented in sports or be a genius to get free education these days as its Coursera to the rescue!

Through Coursera, students can take online classes in which they are instructed by professors from IVY league and other top-notch universities. The quality of professor and the integrity of the curriculum are the same, yet the costs are drastically different, nonexistent.

Now, I know what you are saying, all that glitters isn’t gold. There has to be a catch?

Well sort of, you do not earn credits and some might argue that it is a marketing tool for universities but I say who cares!

It is a free opportunity to learn about topics that interest you and continue in the pursuit of knowledge. After all, that is what education is all about and only knowledge can set you free. Thomas Jefferson would also be proud of you as he was an ardent believer in lifelong education and you don’t want to disappoint one of our founding fathers do you?

As college costs are rising, solutions such as Coursera are refreshing. So what are you waiting for, go learn!

What did you major in or what are you majoring in? Did you change majors?

What are you doing professionally or what do you aspire to do? Does your major coincide with the career path that you’ve taken or aim to take?

Do college majors really matter? That is the question of the hour!

For many people, I’d liken to say that college majors do not matter. Think about it, how many people even know what they want to do, before, during or after college?

I know that I fall in that category. I also know that career paths that I haven walked down have little relevance to some of my schooling. Being able to learn research skills, how to communicate and work amongst a group of peers were the most important skills that I was taught and none of these are college major specific.

I also know that I have interviewed for jobs or accepted jobs in which my major did not matter. Rather many hiring practices involve around looking for someone who can be taught and not what that individual was taught.

Now this isn’t to say that all college majors do not matter. A lot of occupations have an extremely prescriptive path. I.E. Medical, Teaching, etc.

Just some food for thought as you choose a college major or reflect back on your choice.

What do you think?

Well April is here and March Madness has come and gone.

Please don’t ask me who I picked in my bracket. Fine, I’ll tell ya. Ohio State, New Mexico, NC State and Kentucky.

Who faired better than me? Probably most of you!

Anyways, March Madness got me thinking about the astronomical amount of money involved in college athletics. Coaches are often the highest earning employees and at power universities the contracts can be in excess of $5 million dollars.

To me this just seems wrong. Colleges are supposed to be about education, right? Or at least I thought so. A brief look at coach John Calipari’s contract will show otherwise.

What does John Calipari earn a larger bonus for, winning or his students academic success?

Sadly we all know the answer and it is not academics.

Looking at Coach Calipari’s contractual incentive package truly shows how marginalized the importance of academics are in collegiate athletics. His incentives are listed:

·         $50,000 for a SEC regular season conference championship

·         $50,000 for a SEC tournament championship

·         $100,000 for a Sweet 16

·         $175,000 for a Final Four

·         $375,000 for a National Championship

·         $50,000 for a .950 Academic Progress Rate

Academic success is worth drastically less than athletic success at the University of Kentucky and universities all across America. The days of teachers and coaches like the great John Wooden have given way to coaches who only have one real responsibility, win games and often at the expense of ethics.

Now I don’t have a problem with a coach getting paid for doing a job well done. Just don’t pair college athletics with academics because it is not about academics, it is about winning or losing. In the words of the late Al Davis, “Just win baby!”

Well that was my two cents and they are worth much less than an NCAA tournament birth.

Agree? Disagree? No strong feelings?

If you said student loans then you are wrong and move along.

If you said getting a job and paying for it then you are moving closer to the correct answer.

If you said obtaining a scholarship then ding, ding, ding, you are correct and congratulations, you have won an imaginary $10,000 scholarship courtesy of College Miner!

Free is good and free money is even better. College scholarships are a great means to help finance an education and are increasingly of importance as the cost of a higher education continues to escalate.

Now I know that scholarship money might be drying up in a lot of the traditional avenues but that doesn’t mean that money is not out there, it just means that you need to start looking harder.

The Huffington Post did an article on the9 most unusual college scholarshipsavailable. As the article demonstrates, scholarships are out there, just in places that you wouldn’t expect so look into scholarships via public and private sector, get researching and get writing! Most importantly, get creative!

Now who here got college scholarships? What did you get one for and how much? Where did you look?

Enough of me talking so get searching for college scholarships!

So you’re a high school student and you are looking for information on colleges, where can you go? Who at your school can help you?

The answer is but of course, the guidance counselor. A main responsibility of the guidance counselor is to help the student move from confusion to clarity in regards to the college admissions process.

How are we paying our respect to these wonderful people? Laying them off of course!

Naturally it makes sense to lay off the people that can help confused students go from point A to point B, especially at a time in which we make attending colleges a priority.

Luckily for prospective college students there is a plethora of information available and wonderful tools such as College Miner’s very own!

Not everyone knows of College Miner or has used our tool so locating said information could be very difficult.

This is why there need to be guidance counselors present amongst our high schools. Information is key and lets arm our students with it particularly at a time in which they will make one of the largest decisions of their life.

College Miner would just like to say that we salute you to our counselor brethren. Anyone have any great guidance counselor stories?

It’s one of the greatest times in college right now, March Madness! Who do you got?

Who are your Cinderella’s? Could it be Wichita State, Murray State, Long Beach State Or Drexel? Can anybody beat Syracuse or Kentucky?What teams got shafted and were snubbed? Who got seeded too high or too low?

Well in commemoration, it is time to rank and seed the greatest jobs that don’t require a college education. These jobs take the madness out of not going to college.

So lets begin on this selection Tuesday and construct the no college-required bracket.

The contenders are police officers, court reporters, firefighters, airline pilots, air traffic controllers, real estate brokers, construction managers, retail store managers, web designers, computer programmers, entrepreneurs, mechanics, medical assistants, medical coders, and much more.

Before you critique people who do not go to college, remember information is free and some of the people who hold together the fabric of society didn’t go.

So how do you seed it? What would your bracket be?

Forbes has already begun constructing their bracket and so has AOL.

So you just graduated from college?

Congratulations! Now go find a job!

One of the most frustrating moments of the job search for recent college graduates is the fact that entry-level jobs often require two-years of work experience.

It is quite the chicken and the egg experience, how can one get work experience if they cannot get a job?

Well this is why it is important to be strategic when deciding on a university. Job placement statistics for graduating students can be misleading so look for schools who have a good track record of placing their students in internships or offer co-op programs. According to collegeview, approximately 500 colleges and universities have co-op programs and this number is growing. Co-op growth is only to the benefit of the college student as it offers practical experience to compliment academic experience.

In addition, it is vital to make use of your schools career center. Ask what connections that they have within your realm of study. Have them assist you in finding internships, whether it is help with resume writing, mock interviewing or accessing an internal job board.

Think of the benefits of internships or co-op programs. Let’s see:

Hmm… work experience?    

Networking opportunities?    

Additional income for starving college students?    

A few websites dedicated towards internships are as follows:

·         http://www.collegerecruiter.com/ 
http://www.internshipprograms.com/
http://www.summerinternships.com/
http://www.careerrookie.com/