Welcome to your one-stop spot for all things university! As 20 something amateurs at life, the owners of this blog are totally qualified to be giving out advice. So click your heart away and we'll do our best to help you smoothly navigate this journey we call college. That is...as smoothly as any emotionally exhausting/life changing experience can be. Feel free to submit questions! Our contributors include: Jessica (University of California, Berkeley '16) Ky (Stanford University '16) Cassie (University of Idaho '16) Lola (University of Southern California '16) Mary (University of San Diego '16) **Please note that ASOUCA is currently under construction. So be patient and we'll get back to you as soon as possible**
I heard that Stanford University rejected a record 95 percent of the students who applied this year. Which will get awkward at freshman orientation, when there’s just one kid. “Should I do a trust fall with myself?”
Jimmy Fallon’s Monologue, April 9 2014 (via fallontonight)
Two years ago I made a college choice, but was it the right one? The honeymoon phase has long since passed, and my peers and I complain about different parts of campus. We often look at other schoo…
Is it bad to graduate from college in five years instead of four? There's so much I want to study, and because of my major in nursing and my premed classes, I won't be able to study everything I want in the first two years.
Only about 44% of student graduate college in four years, so if it takes more than four years, it’s not a big deal.
However, you should be really careful taking a lot of classes freshman and sophomore year that are just for fun. It’s expensive and you could burn out after a few semesters. Everyone gets tired of college at one point or another, but it’s a lot worse when you’ve taken 72 hours and you’re not even half-way to your degree because you got distracted with other classes.
If you attended a U.S. college in the late 1960s, your parents might have worried about protests and other campus goings-on, but at least they were less likely to go broke paying your tuition bills.
How big a bite does sending the kids to college take out of a typical family’s income today compared to a generation ago? About twice as big. Since 1969, the average cost of college has almost doubled compared with the median family income. That cost includes tuition, fees, and room and board for full-time students at degree-granting institutions—for both public and private colleges and universities.
Back then, the average cost came to $9,502 after adjusting for inflation, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. By 2012, the average was $19,339. With a typical family earning $51,017—the U.S. median income—college tuition for just one child will absorb almost 40 percent of their income. That surpasses housing as the single biggest household expense.
It’s a Plane. It’s a Yacht. No, It’s Your Tuition Bill
Jayce Marcus is suing George Fox University in Oregon after the school denied him housing on the basis of his gender identity.
Marcus, a trans man, applied to live in one of the Christian university’s on-campus male residences. He received a letter from the dean of community life saying that his request was denied; the school is in the process of implementing a policy that requires students be assigned housing based on their sex assigned at birth, based on the school’s “theological and philosophical statement.”
George Fox University did offer Marcus a conditional one-year waiver from the school’s off-campus housing regulations. He was originally offered the ability to live off campus with other men provided that the school ensured that his potential roommates were briefed on Jayce’s trans history, and that he legally changed his name and gender on his driver’s license, Social Security card, and birth certificate by June 1.
Because Marcus was born in Tennessee, a state that prohibits a change of gender on birth certificates, he would not be able to comply with those restrictions. The school agreed to remove that requirement. At a later date, the school also offered Marcus the option to stay in a single dorm room on-campus, though that generated concerns that isolation from the rest of the student body would be a form of discrimination in itself.
This isn’t even a case of a school not knowing how to respond to a trans student — this school has recognized that trans students exist and is actively taking steps to discriminate against them. Please, administrators, tell me more about your school’s supposed morality.
This is The Holy List: http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2013/09/18/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need-2014
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