There have been some budget cuts proposed for the 2012 Department of Education by President Obama. Under these budget cuts, $100 billion would be taken from the Federal Pell Grant program along with other programs for higher education.

Currently, over nine million students classified as low income receive grant benefits from the Pell Grant Program. With the budget cuts, students will still be able to receive the current maximum of $5,550 per academic year. All students that qualify for Federal Pell Grants do so through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or the FAFSA. If a student’s family income information indicates, they may qualify for a Federal Pell Grant. With the new budget there is a possibility of the criteria being changed to be more stringent. This would mean that some students who previously received grants may no longer be eligible.

Read the rest of this entry »

The incoming freshman class of 2012 is ready to start college! And among their ranks is my personal favorite freshman- my little sister Samantha, who’s starting college this very week at St. Mary’s College in Maryland. You go girl!

So as an, er, “elderly” member of the Rutgers University Class of 1992, it amuses me to think about who these folks in the class of 2012 are. Here’s a few facts about them (with a little help from the Beloit College Mindset List):

• They were born in 1989 and 1990.
• Bush (the first one) was the president when they were born, and the first president they remember is probably Clinton.
• They have no memory of the Gulf War (the first one), and their first major political memory is probably 9/11.
• They have no memory of the Soviet Union, the Cold War, or the Berlin Wall.
• They have little or no memory of rotary phones (it’s the one with the dials, kids), typewriters, vinyl records, or those little yellow things that came in the middle of 45s.

• They rarely use land lines, VCRs, and cassette players..
• Cell phones, iPods, and computers are as ubiquitous as TVs were the the generations before them.
• They grew up with emo and hip hop. Grunge is already retro. (They were in preschool when Kurt Cobain died.)
• They can’t remember a world without cable TV, bottled water, Harry Potter, lots of gay people on television, and The Simpsons..
• Interracial dating is no big deal at all.
• They can’t remember the days before Elmo was on Sesame Street.