The percentage of graduate students who are members of minority groups continues to increase, according to an annual survey of graduate schools released on Thursday. The Survey of Graduate Enrollment was conducted jointly by the Council of Graduate Schools and the Graduate Record Examinations Board.

The survey found that while graduate enrollments increased by 2 percent this year, most of that growth came from upturns in the number of minorities, women and students from overseas pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees. The trendlines for white students, males and U.S. citizens or permanent residents, meanwhile, remained flat.

Kenneth E. Redd, the director of research and policy analysis at the council, said he attributed the boost in international enrollment (documented in another recent CGS report) to efforts by Congress and the State Department to ease the process of entering the United States on a student visa. The U.S. “is still seen as the premier place in the world to study, particularly for students from India and China, which are our two largest sending countries,” he said. (more…)

The college application process is daunting as it stands, and now students are facing another obstacle in putting their best foot forward to the college admissions departments. Students profiles on their favorite social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace may now play a roll in the admissions process. Only a few schools are admitting to it, but if you have a profile that you may not want a college admissions director peeking at, read on.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but is it worth your future?

The Daily Collegian – The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth recently completed a study that found that 21 percent of college admissions departments now use the Internet to look at the online profiles of potential students when reviewing applications.UMass Dartmouth looked at the policies of 452 college admissions departments to determine how many of them included Web sites like Facebook, Myspace, Friendster, and Livejournal as part of the application process. The study also found that 26 percent of these colleges are using Google to research prospective students.

These practices have become widely used by potential employers, but now many colleges and universities are using the technique to learn more about students. SAT scores, GPAs, letters of recommendation, and essays are no longer the only things being considered for acceptance by many schools. (more…)

TOKYO (AP) – Japanese already use cell phones to shop, read novels, exchange e-mail, search for restaurants and take video clips. Now, they can take a university course. Cyber University, the nation’s only university to offer all classes only on the Internet, began offering a class on mobile phones Wednesday on the mysteries of the pyramids.

For classes for personal computers, the lecture downloads play on the monitor as text and images in the middle, and a smaller video of the lecturer shows in the corner, complete with sound.

The cell phone version, which pops up as streaming video on the handset’s tiny screen, plays just the Power Point images.

In a demonstration Wednesday at a Tokyo hotel, an image of the pyramids popped up on the screen and changed to a text image as a professor’s voice played from the handset speakers.

Cyber University, which opened in April with government approval to give bachelor’s degrees, has 1,850 students. (more…)

Online photography schools, colleges, and universities provide opportunities to learn the art of photography at home, at your own pace, with no time limits. Distance learning and online photography school courses can be comprehensive, detailed, and technical for developing the skills of a professional photographer. Courses begin when you are ready to enroll.

Students should expect online photography school instruction to be presented in a clear, step-by-step approach, with illustrated text. Studies in exposures, lenses, and techniques accompanied by hands-on projects will provide professional training for earning the selected degree.

Online photography colleges and universities offer Associate of Arts (AA), Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), and Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degrees from accredited institutions. Also available are certificates in photography, as are individual classes meant simply for the pleasure of learning this art. (more…)

Imagine earning a college degree – listening to lectures, taking exams and trading ideas with professors and classmates – without ever stepping into a classroom. As many as 20 percent of college students have traded in campus classes for computer connections.

A fledgling concept a decade ago, online education has become a hefty chunk of America’s higher education system.

More than two-thirds of all colleges and universities are now offering classes over the Internet. In the fall of 2006, about 3.5 million students were taking at least one college course online, more than twice the number in 2002, according to a report by the Sloan Consortium, an online-education advocacy group.

As defined by the Sloan report, online courses are classes in which at least 80 percent of the content is delivered online with no face-to-face meetings. They use computer software through which students can access lectures, assignments and other course materials, communicate with teachers and other students, and take tests. (more…)

The days of the “good old boys” fire department is fast becoming history. With the advent of more scientific knowledge of fire behavior, college education has become the way to secure a firefighter job and a way to progress up the career ladder.

A degree in fire science will give you an edge when it comes time for job interviewing and testing. Advancement into officer positions will be easier with a degree in fire science.

An online degree program allows you to do your course work around your shift schedule. If you are interrupted while doing online work, it is still available 24/7. (sort of like a firefighter). As long as you have a computer, you can do your assignments. Some programs allow you to complete a bachelor’s degree in 24 months with an accelerated program.

Classes focus on life safety, fire suppression, fire investigation, administration, fire protection, fire prevention, and safety programs. Eastern Kentucky University has an online degree program. (more…)

More and more young people are choosing non-traditional education to start and advance in their careers while completing and furthering their formal education. “Typical distance learners are those who don’t have access to programs, employees who work during scheduled class hours, homebound individuals,self-motivated individualswho want to take courses for

self-knowledge or advancement, or those who are unable or unwilling to attend class” (Charp, 2000, p. 10). Three key elements surround the online learner: technology, curriculum, and instructor (Bedore, Bedore, & Bedore, 1997). These elements must be keenly integrated into one smoothly and operationally functional delivery tool.

While an online method of education can be a highly effective alternative medium of education for the mature, self-disciplined student, it is an inappropriate learning environment for more dependent learners. Online asynchronous education gives students control over their learning experience, and allows for flexibility of study schedules for non traditional students; however, this places a greater responsibility on the student. In order to successfully participate in an online program, student must be well organized, self-motivated, and possess a high degree of time management skills in order to keep up with the pace of the course. For these reasons, online education or e-learning is not appropriate for younger students (i.e. elementary or secondary school age), and other students who are dependent learners and have difficulty assuming responsibilities required by the online paradigm. (more…)

Just when you’ve convinced yourself that majoring in a foreign language won’t doom your chances for a job after graduation, someone gives you second thoughts.”Try explaining to your father, a chemist with a PhD, that you not only want to major in English literature, but also French — with a writing concentration — at a liberal arts college,” says 24-year-old Jennifer Epting, a 2003 graduate of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Epting stresses that both her parents have always supported her decisions, including this one. “But they were also very wary of the job opportunities I faced when I graduated,” she says.

They needn’t have worried. Epting is now happily employed as a development and communications associate at the French-American School of New York in Mamaroneck, where she writes the school’s French-English newsletter, communicates with francophone parents and faculty and translates French documents to English, among her many job duties. (more…)