The Other SAT (StraighterLine Aptitude Test)

If you’ve been paying attention to the posts on this blog, you know that we took a swipe recently – a BIG swipe – at the stranglehold that the Scholastic Aptitude Test has on American higher education.

What can we offer as an alternative? In the interest of fair play, we are offering up an SAT of our own – the StraighterLine Aptitude Test. So sharpen up your pencil, put fresh AAA’s in your calculator and here we go . . .

MATH SECTION

1. A small state college charges $250 per credit hour and requires you to take a minimum of four courses a semester, each carrying three credit hours. At StraighterLine, you can take those same four courses for $39 apiece*. Your total savings for taking those four courses at StraighterLine would be:
a) $150
b) $2,844
c) $39,965
d) All of the above
*after paying $99/month for as long as you are enrolled; that sum is not included in the calculations for this question.

WRITING SECTION

2. Paying an extra $2,844 to earn 12 college credits could only be described as ______.
a) Insane
b) Irrational
c) Irresponsible
d) All of the above

READING SECTION

Read the following passage and answer the question that follows it.

Given the current recession, families are becoming belligerent when faced with rising college expenses that can often rise to $40,000, $50,000 or even more in the current educational arena.

3. In the above passage, the word “belligerent” (line 1) most closely means:
a) Angry
b) Hostile
c) Argumentative
d) All of the above

ESSAY SECTION

Read the following quote from a recent article in BusinessWeek:

“The idea of some kind of open-source, online, low-cost revolution in education has become a lit fuse, sparking and crackling its way toward an explosion. Here and there, in places ranging from Silicon Valley to Indonesia, a few bold universities and entrepreneurs are taking pokes at the concept. Start-ups such as StraighterLine . . . are offering online courses for college credit for hundreds of dollars, compared with thousands of dollars at most universities.”

Assignment: Write an essay that answers the question, “Is there ever a justification for spending a minimum of $2,844 to pay for four college courses, when you can save that amount at StraighterLine for the same four courses?" Support your viewpoint with personal observations and supporting material of your choice.

How to Submit Your Score

Not all colleges will accept the Straighterline Aptitude Test in place of the standard SAT. But we will! Contact us now to find out how to get started.

Answer key:
Question 1: B
Question 2: D
Question 3: D

Related Posts
The Final Four: Why It Costs More to Sit in the Stands than it Costs to Earn College Credits
Breaking the SAT’s Choke Hold on American Education
3 Classic Study Strategies that Speed Online Learning
Why Online Study Takes the Risk Out Of Learning

Related Training
College for $99 a Month
Online College Algebra Course
English Composition Online Course
Macroeconomics Online Course
Online Accounting Course

The Final Four: Why It Costs More to Sit in the Stands than it Costs to Earn College Credits

Which costs less – attending college basketball games or earning college credits?

Okay, that’s a trick question. But before you answer it, here’s some perspective. Let’s say that you’d like to head out to Indianapolis to watch the men’s NCAA Final Four, or off to San Antonio to watch the women’s. Good for you, but you’d better bring suitcases full of money.

If you visit the NCAA’s Website and click on the “buy tickets now” tab, you will find a variety of packages that let you reserve game tickets and hotel rooms. (These packages are not sold by the NCAA, but by sports travel packagers.) And guess what? If you are traveling alone, you will have to pay about $2,500 for a package that includes a five day/four night stay in a hotel and tickets to the games. If you are traveling in a group of four and you don’t mind bunking with your friends, you can cut that cost to about $1,500 apiece. Those rates don’t include airfare – but they do include hotel breakfasts and a lanyard for each member of your party. (Hopefully, a pretty nice lanyard.)

If you compare those sums to the cost of earning college credits at StraighterLine, you will find that earning college credits really does cost a lot less than basketball tickets. At StraighterLine, you can take as many online college courses as you like for $39 apiece after paying a monthly fee of $99 for as long as you are enrolled in the program.

With the money you save, you can become a college student instead of just watching them run around in short pants. You can also use the money to buy a flat-screen TV to watch the NCAA finals. And after those expenditures, you’ll still have money left to buy lanyards for all your friends.

So think about it. StraighterLine is an extraordinary bargain.


Related Posts
How Distance Learners Can Make College Rock
Why Online Study Takes the Risk Out Of Learning
Can the U.S. Government Help You Pay for College?
How to Beat the Hidden (and Very High) Costs of Applying to College

Related Training
College for $99 a Month
Online College Algebra Course
English Composition Online Course
Macroeconomics Online Course
Online Accounting Course

Breaking the SAT’s Choke Hold on American Education

Did you know that the first Scholastic Aptitude Test was administered way back in 1901?

Fewer than 1,000 students took it that year. Over the years, the SAT grown from a psychological experiment into a test that is taken by between 1.5 and 2 million students every year, at $45 a pop. Educational Testing Service (ETS), the organization that administers the SAT, doesn’t like to tell how many students line up to take the test annually.

The SAT has become a staggering money-maker for ETS, and for dozens of other businesses that swim alongside it like those remora fish that swim next to sharks, scavenging the dollars that ETS has somehow let slip through its jagged teeth. These hangers-on include tutoring companies that charge jumbo fees to coach students to take the test. Also, publishers that churn out new manuals every year on how to ace the test. Plus, software companies that sell packages designed to help kids boost their scores.

And let’s not forget there is another test, the ACT, has entered the field of battle too. The ACT is administered by a nonprofit organization. It was planned as a rational alternative to the SAT. Good idea! But the bottom line is, students still have to pay $32 to take it – or $47 if they opt for the longer version that includes a writing section. And many students today are taking both tests, just to see how they do.

Just how much money are students feeding into this educational meat grinder every year? Again, it’s anybody’s guess. But even if only 1.5 million kids are paying $45 apiece to take the SAT, that alone is stuffing $67.5 million into ETS’s coffers. And that’s just the foundation under all the SAT-spawned businesses. In total, the profits generated from this one test probably come close to the GNP of a third-world country.

It all begs the question, why is the SAT test still in business? There are many justifications for it – it helps students gain access to competitive colleges, and so on. But let’s face it. The SAT is mostly a service provided to colleges and universities, not to students. For colleges and universities, the SAT offers a quick way to discourage under-qualified students from choking their admissions offices with applications. Also, the SAT serves as a down-and-dirty tool for eliminating under-qualified students from consideration after they have applied. Into the dumpster go the applications from students with SAT scores that fall below a cut-off point that the college has determined. In an admissions office with applications piling high, that’s a valuable tool to have.

So, if the colleges and universities are the entities that benefit from the SAT, why don’t they pay for students to take it, instead of forcing the student to pay? It’s just another one of the cruel ironies about the SAT.

In light of the fact that the SAT generally benefits the schools instead of the students, why aren’t more ethical educators speaking up against the test? Actually, many are. A growing number of institutions are no longer requiring their applicants to submit scores from either the SAT or the ACT. They include specialized schools (such as the Beth Yehuda Yeshiva in Pennsylvania, the Baptist Bible College in Missouri, and a number of fine arts schools), but also more prestigious institutions that include Drew University in New Jersey, Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania, and the schools in the University of California system.

Fighting Back . . .

How can you avoid feeding bushels full of dollars into the standardized testing monster?

• You could apply for an SAT fee waiver, which ETS makes available to some needy students.
  
• You could apply only to colleges that no longer require standardized tests.
  
• Another way? Start out at StraigherLine, and start earning college credits with no standardized testing requirements whatsoever. Then consider transferring your StraighterLine credits to Potomac College or one of StraighterLine’s other affiliated, accredited colleges.

Yes, there is a better way. And do you know what? You just found it.


Related Posts
3 Classic Study Strategies that Speed Online Learning
Why Online Study Takes the Risk Out Of Learning
Can the U.S. Government Help You Pay for College?
How to Beat the Hidden (and Very High) Costs of Applying to College

Related Training
College for $99 a Month
Online College Algebra Course
English Composition Online Course
Macroeconomics Online Course
Online Accounting Course

The New York Times Questions that Value of For-Profit Trade Schools

We all know that there’s a boom happening in post-secondary trade schools. Chances are that you have seen some of them opening their doors not far from where you live. Some of these schools can teach you to be a chef or a computer technician. Others will train you to be an electrician, a medical information processor or an X-ray technician.

There’s a reason why these schools are booming. Some of them offer training for professions where a lot of hiring is actually taking place. Some of them offer lots of job-placement assistance to their grads. And most of them help incoming students qualify for federal loans and other sources of financial aid.

Yet a recent article in the New York Times, “The New Poor: In Hard Times, Lured into Trade School and Debt,” reports some troubling news about how trade schools are conducting business. Here’s a summary of what Peter S. Goodman, the author’s article, found out:

• The tuition is no bargain. The national average is $14,000 a year. Some students are paying $30,000 a year or more.

• Many of the schools derive a large part of their profits from “harvesting” federal student aid dollars, including Pell grants that were created to help low-income students. “For-profit schools have long derived the bulk of their revenue from federal loans and grants,” Goodman writes, “and the percentages have been climbing sharply.” One example: According to the article, the Apollo Group, which owns the University of Phoenix, “derived 86 percent of its revenue from federal student aid last fiscal year. . .”

• Some trade schools exaggerate the number of jobs that are awaiting their graduates. Goodman interviewed one student who racked up $30,000 in loans to train to become an auto body craftsman – but who is now earning $12 an hour repairing foreclosed homes.

So the bottom line is . . .

Remember the old saying, “Let the buyer beware.” Investigate any school, and its placement percentages, before enrolling. And remember, earning college credits through online study at an institution like StraighterLine is still the greatest educational bargain on the landscape today.

Related Posts
Why Online Study Takes the Risk Out Of Learning
Can the U.S. Government Help You Pay for College?
How to Beat the Hidden (and Very High) Costs of Applying to College

Related Training
College for $99 a Month
Online College Algebra Course
English Composition Online Course
Macroeconomics Online Course
Online Accounting Course