The recession, which is supposedly over, has caused quite a number of bad things to happen. Now, homelessness, hunger, and unemployment aside, one of the worst things that it’s done is to poop on the proverbial parade of idealists across the country. Back when there were plenty of jobs, being a starving liberal arts degree holder had a certain je ne sais quoi, an allure, almost a humor with a side of asceticism–it was obviously a choice, a phase that the adorable little tattooed barista would surely grow out of, bursting from her cocoon of youthful angst and idealism to enter the workaday world well adjusted and slightly cynical like the rest of us.

Personally, I started off at my dream school, majoring in electrical engineering. It took about a year for me to realize that I was not, in fact, an electrical engineer of any kind. I took my first philosophy class, and I was hooked. It drove me positively wild. I’d leave class scribbling notes until I got back to the dorms, where friends were awaiting my arrival to get back to the electrostatics and magnetism homework that destroyed our social lives. I moved from philosophy to creative writing and never looked back. If I had it all to do again, would I opt to stay in electrical engineering? No, not a chance. Did my liberal arts degree affect my hirability? Absolutely–I didn’t qualify for any of those jobs that I didn’t want.

And that’s just it, I wanted desperately to write, and I am. I’ve spent some time teaching English, some time freelance writing, and even more time waiting tables until I got into those positions. When I earned my bachelor’s degree, family came out from all over. Apparently, my grandparents had forgotten that I’d switched majors and even schools part of the way through. This led to a little confusion and a look from my grandmother that said loud and clear: “Well, at least you tried, honey.” I was understandably a little upset about this because I hadn’t tried; I’d succeeded. When I was still waiting tables, I had a woman ask me what I was studying because I seemed so well spoken. When I told her, she said, “Oh, really? I thought you’d be in something difficult.” This all brings me to a bumper sticker I saw today:

Those who have abandoned their dreams will try to destroy yours.

And ain’t it the truth.

Wait, They’re Cutting Liberal Arts?

Colleges around the globe are being hit hard–and on two sides–by the recession. The first side is pretty obvious: budget cuts. Faced with a lack of money, colleges and universities have to make cuts, and the shortfalls have gone on for so long that there’s no more fat to trim, so many schools are looking to the less popular programs–and cutting them. Here’s the problem: liberal arts degrees aren’t vocationally oriented. That is, there is no clear cut path to a career other than teaching, which, let’s face it, doesn’t pay anywhere near enough to motivate the masses.

Once considered the foundation of a Western education, the liberal arts are being outmoded. It’s up to us, the dreamers, the idealists, the people who question contemporary definitions of success, to make our voices heard and encourage others to keep the faith.

Just Add MBA

Don’t suffer through a bachelor’s degree in something you hate doing just because you think it’ll result in more money later. Many companies don’t care what your undergraduate degree is in; if you can convince them that you’re the right person for the job, they’ll train you. Many, many more companies don’t care what your bachelor’s is in if you get an MBA. Earning a master’s of business administration is like being a cake that just got iced with the hiring manager’s favorite frosting. On top of that liberal arts degree, it says, “I’m super smart, eclectic, and good at making money.”

The point here is that pursuing your dream isn’t going to take you out of the running for a great job for the rest of your life. You can always go back for an MBA. you can even earn one online without quitting the job that’s currently putting food on the table. Never let go of your dreams. Life isn’t about doing something you hate, and you are the only one that makes that call.

It’s been spring for just over two weeks, and let me tell you, spring fever is in the air. Setting aside the fact that it snowed last night–blatantly ignoring it, even–the weather is getting nicer. With the sun out and sky that lovely shade of blue that makes you want to go toss a frisbee around, I don’t know about you, but I’m having difficulty staying on task. For college students, this is a particularly bad time to hit with this particularly contagious disease.

That’s right: it’s time for midterms. Friends of mine in graduate programs are cursing huge papers and daunting tests; friends of mine with professorial positions are cursing the coming stacks of grading; and those friends of mine who are lucky enough to be in both camps are being very, very quiet–presumably because they don’t have time even to scream.

As a chronic sufferer of spring fever, I can say that it’s never mattered how busy I was at the time–it always strikes. Even now that I’ve developed allergies and spring also means a runny nose and red eyes, it still drives me wild. Never fear! These years of going absolutely post-solstice bats have taught me some valuable lessons, lessons that I’m more than happy to pass along.

How to Get Things Done Even Though It’s Spring

1. Change your schedule. Like a werewolf under a full moon, the sun transforms you. For this reason, it becomes extremely important to maximize your productive hours (i.e., the dark ones). If you can control your schedule, even a little, do it. Wake up early; get that studying done before the sun starts beckoning. If you can’t get up before the sun’s out, switch this around and get some play in before you head to class. If you’re enrolled in an online degree program, you’ll find this tactic particularly useful.
2. Don’t Deny It. If you fight spring fever, in a few weeks you’ll be dropping to your knees and crying over how beautiful the flowers are. You need to get it out of your system. Get out and play in the sun. Even if that just means riding your bike to class or walking barefoot across the larger lawns on campus.
3. Make Time. Making a schedule and sticking to it is a great way to fight those urges… for a week or two. After that, you’ll start fitting in play time where it doesn’t belong. To avoid this, schedule your time outside. Make it a reward for good behavior and real productivity. Be honest with yourself. If this one doesn’t work, you’re left with the big guns…
4. Close Up Those Windows. This is a productivity last resort. If you can see the sun, the blue sky, or the blooming flowers, you won’t get anything done–and, no, daydreaming about frolicking through fields of wild flowers doesn’t count as productivity. This is for when the dark hours of the day won’t cut it–when you really have something to get done. It’s simple, and it works, at least until you get up from your desk and remember that it is, in fact, freakin’ spring time outside.

This whole process is about achieving balance between studying, class, work, and play time. Be honest with yourself, and be responsible. I promise you’ll get to play frisbee later, but right now, sit down and start hitting the books.

Much like Christmas, Easter has become more of a cultural holiday in the U.S. This Sunday, when you’re hiding eggs around the house, preparing an Easter basket for a loved one, or keeping an eye out for the rarely seen Passover Bunny, add a little bit of learning into the mix.

The Hunt: Gettin’ the Kids to Think Before the Candy Coma

I grew up with a fantastic tradition that I still force my parents to take part in every once in while. Rather than just giving gifts, we’d hide things around the house and outside with clues attached. Eventually, you’d find the goods, but leading up to it you had to use your head. Here’s what you do:

• Hide the Basket. Make it a good spot, somewhere the hunter won’t stumble across it.
• Make Some Clues. There are two ways to go about this. You can make a collection of clues that all go together to point to where the basket is, or you can make a trail of clues. Both lend themselves well to sneaking in some education. Tailor the clues to education level of the person searching for the basket. If you’ve got a third-grader, throw in some easy math or a word puzzle. If you’re trying to keep your college student young at heart, you’ve got plenty of degree-related options. English major? Use Shakespeare quotes to lead the way. Math major? Time for a little calculus.
• Hide the Eggs. Depending on your approach, either hide all of the eggs in plain sight (get creative with this, too–green egg: plant, yellow egg: lamp) or hide them according to the clue-trail you’ve set up.

It’s not too complex, and you’ll have a great time both making up the clues and watching your egg hunters scratch their heads as they collect the Easter booty. You’re never too old for a good old-fashioned egg hunt, so have some fun–and learn a little–this Easter.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wrote an article for ESPN proposing to ban college teams that haven’t graduated at least 40 percent of their players from postseason competition and honors. With March Madness ramping up, this article stirred up quite a bit of controversy.

Boosting Graduation Rates and Academic Accountability in the NCAA

Secretary Duncan is calling for a “boost graduation rates for a number of NCAA tournament basketball teams with poor academic records and indefensible disparities in the grad rates of white and black players,” and the numbers he presents in the article are nothing short of compelling. Frankly, his argument just makes sense. If these colleges can’t graduate just two out of every five players on their team, we shouldn’t be deluding ourselves by calling it college ball–something more on the order of “College-Dropout Ball” or “People-with-Basketball-Skills-Who-Are-Currently-Enrolled-in-a-Few-Classes Ball”.

To put the whole thing in perspective, Duncan writes:

In this year’s NCAA tournament, 12 men’s teams–or about one out of five in the field that started play last week — have failed to graduate 40 percent of their players, based on the NCAA’s expansive graduation rate formula. The NCAA formula allows players six years to graduate–and it does not count transfers or players who leave early to go to the pros against a team’s graduation record, as long as the players leave in good academic standing.

And it goes on…

Five men’s teams in the tournament graduated 20 percent or less of their black players. Two teams–Maryland and Cal-Berkeley–have graduated zero percent of their black ballplayers who entered from 1999 through 2002.

And on…

In this year’s Sweet 16, Butler, Duke, Xavier and Cornell all graduate more than 80 percent of their men’s players. At the same time, four teams–Tennessee, Kentucky, Washington and Baylor–graduated less than 40 percent of their players who entered from 1999 through 2002.

With many of the Division I colleges graduating 100 percent of their players , Secretary Duncan is completely justified in calling out these colleges. The tragedy of the whole situation is that people are genuinely upset about his proposition. Some are suggesting that the players themselves should be banned, not the teams. I can see the logic in this, but the statistics Duncan brought to the table make it, for me at least, more than a little obvious that it isn’t simply the players.

Sure, punishing players by taking away their scholarships or banning them from games would negatively impact the teams with low education standards, but it would also make it possible for the colleges, coaches, and athletic programs themselves to shirk much of the responsibility for the failures. After all, they didn’t ban certain extremist athletes from competing in the 2008 Summer Olympics, they banned Iraq. Don’t hate the players; hate the multi-million-dollar industry that stops caring about them once they’ve done well in the game.

If you haven’t gotten your taxes done yet, don’t worry. You’ve still got a few weeks, and you may even be eligible for more deductions and tax credits than you think. Nothing eases tax-season stress like getting your taxes done early, but getting more money back on your tax return is definitely a close second. Learn more about what you can deduct and what credits you have available to you.

Student Loan Tax Deductions: Yes, You Can Write That Off

Nobody likes paying interest on loans. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get that money back at the end of the year? Guess what–you can… sort of. If you’ve taken the student loan out in your own name, writing it off is pretty straightforward. Here’s the cool part: you can write off the interest for loans that your parents paid for if you are legally liable for the loan and you aren’t claimed as a dependent. The IRS treats the money that your parents paid as if they gave you a gift that you used to pay off the loan.

Even if your parents aren’t involved in the financial side of things, you can write off up to $2,500 in student-loan interest.You don’t even have to itemize to take this deduction, making it that much easier.

Tax Credits for Students

Deductions are great, but credits are better. While deductions just reduce the amount you’re taxed on, credits actually cut down what you pay–dollar for dollar.

• Parents going to school (even working parents who aren’t in school) can qualify for a child-care tax credit. From Kiplinger:

If you pay your child-care bills through a reimbursement account at work, it’s easy to overlook the child-care credit. Although only $5,000 in expenses can be paid through a tax-favored reimbursement account, up to $6,000 (for the care of two or more children) can qualify for the credit. So, if you run the maximum through a plan at work but spend even more for work-related child care, you can claim the credit on as much as $1,000 of additional expenses. That would cut your tax bill by at least $200.

• The Hope Credit is in the process of being replaced by the American Opportunity Tax Credit for the 2009 and 2010 tax years. Both of these credits help you get back some of what you spent on books, tuition, and other school fees, and this year you can pick the one that works best for your situation. The $1,800 Hope Credit has been expanded and improved, thanks to the economic stimulus package. With the new American Opportunity Tax Credit, you can qualify for a rebate of up to $2,500 for the first four years of college for qualifying students (a nice change from the Hope Credit’s only covering the first two years of school). There are still some income limits on this credit, but they’ve been raised to $80,000 or less for individuals and $160,000 or less for married couples filing jointly–after that, the credit is reduced or completely eliminated.
• The Lifetime Learning Tax Credit is very similar to the Hope and American Opportunity Credits, but it can be used for nearly any kind of postsecondary education. If you qualify, you may be able to claim $2,000 per tax return–up to $4,000 total. If you’ve already taken advantage of (or don’t qualify for) the aforementioned credits, this one is for you.

Tax Tips for Students

There are a few little things that can help you out when it’s time for taxes.

• For school-related expenses, keep those receipts!
• Get your taxes done now, not later–midterms are way harder when you’ve got taxes looming
• Don’t feel guilty; write it off!
• When in doubt, talk to the professionals

This year in particular, there are plenty of tax credits for students, parents, first-time home buyers, and a host of others. Chances are, you fall into at least two categories, so make sure you do your tax homework before filing.

Universities across the country are starting to offer three-year bachelor’s degrees. Now, this might sound like a sham, like some kind of bachelor’s lite, but really it’s just a clever way to repackage summer school and heavy course loads. All of the requirements and classes are staying the same, leaving me to wonder just what the big deal is–and it is a big deal to many. Everyone, from senators to heads of major education groups, is weighing in on the three-year degree.

The Reality of the Situation

I earned an old-fashioned four-year degree. It took me five years, two schools, and three different majors.This isn’t uncommon. Nearly all of the friends I made that first year as an electrical engineering major have switched career paths at least once, and none of us made it out in four years. According to the U.S. Department of Education, only 36.1 percent of first-time undergrads who began school in 2000 managed to graduate in four years, and only 57.5 percent made it out in six. In six years, you could finish two of these fantastic “new” three-year degree programs. Unfortunately, two out of every five students can’t manage to finish the one four-year degree.

So, why is this being touted as higher education’s knight in shining? Former U.S. Secretary of Education, Senator Lamar Alexander, compared these three-year degrees to “higher ed equivalent of a fuel-efficient car,” following that nugget of wisdom up by running with the metaphor and calling the traditional option a “gas guzzling four-year course.” Alexander C. McCormick, director of the National Survey of Student Engagement and the voice of reason in this debate, said “it would be nice if institutions actually provided four-year degrees [...] before we think about accelerating.” Amen, brother.

Allowing students to work harder and without vacations does not a new degree make. Sure, you can save some money by getting out in three years, but only if your school charges a flat rate for all the classes you can eat, er, take. If this isn’t the case, you still get to pay for all of your credits.

And will this degree come with some special distinction? Is it an honors program? It certainly has requirements that smack of an honors program. Many universities are requiring participants to enter with at least 12 credits and maintain a 3.0 GPA. Without any clearly stated benefit other than less time in school (meaning less money), this sounds a little like Tom Sawyer extolling the virtues of whitewashing fences.

A new survey from tax, audit, and advisory service provider KPMG has found that today’s college students are entering the job market with an uncharacteristic trepidation. While it makes perfect sense because of this little recession we’ve had, it doesn’t jibe with the characteristic Generation-Y attitude. Depending on who you talk to (and their mood) Gen Yers can be described as everything from optimistic and passionate to lazy and cocky. As Generation Y graduated from college and began to enter the workplace a few years back, companies panicked. Who were these computer-savvy young adults, and why did they think it was okay to show up late to work wearing flip-flops? Would they do any work?

It’s turning out that Generation Y has a great work ethic and brings quite a bit to the table. Bruce Tulgan of RainmakerThinking identified these five characteristics:

• High expectations of self: They aim to work faster and better than other workers
• High expectations of employers: They want fair and direct managers who are highly engaged in their professional development
• Ongoing learning: They seek out creative challenges and view colleagues as vast resources from whom to gain knowledge
• Immediate responsibility: They want to make an important impact on Day 1
• Goal-oriented: They want small goals with tight deadlines so they can build up ownership of tasks

Another characteristic of Gen Yers: they don’t expect to stay in a career for very long–at least they didn’t. The recession has taken its toll on this group.

Priority Shift: Job Security Topping the List

Generation Y first started entering the workplace when things were great. There were plenty of jobs; the world was their oyster. The jump in unemployment over the past year or so has changed their tune. The KPMG survey found that, of the more than 350 students polled, 75 percent said that job security was their top priority when searching for a job–trumping pay and benefits. Not only that, but a full 69 percent of those surveyed said that are more likely to go into graduate school to avoid the harsh hiring conditions.

For a group formerly so concerned about a flexible work environment, balancing work and life (with scales tipping towards the latter), and what an employer can do for them rather than the other way around, this is a notable jump. Whether this priority change will hold remains to be seen, but the general consensus is that when the job market improves, Gen Yers will be up to their old tricks again.

If you think education reform isn’t a big issue, think again. New data shows that the U.S. is still losing ground. It’s estimated that the average Canadian 15-year-old is more than a year past the average American 15-year-old student in school. In fact, out of the more than 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) “only New Zealand, Spain, Turkey and Mexico now have lower high school completion rates than the U.S.,” according to Andreas Schleicher, a senior OECD education official.

The Big Question: Why Are Our Students Slipping Behind?

Well, it isn’t just our schools, which makes things a bit trickier. The students themselves are more difficult to fix. According to Charles Butt, CEO of a supermarket chain in Texas, who spoke in front of the Senate Education Committee, “Schools are inheriting an overentertained, distracted student.” Tom Harkin, who leads the committee, picked up on those words, saying, “Overentertained and distracted–that’s right. The problem lies with many kids before they get to school, and if we don’t crack that nut, we’re going to continue to patch and fill.”

Short of showing up at homes across America and unplugging the myriad electronic distractions, what are we to do about this? Has anyone thought about a parenting reform initiative? Cutting kids off from their video games, computers, and cell phones can be tough, but, frankly, parents are holding all of the cards here. It still bothers me that we require a full series of tests and licenses for driving, but you don’t even have to fill out a form to make a baby.

Perhaps a series of mandatory parenting classes would help solve some of these issues. It could be like traffic school–your kid gets in trouble or fails a few classes, and you have to complete parenting school. It wouldn’t take much to get an online course up and running to this end. It wouldn’t have to be long, just a reminder that parenting is your duty just like obeying the driving laws. If you don’t want to drive safely, you don’t get to use our roads or highways. If you don’t want to be a good parent, you don’t get to use our public school system. Here’s the clincher: your kid still has to go to school (thank you, truancy laws), but now you have to pay for a private school or learn to love home schooling the monster you created.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan spoke today in Selma, AL. The occasion was the 45th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the day in 1965 when hundreds of voting rights protesters were beaten by state troopers. Sec. Duncan spoke from the bridge that the civil rights protesters had marched across on that tragic day.

His overall plan is to tighten and toughen civil rights enforcement on campuses across the country. Before his speech, Duncan told reporters that “Despite how far we’ve come as a country over the last 45 years, we know there are still ongoing barriers to equal educational opportunity in this country.”

Civil Rights in Education: Why Now?

Hardly a year passes without a major civil rights issue in one of our many schools making the news. This might lead a casual observer to think that we’re doing just fine, as many of these issues are resolved positively. It’s the thousands of unreported civil rights violations we don’t hear about that are the problem. “This is the civil rights issue of our generation,” says Duncan. Some shocking statistics highlighted in the Associated Press article on Duncan’s speech:

• A quarter of all students drop out before their graduation, and half of those come from 12 percent of the nation’s high schools. Those roughly 2,000 schools produce a majority of the dropouts among black and Latino students.
• Black students without disabilities are more than three times as likely to be expelled as white students, and those with disabilities more than twice as likely to be expelled or suspended — numbers which Duncan says testify to racial gaps that are “hard to explain away by reference to the usual suspects.”
• Students from low-income families who graduate from high school scoring in the top testing quartile are no more likely to attend college than the lowest-scoring students from wealthy families.

Clearly, we aren’t doing the best job we could. Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights in the Education Department, said, “For us, this is very much about working to meet the president’s goal, that by 2020 we will regain our status in the world as the number one producer of college graduates.” This explains the timing of the new push, and it makes perfect sense. By keeping the disenfranchised youth in school, the Obama administration is beginning the process of stacking the educational-attainment deck in their favor. With more students making through high school, we’ll have more students applying to college–let’s just hope they stay in.

What’s Next for Education Reform?

As higher education suffers from massive budget cuts across the country, hope is springing up in K-12 schools. The Race to the Top competition is nearing its finish, and this new civil rights agenda is promising to say the least. It leaves me wondering what will be next in education reform. Hopefully, we’ll see some funding being dumped into our higher education infrastructure.

More than a decade ago, some fairly conclusive evidence came out that showed a connection between fitness and neurogenesis, the growth of new brain cells. Making a connection between neurogenesis and learning is a no-brainer.

The study that was done involved mice, some of which were allowed to run voluntarily. They tested the mice by having them swim to a platform. Apparently, mice aren’t too keen on swimming, so they take the quickest route to the platform. They used this part of the test to show long-term memory growth. From the article in ScienceDaily:

“We can’t ask a mouse if it remembered where the platform was located, so we measure long-term memory by having them swim to the platform,” said [Terrence] Sejnowski [an HHMI investigator at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies].

After six days of training each group of mice for the swimming task, the researchers began the study. The group of mice that had been exercising made a beeline for the platform. In contrast, the sedentary mice took significantly longer paths and times to find the dock. The path chosen and time taken reflect long-term memory, or how well the mice recall the platform’s location. Based on the swimming test, mice in the exercise group were better able to remember the platform’s location compared to mice in the sedentary group.

Next the researchers looked for changes in the number of nerve cells between the two groups of animals. In comparison to sedentary mice, the brains of mice that exercised had about 2.5 times more new nerve cells.

New nerve cells were not distributed evenly throughout the brain, but were concentrated in the dentate gyrus, a section of a larger area of the brain called the hippocampus. The hippocampus plays a central role in many memory formation processes, including spatial learning–locating objects in the environment–and consciously recalling facts, episodes, and unique events.

Nothing helps you learn like an improved ability to recall facts and events, which means that all of us active mice–er, humans–have a leg up on the competition.

A Whole Lot of Birds, One Stone: Exercise Improves Healing and Relieves Stress, Too!

Other studies have shown quite a connection between exercise and stress relief. Anyone who’s ever gone for a good run (or what have you) after a long day can attest to this. Did you know that exercise also boosts your immune system? Let’s look at a few snippets from three more studies, collected by The Franklin Institute:

1. “In first study, rats that ran on a wheel regularly for four weeks were compared to sedentary rats. In the first experiment, after experiencing 90 minutes of moderate stress, the exercise rats had lower amounts of a protein produced in stress-reactive brain areas, including the prefrontal cortex and amygdala.”
2. “After experiencing 90 minutes of moderate stress, the exercising rats released less of the adrenaline-like hormone norepinephrine than did sedentary rats, when both groups were under stress.”
3. “In the third study, the rats were infected with E. coli bacteria. The exercise rodents had an increased migration of bacteria-attacking white blood cells to the infection site, and their healing time increased by three to four days.”

The lesson here? Exercise is fantastic for you and for your brain. If you’re looking for some quick stress relief, you should be lacing up those running shoes.

School Can Be Stressful: Pick Up a New Hobby to Stay Fit

School is stressful at almost every level, from the elementary-schooler dreading a spelling test to the doctoral candidate preparing to defend her dissertation. Getting a hobby provides you with a little respite from reality. Rather than going from a fluorescent-lit classroom or cubicle to a fluorescent-lit gym, get outside! A good hike, a great trail run, a thrilling mountain bike ride–things like these give you the time and space you need to decompress, all the while giving you the exercise you need to stay healthy.

Picking up a new hobby requires learning new skills, which helps neurogenesis just like exercise. Why not combine the two? You’ll be looking better, feeling better, and thinking better in no time.