High school graduation rates are lower for black male students than white male students.

According to a Schott Foundation report, about half of black male students are failing in school. 

And some cities are worse than others. Indianapolis has a 19 percent graduation rate and Detroit has a 20 percent graduation rate for black male students.

Your best bet is Ford Bend, Texas which has an 80 percent graduation rate for black male students.

Here are some more stats:

•  For Grade 8 Reading, the national percentage of White, non-Hispanic male students scoring at or above the Basic level was 78% in 2007. The percentage of Black, non-Hispanic male students scoring at or above the Basic level in Grade 8 was 46% in 2007.
• For Grade 8 Mathematics, the national percentage of White, non-Hispanic male students scoring at or above the Basic level was 82% in 2007. The percentage of Black, non-Hispanic male students scoring at or above the Basic level in Grade 8 was 46% in 2007.

Do these numbers point to a race issue? What about black girls?

Black girls actually get pretty good grades, go to college at decent rates and graduate from college at very good rates, earning degrees as twice the rate of men. And these girls live in the same neighborhoods and go to the same schools as the black boys.

If black girls are doing well at the same schools, is high school graduation rates a race issue…or a gender issue?

Should illegal immigrants be allowed to attend college?

Well some states don’t seem to think so.

According to an article in the USA Today, some states are making it harder for illegal immigrants to attend college by denying in-state tuition benefits or banning undocumented students.

“In the past two years, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Oklahoma have refused in-state tuition benefits to students who entered the USA illegally with their parents but grew up and went to school here. That represents a reversal from earlier this decade, when 10 states passed laws allowing in-state rates for these students.”

And now, South Carolina became the first state school to bar undocumented students from all public colleges and universities. And North Carolina’s community colleges ordered its 58 campuses to stop enrolling undocumented students.
This fall, the University of Arkansas will require students to submit Social Security numbers and proof of residency. 
Georgia is also preventing illegal immigrants from receiving state scholarships and certain student loans.

Do you think it’s fair to kick illegal aliens out of college? Do you think it’s fair for these students to be penalized for their parents actions?

You might want to open college textbooks.

And we don’t mean that in the traditional sense. It is still summer after all.

Open textbooks are free textbooks available online that are licensed to allow users to download, customize and print any part of the text. Professors can change content to fit their teaching styles. Some authors offer a print-on-demand service that produces professionally bound copies for $10 to $20.

That means students can lower their total college costs by saving money on textbooks which can go up to $300 per textbook or beyond, with the average cost of a new textbook around $150.

According to an article in the USA Today, “textbooks account for 26% of tuition and fees at four-year public universities and nearly three-quarters of costs at community colleges.”

Open textbooks are a great way to lower prices. Besides the cost, online textbooks support the new trend in ‘going green’ and that open textbooks bring open knowledge through open access to information.

This trend is catching on. More and more profs and students are ‘opening up.’ 1,200 professors in all 50 states have signed a petition in favor of using open college textbooks.