<p>
</p>
<p>The above are excerpts from an oped written by
the president of Gettysburg College. </p>
<p>What is the gov’t’s objective in tracking college students?</p>
<p>Is this an invasion of privacy?</p>
<p>And… some of you college students thought you
no longer had to put up with mon & dad spying on
you when you go off to school. Don’t worry, be happy.
Big Brother is looking after you.</p>
<p>This is actually an outgrowth of No Child Left Behind. The feds feel that there should be accountability in higher ed at schools that receive federal funds.</p>
<p>The No Child Left Behind program was
aimed at getting students into college.
Now that they are in, it is an invasion
of privacy.</p>
<p>I agree
I dont want to see my tax dollars going to fund someone who is not making the most out of their time in college- taking more than 5 years to graduate,etc.
I don’t think the individual ss# needs to be attached to that info, but I do think that info should be measured.</p>
<p>My tax dollars aren’t being very well spent if NCLB gets the kids into college, but then doesn’t stick around to care if they graduate in a timely fashion or not.</p>
<p>I agree that accountability is important but also agree there is no reason individual SSNs need to be tracked to keep schools accountable. There are tremendous #s of students who don’t come back after freshman year & many more who don’t graduate in 4 or even 6 years. From annecdotal info, it sounds like finances are a huge part of the picture for many (working too many hours while trying to study & carry a full-time courseload is just too much for many).</p>
<p>I think some of the reasons why students don’t graduate in 4 o r 5 years is that the classes aren’t available.
The local flagship U for example had 25 sections of Ochem- they filled up in a flash. Ochem is needed for many programs- they needed to either have classes attached to those programs or have more sections.
As it was, students were having to take that class at teh community college.
Classes might be scheduled from 8 inthe morning till 8 or so at night.
I admit that theoretically that could make your schedule more flexible to allow for work etc. but sometimes just the way classes are scheduled makes it difficult to have a block of no class for more than a couple hours.</p>
<p>\I remember a friend of my daughter had a class in the morning, a couple classes in the afternoon and a couple labs in teh evening. She didn’t have a car, and public transportation isn’t great, so she hung around campus all day ( of course I think this was before she was old enough to drive- she entered the UW at 14- a car would have made it much easier)</p>
<p>They definitely don’t have enough sections of the popular/intro classes though</p>
<p>First off, the NCLB was not a law created to get more kids into college. It is a means to create eventual cash flow of tax dollars into private schools. Look alittle deeper at the NCLB and you’ll see it for what it is. Who benefits? </p>
<p>Passing the state tests for NCLB will not guarantee enterance to college anywhere. If someone is telling people that they are outright lying…
Some school districts have dropped college prep math programs and adopted new NCLB friendly math plans that leave rather large holes in the math requirements students need for college. </p>
<p>This current administration wants to know alot of private information about all of us… for our protection of course. 
How can they best help us if they don’t know everything about us? ;)</p>