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a new Advance Placement course "will be offered in more than 2,000 U.S. classrooms this fall...the largest course launch in the history of the AP exam."

Are they still teaching Pascal for AP Comp Sci, by chance?

AP Comp Sci replaced Pascal with C++ in 1998 and C++ with Java in 2004.

...and don't tell me to get off your lawn, kiddo--I graduated high school before AP Computer Science was even a thing.

An AP course is an advanced high school course that is meant to be equivalent to a college class.

Exactly. For those who are wondering what they're teaching in AP CS, it is NOT word processing, spreadsheets, or how to build apps.

According to College Board's Computer Science A Course Description they cover:

  - object-oriented programming methodology
  - problem solving and algorithm development
  - designing, writing, running and debugging computer programs
  - data structures and algorithms
  - Java language including standard library classes
  - ethical and social implications of computer use

Here is a link to the course outline (PDF). The emphasis is on good design with the goal of solving problems. Less on the theoretical aspects of computer science, more on the engineering practice of designing software from what I gather in the outline.

You have a curious definition of mediocre considering 1210 is higher than approximately 80% of test takers. Link.

A quick search for "merit" returns this "something that deserves or justifies a reward or commendation".

Can anyone state with a serious face that an SAT score of 700 deserves "merit" aid? Look at the CollegeBoard site and you will see that a 700 ranks at the 7% percentile. Why on earth should the colleges provide any aid for a 700* score? Does such a person have any hope of graduating with a 4 year degree?

* this would be 700 on the Critical Reading + Math score, not the 3 part score.

Even so, it continues to amaze me that people conflate computer science with coding.

Could it be that the reason people conflate computer science with coding is because professors, test makers, and the entire industry conflate computer science with coding? (That's a rhetorical question.)

It's yet another problem with teaching introductory computer science using Java. Abelson and Sussman used a pretty but impractical programming language, and Dijkstra specifically forbade making a compiler for his language. The rest of the industry insists on teaching the students a "useful" programming language. The College Board actually insists on using Java for AP Computer Science, if you're in a school with a competent CS instructor.

And then, because you're starting out using Java, you spend most of the introductory course on Java's insane syntax, obtuse type system, and complicated runtime. No wonder normal people avoid CS.

I took summer school logo class in the late 80's to learn logo and make a lego traffic light built with legos loop in the proper colour sequence. In middle school we learned Toolbook -- just the language as I recall, not really how to structure software. I took high school CS classes in the late 90s. Our standard was the AP Computer Science [pdf] curriculum. We learned basic data structures in Pascal and C++ (structs/records, classes, arrays), sorting algorithms, hashing functions. The most valuable part of the class was problem solving. We would get various problems, like write a program that takes an input of the length of a side of a hexagon and draw a hexagon a line at a time with X's. Or output all the permutations of a given input. Or determine the pattern of a given sequence then write a program that outputs the nth number/word in that sequence. Gaining experience solving lots of different computing problems, recognizing patterns and having to do it quickly and 100% accurately was the most valuable part of the class in my opinion. We learned nothing of database design and extremely light, if anything on software engineering.

From utexas.edu:

Estimated Total Cost of Undergraduate Education (Fall 2010 - Spring 2011) Texas resident on-campus $23,596 - 24,936 Texas resident off-campus $23,734 - 25,074 Non-resident on-campus $35,776 - 45,960 Non-resident off-campus $35,914 - 46,098

This is a tax-supported state school, although probably one of the more expensive ones.

"In 2011-12, public four-year colleges charge, on average, $8,244 in tuition and fees for in-state students. The average surcharge for full-time out-of-state students at these institutions is $12,526. Private nonprofit four-year colleges charge, on average, $28,500 per year in tuition and fees."
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/pay/add-it-up/4494.html

I can't find the link right now but when room and board is considered I believe the average cost of a 4-year college or university is $13 per year.

AP Physics comes in three flavors: A, B, and C. Type A is really, really basic and rarely offered. Type B is the most commonly offered one, intended to replace Phys 101 at college, and is calculus-free. Type C uses calculus, but it's divided into two halves (EM and Mechanics) making it more expensive to teach, plus it's obviously harder, so few students are offered it, and even fewer take it.

For-profit schools. Shut them down. Period.

The average annual tuition for for-profit schools this year is about $14,000. Public four-year colleges charge, on average, $7,605 per year in tuition and fees for in-state students. What's worse is this: The default rate on student loans from for-profit institutions is 15%, while the default rate at public universities is only 7.2 percent (same source).

For-profit schools are milking the American taxpayer for money. Just walk into any one of these schools, tell them you want to be a nurse / chef / accountant / whatever, and they'll lay down a student loan form for you to sign before you could even say "Herbie Hancock." Because, at least with the present law, once a for-profit school gets their money from Uncle Sam, it's theirs, no strings attached. I'd almost call it fraud, except those students who enroll in a for-profit school actually do get something in return, even if it is a sorry-excuse of a half-ass education. (PBS did an excellent documentary a year back on for-profit schools, particularly exposing the "value" of a diploma one gets from these crooks. You can watch it here.)

What's sad is that there's a really simple solution to all this: require a for-profit school to assume some of the risk. If we required a for-profit school to pay back even just 50% of the loan that was defaulted on, you'd see the default rate decrease overnight.

ONLY 7.2%! while the for profit is higher the state school default rate is pretty high. For all the hype of big this big that the demonizers seem to skip Big Education. Check the rate of tuition inflation over the last 30 years, but be setting down before you do.

For-profit schools. Shut them down. Period.

The average annual tuition for for-profit schools this year is about $14,000. Public four-year colleges charge, on average, $7,605 per year in tuition and fees for in-state students. What's worse is this: The default rate on student loans from for-profit institutions is 15%, while the default rate at public universities is only 7.2 percent (same source).

For-profit schools are milking the American taxpayer for money. Just walk into any one of these schools, tell them you want to be a nurse / chef / accountant / whatever, and they'll lay down a student loan form for you to sign before you could even say "Herbie Hancock." Because, at least with the present law, once a for-profit school gets their money from Uncle Sam, it's theirs, no strings attached. I'd almost call it fraud, except those students who enroll in a for-profit school actually do get something in return, even if it is a sorry-excuse of a half-ass education. (PBS did an excellent documentary a year back on for-profit schools, particularly exposing the "value" of a diploma one gets from these crooks. You can watch it here.)

What's sad is that there's a really simple solution to all this: require a for-profit school to assume some of the risk. If we required a for-profit school to pay back even just 50% of the loan that was defaulted on, you'd see the default rate decrease overnight.

Congratulations for working your way up. You worked hard to get where you are today, and I salute you.

But now, doing what you did is essentially impossible:
* Average annual in-state tuition, room and board at a state university, books and basic supplies - $7600+$1100+$2000=$10,700 (numbers from the College Board. Private schools are about 3 times that cost.
* US minimum wage: $7.25 per hour. After taxes, about $6.00.
* So weekly hours worked to earn your way through school: $10,700 / $6 / 52 (weeks per year) = about 35 hours per week.
* Being a student requires basically full-time hours, so schoolwork takes up about 35-40 hours per week.
That leaves, of your 168 hours in a week, 94 hours for everything that isn't working or studying. If you assume 8 hours of sleep a night, you have a total of 5 hours a day to do everything else: eating, dressing, laundry, cleaning, bathing, traveling to and from work and class, etc. Your only chance of relief would be the summer, where you might be able to live with your parents. I've worked those kind of hours for short bursts, but the human body simply can't handle that over long periods.

And of course this all assumes that minimum wage jobs are available in your area, which is probably not true at the moment.

What It Costs to Go to College; your statement is only true if you go to ivy league schools. For the vast majority, though, it's simply not true.

Moreover, being forced to view different options, I went to a local community college for my first two years and then went on to a university for bachelor's degree. After that, I was research assistant to get a master's, which paid for my tuition. My overall college costs were quite modest, and I did, in fact, work a summer job to pay my community college tuition (and most of my university tuition). Yes, I worked the whole time I went to college/university - but not full time. Never full time except over the summer, and even then not always. Yes, I lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ramen noodles. I don't see that as being a problem for a college student.

Paying exorbitant fees for Ivy League and private schools has always been the case, it's not something new.

#1 - Federal loan guarantees do play a part.
#2 - Showing that your college is "exclusive" by charging far more than community or state colleges plays a role, too.
#3 - Exploiting the parental desire to pay more for "exclusive" colleges (especially in the US South on the part of racist white parents wanting to get their kids out of the "colleges where those niggers go").
#4 - Private universities generally charge ALL students what would often be an "out of state" rate: going out-of-state to a State College will run you on average $18k/year while private universities charge, in-state or out-of-state, an average of $25k.

Now, take a look at that figure.
Take 20% off of the $25k - to account for state funding - and what do you have? $20k. Subtract another 10% to account for the lower pay of employees in state institutions as opposed to private and - guess what - now you see where the $18k out-of-state figure fits.

The math works. The reason tuition charged to students skyrocketed is because of cuts in state funding to state institutions that had to be made up in tuition hikes.

Or they could just not continuously hire administrators or just cut back on them? Nice dig on the US South there. I'm sure those parents don't want better educations for those kids and just want to get their kids into all white schools. The reason tuition has been going through the roof is far more likely due to inefficiencies in the system and an unwillingness to cut unnecessary expenses when funding was reduced. The schools want to maintain legions of administrators and programs 10 people take.

#1 - Federal loan guarantees do play a part.
#2 - Showing that your college is "exclusive" by charging far more than community or state colleges plays a role, too.
#3 - Exploiting the parental desire to pay more for "exclusive" colleges (especially in the US South on the part of racist white parents wanting to get their kids out of the "colleges where those niggers go").
#4 - Private universities generally charge ALL students what would often be an "out of state" rate: going out-of-state to a State College will run you on average $18k/year while private universities charge, in-state or out-of-state, an average of $25k.

Now, take a look at that figure.
Take 20% off of the $25k - to account for state funding - and what do you have? $20k. Subtract another 10% to account for the lower pay of employees in state institutions as opposed to private and - guess what - now you see where the $18k out-of-state figure fits.

The math works. The reason tuition charged to students skyrocketed is because of cuts in state funding to state institutions that had to be made up in tuition hikes.

You could always CLEP out of some of the electives... http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/clep/about.html Enroll in your local community college and take your CLEP exams there. The requirements for a "pass" on a CLEP exam are usually lower at a community college than a four-year school. Once you've taken (and passed) all the CLEP tests you can, finish out a "Liberal Arts" Associates degree at the community college. Trust me on this. A liberal arts associates degree is the easiest to transfer without losing credits. Then transfer to an in-state four-year college and take all the CS classes and whatever remaining classes you need to get your Bachelor's degree.

I'd never heard of the CLEPs; the web site is here. It looks like one thing to be careful about is that the major state schools have only limited acceptance of CLEPs. I was curious, so I checked Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia, and William and Mary (guess where I live). Only Tech accepts CLEPs, and only for a limited number of really general classes (mostly languages). So what'd you'd probably have to do is launder the CLEPs through a smaller college to get a 2-year degree in short time, and then finish it off at a larger school (or one of those 2-3 programs that some schools offer). I'm not sure that would save any time over the conventional approach, though; and that seemed to be the submitters objective. You can see which schools accept CLEPs here.

I'd never heard of the CLEPs; the web site is here. It looks like one thing to be careful about is that the major state schools have only limited acceptance of CLEPs. I was curious, so I checked Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia, and William and Mary (guess where I live). Only Tech accepts CLEPs, and only for a limited number of really general classes (mostly languages). So what'd you'd probably have to do is launder the CLEPs through a smaller college to get a 2-year degree in short time, and then finish it off at a larger school (or one of those 2-3 programs that some schools offer). I'm not sure that would save any time over the conventional approach, though; and that seemed to be the submitters objective. You can see which schools accept CLEPs here.

For $100 more than the NSpire CX CAS you could buy a netbook and fill it with cutting edge mathematical software such as Octave, Scilab, SAGE and so on

Yeah, sure you can get that netbook, and get the cutting edge software, but can you use it on the SAT. Nope - so its not all that useful for a learning tool anymore, is it.
You should use a type of calculator you plan on using for your long term educational career. My good old TI-85 got me through 6 years of school, and I still have it 10 years later.

Why isn't it recognized as a calculator? It's surely not because it can't "calculate."

The point of approved calculators for standardized testing to eliminate devices that can do things beyond the kind of assistance the test allows for, particularly things that might facilitate cheating, or which produce noise which might be distracting. See the SAT rules, for instance.

This is an example of the standardized test manufacturers creating an artificial market for TI calculators.

Well, except that nothing restricts (either in principle or practice) the approved calculators to "TI Calculators".

It sounds like your situation doesn't fit the average college student's, as it looks like there was some circumstance preventing you from finishing your degree.

But we're talking about averages here. According to the College Board, more than half of US undergrads attend a college with tuition and fees less than $9000. For four years, that comes to less than $36k+room and board. With family contribution, work study, grants, and scholarships it's easy to bring this cost down considerably.

I went to a school which now costs $40k per year, but then cost around $35. It had a considerable endowment, and therefore offered me a grant of $17k per year, cutting my tuition in half. And yes, I am a middle class white male. That combined with modest family contributions, my own savings (I worked each summer and all through school), and I graduated with around $20k in loans.

As far as entrepreneurship, you find it more in larger cities. I went to school in Pittsburgh, which is a growing location for tech startups (Microsoft, Google, and Apple all have offices near the two major area colleges). I don't know where you went to school, but I dealt with incubators from schools across the country. If there's not one where you live, there's one nearby.

This was just discussed at my daughter's fifth grade back-to-school night.

The teachers stated the students will be required to do practically all graded work in cursive.

They quoted a study in which students who used cursive on the SAT, on average, received higher grades.

Googling for supporting details identified the follow:

"Essays written in cursive received a slightly higher score (7.2 for cursive, compared to 7.0 for those printed)."

source: http://www.collegeboard.com/press/releases/150054.html

An explanation the teachers suggested for the higher cursive average scores was that perhaps the cursive handwriting was less disruptive means to capture to a stream of thought.

I offer this as someone who's use of cursive is almost exclusively limited to my signature. Between my printing handwriting style and keyboard, I make no other use of cursive.

* Public four-year colleges charge, on average, $7,020 per year in tuition and fees for students who live in their state. The average surcharge for full-time out-of-state students at these institutions is $11,528.
* Private four-year colleges charge, on average, $26,273 per year in tuition and fees.
* Public two-year colleges charge, on average, $2,544 per year in tuition and fees.

+room & board, transportation, pound-me-in-the-ass-book prices, 6+ months of looking for a job, etc.

http://www.collegeboard.com/student/pay/add-it-up/4494.html

http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/clep/about.html is the official college board fact sheet on the matter. Contact your school's office of admissions to see if this applies

http://sat.collegeboard.com/register/sat-test-day-checklist#calcPolicy
http://www.actstudent.org/faq/answers/calculator.html

Both the SATs and the ACTs allow graphing calculators. The SATs are actually more lenient prohibiting only calculators with a qwerty keypad, the ACTs ban the TI-89/92(+) Series or calcs because of the CAS (Computerized algebraic solver IIRC)

• I grant that college education has value. I don't grant that universal college education is better than the current partial college education. For example, in the US we're seeing a drop out rate (compare the percent who get some college education to those who get a degree) of almost 50%. While I'm sure some of those are doing so for financial reasons, I doubt that is a majority.
• I think there are a number of pervasive myths about the value of a college education. This thread illustrates a few of them (such as the number of Nobel laureates indicates the quality of a college program for average people or that getting an education will be better for anyone, a sort of one-size-fits-all approach to life).
• The same parties advocating a college education have been overseeing the decline of the K-12 public education system in the US.
• Employers have been complaining about the quality of college graduates. Some of it's pragmatic (they want college graduates with more vocational knowledge) or self-serving (want to show the "need" for more relatively cheap H1-B imports), but there appears to be a real problem of declining quality in college graduates.
• I believe the current student loan programs have had a harmful effect on colleges and their integrity, for example, leading to an increase in student cheating combined with lack of college enforcement (as I see it, colleges get their money no matter what the quality of the student they produce). This is another indication to me that a free tuition approach wouldn't improve the system.
• We haven't demonstrated that free tuition is better than paid tuition from the point of view of the student. I find people value something more, if they have to pay for it.
• We haven't demonstrated that the US can pay for this system.

On this last point, I have this to note. According to the College Board, in 2006-2007 public school students paid $5800 for that year just in tuition while private students (after financial aid) pay $22,000. At a glance, total college cost is over $100k for a degree (that is, money spent by the student not everyone else), public or private (including room and board, "fees"). A free education would cover all these expenses.

Given that there are currently, almost 20 million college students who are US residents, that's an effective cost of near $2 trillion just to educate the current group of students to a degree. This appears to be somewhat less than 60% of total people of this age, so the actual number who could get a degree are about 50% higher, I'd guess. That means our free, universal education now costs somewhere around $3 trillion to educate this estimated group to a degree. Suppose it takes six years to do so (average stay apparently for public college students BTW), then that's $500 billion per year of spending that has to come out of the federal budget. While that may be better than one Iraq war (which this is roughly equivalent to in cost), it's a huge amount of money to burn.

We also have to consider that this isn't the only source of cost, since there probably would be other subsidies that would get paid to colleges (eg, the public universities are already subsidized by state and federal governments, traditionally) to cover the additional students under a universal college education policy. There's also the matter that education costs are increasing far faster than the rate of inflation or GDP. Since 1986, inflation doubled, GDP tripled, and education c

Really? This? Are you going to have a merit badge for going to the movies?

Sort of, except they call it a college degree.

zomg! argh! violate the constitution. Dude, chill the localized rhetoric out.

Giving the Federal DoE the power to trump local governments would violate the Constitution by giving the Federal Government a right, that it is not explicitly given to it by the document. All such powers belong to the States — and the people. That this is happening in other areas is not an excuse.

You say that without the DoE, it might get better. Considering the Kansas precedence, it is also obvious that it *might not*... or better yet, that the situation will degrade.

Actually, no, the Kansas precedent shows the exact opposite — it will not get any worse, because DoE currently has no control over local boards anyway. It might or it might not get better, but it will not degrade and we'll save a ton money spent on Washington bureaucrats. Just this year — despite the dire crisis, we rewarded failure at the DoE with about $100 bln dollars. It was trumpeted as "Money for Education" (think of the children!), but it was, in fact, "Money for the Department of Education"...

There are three scenarios where the Kansas fuckapocalipse wouldn't have taken place

You focus so much on Kansas' decision to teach, that Humanity has other explanations for nature's diversity, but you miss the bigger picture — Kansas' SAT-scores are quite a bit higher, than national average, while New York's are way lower. And New York spends the most per pupil of all States of the Union. And they have a lot of pupils, so one would think, they enjoy the economy of scale...

Something tells me, the Federally-guided education practices are closer to New York's — and, in particular, you would want them to be, even if you aren't happy with the results.

by replacing it with something more effective, run by educated men of science determined to bring US scholastic averages to same levels as in other developed countries, and with the teeth to force local school districts to implement said curriculums.

Oh, boy, you have a long way to go, before you realize, that "educated men of science" are just as prone to petty politicking, championing their own pet projects, and justifying their political agenda by "science" (climate cough research cough) etc. as the local dunces...

At least, if a State's board screws up, only that State's education is affected. If the Federal DoE screws up (or, deliberately sets some aspect of education onto a wrong track), the entire Union is screwed up. Seriously, what happened to the Celebrate Diversity slogan?

and with the teeth to force local school districts to implement said curriculums.

Unconstitutional...

http://www.collegeboard.com/student/pay/add-it-up/4494.html

College costs are increasing across the board. I agree 100% that this sucks. However:

State college costs, on average, $6,500 a year.
Out of state or private colleges average closer to $25,000 a year. There's a bit of a difference.
A community college drops it down to $2,500 a year, and if you line things up right you can go there for 2 years for your GRE's and then transfer to a state college.

If you come out of four years of that with $30k in debt it means you either weren't working or were living within the means of your loans, not your income. Both of these are your own damn fault.

I knew people at the jr. college I went to that were paying about $10 for a semester... even books were paid for. I am from the middle class, so I wasn't eligible for that financial aid, my costs were still really cheap though.

Before I ever started college I thought it was terrible to go to a community college, "who would go to a baby college?" My parents were lower income, my father enlisted and retired from the US Air Force and my mother worked her way through a two year tech school to become an assistant in a hospital lab. So they didn't have the money to pay for college for either of my sisters, I have 2, or I. Even though I took some advanced classes my grades in high school weren't good so I didn't qualify for scholarships and I didn't know about need based financial aid. So I decided to enlist in the military to save money so I could go to college. When I went into the Army I signed up for VEAP, Veterans Educational Assistance Program, and had money deducted from my pay. When I got out my younger sister had registered at the local community college and talked me into at least going there to look it over. My thoughts about them changed after that. For lower level courses I think community or jr colleges are actually better. The classes are smaller in general, and the professors are there to teach, not do research while grad students teach. And the tuition was maybe 1/5 of the tuition at the state university.

All that said, even at $6500 (does that include room/board?) per year, we're looking at what, $15,000 for a four year degree?

Yes the $6500 does include room and board, I didn't think it did at first. However for 4 years that's $26,000.

$31k can go a long ways, especially if you are single.

I agree, I scrape by on about half that but I wouldn't wish my life on my enemy.

Falcon

It should also be noted that getting a bachelor degree at a state university is quite cheap.

While college education is an investment that pays off in the long run, college costs aren't cheap. According to the College Board a year at a state university cost $6,585. While someone from the middle class should be able to afford that many low income students can't. Now what could help those students is if they attend a 2 year community or jr college the first two years.

Falcon

Actually no at my school we have Java and AP Computer Science AB, neither of which I teach. The teacher is constantly recruiting for his computer science classes so that he doesn't get split between CS (his main interest) and teaching mathematics classes (my interest).

The Business department has computer literacy, computer applications, whatever the typing class is called, etc. I think they're the more popular classes because many kids at my school don't want the challenge of actually taking CS.

The scope is simple. Teach what they need to pass the AP computer science test.

http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/sub_compscia.html

1. show an example of a for loop
2. explain what all the parts mean
3. give the class some problems that can be solved with that knowledge

Following those steps over and over again for more complex concepts until the class is comfortable with turning algorithms into code. This is what computer science is.

Once people get the basics of algorithms, you can expand out into various practical applications. Classes on web design, network programming, operating systems, etc, but that fundamental base is critical.

Until the process of iterative and recursive problem solving makes sense, all practical application will just be seen as magical gimmickry.

Maybe it is a difference in english or something

Difference in perspective? In my area saying something is illegal tends to imply a blanket ban.

Not everyone can find a one room studio apartment for $300 a month. I have a sister with 3 kids and it costs her $6 an hour for a babysitter for all three ($2 a kid which from what I understand is cheap in my area).

I actually wasn't figuring on a studio. I was figuring on them sharing an apartment. I share a tent with six other dudes for six months at a time - I figure they can put up with two or three others.

As for the kids, well, I don't believe that minimum wage should be 'sufficient' for a custodial single parent, much less one with three kids. At some point the government just needs to realize that it's cheaper to pay him or her to stay home and take care of the kids, at least until they're in school, at which point she can work part time(like my mother did). Disclaimer - you have to be careful that you don't get women having kids to get into the system. It happened with the old one. I'm tempted to say 'screw it, pay the child care and send her to work'.

I think a study would be interesting too. I do know that when I worked in restaurants which was about 15 years ago, I had college graduates waiting tables because they claimed to make more money doing that then their chosen profession.

I've heard about this before, but never for a civil engineer - mostly for things like english/humanities degrees. Stuff that normally only qualifies you to be a teacher/professor. I guess he must have been a really good waiter, or the city/state paid crud.

Anyways, About two thirds of out wait and bar staff held degree in something. So I know college isn't a magic bullet to fix everything.

One of the arguements that I've made is that we're sending far too many people to college today - high school diplomas mean less than they used to, what used to be Junior/Senior HS classes have become freshman college classes. I'd want to fix that. Combine that with the cost of college - We have people spending amounts equal to what they'll make upon graduation, vs making money in an apprenticeship type program. It takes a long time for the slightly higher pay many college degrees give to make up for the early expense. Well, according to here, average cost for a private college is $23k, public $6k. Per year. I'll go with the public figure, and figure on a 50% increase in pay, from $40k a year to $60k a year. On graduation, the student will be $24k or more in debt, while the HS student who went to work has 4 years experience and has earned $160k. Quick spreadsheet calcs shows that the College Grad won't be better off than his peer until they're 37(5% annual value on current money over future money). Fact is, due to our generation of disdain for blue collar jobs, in many cases we're overstaffed with college grads, lowering their income, and short on workers such as plumbers, electricians, and carpenters, raising their income. Increase the cost of college to $10k, and drop the benefit to $55k/year and you'd be 47 by the time you're ahead. Overly simplistic, I know, just making a point. I'd need to plug in actual figures for average wages(IE HS +2, HS +20, College +5, +10), maybe a figure for 'semi-professional' such as electrician over 'stockboy'.

I suppose she could have told everyone that she was accusing her moms boyfriend of molesting her and her mom doesn't believe her and ask for a place to stay from one of her friends parents.

Ugly situation all around, all I can say is that she made her choice, what she felt was the best one she could make. She could have worked as a waitress - they tend to make good money, but it wouldn't have been as much as stripping, so she would have had to work more hours to get the

Er, "Immunology" is not an AP subject exam: Take a look at http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/subjects.html if you don't believe me.

Advanced Placement

It's a program where high school students can take a test in a certain subject and gain college credit for it (if they score well and they go to a college that accepts it). Many high schools have classes which teach specifically to these tests.

It's a pretty good program, if the courses are taught well. The tests I took seemed pretty well-written to test actual ability in a subject (much better than most standardized tests). I was able to enroll in college with 30 credit-hours off the bat.

According to http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/compsci_ab/dist.html?comsciab there were 5,064 students that took the AP CS AB exam in 2007.

I've never heard of database theory or computation theory as first year courses in CS. As far as I know, they mostly teach introduction to programming, algorithms, and data structures in the first year. That's what Computer Science AP classes teach, also.

All of your numbers are pretty good estimates, about1.3 million students receive Pell grants. About $13 billion goes into the Pell Grant program. Only the number per student averages close to $2500. Where does the other $10,500 per student? There's a nice graph here: http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/press/cost06/pell_grants_06.pdf

The article cites increasing SAT and other scores as evidence that the children they are smarter. I guess the authors don't realize that SAT scores are based on the percentile ranking of your raw score compared with the many thousands of other test-takers. See PDF table from college board. Perhaps if the author had been one of the superfluous mathematics grads he would realize that changing SAT scores reveal nothing about the aptitude of the students writing them, given constant difficulty of the tests year-to-year (which is entirely debatable, but another debate entirely).

MIT's OCW website helps. It has lecture notes, problem sets and solutions. Unfortunately, 18.01 (single variable calculus) is the lowest course on there that I know of.

If you're looking for multi-variable calculus (18.02) or differential equations (18.03), OCW has those pages too. Any course that starts with 18 is a math course (at MIT), though some will start with a 6 (the course number for EECS).

Another idea is to pick up an AP Calc book for practice. The College Board website even has a large PDF with an overview of AP Calc, including a handful of sample questions.

Good luck and most of all, practice.

The 'fraction' of our population that goes to a university for a four year program is pretty high. About 50% of adolescents enter college at the expected time (18-19 years old), and there's a fair number of nontraditional students as well. Of course, many never graduate.

About 75 percent of U.S. high school graduates enter college and about 70 percent of 9th graders go on to graduate from high school, according to one study. If you do the math, you get about 50% (I've heard this elsewhere but can't recall where.)

Here are the links for those who are interested:

http://www.collegeboard.com/highered/ra/sat/sat_data_equiv.html
http://www.collegeboard.com/about/news_info/cbsenior/equiv/rt019019.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#History.2C_name_changes_and_recentered_scores

My "recentered" score is 1550 (my pre-'95 score was 1470).

Here are the links for those who are interested:

http://www.collegeboard.com/highered/ra/sat/sat_data_equiv.html
http://www.collegeboard.com/about/news_info/cbsenior/equiv/rt019019.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#History.2C_name_changes_and_recentered_scores

My "recentered" score is 1550 (my pre-'95 score was 1470).

ok, I know this a day late, but for all the stragglers like me..... this is just my opinion, no legal basis whatsoever:

The question: did the NCAA have standing to eject the blogger from the game? I think this hinges on one simple fact. Does the NCAA own the grounds the game was held on, or are they representing the entity which does own it? If either of those conditions are met, it would seem to me that the NCAA can kick out whoever they want.

However, it appears that the University of Louisville is a public school. This, to me at least, means that the only grounds for ejecting someone from the stadium would be some sort of disorderly conduct, and the ejecting would need to be done by law officers or stadium security. So even if NCAA handles security, which I frankly don't know, if the blogger wasn't being disorderly, there's no standing for kicking him out.

Analogy time, what's a sport slashdotters can relate to? Ultimate. So you start a local ultimate frisbee league, and you meet at the local public park. For the sake of argument, let's imagine it gets as popular as baseball, and people start showing up to watch. You, being the entrepeneur that you are, decide to sell some concessions. Now, again for reasons that violate every natural law of coolness, the sport gets really popular, and you decide to up your game and start recording and streaming it online, making money from ads. So you're making money, having fun, so far, so good. That is until some other competing entrepenuers show up with handycams.

So two questions: can you kick them out of the public park, and can you claim copyright over the game itself and exercise your copyright priveleges accordingly?

On both counts, I would say no. Wrt the first, they have as much right to be there as anyone, and that should only be taken away if they truly are, by reasonable standards of a law officer (yeah, i know), disorderly and/or a danger others in some way. Otherwise, you can't touch'em. Anything less is an afront to personal freedom. Wrt the second, hell no you can't copyright the game. Why? Because, history, recordings of facts, hell reality itself IS NOT up for grabs as intellectual property (or at least it shouldn't be).

Now, if you can make a stalking case (thinking paparrazi here) that may be a little different (IANAL). However, it would seem to me that you can only claim stalking/paparrazi if you make a sensible effort to communicate you don't want to be filmed, want to be left alone, and show that the alleged stalking is specifically aimed at an individual, not at an event, or just a place in general. In other words, walking around the city with your handycam is ok, as long as you're not following someone in particular without their consent. But if that person(s) are occupying a city square holding a rally, well then they're fair game.

But of course, you can see where I'm going with this. All of these other variables that might possibly give you (or the NCAA) standing to remove someone just aren't there. You have no standing to do that.

Now, if we change the analogy so that you're playing ultimate in your back yard, charing admission, streaming online with ads, well then that's your private property, you can do what you bloody well want, within confines of the law. But the park is public. Don't like it? Well then use another venue.

I haven't posted to /. in a while, but in reading thru these threads, it just seemed like noone was concerned with the fact that this was a public place (AFAICT), and even beyond that, that noone has ownership over the content of a sports game. Well, at least they shouldn't in a rational society. Like I said, I mostly read, don't post often, but these I felt were two really important points that were being missed, and I just couldn't let it go.

And this article at www.reformk12.org has the following to say:

The study that these articles and others reference is published by The College Board. However, the links which I found in the reformk12.org article lead to a page and a PDF which have been removed or relocated. If someone wants to spend the time to hunt down the articles on The College Board's web site, I'd love to read the original study.

My understanding is that SACE and TER are unrelated, even though both are administrated by SSABSA. You can pass SACE without receiving a TER (pick less than four HESS General subjects). The only issue is that you don't know for sure what it is until after you've finished high school (not that it really matters, since 50% of the mark is from the exam anyway).

I don't really have that many complaints about it, except that some of the Specialist Maths topics probably should be in Studies (I am tired of spending time learning to add vectors in half of my subjects). It's most likely the quality of the teachers that are the biggest factor, really.

I've heard good things about IB, however I don't think it's common (or used anywhere?) in public schools, which take something like 70% of students. Fortunately, I don't think either have anything truly horrifying, whether because it is impossible to get a question wrong, or because the exam needs to check whether someone knows how to factorise a quadratic..

My understanding is that SACE and TER are unrelated, even though both are administrated by SSABSA. You can pass SACE without receiving a TER (pick less than four HESS General subjects). The only issue is that you don't know for sure what it is until after you've finished high school (not that it really matters, since 50% of the mark is from the exam anyway).

I don't really have that many complaints about it, except that some of the Specialist Maths topics probably should be in Studies (I am tired of spending time learning to add vectors in half of my subjects). It's most likely the quality of the teachers that are the biggest factor, really.

I've heard good things about IB, however I don't think it's common (or used anywhere?) in public schools, which take something like 70% of students. Fortunately, I don't think either have anything truly horrifying, whether because it is impossible to get a question wrong, or because the exam needs to check whether someone knows how to factorise a quadratic..

My understanding is that SACE and TER are unrelated, even though both are administrated by SSABSA. You can pass SACE without receiving a TER (pick less than four HESS General subjects). The only issue is that you don't know for sure what it is until after you've finished high school (not that it really matters, since 50% of the mark is from the exam anyway).

I don't really have that many complaints about it, except that some of the Specialist Maths topics probably should be in Studies (I am tired of spending time learning to add vectors in half of my subjects). It's most likely the quality of the teachers that are the biggest factor, really.

I've heard good things about IB, however I don't think it's common (or used anywhere?) in public schools, which take something like 70% of students. Fortunately, I don't think either have anything truly horrifying, whether because it is impossible to get a question wrong, or because the exam needs to check whether someone knows how to factorise a quadratic..

This is the list of approved calculators.

Do NOT buy a calculator that isn't on that list, even if it matches the requirements.