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Scholarships

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 10:53:00 -0600

Scholarships can be a good way to ease the financial burden of college or fund your education entirely. Many scholarships are merit-based, meaning they're awarded because of a student's academic, athletic, artistic or leadership abilities.

But you don't need to be at the top of your class or a star athlete to win scholarships. Many are awarded based on a student's financial need, and you may even be able to find some related to your hobbies.

Often, some of the best scholarship sources "are in your backyard," says Angela Warfield, principal consultant and founder of college admissions consulting firm Compass Academics. School counselors as well as local cultural affinity groups, churches, clubs, community foundations and athletic organizations often award scholarships. Targeting these first is a good way to stack scholarship money, experts say.

How to Find and Secure Scholarships for College.

But you should expand your search wider, and there are plenty of free websites and apps that can help. Here are 10 websites experts suggest using to start your scholarship search.

Going Merry

A popular site recommended by independent college admissions counselors is Going Merry, which aims to simplify scholarship applications for students. Signing up is free, but students can also check to see how much they're eligible for in scholarships without signing up. According to the website, students have won upward of $40,000.

"I recommend this for students due to its user-friendly platform, which simplifies the scholarship application process and aggregates numerous scholarship opportunities in one place," Denard Jones, lead college counselor at college admissions consulting company Empowerly, wrote in an email. "It offers a time-efficient approach, allowing students to focus more on their studies and extracurricular activities while pursuing valuable merit aid opportunities."

Scholarships.com

This website helps students discover scholarships they qualify for, organize their matches and apply for those scholarships. The recently redesigned website has helped streamline the process even more, says Kevin Ladd, chief operating officer and co-creator of Scholarships.com and a former U.S. News contributor.

Ladd says the platform prioritizes legitimacy, accuracy and ease of function for users.

"If you found it on Scholarships.com, it is safe to apply for it," Ladd wrote in an email. "We thoroughly vet each one, ensuring it’s legit and there are no fees associated with applying. Daily, we are looking at these and checking them against the URL associated with them, looking at the deadline and dollar amount, filtering, etc. and emailing or calling the provider if necessary to ensure timeliness and accuracy."

Scholly

You may have heard about the Scholly app through the television show "Shark Tank," where founder Christopher Gray shared how he earned $1.3 million in scholarships thanks partly to applying to virtually every scholarship he qualified for. He found that for many of the scholarships he won, he was one of a few applicants or the only applicant.

Financial management company SoFi estimates $100 million in scholarship money goes unclaimed each year, and Gray says he created Scholly to help students find that money. Now owned by educational lender Sallie Mae, the app is free and helps students identify scholarships based on their academic profile and demographics.

“A lot of students are taking on way more debt than they have to,” Gray says. “That’s mainly because they don’t know these scholarships exist."

Fastweb

Fastweb is another free scholarship search provider that claims to have a database of 1.5 million college scholarships worth over $3.4 billion. Owned by Monster.com, Fastweb also offers college planning resources and financial aid information.

Fastweb is "the most comprehensive website for students to find scholarships. Fastweb may send a lot of emails after you sign up, so ating an email address specifically for scholarship searches so that your primary email inbox doesn't get flooded.

BigFuture

A platform created by the College Board, BigFuture allows students to search for scholarships and get help paying for college. The website claims to have a database of more than 24,000 scholarships that award more than $1.5 billion annually. The website allows students to create a profile and get matched with scholarships they qualify for.

"I recommend it to high schools because it offers a reliable tool for accessing essential information on both self-help and gift aid search processes," Jones says.

RaiseMe

The majority of scholarships are awarded to high school seniors, but RaiseMe advertises scholarships available to students as early as their freshman year. The website matches students with micro-scholarships, which RaiseMe defines as "a small grant that you can earn during high school or community college and put towards tuition at a four-year college or university."

Students must create a profile on the website and enter their grades, hobbies, honors, awards, community service and other achievements. From there, they can potentially earn money from one of the 300 colleges that RaiseMe partners with.

On average, students who use RaiseMe and meet standard eligibility requirements for a college earn $25,000 in micro-scholarships over four years of high school, according to the website.

Appily

Previously known as Cappex, Appily is another free resource that allows students to search both schools and scholarships that they qualify for based on their personal profile and demographics. You can search for scholarships based on your year in school, and after you complete a short questionnaire, the site filters schools and scholarships that may be applicable.

"This platform provides a comprehensive scholarship database, aiding students in identifying financial aid opportunities to support their search for affordability in a personalized way by matching opportunities with student preferences," Jones says. "It also features college reviews from actual students, offering valuable insights into campus life, academics and extracurriculars."

Niche

Along with searching for scholarships, Niche.com allows students to gain a sense of a school's "personality" by reading student reviews, Hartley says. Similar to other websites, Niche matches students with scholarships that match their qualifications and provides essay-free scholarships, which some students may prefer.

Unigo

Unigo is another website that pairs students with scholarships that fit their profile. The website has more than 3.6 million athletic, merit-based and company-sponsored scholarships and grants in its database, as well as 650,000 college reviews, statistics and other data points to use when vetting schools.

Users can check each month to find new scholarships that fit their profile, with some applications taking just a few minutes to complete.

Scholarships360

After struggling to find scholarships on their own, brothers Will and Brian Geiger launched Scholarships360 in 2010 to help students find money for college. Since then, the website has offered a free database of thousands of scholarships that can be filtered by grade and demographic, plus scholarships that are easy to apply for and don't require an essay.

A new site feature is that all scholarships "are now 'ungated' so that students don't need to sign up," company CEO Will Geiger wrote in an email. "We think that this makes Scholarships360 particularly student-centric as students can go directly to the scholarship website. They can also use our app to check their eligibility and get matches." By U S NEWS

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U.S. Department of Education Releases New Data Highlighting How the Simplified, Streamlined, and Redesigned Better FAFSA® Form Will Help Deliver Maximum Pell Grants to 1.5 Million More StudentsEnter your post title

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 17:40:02 -0600

This represents the most significant improvements to the FAFSA form since the Reagan era and will help 610,000 new students access Pell Grants

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

Contact: Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) today released new state-by-state data and details showing that the simplified, streamlined, and redesigned 2024–25 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form will help 610,000 new students from low-income backgrounds receive Federal Pell Grants. The new FAFSA form will also help 1.5 million more students receive the maximum Pell Grant – bringing the total number of students eligible for the maximum Pell Grant amount to more than 5.2 million.

The changes to the FAFSA form represent the most ambitious and significant redesign of the processes to apply for federal student aid and the formulas used to determine aid eligibility since the Common Financial Aid Form—the FAFSA form’s predecessor—was introduced in the Reagan era. The updates are a part of the Department’s implementation of the bipartisan FUTURE Act and FAFSA Simplification Act. It is the vision and commitment of the Biden-Harris Administration to deliver a better FAFSA form and experience for students and families. The better FAFSA form will be available for students and parents by Dec. 31, 2023. Because the better FAFSA form is a major transition for students, families, schools, and other partners, the Department looks forward to working with schools, states, and college access organizations to support students and their families.

“When students and families fill out the better FAFSA form, they will find that applying for college financial aid is simpler, easier, and faster than ever before,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “The Biden-Harris Administration’s implementation of the Bipartisan FAFSA Simplification Act modernizes an archaic system, simplifies the form, and improves access for underserved students -- representing the most significant overhaul of the federal financial aid application since the Reagan era. These bold changes will ultimately put affordable higher education within reach of more Americans, including 610,000 students from low-income families who will become eligible for Pell Grants for the very first time.”

Expanded Access

The better FAFSA redesign goes well beyond just a new form. Starting with the 2024–25 award year, the better FAFSA form reflects updates to student aid calculations that will extend Pell Grants to more students. Pell Grant eligibility will be linked to family size and the federal poverty level. These changes will help significantly expand access to federal student aid. Approximately 610,000 new students from low-income backgrounds will receive Pell Grants, driven primarily by the changes to these eligibility rules. Moreover, Pell recipients will receive more aid with nearly 1.5 million more students receiving the maximum Pell Grant.

“Pell Grants are a critical lifeline for millions of students and families to attend college or career school and pursue the American dream,” said Federal Student Aid Chief Operating Officer Richard Cordray. “We are deeply committed to making sure students from all backgrounds can easily apply for and receive the federal student aid they need through the better FAFSA form. In every state and the District of Columbia, more students than ever before will benefit from greater access to Pell Grants.

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The Media is Not a College Applicant’s Best Friend

Fri, 03 Dec 2021 10:34:40 -0600

There’s a pattern to the way the media, as a whole, covers college admissions. A typical year of coverage for most—that’s most—media outlets goes something like this:

Mid-September—The US News rankings come out, and everyone clamors over the top-ranked college. It’s typically the same top-ranked college from last year; if isn’t, one of the top five from last year climbed the pile, which is seen as a real shocker. Like we’d never heard of that college until now, and this suddenly makes it a better school.

Late September/Early October—Coverage turns to the upheaval of applying to college, with every article featuring seniors discussing the anxiety of applying to Brown, Yale, Smith, or one of the only 25 colleges mainstream media acknowledges as existing.

Late March—Admissions decisions are out, and in a paean to the principles of mathematics, every media article cites increased application numbers at The Big 25, and—wait for it—decreased admission rates at all of them as well. Not a single one of these articles points out that the former is the cause of the latter—but that involves math, so there we are.

What’s wrong with this picture?

College Lists The media spotlight on the Top 25 launches many parents into action, for all the wrong reasons. If these are the best colleges, why isn’t my child applying to them? This upends a wealth of work done by the student and (one hopes) their school counselor; it also upends the self-esteem of more than one student who knows these schools are bad fits. But arguing with Mom and Dad’s “let’s see what happens” is a tough hill to climb, so off they go to apply, much like Faramir’s efforts to recapture Osgiliath in Return of the King.

Unnecessary Panic More than a few seniors are indeed intimidated by the college application process in mid-September. That’s normal, since they’re just getting started. If I handed a student a plumber’s wrench on September 15 and said “show me how it works”, that too would be stressful. Now, if I came back in a week and asked, “How’s it going?”, they would have mastered the thing with ease, because they had time to understand what they were doing. Huh.

Those “Other” Schools The media myopia pays a big price on the other 2000 colleges that serve all kinds of students in personalized and appropriate ways, but now appear to be second rate. This keeps students from looking at some schools just right for them, because—well, you know…

To be fair, not all media outlets treat college admissions like a celebrity sighting, although Varsity Blues hasn’t helped. Eric Hoover writes moving human stories about the real challenges some students face in this process, stories so good they have led to admissions policy changes. Inside HigherEd isn’t a household name, but their coverage of the entire range of colleges is nothing short of inspiring.

Still, the best-selling papers run up the same limited coverage of college admissions every year, and their effect is palpably bad on the college plans and psyches of far too many students. A modest step in the right direction would be running an October story that returns to the freaked out students of September, revealing they’ve largely got the hang of things right now. Even better, interviews with students applying to a great school like Northern Michigan, where the application takes a whopping 25 minutes to complete and the admit rate is 65%—a reminder that the current media lens on college admissions is clear, but too tightly focused.

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

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Tips for Freshman Year of College

Fri, 08 Oct 2021 14:08:54 -0500

Like many new beginnings, your freshman year of college may feel both exciting and confusing. From getting accustomed to living on your own to keeping up with advanced-level courses, there’s no doubt that a student’s first few months on campus are a major transition.

Rather than stressing out, students can make the most of their college experience from the start by preparing in advance and coming in with a game plan. Here are some tips for navigating your freshman year and starting off your college career on the best note possible.

Step Outside of Your Comfort Zone

Your college campus is going to be filled with different clubs, activities, and student groups. Avoid sitting on the sidelines and instead, be proactive about joining in and trying new things. Most universities offer a much greater range of activities than a typical high school, so freshmen might feel a little overwhelmed by all of their new choices. Aim to select activities that you have always been interested in, and don’t worry about what your friends or roommates are doing. Signing up for activities is an excellent way to expand your social circle, develop new skills, and discover passions that you can continue to pursue.

Sit in the Front Row

You might be tempted to hide in the back of the class during your first semester, especially if you’re on the shyer side. However, choosing to sit in the front will help you stay focused from the very beginning. Instead of online shopping on your laptop, you will be in direct view of your professor, which can help eliminate distractions and keep you engaged. Over time, you will naturally begin to build a rapport with your professor, which can be particularly beneficial for future recommendation letters and research opportunities.

Get a Job on Campus

Working on campus can be a win-win for students. Not only do you make some spending money, but you’ll also have the opportunity to meet some of your peers and get more familiar with your institution. If possible, aim to find a position that aligns with your interests and long-term professional goals. For example, if you’re interested in literature and pursuing a degree in education, you might want to apply for a job at your college’s writing center so that you can help your peers take their essay skills to the next level.

Check Your Graduation Requirements

Most colleges will have a list of courses or areas of study that students must complete to earn their degrees. Rather than waiting until sophomore or junior year to assess your progress, make sure that you’re on track to graduate on time from your freshman year onwards. If you’re not sure what you want to major in, start by completing some of the general education requirements so that you’ll have plenty of time to devote to classes for your major by the time you’re a sophomore or junior.

Stick to a Schedule

Many freshmen struggle to adapt to the way college courses are structured. Instead of taking the same classes every day, your lectures and seminars will likely take place just once or twice a week. While this might sound like a dream come true, students can’t use the extra free time to slack off. Instead, professors will expect you to independently work on major projects, such as papers and presentations. Stay on top of your coursework by creating a detailed schedule and keeping track of deadlines for each class that you’re enrolled in.

While freshman year may seem a bit overwhelming, it’s also filled with exciting opportunities and new challenges. If you’re looking to make the most of your college experience, our team of experts can guide you throughout your journey.

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3 FAFSA® Deadlines You Need to Know

Tue, 26 Jan 2021 10:32:43 -0600

Ah, deadlines: sworn enemy of students across the nation. When you’re busy with classes, extracurricular activities, and a social life, it’s easy to let due dates whoosh by. Exam, term paper, Spanish club meeting…We get it.

Nevertheless, we’re here to point out a few more critical commitments to add to your calendar: Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA^®) deadlines. It’s essential that you submit your FAFSA form on time, or you might lose out on big money that can help you pay for college.

The College Deadline

The first type of due date comes from colleges themselves, and—spoiler alert—it’s typically early. College deadlines vary from school to school, but usually come well before the academic year starts. If you’re applying to multiple colleges, look up each school’s FAFSA deadline and apply by the earliest one.

Many college FAFSA due dates are priority deadlines. This means that you need to get your FAFSA form in by that date to be considered for the most money. Many colleges have this date clearly marked on their financial aid webpages. If you can’t find it, you can always call the school’s financial aid office.

If you’re worried about gathering information to complete the FAFSA form in time to meet this deadline, don’t be. You can apply beginning Oct. 1. You’ll use 2018 tax information, so there’s no need for estimates.

Didn’t think it could get any easier? The Oct. 1 launch date coincides with many college application deadlines, so we recommend submitting admission and federal aid applications at the same time. If you haven’t figured out where you’re applying yet, don’t worry! You can still submit the FAFSA form. Just list any school you’re considering, even if you’re not sure whether you’ll apply or be accepted. You can always add or remove schools to your FAFSA form later.

2. The State Deadline

The second deadline is set by your home state. You can check your state’s deadline. Some states have hard deadlines and others have suggested dates to make sure you get priority consideration for college money. Many states have limited funds, so their FAFSA deadlines may be quite early. If your state’s deadline is “as soon as possible after Oct. 1, 2019,” you should get your FAFSA form submitted ASAP. Many of these states have limited funds and offer financial aid only until they run out, so the sooner you apply, the better your chances.

3. The Federal Deadline

This last deadline comes from us, the U.S. Department of Education, aka the FAFSA folks. Our only time constraint is that each year’s FAFSA form is no longer available after June 30 for that particular academic year.

That means that the 2020–21 FAFSA form will disappear from fafsa.gov on June 30, 2021, because that’s the end of the 2020–21 school year. That’s right—you can technically go through your entire year at college before accessing the FAFSA form. However, a few federal student aid programs have limited funds, so be sure to apply as soon as you can. Also, as we said, earlier deadlines from states and colleges make waiting a bad idea.

Why so many due dates?

Each of these entities awards financial aid differently and at different times. What they all have in common, though, is that they use the FAFSA form to see whether you’re eligible for their aid programs. So when a college wants to offer its aid before the academic year starts, it needs your FAFSA form to do so. If you want in on that money to help you pay for college, you need to meet the deadline. The same goes for state aid programs. Additionally, many outside scholarship programs need to see your FAFSA info before they will consider your application. If you’re applying for scholarships, you need to stay on top of those deadlines, too.

What happens if I miss the deadlines?

Don’t miss the deadlines. Plan to get your FAFSA form in by the earliest of all the due dates for your best crack at college money. By missing deadlines, you take yourself out of the running for money you might otherwise get. Some states and colleges continue to award aid to FAFSA latecomers, but your chances get much slimmer, and the payout is often lower.

If you miss the end-of-June federal deadline, you’re no longer eligible to submit that year’s FAFSA form. Did we mention you shouldn’t miss the deadlines?

As the saying goes, “the sooner the better.” So turn in your FAFSA form (and that term paper!) as soon as possible.

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Enrollment Continues to Trend Downward

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 04:00:23 -0600

Several concerning enrollment trends are holding strong as the latest, and more comprehensive,

data show.

Experts and advocates are particularly worried about community colleges.

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center has bad news. Again.

Its latest fall 2020 enrollment report continues to show downward trajectories nearly across the board in higher education. As of Sept. 24, undergraduate enrollment is now 4 percent lower than it was last fall -- a 1.5-percentage-point decrease from earlier this semester.

This latest report includes data from more colleges. It's based on reporting from about 54 percent of postsecondary institutions, or data for 9.2 million students, compared to 22 percent of institutions earlier this fall. The next update is scheduled for Nov. 12.

The largest declines of all are in first-year students. Just over 16 percent fewer freshmen have enrolled this fall compared to last year. Graduate enrollment was trending upward earlier. While it's still an increase over last year, that gain has slipped by 1.3 percentage points.

"For the most part, things are worse by almost half," said Douglas Shapiro, executive director of the clearinghouse. "But we really don’t have a way to know whether that is likely to continue."

Somewhat surprisingly, public and private nonprofit four-year institutions are doing relatively well, he said during a webinar presenting the report.

Compared to expectations for those colleges, they are in "fairly good shape, all things considered," he said. Undergraduate enrollment is down 1.4 percent at public four-years and 2 percent at private nonprofits.

On the flipside, things are much worse at community colleges. Typically, community colleges get a boost in enrollment during a recession as unemployed people seek to improve their skills. Many thought they'd get an even bigger boost this time around from students transferring out of four-year colleges to save money and stay close to home due to the COVID-19 pandemic and pivots to remote learning.

These predictions aren't playing out.

Community college enrollment has dropped 9.4 percent -- nearly nine times its loss rate between 2018 and 2019. When compared with the sector's expectations, these data are "even more worrisome," Shapiro said. Enrollment in certificate and associate degree programs, which are mostly offered at two-year colleges, is also down.

Community colleges are also seeing a nearly 23 percent enrollment drop for first-time students. This was particularly distressing because two-year colleges were one of the few bright spots for first-time students in the fall of 2019, he said.

It's hard to say whether that decline will continue. But it's possible, Shapiro said, because the students that community colleges serve are most likely to face challenges with access to technology, making online learning difficult. It's also hard to translate vocational programs to remote formats.

The decline equates to more than 600,000 students not enrolling at community colleges, according to Walter G. Bumphus, president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges.

"We are hearing from several sources that community college students are looking for in-person learning," Bumphus said in an email. "The disruption of in-person learning to remote was absolutely necessary but the enrollment figures show us that it is not a good long-term solution for many students. Because of the decline in enrollment as well as the economic impact of the pandemic, community colleges are potentially facing steep cuts to their funding allocations at a time when they need more support than ever. More importantly, hundreds of thousands of students are not getting the education they need to advance to higher level degrees and jobs.”

Shapiro thinks people should be worried about this trend.

"These declines are so large and so fast, and they’re so concentrated on first-year students who may never make it back," he said. "If there’s not a sudden rebound where they all come back in the spring -- I don’t see that happening -- I think many of these students will never make it back."

That could have large implications.

"Community colleges are a huge part of access for higher ed, in general, for disadvantaged students," he said. "I think it’s especially troubling that we risk an increasingly more inequitable society if we don’t address these gaps in access. And do so quickly."

Karen Stout, president and CEO of Achieving the Dream, a member organization advocating to improve community college student success, is also worried. But she also sees some promising signs.

"College presidents are saying their retention numbers are strong," Stout said. "They’re seeing this deepening of learner continuity."

Many colleges doubled down on retention in the spring, which may have taken away from their efforts to enroll more first-time students.

But some have been successful on both ends, Stout said. The Community College of Baltimore County strategically deployed financial aid and federal CARES Act funds to eliminate financial barriers for new students, and it hasn't seen an enrollment dip. Durham Technical Community College blended credit and noncredit offerings so students could use short-term programs as an entry point to the college, and its enrollment is flat. And Odessa College has started offering eight-week sessions for students, avoiding any enrollment drops in the process.

"I don't think it's a lost cause," Stout said.

It's possible that the next report could show improvements for community colleges, she said, as many have been holding eight-week semesters due to the pandemic. Fourteen-week semesters will likely become less common by the time COVID-19 subsides, she predicts.

The one exception to all this decline is for-profit four-year colleges. Their enrollment is up 3 percent over last fall. The data do contain information from for-profit companies that have closed some campuses over the year, but not those that have shut whole companies down, Shapiro said. Historically, these colleges were in free fall pre-pandemic, he said, making this increase even more notable.

It's likely the sector could make a rebound once again.

"They were the first to benefit from the last recession," he said. "I think they are quicker to pick up displaced workers."

Another surprise is the disparity among different racial and ethnic groups, Shapiro said.

"We expected to see steeper declines among Black, Native American and Hispanic students," he said, due to the disproportionate effects of the public health crisis and the recession on minority groups.

Instead, white student enrollment is declining nearly as much as Black student enrollment. And white graduate student enrollment is lagging behind Black graduate student enrollment.

Historically Black colleges and universities are largely tracking trends for undergraduates over all, though private nonprofit HBCUs are seeing larger enrollment drops and public two-year HBCUs are seeing smaller drops, the report said.

Hispanic students are doing relatively better than all the other races and ethnicities included in the report.

A caveat is that the center does not have as much data on races and ethnicities as it does for overall data, so these numbers are likely more variable, according to Shapiro.

Stout credits colleges' retention work for avoiding steep gaps. But, she noted, the gaps still exist.

Colleges are going to have to invest in a student success agenda to close these gaps, she said. That will be hard work and will include restructuring how programs are created, how they're designed and how quickly students can enter and complete programs.

While overall disparities aren't huge, Shapiro noted in an interview that they get larger for community colleges and men. Black student enrollment at community colleges is down 14 percent, compared to 11 percent for white students.

The decline for Black men at these colleges is 21 percent -- double the rate for Black women, he said. Enrollment for white men is also down compared to white women, but to a lesser degree.

"We don't really know why that is," he said.

Institutional and policy leaders need to examine why these disparities are so glaring for this sector, said Eric Felix, assistant professor of postsecondary educational leadership at San Diego State University.

"I’m really concerned about the disparities in who’s enrolling and who’s able to retain and persist in the two-year sector, given that students in those colleges are more likely to face other inequities," Felix said.

But community colleges are in a difficult place to enact change, he said. Without more federal resources, it will be hard for them to target these issues.

"The lack of federal action in providing a social safety net requires students to prioritize either learning or an economic livelihood," he said.

He hopes these data will encourage federal policy makers to step in and help all of higher education, but especially two-year colleges.

Institutions that were primarily online before the pandemic are also doing well. At colleges where more than 90 percent of students took courses solely online pre-pandemic, enrollments are growing for both undergraduate (6.8 percent) and graduate students (7.2 percent).

Enrollment for students age 25 or older at these colleges increased by 5.5 percent so far this fall, though that population is still in an overall enrollment decline. This follows a 6.3 percent decline last year.

No sector gained enrollment from students age 18 to 20, Shapiro said. Only for-profit colleges gained at all among age groups, mostly with students age 25 or over.

The report also had sufficient data to examine enrollment in 47 states. It found that the Northeast is doing the best, with an enrollment drop of only 3.4 percent, while the Midwest is doing the worst, with a drop of 5.7 percent. About half the states' enrollments dropped more than the national average of 4 percent, with Rhode Island seeing a 15.8 percent decline -- the largest of all. By Inside Higher Ed

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