In the News: Portland College Grads Outearn Non-Grads

"It certainly pays to have a college degree in the Portland metro area. According to an On Numbers analysis compiled by the Business Journal, non-college graduates in Portland earn a median salary of $26,127 a year. Workers holding a Bachelor's degree or higher earn 1.75 times that at $45,755."

Read more in the Portland Business Journal.

Video Series: College Talk - Academics

Oregon's CACG and GEAR UP staff are collaborating on a series of short videos we're calling "College Talk." The idea behind the series was sparked by a previous blog post about college jargon and how difficult it can be -especially for first generation college students- to learn the "language" of college. We hope these videos will help.


You can watch the second video about academic jargon here or on the CACG YouTube page.



Please feel free to share the videos in this series with students, colleagues, or others you think might benefit. (And then let us know how you've helped get the word out!)

We'd really like to hear what you think - and, even more, we'd love to hear what your students think. Please share comments below or send an email to Adrienne and/or Dana with your thoughts.

Check out the first video in the series, all about the various buildings and names on a college campus.

In the News: The Paradox of College - The Rising Cost of Going (and Not Going!) to College

"In the fight to put low-income kids on the college track, one of the simplest weapons is also one of the most controversial. It's cash. If a student gets a good grade, he gets some money. If he doesn't get a good grade, he gets no money. Same goes for teachers. If their students succeed, they get richer. If they don't, then they don't."

Read more about the successes of cash incentives for low-income students in The Atlantic. Then come back and tell us what you think about the idea. Have you ever tried a program like this with your students? Was it successful? Do you think it could be?

Program Spotlight: Police Activities League of Greater Portland

The Oregon College Access Challenge Grant provides schools, districts, colleges, universities, and community-based non-profit organizations opportunities to serve youth in their college-going dreams. Today's blog post features a currently-funded community based organization.

The Police Activities League (PAL) is a national organization that benefits youth through healthy recreation and safe extracurricular activities.

PAL of the Greater Portland Area includes two youth centers, one in east Portland and one in Beaverton. The Portland PAL Youth Center is located in the Rockwood area of Gresham at the eastern boundary with Portland in a former elementary school. In Beaverton, the city provides space for PAL in the Beaverton Resource Center. Both programs house thriving afterschool programs which draw in young people from several surrounding school districts. 

The Portland and Beaverton PAL Youth Centers each serve 100-150 children with their summer activities; multiple sports camps run in cooperation with local universities and Portland Parks and Recreation. Both PAL youth center offers students USDA meals each weekday during the school year and in summer. During the school year, from 2:30-7pm, the buildings are buzzing with activity: tutoring and homework club, skill-focused groups, recreation and crafts. In the summer, PAL youth centers are open all day and provides numerous field trips, camps and sports, including boxing and late night basketball.

Program Spotlight: OIT Rural Outreach for College Access

The Oregon College Access Challenge Grant provides schools, districts, colleges, universities, and community-based non-profit organizations opportunities to serve youth in their college-going dreams. Today's blog post features a currently-funded university partner.

Oregon Institute of Technology's Rural Outreach for College Access (ROCA) has been an interesting and challenging project. Our intent was to support rural, first generation and low income students in their aspirations to attend college by providing college access and success workshops on high school campuses; providing selected students with scholarships for ACP classes and mentoring from an OIT student leader, and an opportunity for the students, their parents, and teacher to participate in a program on the OIT Klamath Falls campus. A core group of four persons from two departments have been planning this project since its inception.

To date only one school has taken advantage of the three presentations our group has offered-teacher, parent, and student. The parent session was not well attended but was very lively. The parents were happy with the information they received and we were able to really assist the group with their questions in a relaxed atmosphere. The rest of the schools scheduled are a mix of teacher only or student only sessions. Most schools stated their parents were not good about showing up for activities. Most schools did not seem interested in pursuing this target group further.

Completed presentations have served approximately 212 students, teachers, and parents. Many of these students took the information packets that were available at the sessions. These packets contained a handout of the presentation, an annotated internet list of websites related to college access, and a list of scholarship websites compiled by the TRiO program on our campus.

Packet materials from each session have been posted on our Youth Programs webpage so anyone may access them (www.oit.edu/precollege ROCA tab). My thought is that schools could link to this location so the information is still accessible to those we had planned to reach.

A member of our Library staff created a tutorial for our project on conducting research using our digital library resources. This presentation is available online for students taking dual credit (ACP) courses with us. Students may need their OIT Student Id Number (sid) to access the presentation.