Byer Educational Consulting

There have been rumors and whispers about colleges black-listing high schools where students broke Early Decision agreements. For the first time, it's been reported in a mainstream news outlet.

Tulane Punished a High School After an Early Decision Student Backed Out (Gift Article) In an unusual move, the university imposed a one-year ban on Colorado Academy for early-decision applications, which carry a commitment to attend.

529 plans can cover test prep!

Federal changes to qualified education expenses - my529 H.R. 1, passed by the 119th Congress and signed into law on July 4, 2025, contains provisions that impact 529 […]

NYT summary of changes coming to financing higher Ed:

What Trump’s Big Bill Means for Colleges, Student Loans and Grants (Gift Article) Social work majors might struggle to get student loans. University endowments would be more heavily taxed. But students in some training programs would become eligible for Pell Grants.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-02/can-i-afford-to-pay-for-college-public-schools-are-not-always-cheaper?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc0NjQ1NDkzOCwiZXhwIjoxNzQ3MDU5NzM4LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTVk41NE1UMVVNMFcwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJFRDFCQzJBRUI2NkY0RUYzOUJGOURGODIyMkZCQ0M5MiJ9.puITkrhIhXYype27T-6j3ZR81qNpjFag8j0qzjdIcgU

State School Is Not Always Your Cheapest College Option Public universities offer lower average tuition costs, but the savings look better for higher-income families.

"But nearly 4 out of 5 admissions officers said faculty at their institutions place a high priority on calculus as a sign of rigor on high school transcripts. And 79% agreed with the statement, “Students who have taken calculus are more likely to succeed in college.”"

Calculus is a golden ticket for entry to elite colleges. Is that fair? Calculus is an easy way to sort students: those who took it, and those who didn’t. But there’s a problem. Some students never had the chance.

Admissions officers find it hard to evaluate students without ACT/SAT scores, and TO policies may not garner desired boosts to diversity as originally thought:

PROOF POINTS: Colleges that ditched test scores for admissions find it's harder to be fair in choosing students, researcher says Diversifying the student body remains an elusive goal

A pointed, though realistic critique of current financial aid practices for US higher ed:

The Single Most Important Thing to Know About Financial Aid: It’s a Sham Colleges claim to award scholarships based on merit or need. In reality, they’re just charging the most they think families will pay.

Most students report taking Calculus in high school because "it looks good" for admissions. Colleges need to give greater weight to other paths of rigorous quantitative ability - Stats, Data Science, etc. http://ow.ly/YCp050Jcvoo

A New Calculus for College Admissions: How Policy, Practice, and Perceptions of High School Math Education Limit Equitable Access to College - Just Equations Decisions about who gets admitted to college, especially to selective institutions, are the result of a complex mix of policy and practice, and math expectations are part of that mix. … More

"To echo a letter that I wrote to Lowell students who will be watching this film: when I was a senior in high school, I had no clue what I was doing, what my goals were, what was driving me, or who I wanted to become, even though I thought I did know. After college, I think I know myself a little bit better, but in many ways, I still don’t have the answers. And that’s totally okay. These are things that will take the rest of our lives to figure out."

Senior tried hard to get into the Ivy Leagues. What she thinks now – AsAmNews Try Harder to make its national debut on PBS, Monday May 2. The documentary follows several Asian American students through the college admissions process.

Current 9th graders may have a massive new plan in the works for their admissions.

The New Digital SAT College Board has announced a transition to a fully-digital replacement of the SAT. Compass explores the details of what this means for schools and students.

Some history of "alternate" colleges in the US, including several in operation today.

A Few Lessons From Failed Conservative Colleges for the New “Anti-Woke” University of Austin History Will the University of Austin Succeed? The track record of right-wing breakaway colleges is littered with instructive failures. By Adam Laats Nov 11, 20212:57 PM During the 1920s, Wheaton College’s enrollment numbers exploded, increasing by more than 400 percent between 1916 and 1928. Stev...

A response to Allensworth and Clark (2020)'s paper on the relevance of ACT scores vs. High School GPA for admissions purposes:

The irrelevance of test scores is greatly exaggerated - LessWrong Here's some claims about how grades (GPA) and test scores (ACT) predict success in college. In a study released this month, the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research found—after surveying more than 55,000 public high school graduates—that grade point averages were five times as str...