Last year, a couple paid $2.2 million to a college consultant to ensure their two boys were admitted to Harvard.
Sure, that’s an outrageous sum. But the rich are increasingly hiring consultants to prime their children for the applications process. Consultants help students build interesting extracurricular portfolios and coach them for standardized tests. Then, during the students’ senior fall, these consultants help put together their students’ best bits into an attractive application. Over 120,000 students hired such consultants last year, paying an average of $3,000.
At the other end of the income spectrum, students make do with the average, stressed, high school guidance counselor. The American School Counselor’s Association says the average student receives only 38 minutes of counseling from their high school counselors. Not surprising when you consider counselors in American schools handle on average 476 students per year.
All the while, the number of options young people must consider as they approach senior fall is growing. Higher education is fragmenting and changing to lower costs. President Obama launched a new scorecard for colleges that ranks institutions on accountability and affordability, taking into account factors such as tuition and graduates’ salaries. And to meet the requirements of the scorecard and the greater pressures facing higher ed, new models are arising, experimenting with new means of delivery.
For instance, the Minerva Project plans to break into the elite tier of colleges to offer a premium education at half the price of the Ivies. A start-up called American Honors is making college more affordable by developing a strong two year community college curriculum students take before transferring to four-years. And what’s more, many colleges are changing means of delivery to emphasize more scalable and less costly, online courses. Last year, Colorado State University was the first to offer a massive open online course for credit.
At the same time, institutions will work metrics to boost ratings while also lowering quality. For instance, if institutions become more selective, creaming students from the crop and lowering access, then they could boost ratings and neglect the disadvantaged. For-profits, in particular, have been criticized for saddling graduates with debt and inadequate preparation.
Discerning value in this changing educational landscape for the average high school senior is very difficult. Considering that deciding if and where to go to college is among the most important decisions a person makes, and so few are getting strong counseling, there ought to be a better way to support these decisions.
Helping students and parents navigate the complicated educational landscape is what Noodle Education, the start-up with which I interned this summer, is attempting to do. Noodle is an online search tool. To make the best website possible, Noodle is building intelligent search tools and aggregating massive amounts of educational data, all while marketing to build awareness of how Noodle can help students navigate some of the most important decisions in their life. And though for-profit, Noodle plans to offer its services free or at a very low-cost to customers to help level the search playing field.
Noodle enriches the simple experience one might associate with just typing ‘college’ into Google by using an enriched search. The search uses academic and general interests to match user with college, and then compares options. These include average financial aid offers and even users’ reviews. Noodle makes you aware of opportunities you might otherwise have never considered. Noodle can also be used to help find a tutor in your area, a summer camp, or a class outside of school. And as the number of users grows, the recommendations will become more powerful by linking user preferences to tailor recommendations.
Whereas nonprofits such as Strive for College and The Opportunity Network focus resources in an intensive fashion on first-generation college students often from disadvantaged backgrounds, Noodle aims to scale high quality advice to anyone with internet access through its enriched search that gives students recommendations based on preferences and background information. In the midst of disheartening and disquieting stories of how big data is used, Noodle aims to leverage large amounts of data to open up a world of opportunity for students.
Noodle will face challenges. The for-profit image in education can spell death. But the founder of Noodle, who also founded the Princeton Review, John Katzman, is deeply troubled by how his company has helped feed greater inequality in American education, and believes in the equalizing power of Noodle. Pushing this equality will be an uphill battle, though.
Furthemore, Google, Amazon, and FindTheBest.com may all increasingly encroach on Noodle’s turf. If Google created profiles tailored to the education search and began leveraging some of its services directly for supporting tutoring and more educational materials, it could pose an immediate threat. Just the release of its HelpOuts service is forbidding. Noodle will have to gain users and differentiate its service enough to be in demand.
Noodle alone cannot level the playing field for students. But the hope is, with the support of and use by individual guidance counselors and school districts, it can serve as a tool that will make the overwhelming task of managing nearly 500 students more manageable and empower students and parents to learn the best ways to learn.
