Increased household expenses and decreased home values have limited American families' abilities to save for their children's college tuition, according to the Bloomberg news service. Parents report that they can only pay 21 percent of their children's college bills -- a three percentage-point drop from last year. With total college expenses estimated at $120,000 for current high school seniors, few parents can afford to handle the costs without previous savings. Families can save for college without paying taxes by using special education or state-sponsored 529 plans. These plans do not greatly impact access to financial aid, and half of parents who reported saving for their children's college education invested in 529 plans or similar accounts, according to Bloomberg. Despite the availability of these plans, more than a third of families have decreased their college savings, contributing to a 15 percent investment decrease in these plans, according to Investment News.
Pearson Publishing Company has created an English test for non-native speakers that will rival other standardized tests like the Test of English as a Foreign Language and the International English Language Testing System. The Pearson Test of English will feature a digital recording component that will test students' proficiency in conversational English. Pearson decided to include this component after hearing complaints from various undergraduate and graduate programs that current tests were not sufficient indicators of speaking proficiency, according to Inside Higher Ed. Admissions officers will receive a copy of this digital recording along with the student's test score. The PTE also includes reading, writing and listening sections similar to the current testing methods. The test will be approximately three hours long, and students can elect to take the test as many times as they want.
The Internal Revenue Service is asking 400 colleges to report specific financial details about their spending in a 42-page questionnaire as part of an effort to acquire more information about tax-exempt organizations. The questionnaire asks how colleges pay their major executives, including previously unreported information about special benefits. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said he supports the program due to increasing college costs and a need to increase transparency. Although colleges have most of the information that the IRS is requesting, they will have to assemble the information from "many different and unrelated departments," according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
