THE CHRONICLE
of Higher Education®
chronicle.com
November 26, 2010 • $3.75
Volume LVII, Number 14
Colleges Weigh
How to Estimate
Cost to Families
Campuses struggle to balance
simplicity and accuracy
in net-price calculators
By Beckie Supiano
Br ENDA FI TzsIMoNs
Emmeline Hill, a geneticist at U. College Dublin, runs a start-up company that sells a blood test to identify horses’ “speed gene.”
Ireland Looks to Academe to Re-Ignite Its Economy
By Goldie Blumenstyk
DUB LIN
INANAU DIO-RE SEARCHLAB strewn with guitars, Dan Barry and his colleagues at the Dublin Institute of Tech- nology fiddle with a computerized tool that can comb the
Irish Traditional Music Archive and locate a jig by its tempo
or other traits. An Irish company has already licensed the
technology, and the researchers are hoping other companies
will follow suit.
Across town, on University College Dublin’s sprawling
campus, Emmeline Hill, a rising-star geneticist, devotes one
day a week to her own commercial venture, a year-old univer-
sity start-up company called Equinome. It sells a blood test
to locate the “speed gene” in thoroughbreds.
A COLLEGEDEGREEis a big purchase. It is also a mysterious one. In many cas- es, families don’t know the bottom-line
price they will pay at a particular college until
the financial-aid award letter arrives, often mere
weeks before their son or daughter must make
a decision about where to enroll. Even then, deciphering the letter to determine out-of-pocket
costs can be tricky.
A new federal rule is supposed to change
that. It will require colleges to post net-price
calculators on their Web sites, showing the
cost of attendance and an estimate of what a
family would actually pay after all grants. It’s
difficult to find anyone who dislikes the rule’s
basic intent, and just as difficult to find someone who thinks compliance will be straightforward.
As colleges prepare for the new rule, which
goes into effect next october, they must determine whether to use a template from the
federal government, work with a vendor, or
create a calculator in-house and make a host
of technical decisions about how it will work.
But the biggest decision they face may be a
philosophical one: should they create a simple tool or one that is more accurate but also
more complicated?
The answer to that question will determine
not only how a college designs its calculator,
but also what kind of experience prospective students and parents will have when they
use it. officials at many colleges have come
to see the net-price calculator as something
that could make a big difference in their admissions outcomes, rather than a routine mat-
Continued on Page A16
Anthropology Group Restyles
Its Offerings to Lure Nonacademics
By Audrey Williams June
has historically catered to college
professors.
In recent years, the association
has revamped parts of its annual
meetings and its publications to better serve anthropologists who do not
go into academe. With
efforts like the DVD, it is
also trying to promote alternative career paths to
graduate students.
“We saw what was
happening, and we have
made a concerted effort to try to
reach out to them and to be relevant,” says Bill Davis, executive
director of the association, whose
Continued on Page A7
SCENESFROMMUSEUMS, hospi- tals, federal government agen- cies, factory floors,
and even a bank play on
a DVD distributed by the
American Anthropological Association, highlighting a host of career options
for anthropologists.
But one potential
workplace is purposely
missing: a college campus. That’s because roughly half
of all anthropologists work outside of academe—a number that
is fundamentally changing an
11,000-member association that
What O
off-campus
jobs can you
get with an
anthropology
degree? See
Page A7.
The Cautionary Tale of a Short-Lived College
By Elyse Ashburn
THEPIC TURESshow a lovely celebration. A crowd of 100 or so is seated on a well-groomed lawn in front of a trim orchestra and a grand old plantation
house. A retired astronaut has been
flown in to address the group. Late
in the day, two hot-air balloons
skim the dusky sky.
That fall day in 2007 seemed
an auspicious start for a college
with only five professors and 10
students. But as the year wore on,
the students, professors, and staff
members became convinced that
it was a sign of something else entirely: an elaborate facade.
Founders College, in rural south
Boston, Va., was pitched as a sort
Continued on Page A13
BLAk ELy s WANsoN
Tamara K. Fuller, a partner in the creation of Founders College,
speaks at its opening, in 2007. Things went downhill after that.
This week’s news briefing: Page A3 l The Chronicle Review: Section B l 440 job opportunities: Page A30
