Archive for January, 2012
Nutritionists and dietitians are cheering the first significant overhaul in school meal standards in 15 years. The new regulations call for: More whole grains, low-fat dairy and fresh fruits and veggies Less salt, fat and total calories “The focus on improving school meals comes at a critical time for children’s health as young people increasingly suffer from diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure,” Jessica Donze Black, director of the Kids’ Safe and Healthful Foods Project at Pew Charitable Trusts says in a news release rounding up accolades from more than a dozen other child nutrition advocates. The Academy...
In a perfect world, all you’d have to do for career bliss is go back to school, get trained for a new career, and have a job waiting for you when you graduated. And not just any job, mind you, but the one that’s perfect for you, with just the right salary. Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way, especially in this economy, says Seattle-based career coach David Goodenough. “The silliest concept in the world is that you are going to go to school and then you are going to go to the career center and get a job. You can’t just go...
Imagine being in your 20s and making quite a nice living at real estate. You don’t have a college degree, and don’t think you need one. Then doors start closing when job interviews hit the dreaded “Yeah, but …” snag. “Yeah, you have some great skills and experience, but why no degree?” That was Esther, a working mom who wondered how on earth she could possibly go back to school. In a traditional on-campus setting, she’d have to skip classes to keep up with her kids, job, choir and drama practice, etc. That’s when she started thinking about online programs....
Filling out financial aid forms can be a perplexing process. Fortunately, there’s plenty of time before the June 30 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) deadline for the 2012-13 school year. But to help students get their questions answered before the 11th hour, the U.S. Department of Education’s financial aid office hosted a virtual office hour on Twitter. Here’s a sampling of some questions and answers we found helpful (with a few minor edits to improve readability): Q: With getting help to pay for school, is there a limit in how much a person makes? A: There’s NO income...
Times are tough for many American students trying to foot the bill for college, graduate school and career education programs. As TIME Moneyland reports, state funding for higher education has fallen by nearly 8 percent over the past year. That’s—gulp—$6 billion that schools in some 41 states are doing without, according to the annual Grapevine report from Illinois State University’s Center for the Study of Education Policy. To make up the difference, many schools have jacked up tuition, and some are scaling back need-based financial-aid programs while enrolling more out-of-state students who pay higher tuition—making it harder for in-state students...
Going back to school is a daunting proposition in and of itself. Factor in the high cost and associated qualms about rising student debt loads, and it’s enough to make your dreams of pursuing a degree and new career seem unreachable. Don’t let yourself get discouraged. There are lots of ways to keep the cost of your education in check. Here are 10 tips from U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Financial Aid that are tailor-made for folks who are eager to advance or change up their careers by going back to school: Enroll in a cooperative education program that...
Software companies like Epic Systems Corp. are growing as more doctor’s offices and hospitals scrap mountains of paper files and bring their medical records into the digital age. Epic was pretty small a decade ago, with 575 employees. Today, it employs 5,100 people, is expanding its expanding its headquarters near Madison, Wisc., and plans to hire 1,000 more people this year, The New York Times reports. Thousands of health care providers are expected to go digital this year as they take advantage of up to $27 billion in federal stimulus dollars the government started to disburse last May, The Times...
If you’re giving some thought to a career in health care, chances are you like the idea of helping people. That doesn’t mean you have to like the people you’re helping. Seriously. Not everyone is a people person. There’s no shame in preferring the idea of sifting through mountains of medical records in the peace and quiet of a windowless back office vs. interacting with dozens of people, young and old, kind and curmudgeonly, every day, all day long. There are plenty of great health care jobs out there that entail very little, if any, patient contact. Here are just...
Enrollment in online schools has soared to more than 6 million in recent years—a growth rate that’s 10 times faster than for higher education as a whole, according to a 2011 report by the Babson Survey Research Group, which is affiliated with Babson College in Wellesley Hills, Mass. Last summer, U.S. News & World Report embarked on its first-ever survey of online degree programs … and managed to stoke controversy months before the highly anticipated rankings were released. Critics complained the survey questions focused too much on “inputs”—that is, the caliber of incoming students—and not enough on the quality of...
Allied health. If you’ve been researching careers in the health field, you’ve probably run across this term (yep, we’ve got it in our title) and you’re probably wondering what it means. It’s a label that’s been used for a vast array of health care professions for decades—everything from nutritionists and phlebotomists to dental assistants and ultrasound techs. Yet you won’t find it in Merriam-Webster’s medical or general purpose dictionaries. The definition listed on The Association of Schools of Allied Health Professions‘ website is wordy and doesn’t quite explain what differentiates an allied health professional from a doctor or dentist. So...
Dental professionals are doing much more these days than just taking care of teeth. They’re on the front lines of spotting signs of severe health problems like diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, which are usually are diagnosed in a hospital or doctor’s office. That’s because every year, almost 20 million Americans visit a dentist but never set foot in a doctor’s office, according to an NYU study recently published in the American Journal of Public Health. “For these and other individuals, dental professionals are in a key position to assess and detect oral signs and symptoms of systemic...
If you’re on the ball and raring to go back to school, perhaps you’ve already filled out your 2012-13 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). If you file electronically, you can find out in just three to five days how much financial aid you’re eligible to receive. (It takes a bit longer, up to three weeks, for those who prefer to mail in a paper application and don’t provide an email address.) So, what happens if you don’t get as much aid as you were counting on—or if you’re flat-out denied? You can appeal. Some of the most common reasons for...