Labor & Employment Law

Union Plus, Princeton Review Offer College Admission Test Help. Good Idea? Tell the NY Times

By Mike Hall

Union Plus and The Princeton Review have joined forces to provide union members and their families “college readiness educational services” to prepare college-bound students for the SAT and ACT tests and graduate school hopefuls for law, medical, business and other exams. Says Union Plus President Leslie Tolf:

Union members have said they want help with the rising costs of college. Our relationship with The Princeton Review will also give union members access to the best resources in the country when it comes to college admissions test preparation.

The courses will be delivered by The Princeton Review’s instructors and available to students via in-person or LiveOnline classes as well as individually self-paced online courses. Additional details about the program’s offerings are being finalized and will be announced at a later date.

The announcement caught the eye of Jacques Steinberg, an education writer for The New York Times who wrote an article today and a post on the Times’ college admission blog, The Choice. Steinberg wants to know what union members think about the move. He writes:

SAT tutoring and private college admissions counseling have long been perceived as giving an unfair leg up to the children of the wealthy, at least in the view of those who may be unable to afford such services.

Do readers of The Choice?particularly those of you who are union members, or whose companies offer test prep services as a corporate benefit?welcome such gestures? For those who don’t have access to such perks, would your families take advantage of them if you did?

You can click here to read his blog post and here to comment.

We’ll bring you more on the college admissions program later this summer after details are finalized.

Earlier this year, the National Labor College (NLC) and The Princeton Review’s subsidiary, Penn Foster Education Group, joined together to enhance the NLC’s online education service to bring high-quality degree programs to union members and their families.

The College for Working Families will combine the advantages of online learning with the resources of unions to provide programs specifically suited to the needs and interests of union members. If you would like more information about the online degree, click here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on June 22, 2010 (boomark / email).