Higher education notebook

Hendrix offering tuition discount

Some Hendrix College applicants may be eligible for a new tuition discount.

The college has announced the Tuition Advantage program, which reduces the price of tuition for higher-achieving students to that of the flagship university in their home states. No specific criteria are listed for qualifying for the discount.

“Complete applications are evaluated holistically based on academic performance, leadership, extracurricular activities, and service,” the college’s announcement states.

This academic year, Hendrix students pay $23,625 per semester, which is $47,250 for a full academic year.

Tuition Advantage is a part of the college’s effort to make the school more affordable for students to attend.

The scholarship refers only to the tuition of a flagship university and mentions nothing about fees.

Base in-state tuition at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville is $3,784.20 per semester, or $7,568.40 for a full academic year, if a student takes 15 credit hours each semester.

Arkansas’ neighboring states are mostly more expensive.

At the University of Texas at Austin, base in-state tuition is $5,157 per semester, $10,314 for a full academic year. Louisiana State University charges $4,023.30 per semester, $8,046.60 for a year. Mississippi University, known as Ole Miss, charges $4,359 per semester, $8,718 per year. The University of Tennessee-Knoxville charges $5,670 per semester, $11,340 per year.

Per semester tuition at the University of Missouri-Columbia is $4,485 per semester, $8,970 per year, and at the University of Oklahoma-Norman, it’s $2,391 per semester, $4,788 per year. Tuition is lower at Oklahoma because the university charges almost as much in mandatory fees as it does tuition.

Bowie new chief of ASU admissions

Arkansas State University at Jonesboro has a new senior director of admissions.

Pamela Bowie is joining the university staff after leading the admissions office at the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College last year, according to an ASU news release announcing her hire. Bowie earned a master’s degree from ASU in 2006 and worked as an admissions counselor there for three years.

During Bowie’s tenure at Pulaski Tech, the release states, Bowie’s office reduced application processing, increased overall applications, doubled attendance at the college’s Preview Day and carried out new plans for strategic marketing and communications.

Pulaski Tech is the secondlargest community college in Arkansas, enrolling more than 5,000 students last fall.

ASU had more than 12,000 students enrolled last fall.

Program at SAU gets accreditation

Southern Arkansas University’s undergraduate engineering degree program is now accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology Engineering Accreditation Commission, the university has announced.

Higher-education institutions seek program accreditation, which is based on standards established by the accrediting agency, to ensure that graduates can more easily enter the workforce or graduate from programs in those fields.

As of October last year, seven other Arkansas universities had programs accredited by ABET, which reviews science, engineering, math and technology programs. Those schools are Arkansas State University at Jonesboro, Arkansas Tech University, Harding University, John Brown University, the University of Central Arkansas, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

Worldwide, ABET accredits 4,005 programs at nearly 800 colleges and universities in 32 countries, according to its website.

SAU’s accredited program is its bachelor degree in engineering, according to the university.

Grant to further ASU laser study

A $489,000 National Science Foundation grant will help Arkansas State University at Jonesboro researchers study how lasers may be able to help analyze the elements of different materials, the university has announced.

Jonathan Merten, ASU associate professor of chemistry, leads the project team, which includes undergraduate students.

The team will perform for the public its experiments in a safety-locked setup at the Arkansas State University Museum.

The project is officially titled “RUI: Elucidation of Matrix Effects in Laser Ablation Elemental Analysis through Absolute Quantification of Ablated Mass.”

Laser ablation breaks apart material and turns it into plasma at high enough temperatures. Elemental analysis refers to the makeup of different materials.

The team wants to study the plasma process to better understand and improve laser-based elemental measurements, the release states.