In addition to managing many great lifestyle offers for affiliates, Blue Phoenix Media also operates The Academic Network, a portal that hosts offers for many educational opportunities. To that end, we also regularly highlight innovations happening across education despite shrinking budgets and disproportionate class sizes.

Over at the Washington Post, George F. Will argues that education has–contrary to popular belief–been rather recession-proof. He writes about the disparity between government and private-sector jobs:

While the private sector has shed 8.5 million jobs — 7.4 percent of workers — during the recession, local governments have lost only 141,000, less than 1 percent.

Which tends to make light of of all the cutbacks the educational system has suffered through the years, unlike private sector-jobs. Which may explain why as the recession waged on, there was little by way of job loss in education. That job loss had already been underway well before the economic downturn.

But ultimately, Will’s analysis spins its wheels. It tries to make a point about education as a growth industry–even though in many parts of the country it still struggles to meet entry-level criteria.

Although it seems like Washington is siding with Will on this as a $23 billion bailout to save teachers and librarians from losing their jobs is dead in the water.

Some workers are coping with such dramatic cutbacks through creative demonstrations. Most notably, librarians across New York City are hosting a 24-hour read-in Saturday, June 12–a movement designed to draw attention to another round of massive budget cuts that’s set to further trim down the already-lean library system.

In addition to managing many great lifestyle offers for affiliates, Blue Phoenix Media also operates The Academic Network, a portal that hosts many educational opportunities. To that end, we also regularly highlight innovations happening across education despite shrinking budgets and disproportionate class sizes.

Classroom participation is enjoying a boom and all because of a gradual new trend blossoming across the country: Students using cell phones during class. In the Standard-Times, Elaine Marsilio writes on how by embracing the oldest form of social media, many teachers are seeing effective returns on their lesson plans. Continue reading »

In addition to providing a variety of lifestyle offers across its affiliate network, Blue Phoenix Media also operates an education vertical–The Academic Network–in addition to its plethora of education-related offers as well. This provides an excellent segue to a glimpse inside how the education world is finding new ways to innovate as school budgets shrink and class sizes grow.

The cover of the June 2010 Forbes proclaims, What Schools Can Learn from Money Managers. And Daniel Fisher’s cover story for the money mag sheds light on a new trend that initially seems like a cold approach to education in under-resourced schools. It’s an approach that reduces students to complex sets of data–culled together from information like quiz and homework scores. Continue reading »

In today’s employment world, the recession has caused some bleak predictions: The consensus of private forecasters is for the unemployment rate to get close to 9% next year, with some forecasters looking for a 10% rate. The Federal Reserve doesn’t expect the unemployment rate to fall below 7% until 2011. Only education and health services reported job gains¹. The struggle for employment is steadily increasing, and the rise in education service positions confirms that people are going back to school to get an edge on the competition.

• Distance education
• On-site campus colleges and universities,
• Financial aid information
• Scholarship information
• Grants information
• Loan information
• Education guides

¹http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/payrolls-down-651000-feb–/story.aspx?guid={3C16959C-FFFD-45BF-848F-9B36B187AB24}&dist=msr_9 ² http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=28&a=388399 ³http://media.www.thejambar.com/media/storage/paper324/news/
2009/03/05/News/Students.May.Ride.Out.Recession.In.Grad.School-3661599.shtml
⁴http://media.www.themhnews.com/media/storage/paper999/news/
2009/03/05/News/Stimulus.Plan.To.Provide.Relief.For.College.Students-3660925.shtml

With our current economy effecting job stability, Education is in high demand. Consumers are looking to improve their skills to maintain their jobs or are looking to change careers altogether due to layoffs or demotions. Online degree programs can provide the solution consumers need to fulfill their goals as well as help alleviate other economic stressors they may face. Online degree programs provide more concentrated areas of study that follow the trends of the real-world job market. They also help consumers save on out-of-pocket costs such as gas for travel, room and board, and other outside expenses.¹

You can take advantage of this wave in consumer demand and increase your revenue in the long run with the right marketing strategies. We decided to rethink our marketing strategies and provide verticalized Education portals to improve conversions in this huge market.

We have launched NEW Network Exclusives – Free Criminal Justice Info, Free Culinary Info, Free Nursing Info, and Free Graduate Info this year. By focusing on specific concentrations we are able to get better results. “According to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 14 million job openings are projected to spring up for degree-wielding professionals between 2004 and 2014.”² We can help consumers take advantage of this opportunity now.

The programs we chose are based on what’s hot in the job market currently. The Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2008-09 Edition from the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that “employment of probation officers and correctional treatment specialists is projected to grow 11 percent between 2006 and 2016.”³ The same is true for police officers and detectives as “a more security-conscious society and population growth will contribute to the increasing demand for police services.⁴ This percentage also pertains to the employment of chefs, cooks, and food preparation workers, which ”will have among the largest numbers of new jobs arise, about 351,000 over the period.” ⁵ The highest growth in the same time frame is for registered nurses, which is expected to increase 23%. ⁶

We expect to pull in tremendous revenue with these new Education portals. Contact your Account Manager today to pick up these programs and maximize your ROI!

¹ http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/800637/online_degree_programs_to_be_preferred.html?cat=15
²http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-2008_job_outlook_for_new_grads-353
³ http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos265.htm#training
⁴ http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos160.htm#training
⁵ http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos161.htm#training
⁶ http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos083.htm#training