colleges and universities

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GPA, Personal Essay, SATs ... and Sabotage?

Anonymous smear letters on the rise, say admissions officers

(Newser) - With competition for college admissions ever rising, some students are aiming to get ahead by trashing their rivals. Admission officials around the US have reported receiving newspaper clippings, references to Facebook pages, and, in one case, a letter written in crayon pointing out other applicants' false claims or unseemly behavior....

Credit Crisis Squeezes Student Loans

Families struggle to pay college tuition as loan market dries up

(Newser) - The economic downturn is hitting college students hard, the New York Times reports. Job losses and the disappearing loan market are strangling formerly robust family plans to foot college tuition fees. Private lenders, used by many students to fill the gap between federal aid and the total cost of college,...

Norovirus Sweeps Campuses
 Norovirus Sweeps Campuses 
Oct 7, 2008 2:22 AM CDT

Norovirus Sweeps Campuses

Hundreds of students made ill for days

(Newser) - Noroviruses are sweeping US colleges, delivering severe cases of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. The same crowded conditions which allow noroviruses to thrive on cruise ships give them free rein on campus, reports Inside Higher Ed. There have been recent outbreaks at Georgetown University, the University of Southern California and colleges...

Rice Laments Lack of Black Diplomats

Calls shortage of African-Americans 'unacceptable'

(Newser) - Condoleezza Rice may be the second African American to become secretary of state, but she remains unimpressed by the number of blacks in the foreign service. "I can go into a whole day of meetings at the Department of State and actually rarely see somebody who looks like me....

Harvard Bumps Princeton in Top Colleges List

Smaller class size helps Harvard back to top of influential US News ranking

(Newser) - Harvard has reclaimed sole possession of the top spot in the ever-controversial US News and World Report rankings for the first time in 12 years. Princeton slipped to second, with Yale in third and Stanford and MIT tied for fourth spot. The magazine rates the halls of learning based on...

Colleges Make iGadgets Part of Course Load

Schools give students iPhones, iPods as learning tools

(Newser) - Some US universities have started handing out free iPhones and Internet-enabled iPods to students, the New York Times reports. The institutions view the gadgets as tools for online research, student polling, and as-yet undeveloped educational applications, while Apple gets an in with a new generation with consumers. Professors with easily...

Backlash Greets College Chiefs' Move to Lower Drinking Age

Educators, legislators, MADD are all in uproar

(Newser) - A chorus of criticism has greeted proposals from college chiefs to consider lowering the drinking age to 18, the Washington Post reports, as everyone from health experts, lawmakers, high school principals, and groups like MADD have been quick to slam the idea. The academic leaders say their theory that lowering...

Colleges Face Suicide Crisis
 Colleges Face Suicide Crisis
Aug 18, 2008 4:18 AM CDT

Colleges Face Suicide Crisis

More than half of students have considered suicide

(Newser) - More than half the students at 70 US colleges have contemplated suicide, a startling new study has found. Surveys revealed that 55% once thought of taking their own lives, 18% seriously considered it and 8% actually tried, reports USA Today. Broken romances, school-related problems, and emotional and physical pain were...

Gas Prices Produce Spike in Online Classes

Students prefer classrooms, but not commute to campus

(Newser) - Thousands of American students have begun to take college courses over the Internet in response to rising fuel costs, writes the New York Times. Universities across the country have seen enrollment in online classes spike—some more than 50 to 100%—with the biggest jumps at 2-year community colleges, where...

Campuses Shift to Middle as 'Radical Profs' Retire

Liberal legacy waning with new generation

(Newser) - University campuses all over the country are becoming less passionate and more businesslike as liberal '60s professors retire, the New York Times reports. The process is expected to accelerate over the next decade as Baby Boomers hired in the great '70s expansion of  higher education move on, to be replaced...

Best Alma Maters for Billionaires

Yeah, Harvard's the place to be

(Newser) - Bill Gates and Carl Icahn may be college dropouts (Harvard and NYU, respectively), but most billionaires carry a sheepskin diploma with them. These top-tier universities have educated the most billionaires:
  1. Harvard: with 50, including Steve Ballmer, Michael Bloomberg, and Sumner Redstone.
  1. Stanford: was founded by a billionaire and counts 30
...

Recruiters Draw Students From Abroad, for a Price

Universities make more off international students; agents get kickbacks

(Newser) - More American universities are using recruiting agents to draw foreign students, and those middlemen are reaping the benefits—from both sides. One Chinese student paid $3,000 to a company that "suggested Ohio University might be the best for me," unaware that OU pays the company a $1,...

Rich Colleges Should Save Nation's Top Newspapers

Wealthy universities should get together, buy struggling dailies

(Newser) - The New York Times is in "perilous financial condition," and colleges would play the perfect savior, Lee Smith writes in the Chronicle for Higher Education. His plan: Have the seven richest institutions direct 3% of their endowments—which, combined, come to $114 billion— to buying the Gray Lady....

Dorm Rooms Go Coed
 Dorm Rooms Go Coed 
May 3, 2008 2:45 PM CDT

Dorm Rooms Go Coed

Sexes sharing a room no biggie, students say

(Newser) - Parents who schooled in same-sex dorms are surprised to hear that their kids are sharing coed college rooms, the AP reports. About two dozen schools—including Brown, Penn, and Oberlin—allow the practice, and more are following suit this year, including Stanford. Schools say coed dorm users are usually heterosexual...

Prosecutors Probe Gossip Site
 Prosecutors Probe Gossip Site 
Mar 19, 2008 5:21 PM CDT

Prosecutors Probe Gossip Site

Online rumor forum draws NJ Attorney General's attention

(Newser) - Prosecutors have hit college gossip site JuicyCampus.com with subpoenas for records, the AP reports. New Jersey’s Attorney General Anne Milgram is investigating whether the site violates the Consumer Fraud Act by stating that it doesn’t tolerate offensive material but doing nothing to enforce that claim. "There's...

Stanford Drops Tuition for Lower-Income Students

Families earning less than $100K get break

(Newser) - Tapping into its $17 billion endowment to boost financial aid, Stanford University said yesterday it will now offer free tuition—that's a $36,000 a year value—to students from families making less than $100,000 per year. Students from families that earn less than $60,000 won't have to...

Hollywood Had Math Wrong on College Movie Downloads

Study overestimated students' illegal grabs

(Newser) - College students aren't such movie thieves after all. Hollywood laid heavy blame for illegal downloading on colleges when a 2005 study alleged that 44% of domestic industry losses came from students downloading films. Now the industry has revised to 15%, citing "human error" in the study. Critics, however, say...

Colleges Turn to New Media to Recruit Students

Recruiters using blogs, social networking, even text messages

(Newser) - If MySpace and Facebook are where the high school kids are, then that’s where college recruiters are headed. Schools competing for today’s tech-savvy teens are reaching out to them through podcasts, online videos, virtual campus tours, live chats, blogs, and social networking profiles, reports the Boston Globe—and...

Harvard Offers Middle-Class Parents Help*
Harvard Offers Middle-Class Parents Help*
OPINION
Dec 31, 2007 3:20 PM CST

Harvard Offers Middle-Class Parents Help*

*And pre-empts legislation far costlier for superrich schools

(Newser) - Generosity isn't what's fueling Harvard’s new $22 million giveaway to the middle class—it’s greed, educational consultant Steven Roy Goodman writes in the Boston Globe. Harvard’s giving the extra financial aid as a PR move, hoping to squash brewing legislation that would force universities to spend 5%...

College Suicide Prevention Trumps Privacy

Cornell seeks signs of student anxiety, brings parents into loop

(Newser) - After the Virginia Tech massacre highlighted the issue of student safety, more colleges began risking legal action by telling parents when their kids suffer from mental health problems, the Wall Street Journal reports. Cornell University, battling a reputation for stressed-out students, is now training staff to seek out and report...

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