colleges and universities

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Harvard, Yale $18B Poorer as Endowments Drop 30%

(Newser) - Harvard and Yale remain the richest schools in the US, but both are getting a lesson in economics. The endowments of the Ivy Leaguer shrank by about 30% over the last year thanks to risky investments, reports Bloomberg. Harvard's fell $11 billion to $26 billion and Yale's dropped $7 billion...

Dropout Rates Turning US Colleges Into 'Failure Factories'

Students' failure to make it to the finish line is dragging down the economy

(Newser) - The failure of America's colleges to turn more freshmen into graduates is doing huge amounts of damage to the economy, David Leonhardt writes in the New York Times. Only half of those enrolled in college emerge with a degree, the worst rate of any developed country except Italy. This dismal...

'Swine Flu Dorms' Sprout at Colleges Nationwide

Sick students start school in quarantine zones

(Newser) - College freshers across the country are starting their life in higher education confined to buildings full of their coughing peers, the New York Times reports. Fearing the virus will sweep through campuses, colleges have set up quarantine dorms for sick students, keeping them out of class and plying them with...

College Complaints Squash Some Bud Light 'Fan Cans'

(Newser) - Anheuser-Busch is dropping its "Fan Cans" promotions from communities around the US where colleges have complained that the effort—which sells cans of Bud Light in school colors—promotes underage drinking and infringes on trademarks. Federal industry regulations require at least 70% of an advertisement's audience to be above...

Penn State Dethrones Florida as Top Party School

(Newser) - Penn State has knocked the University of Florida from its No. 1 spot … atop the Princeton Review’s “Best Party School” list. Each year, the Review ranks schools in a huge number of categories based on surveys of their students. A Penn State spokeswoman called it a “...

Feds to Streamline Infamous Financial Aid Form

Government hopes trimming FAFSA will get more aid to those who need it

(Newser) - The White House today will unveil its plan to make it easier for students to get federal aid by cutting the fiendishly complex application down to size, the New York Times reports. The FAFSA—Free Application for Federal Student Aid—is notorious for being harder to fill out than a...

Spying 101: US Wants Colleges to Train 007s

Spying 101 plan aims to mold future intelligence officers

(Newser) - It's like a cloak-and-dagger version of ROTC. The government wants universities to help train the next generation of spies, the Washington Post reports. The proposed program would recruit first- and second-generation students from diverse ethnic backgrounds, the Mideast and Asia in particular, and run them through a specialized set of...

Colleges Consider Move to 3-Year Degrees

Downturn has colleges looking for ways to save students time, money

(Newser) - A growing number of colleges are looking at ways to cram 4-year degree courses into 3 to help students combat tough times, the Washington Post reports. More than half of teens have changed their college plans because of the economy, according to a recent survey, and many in the world...

Fraud Colleges Admit Terror Suspects to UK
Fraud Colleges Admit Terror Suspects to UK
investigation
May 21, 2009 8:47 AM CDT

Fraud Colleges Admit Terror Suspects to UK

Alleged al-Qaeda members enrolled in ring of fake schools

(Newser) - Thousands of young Pakistanis have entered Britain by applying for visas to study at sham colleges that issue fake diplomas and attendance records, the Times of London reports. Ten of the 12 men arrested last month when police busted an alleged al-Qaeda plot were enrolled at a bogus college; other...

Proposed Tax No Fair, Brown U. Students Say

Providence mayor wants to charge them $300 a year

(Newser) - Students at Brown University say they contribute to their community in countless ways, and a proposed $150-per-semester tax shouldn’t be one of them, the AP reports. “We’re more able to provide labor, we’re more able to apply the things that we're learning in the classroom, than...

Tight Economy Strains Town-Gown Relations

(Newser) - The poor economy has put a crimp in some universities' expansion plans and soured the relationship between others and the surrounding communities, the New York Times reports. For instance, Harvard’s planned $1 billion expansion into a Boston neighborhood is in limbo, leaving a 5-acre construction pit and vacant buildings....

Colleges Snoop on Applicants' Online Lives

Admissions, financial aid officers 'fess up to checking social networking pages

(Newser) - A quarter of colleges check applicants' social networking pages or run their names through search engines, according to a new report. The colleges didn't say whether their online findings could make or break an application, but the study's authors believe overly candid online postings have the potential to sink one's...

$70M in Anonymous Gifts Spark Academic Whodunit

Nearly $70 million given to colleges nationwide

(Newser) - A wave of nearly $70 million in mysterious donations to a dozen colleges across the country has set off a happy guessing game in academic circles, the New York Times reports. "Whoever it is wishes to remain anonymous and I, for one, am perfectly happy to respect that,"...

Sorry, Recession Won't Get You Into Harvard

Top schools see no application shortage despite economy

(Newser) - Sure, a lot of people are cash-strapped, but don’t get your hopes up that the recession will boost your shot at an Ivy League school. Harvard got a record number of applications this year—29,112, a 6% jump from last year. And pricey universities like Yale, Dartmouth, Brown,...

College Students Pay Twice for Health Insurance

Parents complain of hidden costs for students who already have insurance

(Newser) - Many parents of college students across America are paying double for their children's health insurance, an NPR investigation finds. Students are usually required to show proof of health insurance for admission, but then often find they can't use that insurance at college clinics. Parents complain that colleges automatically charge for...

Last-Minute Flood Jams College Application Site

Students received timeout errors as server overloaded

(Newser) - Some high school seniors submitting college applications hours before the Dec. 31 deadline encountered timeout errors and slowdowns that gave them quite a scare, the New York Times reports. The Common Application site—used by a million students to apply for 350 colleges—buckled twice under the volume of last-minute...

Equation Helps Procrastinators Overcome Their Stall Tactics

You know, when you get around to it

(Newser) - The legions of those of us who "will do it later" are growing, reports the Sunday Times, but now there's a formula to figure out what chance you have of beating back your delay tactics. A Calgary University business professor claims in a new book, The Procrastination Equation,...

Column Deriding Gay Marriage Riles Campus

U. of Wash. students fume over column's bestiality illustration

(Newser) - An opinion column denouncing gay marriage—and illustrated with an image of a man adjacent to a sheep—has many University of Washington students beside themselves and demanding sensitivity training for their student newspaper, reports The Seattle Times. The editor of The Daily has refused to apologize, citing the need...

'Jocks Only' Tutoring Centers Irk Others on Campus

Critics say investing in flashy, athletes-only centers is unfair to other students

(Newser) - Resentment is building as college athletic tutoring centers nationwide get bigger and flashier, the Chicago Tribune reports. Critics say that the multi-million-dollar, athletes-only centers should be open to all. Some suggest that, since the centers are generally funded and run by the athletic department, they create a conflict of interest;...

Colleges Face Dire Cutbacks, Tuition Hikes

Needy students may lose out as college funding models collapse

(Newser) - Colleges and universities around the country are facing budget shortfalls so steep they could change the way they do business forever, the New York Times reports. With endowments shriveling, state financing being slashed, the cost of debt rising, and donors scaling back, both public and private institutions are cutting staff,...

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