Free Republic

A 20-year old student at New York University apparently took his own life on Tuesday morning, reviving concerns about the high number of suicides there in recent years. University and police officials said the student, Andrew E. Williamson-Noble, a junior from Irvington, N.Y., jumped from the 10th floor to the lobby at the Bobst Library about 4:30 a.m. John Sexton, the university’s president, said in an e-mail message to students and the faculty that “indications are that he took his own life.” Mr. Williamson-Noble was found on his back; a suicide note was later discovered in his room, according to...

Tell Belmont Abbey College: "I'm proud of you!" Help this faithful college resist the culture of death by signing an instant e-card:"I’m proud of you!" Notre Dame betrayed its Catholic identity, but Belmont Abbey College stayed faithful and now needs our urgent prayers and encouragement. Please let me explain:  This small liberal arts college in North Carolina with 1,600 students is holding firm to its Catholic identity by refusing to pay for abortion, contraception and sterilization in its healthcare plan. As a result, this brave college is now facing persecution.  In fact, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)...

I don't know that I've ever posted a vanity, but a young Christian college radio show host who is a friend of mine needs his show promoted. Would you please visit the link and vote for the "The Rise and Shine Time w/Bro. Dominic Garrisi?" http://wblwradio.com/index.php?page=Survey Thanks in advance, refreshed

The weekend of October 24 was busy for TFP Student Action volunteers. Their first stop was Scranton, Penn., for a pro-life conference. Lighting the Way for Life was the title of the full-day conference sponsored by the Pennsylvanians for Human Life on October 24. The event brought together hundreds of pro-family leaders from across the Keystone State committed to defend innocent life against the culture of death. TFP Student Action members manned a booth at the event and distributed pro-family literature. What attracted most attention at the busy booth was the TFP petition urging the president of the University of...

Misleading statistics put other nations in better light, researcher argues.When comparing the United States’ higher education system with those of other developed nations, a new report says, policymakers are misreading the data and relying on flawed statistics. That conclusion comes in a report, “The Spaces Between Numbers: Getting International Data on Higher Education Straight,” that was scheduled to be published this week by the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a research and policy group based in Washington. The findings are important because they call into question many of the statistics that are commonly used to make the case that the...

Video of story of Alabama's prepaid college tuition program going insolvent in 2016. http://www2.nbc13.com/vtm/news/local/article/pact_will_run_out_of_money_in_2016/106306/

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports* that $50,000 is quickly becoming the typical cost for a year at one of the nation's elite colleges: Fifty-eight private colleges now charge at least that much for tuition, fees, room, and board, a Chronicle analysis of College Board data shows. Last year only five colleges did. Talk about sticker shock. Could it be time for Kenneth Feinberg to decide how much colleges are allowed to charge? Members of what the Chronicle dubs the "$50K Club" include Sarah Lawrence ($55,788), Georgetown ($52,161), NYU ($51,993), Johns Hopkins ($51,690), Columbia ($51,544), Wesleyan ($51,432), Washington University in...

Harvard students will be able to watch the “The Wire” for class credit next year. At a panel last night, stars of the HBO hit series joined Harvard professors in discussing the applications of the show—which depicts the struggles of urban life in Baltimore—in understanding and combating real urban social issues. “‘The Wire’ has done more to enhance our understanding of the systemic urban inequality that constrains the lives of the poor than any published study” Sociology Professor William J. Wilson said. African American studies chair Professor Evelyn B. Higginbotham said that there would be a new course in which...

1 Florida 2 Texas 3 Alabama 4 Iowa 5 Cincinnati 6 TCU 7 Boise State 8 Oregon 9 LSU 10 Georgia Tech

For Constitution Day this year at Sacramento City College Associated Student Government (ASG) President and student Steve Macias arranged for a group named Genocide Awareness Project, an anti-abortion group, to participate on campus in the Constitution Day activities. The group was approved for participation by the ASG and set up its booth at the appointed time. And then the world came to an end. Pro-Infanticide groups such as Planned Parenthood set up their own, countering booths the next day and left-wing hatemongers in the student body immediately began to circulate a recall petition to have Mr. Macias removed from the...

When I learn of yet another disappearance and write my thoughts, I am mindful of how sensitive the issue is, and how many don't need to hear anything about blame. But blame is essential to accountability, and seeing that there is a problem is halfway to solving it. Why not discover where the problem is and get to solving it? How about doing more of what needs to be done to avoid future abductions? Too many violence prevention programs like to go over everything but that. Students keep disappearing on college campuses. What more can be done? Well, some more...

PLYMOUTH – Reports of a gunman walking across campus put Plymouth State University and the nearby Holderness School in a lockdown last night. By 9:43 p.m., the lockdown was lifted after officials located and talked to the individual, who was not a student, and learned he was carrying a martial arts device that resembled a gun.

Marcus A. Winters says we should “send more students to college.” He is responding, in part, to my NR piece making the opposite case. My argument is that when 40 percent of college students fail to graduate in six years, and when about a quarter of employed college graduates have jobs that don’t require degrees, it’s obvious we’re pushing too many kids into higher education. Winters essentially (though not explicitly) concedes that now is not the time to ship more kids off to postsecondary institutions. He notes Charles Murray’s documentation of the fact that lots of today’s high-school graduates are...

Can anyone at ESPN keep a job? The network suspended Bob Griese today for a racist remark he made about NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya. While he was calling Saturday's Minnesota-Ohio State game, Griese made a crack about Montoya saying he was "out having a taco." Montoya is Colombian. ESPN is yanking Griese off the air for one week, and a rep for the network says Griese "understands the comment was inappropriate." Yesterday ESPN fired baseball analyst Steve Phillips after news broke of his sex scandal with a production assistant.

Students at the College of William and Mary have elected a transgender homecoming queen. Jessee Vasold took the field Saturday at halftime of the Williamsburg school's football game against James Madison. The junior and other members of the homecoming court were introduced to the crowd and posed for pictures. Vasold identifies as "genderqueer," a term for those who don't adhere to either strictly male or strictly female gender roles.

On Sept. 5, while Florida feasted on Charleston Southern and Texas opened with Louisiana-Monroe, the Oklahoma Sooners played a strong BYU team on a neutral field. That’s when Sam Bradford sprained his shoulder while being sacked, an injury that derailed OU’s title hopes. A week later, while Florida annihilated Troy and Texas blew out Wyoming, Southern California played at Ohio State.

A dangerous idea has been gaining momentum within education-reform circles: Too many young people are going to college. Since Charles Murray took up this line in a series of Wall Street Journal op-eds and then in last year’s book Real Education, the idea has neared the mainstream. Though only directly addressed in a few words, this idea haunts nearly every page of Matthew B. Crawford’s otherwise excellent book Shop Class as Soulcraft, which made it up to number 17 and was listed as an editors’ choice on the New York Times Bestseller List. An article in National Review’s recent special...

Is anyone frightened by the prospect of millions of little Barry Obamas running around the country “organizing” their “communities” around petty causes instead of holding real jobs that do something other than increase government control over every aspect of our lives? I am. And so is Kimberly Legendre, a junior at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU). This semester, Kimberly is taking an absurd course called “Foundations of Civic Engagement.” Remarkably, it is a required course at FGCU. After reading the course syllabus and learning more about Kimberly’s experience from my friends at Campus Reform (see www.CampusReform.org) I know two things...

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) said Monday that they are backing a federal political action committee "dedicated to discarding the Bowl Championship Series and instituting a competitive post-season championship for college football." The people behind Playoff PAC – whose tagline is "Beat the BCS. Save College Football." – believe that the Bowl Championship Series is "inherently flawed," the group said in a press release. "It crowns champions arbitrarily and stifles inter-conference competition," the group argued. "Fans, players, schools, and corporate sponsors will be better served when the BCS is replaced with an...

Very very Preliminary Report: Sarah Palin to speak at College of the Ozarks It has been reported Governor Sarah Palin will speak on patriotism, citizenship and civic engagement at College of the Ozarks at 7 p.m. Dec. 2 in the Keeter Gymnasium, a college news release said. We should all wait for confirmation from Governor Palin's people.

A recent survey of college professors by the Chronicle of Higher Education found that nearly 90% thought that the students they teach were not very well prepared in reading, doing research and academic writing by their high schools. At the same time, many college admissions officers ask students for 500-word "personal statements," which have become known as "college essays," and many high school English department spend a lot of their writing instruction on this sort of effort. History departments and English departments are assigning fewer and fewer term papers, so it is not surprising that lots of students are arriving...

The Florida Gators held the No. 1 spot in the first Bowl Championship Series rankings, despite playing a relatively weak schedule and struggling offensively in recent weeks. The Gators (6-0) had .989 points, giving them a 0.36-point lead over No. 2 Alabama in the standings, released Sunday for the first time this season.

Jasper Howard, a 5-foot-9, 174-pound starting cornerback on the UConn football team, died today after an on-campus stabbing. According to multiple sources, Howard, 20, was reportedly was stabbed near the student union.

If the U.S. can come to the assistance of banks and homeowners, surely it could offer a helping hand in the form of lower interest rates for students. Like many recent college grads, Los Angeles resident Steven Lee finds himself unemployed in one of the roughest job markets in decades and saddled with a big pile of debt. He owes about $84,000 in student loans for undergrad and grad-school costs. But what Lee's angry about isn't the slings and arrows of an outrageous economy, and it isn't the idea that he owes a ton of money for all the schooling...

" . . . Today the bigots we face are different. Caesar wears a different suit. He has great media handlers. He bullies religion while he claims to respect it. He talks piously about the law and equality and tolerance and fairness. But he still confuses himself with God -- and he still violates the rights of Catholic believers and institutions by intruding himself where he has no right to be. "It‟s one of the great ironies of the moment that tiny Belmont Abbey would have the courage to challenge Caesar over its right to be faithfully Catholic in its...

College By...Subscription? by: Bethany Stotts, October 05, 2009 Is subscription-based online education a successful strategy for remedial education? Burck Smith, co-founder of SMARTHINKING argues in a September publication that “call center” style online courses would prove more affordable for both students and colleges. “According to one recent report, the cost of offering these courses exceeds $2 billion a year, of which approximately $800 million is borne by students and families in tuition and fees,” writes Burck for the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Educational Outlook. He was referring to the 2008 Strong American Schools Diploma to Nowhere report, which was...

TMZ has learned an arrest has been made in the Erin Andrews Peeping Tom case -- the one in which the ESPN reporter was secretly videotaped walking around naked in various hotel rooms. We're told 48-year-old Michael David Barrett was arrested at Chicago O'Hare International Airport in Chicago for interstate stalking. The videotapes surfaced in July. The six clips showed Erin walking around two different hotel rooms in the nude, and were shot with a peephole camera. It was virtually impossible to tell when or where the videos were shot. Someone tried to sell the clips to TMZ, but we...

States aren’t sure what to do about the issue of undocumented immigrants. It’s become especially controversial in places like North Carolina, where during the last eight years, the state community college system has changed its mind four times regarding whether to allow undocumented students to enroll at its institutions. In 2001, the system prohibited undocumented immigrants from enrolling. In 2004, it allowed each college to decide. In 2007, all community colleges were mandated to admit undocumented students. But that was reversed last year when the system prohibited its member colleges from enrolling undocumented students into degree-granting programs. Last week, system...

Hopeless Higher Ed Change by: Bethany Stotts, September 29, 2009 This July, President Barack Obama called for America to “once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world” by 2020. At the Education Sector’s forum on “what the Obama administration’s new focus on higher education means for the future of American colleges and universities,” at George Washington University (GWU), a university official reacted with surprisingly candid skepticism over whether this would occur. Panelist and Southern New Hampshire University President Paul LeBlanc noted that he thought the “bigger impediment” to increasing the number of college graduates “is...

Chris Higgins, 21, an upbeat Harvard University junior, is a social studies major who has worked at an orphanage in Uganda and backpacked around China while learning Mandarin. He is also a master sergeant in the Army ROTC, an officer-in-the-making who has spent weekends firing an M-16, rappelling, and honing land-navigation skills while many classmates are launching a blitz on the college social scene. “I have a mission,’’ said Higgins, a native of East Setauket, N.Y. That mission - to serve the country and gain leadership experience - is shared by a sharply growing number of American undergraduates, who have...

There are a lot of false urban legends promoted in academia about intelligent design (ID). They often start with myths promoted by misinformed critiques in scientific journals, court rulings, or even talks by activists at scientific conferences. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for this misinformation to then be passed down to college students, who may know very little about ID and lack the resources to correct their professors’ misinformed and misplaced attacks on ID. Not anymore. If you’re a college student, recently gone back to school and expecting to hear a lot of anti-ID views from your professors, we’re pleased to...

What are the college options for a high school student whose transcript has mostly B’s or even C’s, and barely any A’s? Plenty, according to Ann Goode, an education consultant and former high school college counselor. “There are some gems that people don’t know about,” she told a packed workshop, titled “Where Can I Go to College? Options for the B/C Student,” held this morning at the annual convention of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Though aimed at high school college counselors, the workshop was crammed with relevant advice for students and parents — particularly those whose high...

Matthew Reisz and our seven guest contributors lift the lid on the rampant wickedness troubling the sanctity of our hallowed universities When the historian David Starkey left the University of Cambridge in 1972, he told an interviewer that he "knew exactly how an ingrowing toenail felt". There was something deeply dispiriting, he said, about "the sense of introversion, of knowing everyone". The inward-looking, incestuous atmosphere of university life has long made it a breeding ground for some of the canonical deadly sins. Take the description that the historian Edward Gibbon gave of the University of Oxford in the 1750s. He...

There is so much for high school seniors and their parents to know about colleges that they not only need to get a lot of information but also need to make sure it is the right kind of information. A number of college guides have useful information but, unfortunately, the best-known and most pretentious of these guides — "America's Best Colleges"— is grossly misleading. There is no such thing as a "best" college, any more than there is any such thing as a "best" wife or a "best" husband. Who would be best for a particular person depends on that...

If you are straight, white, and male, please stand up. Congratulations, you are more privileged than you probably ever realized. Because of your blessed birth, you are responsible for the victimization of thousands of your underprivileged peers. You may not be aware, but implicitly you hate, resent, and distrust everyone who does not look like you. How does this make you feel? No, do not answer. Instead, allow us to tell you how you should be feeling. You should be feeling extremely guilty and ashamed, and in order to move past your racist tendencies and make amends for being born...

The American university is the anti-Disneyland, the saddest place on Earth. Today's colleges can make MSNBC seem fair and balanced and give the term "clinical depression" a sunny and joyful flavor. It's no wonder so many prominent liberal intellectuals are angry, begrudging, and gloomy. They imbibe four to ten years of it during their college studies. And their brethren in the media give them a consistent platform for their gloom. A few years ago, the Washington Post discovered that over 72 percent of college professors classify themselves as liberal. The study showed that the most left-leaning departments are in the...

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) -- Penn State University said the body of a missing student has been found at the bottom of a stairwell about 75 yards from where he was last seen alive. The university said tonight that 18-year-old freshman Joseph Dado, of Latrobe, was found dead at about 6 p.m. at the Hosler Building. University police said it looks like Mr. Dado fell about 15 feet to the concrete below.

TROY, N.Y. — President Obama sharply criticized the nation’s largest banks for trying to stop legislation that would overhaul federal student loan programs. Mr. Obama, speaking at a community college, said that American banks had received bailout money from the federal government, and yet were still fighting against a proposal that would eliminate an unwarranted subsidy which the banks receive for providing student loans. “Ending this unwarranted subsidy for big banks is a no-brainer for folks everywhere,” Mr. Obama said, before lashing out against his favorite target of late. “Everywhere except Washington, that is. In fact, we’re already seeing the...

The Democratic-led House approved a bill Thursday that would overhaul college lending and spend tens of billions of dollars on student grants, community colleges, school construction and early childhood education. The bill would end a program that subsidizes private lenders that provide federally guaranteed student loans. The government itself would make all such federal loans as of July 1, effectively cutting out banks and other lenders as middlemen. That would be a major shift because direct government lending in the last academic year accounted for about a quarter of federal loan volume.

I am looking for a list of conservatives colleges in Texas, specially states universities around the San Antonio area, any recommendations? My daughter will be ready for college in about 3 yrs, and I am doing my research and planning to start visiting them. I also would like to know what colleges are the ones we should avoid at all costs.

PR Friend Paul over at Organized Exploitation looks at the latest power grab by the feds. Here's the full text reported by Thomas. (Note, sometimes Thomas search results time-out. If so, go here, take the first choice on the Google return, and then Version 2 of the bill.) NOW, the big rumor is that an ACORN defunding was amended to this bill. I've read the floor transcripts, and haven't found it yet. Will update when I do. Here's Paul's article:

WASHINGTON — The House has voted in favor of the biggest overhaul of college aid programs since their creation in the 1960s — a bill to oust private lenders from the student loan business and put the government in charge. Thursday's vote was 253-171 in favor of a bill that fulfills an array of President Barack Obama's campaign promises, ending subsidies for private lenders, boosting Pell Grants for needy students and paying for community college reforms, among other things.

"Since most Catholic colleges won’t do their job, bring the faith to secular schools." There are about 225 Catholic colleges and universities listed in The Official Catholic Directory. More than a hundred others have gone out of business over the last generation. I am confident that scores more will disappear — close their doors, merge, or officially declare themselves to be secular — over the next couple of decades. And even among today’s 225 institutions, most are no more than nominally Catholic. That will not change in the coming years. This remarkable institutional meltdown is mightily affecting the Church. At...

... Harvard is a venerable institution with “a lot of arcane traditions and rituals,” he acknowledged. But in the business of education, Harvard is not a very conservative or traditional place — and in fact has taken dramatic steps over the years “to change the face of education,” said Menand. Behind those steps were a string of Harvard presidents, he explained, beginning with Charles William Eliot, under whose tenure (1869-1909) the institution was transformed from an antebellum college to a modern research university. For one, said Menand, Eliot had the “revolutionary idea” that a bachelor’s degree should be required for...

Dropouts Seek a Boost From Equivalency Exams Numbers Seeking a Degree Swell -- But Gains May Be Limited A growing number of Americans are taking high school equivalency tests in their hunt for any leg up in a bleak labor market. Adult-education centers across the country report backlogs and waiting lists for prep courses cramming dozens of topics and years of lessons into weeks or months. But the potential for a better job and pay that drives many to seek a General Educational Development diploma comes with a caveat: The certificate generally is of limited value unless students use it...

Within the past year Sarah Schupp has hired five new employees with freshly minted college degrees. She fired one on his first day for inappropriate sexual comments to a co-worker. Another lasted a week before getting a pink slip. ..." you can't call in sick at 7:45 a.m. just because you don't want to come to work at 8 a.m." Jeanne Achille also was disappointed with the hiring of a recent college hire, promoted by a university professor as a "superstar" and fired after three weeks when it was discovered she spent hours online at work visiting a dating site....

College students frequently complain about the high cost of textbooks, and they have a point. As the top chart above shows, the cost of college textbooks (BLS category "educational books and supplies") has risen much higher than the overall CPI since 1978, almost 7% annually on average for textbooks versus less than 4% for all goods and services. Although not quite as high as the average annual inflation rate for college tuition (almost 8%), textbook prices have increased faster than even the cost of medical care (6%). The bottom chart above shows annual inflation rates for tuition and textbooks...

BOCA RATON - If a battle of the sexes is taking place on college campuses, women are the clear winners. In Florida and around the country, women are graduating from college in record numbers, surpassing men in almost every degree category. "I think that women are probably more mature as college students," said Sharron Ronco, associate provost at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, where women received 64 percent of all degrees in 2008. "They tend to come in with higher high school GPAs, and they tend to achieve better academically."

College for $99 a Month The next generation of online education could be great for students—and catastrophic for universities. by Kevin Carey Like millions of other Americans, Barbara Solvig lost her job this year. A fifty-year-old mother of three, Solvig had taken college courses at Northeastern Illinois University years ago, but never earned a degree.< snip > Luckily for Solvig, there were new options available. She went online looking for something that fit her wallet and her time horizon, and an ad caught her eye: a company called StraighterLine was offering online courses in subjects like accounting, statistics, and math....

LOS ANGELES — Matt Barkley's first pass at USC went for minus-2 yards. His first four series with the Trojans resulted in two fumbles, two punts and a 3-0 deficit to San Jose State. A typical freshman quarterback surely would have tensed up at this burgeoning Coliseum calamity. Instead, Barkley showed why coach Pete Carroll insists there's nothing ordinary about his teenage starter — although the Trojans will find out a whole lot more next week at Ohio State. Barkley passed for 233 yards after a slow start to his USC debut, and the No. 4 Trojans' fleet of tailbacks...