Free Republic

A college education was once regarded as a first-class ticket to a better life. But the rising costs of higher education, the burden of student loans and a less-certain job market have left many wondering: Are too many young people going to college?

Edward Yacuta felt rushed and nervous when he took a test to determine whether he was ready for college-level English classes at Long Beach City College. The 18-year-old did poorly on the exam, even though he was getting good grades in an Advanced Placement English class at Long Beach's Robert A. Millikan High School. Most community colleges would assign students like Yacuta to a remedial class, but he will avoid that fate at Long Beach. The two-year school is trying out a new system this fall that will place students who graduated from the city's high schools in courses based...

Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence. Sometimes it's more than that. Based on all available current evidence, it appears that Teresa A. Sullivan's sudden resignation as President of the University of Virginia this past Sunday was most likely unrelated to an ongoing Breitbart News investigation into twenty-two-year-old allegations of scientific misconduct. However, since none of the key players in this drama--neither the sixteen members of the Board of Visitors who asked for her resignation, nor President Sullivan--have been willing to offer much in the way of explanation, rumors and speculation as to the true reasons for her sudden dismissal...

Last month the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development released data showing that college graduates generally do not regret going to college, despite lots of criticism of the value of higher education. Today the center released a new report focusing on the depressing state of America’s recent high school graduates, who seem to agree about the importance of further education.The study reported on a survey of high school graduates of the classes of 2006-11 who do not have college degrees and are not enrolled in school full time. This group overwhelmingly believes that additional education beyond a high school diploma is...

Princeton Review is out with their list of the most conservative student bodies on American campuses. The top 10: Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan Thomas Aquina, Santa Paula, California Texas A&M, College Station, Texas Grove City College, Grove City, Pennsylvania U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado University of Dallas, Irving, Texas U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, King's Point, New York Hampden-Sidney College, Hampden-Sydney, Virginia Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah Angelo State University, San Angelo, Texas

Former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal is a doctor now. O'Neal received his doctoral degree in education from Barry University alongside 1,100 other students during commencement ceremonies Saturday. The Miami Herald ( http://bit.ly/KCwbej) reports that O'Neal got on one knee so the chair of Barry's organizational learning and leadership program could drape a light blue hood around O'Neal's more-than-7-foot frame.

Joint partnership builds on MITx and Harvard distance learning; aims to benefit campus-based education and beyond. Harvard University and MIT today announced edX, a transformational new partnership in online education. Through edX, the two institutions will collaborate to enhance campus-based teaching and learning and build a global community of online learners. EdX will build on both universities’ experience in offering online instructional content. The technological platform recently established by MITx, which will serve as the foundation for the new learning system, was designed to offer online versions of MIT courses featuring video lesson segments, embedded quizzes, immediate feedback, student-ranked questions...

“Lavender graduation” events for homosexual students are sadly becoming common on Catholic campuses across the country. Georgetown University president John DeGioia is scheduled to deliver remarks at this evening’s “Lavender Graduation” ceremony. The Jesuit university’s website describes the event as “a special ceremony for LGBTQ and Ally undergraduate and graduate students to acknowledge their achievements, contributions, and unique experiences at Georgetown University.” (For readers unfamiliar with today’s campus jargon, “LGBTQ” means “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer,” and “ally” means any “heterosexual” person who is accepting of those who claim such other sexual “identities.” An “ally” is also commonly expected...

'University should have gotten a Christian to speak not someone who practices a cult' (CNN) Liberty University students and alumni are accusing the Christian school of violating its own teachings by asking Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a member of the Church of...Mormons, to deliver its 2012 commencement address. By Friday morning, more than 700 comments had been posted on the school’s Facebook page about the Thursday announcement – a majority of them decidedly against the Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr.’s invitation, citing that the school had taught them Mormonism isn’t part of the Christian faith.

The announcement on Monday, March 30 that The Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale was appointed as the sixth and newest president of Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) in Cambridge, MA, has orthodox and pro-life Episcopalians shaking their heads... ...the EDS website also has a link to Rev. Ragsdale’s sermon blog. There, the first sermon is entitled, “Our Work is Not Done...” “These are the two things I want you, please, to remember – abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a...

"The Closing of the American Mind"If I had reread The Closing of the American Mind 10 years ago, when my own children were themselves under 10, I confess I would have thought Bloom’s portrait of educational decline was overwrought. And then they grew up and went off to college. ..............[Allan] Bloom wrote a moment before the population of modernity’s Holy Trinity - Marx, Freud, and Darwin - decreased by two-thirds. Marx lost his allure, at least nominally, after the collapse of the murderous regimes that had been built from his ideas. Freud was demoted from scientist to cultural observer, and...

Michelle Obama will address Virginia Tech graduates at the 2012 commencement ceremony on May 11 at Lane Stadium. Mrs. Obama joins U.S. Sen. Mark Warner as commencement speaker. Both will deliver commencement addresses. This is the first time a first lady has addressed a Virginia Tech commencement, according to Tech's morning news release. Mrs. Obama will speak at three college graduation ceremonies this spring, including two in key general election battleground states. Her first commencement address will be at Tech. The White House says the first lady has been inspired by the school's resiliency following the deadly 2007 campus shootings....

(MoneyWatch) If you agree with Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum that colleges are too liberal, take heart. There are institutions of higher learning that pride themselves on their conservatism. In response to frequent requests by families, the Young America's Foundation has released a list of its top conservative colleges, which includes schools from Virginia to California. In alphabetical order, here are the foundation's 15 favorite conservative colleges and universities: 1. Christendom College (Va.) This small Catholic institution with just 400 students happens to enjoy Santorum's stamp of approval. The presidential candidate, who is Catholic, serves on the advisory board of...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - What Happened to Harvard’s ‘Veritas’?Posted By David Meir-Levi On March 20, 2012 @ 12:16 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 2 Comments The official seal of Harvard University bears the four Latin words “Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae” (“the truth of Christ and the church”). Today, most reproductions of Harvard’s seal omit the last three words. But it seems that all too many of Harvard’s faculty and governance have decided to ignore the first one as well.The present writer’s assessment of Harvard’s hosting extreme anti-Israel hate-fest events, and of its programs that provide almost exclusively anti-Israel...

Two new studies from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College have found that community colleges unnecessarily place tens of thousands of entering students in remedial classes — and that their placement decisions would be just as good if they relied on high school grade-point averages instead of standardized placement tests. The studies address one of the most intractable problems of higher education: the dead end of remedial education. At most community colleges, a majority of entering students who recently graduated from high school are placed in remedial classes, where they pay tuition but earn no college...

Dear Dean (Name Withheld): I am writing today with some very bad news for you. It would appear that, by the end of the year, you may be removed from your position as Dean of Students at (University Name Withheld). But, first, let me share the Good News – that is, if you will promise not to prosecute me for it. I used to be an atheist. When people tried to share the Gospel with me, I would hurl profanity at them. I would even use a word that begins with “f” and ends with “u-c-k.” (I’m not talking...

‘Race to the Top” federal handouts, increasing Pell Grants, and executive-branch decrees won’t lower college tuition or improve the quality of university degrees, despite President Obama’s bluster in his State of the Union address. If only it were that simple.The truth is that over the next decade, many universities may bankrupt themselves by clinging to an educational approach that confuses lecturing with learning and protects highly paid, tenured faculties and administrators from a tsunami of technological change that soon will deliver transformational learning at a fraction of today’s costs.There’s a word for business models that have high and increasing...

America is in shambles from sea to shining sea. Unemployment is nearly at Great Depression levels. The real estate is still week and near collapse. And, of course, our U.S. Triple A credit rating is gone for the first time in history. But this is National School Choice Week and all of that terrible economic news is child’s play (excuse the pun) compared to our failing government-run education system. The accelerating and dramatic decline of our public school system is the shame of this once great country. I call our public school system "Every Child Left Behind." The failure of...

Before I say anything else, let me make it clear: any liberal (or person) who calls himself an American should believe in the Constitution. I see, too often, in blogs and on television people who selectively promote their favorite parts of our governing document. Conservatives seem as if they want to tattoo the 10th Amendment (states’ rights) on their chest, but often questionably cut corners around the Fourth Amendment (protection against unwarranted searches) for the sake of “national security.” Liberals talk endlessly of First Amendment rights to free speech, while trying to ignore the Second Amendment. I try not to...

President Barack Obama is giving the State of the Union speech on Tuesday - but a speech he plans to give at the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus on Friday might be of more interest to Michiganders. Obama will speak at the U-M Al Glick Field House on Friday, according to a White House official who spoke this afternoon to AnnArbor.com. According to a source familiar with the plan, the speech is expected to take place at around 9:30 a.m. U-M President Mary Sue Coleman said that while the school has been talking to the White House, the event...