Bell Curved

The Best American High Schools

thatandycohen — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:04:38 -0400

The Best American High Schools: cheatsheet: lostreib: I’ve been doing lists — big magazine package...

theatlantic: Does It Matter Where You Go to College? Meet Ben....

thatandycohen — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:29:17 -0400

Does It Matter Where You Go to College?

Meet Ben. He’s a high school senior from a middle class family in Massachusettes who is choosing where to attend college next year. He’s down to two schools: prestigious Boston College, or the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, his state’s top public campus. Even with the generous financial aid package from BC, he would still graduate with a big mound of loans. UMass, meanwhile, would be more than $15,000 a year cheaper.

Which should Ben pick? Prestige or price?

With the cost of higher education climbing every year, and student debt surpassing $1 trillion, more and more young people will have to decide whether to make that trade-off. It begs the question: Does it really pay to go to an elite university, financially speaking? Researchers have been investigating this issue since at least the 1980s. And their findings tend to show that when it comes to future earnings, where you go to college counts.

Read more.

mothernaturenetwork: China students on intravenous drips for...

thatandycohen — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:32:13 -0400

mothernaturenetwork:

China students on intravenous drips for exams
The school maintains that the amino acid drips help students relax while studying for university entrance exams, and will continue the practice.

thedailyfeed: Starving doctors are the new starving artists, as...

thatandycohen — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:50:11 -0400

thedailyfeed:

Starving doctors are the new starving artists, as the rate of Ph. D. holders on welfare has more than doubled since 2007.

The rate of Ph.D. holders receiving food stamps or other government aid has more than doubled since the recession started almost five years ago — from 0.4 percent in 2007 to just over 1 percent in 2010, according to data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau.

And those with a bachelor’s degree or higher getting public assistance jumped likewise, more than doubling between 2007 and 2010.

Photo

thatandycohen — Wed, 02 May 2012 18:07:22 -0400

collegehumor: Flowchart: Are You Actually Going to Study for...

thatandycohen — Wed, 02 May 2012 12:31:32 -0400

collegehumor:

Flowchart: Are You Actually Going to Study for Finals?

Bertrand Russell on the Ten Commandments of Teaching

thatandycohen — Wed, 02 May 2012 12:31:13 -0400

Bertrand Russell on the Ten Commandments of Teaching: nevver: Do not feel absolutely certain of...

"The successful scientist thinks like a poet but works like a bookkeeper."

thatandycohen — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 13:01:31 -0400

“The successful scientist thinks like a poet but works like a bookkeeper.” -...

University of Florida Eliminates Computer Science Department, Increases Athletic Budget.

thatandycohen — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:16:54 -0400

University of Florida Eliminates Computer Science Department, Increases Athletic Budget.: Can a...

Higher ed is for suckers, claims inarticulate blowhard who...

thatandycohen — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:27:00 -0400

Higher ed is for suckers, claims inarticulate blowhard who repeats himself, spouting dull disprovable platitudes. “Live”?

"Education is what someone tells you to do and learning is what you do for yourself."

thatandycohen — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:25:47 -0400

“Education is what someone tells you to do and learning is what you do for yourself.” -...

theatlantic: The Paradox of College: The Rising Cost of Going...

thatandycohen — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:14:56 -0400

theatlantic:

The Paradox of College: The Rising Cost of Going (and Not Going!) to School

Have you heard about the dangerous, rising cost of not going to college? In the last 30 years, the typical college tuition has tripled. But over the exact same period, the earnings gap between college-educated adults and high school graduates has also tripled. In 1979, the wage difference was 75%. In 2003, it was 230%.

Over the last three decades, the cost of going to college has increased at nearly the exact same rate as the cost not going to college. How can the price of getting something and not getting something both rise at the same time?

That is the paradox of college costs.

Read more. [Image: Reuters]

"In conventional schools, students learn so that they can get good grades. My most important research..."

thatandycohen — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:31:20 -0400

“In conventional schools, students learn so that they can get good grades. My most important...

Looking to get a little smarter, a lot cheaper? A number of top U.S. universities are working with a company called Coursera to put parts of their curriculum online for free. Neat.

thatandycohen — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:19:41 -0400

Looking to get a little smarter, a lot cheaper? A number of top U.S. universities are working with a...

Lifehacker.com: How to Better Manage Your Student Loans and Graduate with Less Debt

thatandycohen — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:35:41 -0400

Lifehacker.com: How to Better Manage Your Student Loans and Graduate with Less Debt

explore-blog: Page from the 1946 pamphlet The Races of Mankind,...

thatandycohen — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:18:59 -0400

explore-blog:

Page from the 1946 pamphlet The Races of Mankind, in which two Columbia University anthropologists present, in simple language and charming cartoons, a scientific case against racist beliefs.

theweekmagazine: Most college-bound high school seniors will...

thatandycohen — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:29:58 -0400

theweekmagazine:

Most college-bound high school seniors will know by May 1 if they got accepted to the school of their choice, or at least made the waitlist. But here’s a hard reality check: For most students, being waitlisted is “not much better than a rejection,” admissions consultant Elizabeth Heaton tells The Wall Street Journal. Other experts call the waitlist just plain ”mean.”

Just how bad are your chances of advancing past the waitlist? The numbers at elite universities are pretty grim: Yale took in 103 (out of 996), Carnegie Mellon accepted six (out of 5,003), Stanford took 13 (out of 1,078), and Cornell, zero (out of 2,998). Harvard, which won’t specify the size of its waitlist, admitted just 31. And it’s getting worse, says Caralee Adams at Education Week. More colleges are relying on waitlists — 48 percent in 2010, versus 34 percent in 2009 — and admitting a lower percentage of waitlisted students: 28 percent nationally in 2010, down from 34 percent in 2009. At more selective colleges, your odds are at about 11 percent.

So, what do you do if you’re placed in admissions limbo?

explore-blog: “Education is a pubic good, and not simply a good...

thatandycohen — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:25:55 -0400

explore-blog:

“Education is a pubic good, and not simply a good for those who happen to get the private benefit of it at any given moment.”

Professor Stefan Collini, author of What Are Universities For?, on the role of higher education. Also see Clark Kerr’s 1963 classic, The Uses of the University.

cartoonpolitics: Student loan debt, at $830 billion, now...

thatandycohen — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:29:27 -0400

cartoonpolitics:

Student loan debt, at $830 billion, now exceeds total US credit card debt, itself bloated to the bubble level of $827 billion. More here..

theatlantic: telenaichimaru: Samples from the project, “Advice...

thatandycohen — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:33:58 -0400

theatlantic:

telenaichimaru:

Samples from the project, “Advice to Sink in Slowly,” which uses the artwork and advice of design graduates. The posters are designed to inspire first-year college students and are available for purchase as a fundraising initiative on the website (http://advicetosinkinslowly.net/).

Definitely worth a peek.