Forums: College Ball

We got an interesting question from an academic adviser at a Texas university: could we tell what the top 1 percent of earners majored in? The writer, sly dog, was probably trying to make a point, because he wrote from a biology department, and it turns out that biology majors make up nearly 7 percent of college graduates who live in households in the top 1 percent. According to the Census Bureau's 2010 American Community Survey, the majors that give you the best chance of reaching the 1 percent are pre-med, economics, biochemistry, zoology and, yes, biology, in that order....

Since his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama has been campaigning in touring five battleground states. His final stop on that tour comes today. At a rally at the University of Michigan, the president plans to unveil a plan to increase federal “investment” in the Perkins loan program — from $1 billion to $8 billion — and to revamp the formula for distributing the money. The Washington Post has a few more details: Under the plan, colleges would be rewarded based on their success in offering relatively lower tuition prices, providing value and serving low-income students, the White...

EXCERPT ‘‘We are putting colleges on notice,’’ Obama said. ‘‘You can’t assume that you'll just jack up tuition every single year. If you can’t stop tuition from going up, then the funding you get from taxpayers each year will go down.’’

In an article for today's FrontPage Magazine titled "Schools of Education: The Academic Slums," Walter Williams was right on the money.  Speaking about schools of education, he said, "Education professors drum into students that they should not 'drill and kill' or be the 'sage on the stage' but instead be the 'guide on the side' who 'facilitates student discovery.' This kind of harebrained thinking, coupled with multicultural nonsense, explains today's education. During his teacher education, Sand says, 'teachers-to-be were forced to learn about this ethnic group, that impoverished group, this sexually anomalous group, that under-represented group, etc. -- all under...

I haven’t had many lectures where terms like necrophilia or bestiality came up. That’s why, among all the classes I’ve taken over the past four years, the sociology course I’m taking this semester, Sexuality and the Law, stand outs. It wasn’t until the second class that the professor really delved into the ‘makes you feel uncomfortable and avoid eye contact with the other students’ material. Penis rings, polygamy, chastity belts, the Kama Sutra, and the lack of a female counterpart to Viagra were all discussed, in no particular order of uncomfortableness. Next, the professor gave a brief overview of popular...

Last month, the Obama administration issued important guidance to colleges and universities on how to increase racial diversity on campuses, explaining ways to navigate the narrow legal channel charted by the Supreme Court. The benefits of diversity, the Department of Education said, contribute to “the educational, economic and civic life of this nation.” The administration’s support for such efforts stands in stark contrast to the policy of the George W. Bush administration to discourage them. That difference has played out between the political parties for decades, as it will in this presidential election. Race-conscious programs in education — affirmative action...

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is set to begin issuing free school identification cards to comply with a new state voter ID law. The university says students can pick up an ID Monday on campus. It pledged last year to offer the cards since the law has a two-year expiration for school IDs that make older IDs invalid. Colleges and universities across the state have debated how to comply with the law, which passed last year. Several UW campuses are taking a similar approach to Madison's policy. The university also launched a website Friday designed to help students on any voting...