The Credit CARD Act of 2009 went into effect on Monday. Among many of the components of the new law, it restricts student access to credit cards. I wrote a column on it this week in the DP.
“When I heard that Congress had passed legislation to protect students from overwhelming debt, I assumed it could only be a good thing. The new federal regulations, which went into effect yesterday, will make it harder for credit card companies to market their product to college students.
It all seemed too good to be true. Over the past couple years, we have watched universities compete to give deserving students more money than their peer schools were. School after school (including Penn) announced massive loan-free student aid programs that promised to help socioeconomic groups that couldn’t afford private colleges in the past gain access to some of the most elite institutions in the country.
Turns out that it may, indeed, be too good to be true.
According to a recent USAT article, the economy is forcing some of these universities to pull back. After cutting across the school, laying off staff and shutting down libraries, it may be time for these universities to finally cut from (or at least stop expanding) financial aid.
Calling it a “student issue” and not one for the administration, Virginia Tech has decided not to pull funds from the students newspaper or penalize them in anyway over their commenting policy.
The policy, according to the University, violated the school’s “Principles of Community.”
I’m glad to see Virginia Tech’s Collegiate Times (which has done some really amazing work over the years) will be able to maintain their policies without losing their free rent and their $70,000 in funding. Though, after all this, they may want to work on a business plan that will allow them complete independence from VT.
According to the Associated Press: “The professor accused of killing three colleagues during a faculty meeting was a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, inventor and mother whose life had been marred by a violent episode in her distant past.
More than two decades ago, police said Amy Bishop fatally shot her teenage brother at their Massachusetts home in what officers at the time logged as an accident — though authorities said Saturday that records of the shooting are missing.
Bishop had just months left teaching at the University of Alabama in Huntsville when police said she opened fire with a handgun Friday in a room filled with a dozen of her colleagues from the school’s biology department. Bishop, a rare woman suspected in a workplace shooting, was to leave after this semester because she had been denied tenure.”
UPDATE :And, as the mystery surround this woman grows, The Crimson is now reporting that she was implicated in a 1993 attempt to bomb at Harvard professor.
The Associated Press is reporting that three people were killed and at least one other injured this afternoon in a shooting at the University of Alabama-Hunstville. According to a University spokesperson, a female suspect is in custody. Neither the name of the suspect nor the victims have been released.
There are no updates yet at The Exponent, UAH’s student newspaper, but hopefully they’ll have more information soon.
Like almost any journalist, I hate anonymous commenting. While we write with our names and reputation attached, people post ridiculous insults and libel without shame or fear because no one will know it was them. But I admit that sometimes, they make sense and actually contribute to the conversation without requiring people to attach themselves to that comment or opinion for the rest of their lives. That’s why the DP, and most other publications, continue to allow anonymous commenting despite it being a royal headache for most of us.
According to the Roanoke Times, the Virginia Tech Collegiate Times was told this week by the Commission on Student Affairs that it was violating the school’s “Principles of Community” by allowing anonymous comments on their site. To make a long story short, they lied out an ultimatum: Get rid of the nameless comments or lose your university funding.
I don’t usually like posting about something that I have written for the DP — afterall, what more could I have to say than what I’ve already said in the article. But today I’m going to make an exception.
In today’s 34th Street Magazine — the weekly arts & culture magazine inserted inside the DP — I wrote an in-depth feature on STIs at Penn. Much of what I wrote about, however, applies to college campuses around the country. So I thought it might be of interest to TRC readers.
“According to the CDC, many diseases whose prevalence had been decreasing for some time have been on the rise in the past few years. These diseases include chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. And these increases are especially important among the college-age population. According to the Guttmacher Institute, almost half of all new STI cases every year occur among 15-24 year olds.”
Check out the whole article here at 34st.com.
So Penn’s cancelled today, as are several Philly-area schools. And while they have yet to see a snowflake, my sister’s Rhode Island school is already cancelled for tomorrow. How are your campuses dealing with the neverending #Snowpocalypse?
According to the American Council on Education, the gender gap has stayed consistent since 2000 — 57 percent of college students are female and 43 percent are male. Interestingly, the gap appears to be largest among Hispanics — only 9 percent of Hispanic men have earned a bachelors degree compared to 14 percent of Hispanic women.
I ran into this article about two weeks ago and it’s has had me thinking a lot about the gender gap on Penn’s campus ever since. According to a USAT interview with Jacqueline King, assistant vice president of ACE’s Center for Policy Analysis, “while the gender gap is important and should be addressed by educators and policymakers, these findings suggest the current female majority may be higher education’s new normal.”
When I look around my classrooms at Penn, I can’t help but think King might be right.
Came across this blurb in the NYPost this morning. Apparently, a coyote has been spotted on Columbia’s campus. A real one, not a cartoon one. For those of you who did not grow up in small-town Iowa, a coyote is a small, slightly mangy animal that looks vaguely like a German shepherd. Do not pet them, however.
Columbia Spectator’s got a CoyoteWatch up. If you have any camera-phone pics of it, send them to us!