Students who end up at colleges that weren’t their top choice are often happiest. Sushma Subramanian on the upside to being rejected by the elites. When Lauren Schug, 26, from Philadelphia, was rejected by her top college choices—Brown, Columbia, and Duke—she was pretty sure her life was over. “I was extremely disappointed when I didn’t get into my first choice school,” she says, “and as I didn’t get into my second and third choice, I feared that my education and my future would be compromised.” She reluctantly began considering the colleges lower down her list, only two... 

Every college and university around the world expects its students to uphold certain standards. Honesty, refraining from causing harm to others, community, and staying within the laws of the home country all remain relatively reasonable and universal codes that give students structure while still preserving their individuality and bolstering their character. But some schools, most especially those affiliated with the evangelical Christian movement in the United States, raise a number of extremely difficult questions with their adherence to a highly restrictive code of values. While it usually... 

Think about how many times you’ve watched a newspaper being unfolded in front of a healthy breakfast and a fresh cup of coffee. We’ve come a long way. Society and “the paper”, that is. Take a deep breath now…it’s over. It has been for some time. Nytimes.com elaborates on the declining business and how figures continue to go down. The Internet’s birth marked the commencement of a new technological era that would take over the world. It also marked the beginning of the end for the newspaper. Times are always changing, to take a different approach at Bob Dylan’s... 

It may be that higher education is in greater demand during economic downturns but – after years of insidious cutbacks – American public institutions are struggling to maintain their traditionally high standards. Indeed, the Great Recession seems poised to wreak lasting damage on one of the most successful models of higher education in the world. Higher Education Budgets and the Global Recession, a report published by the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education last month, outlines the discouraging picture. The report’s author... 

It is easier to climb the social ladder and earn more than one’s parents in the Nordic countries, Australia and Canada than in France, Italy, Britain and the United States, according to a new OECD study. But weak social mobility can signal a lack of equal opportunities, constrain productivity and curb economic growth, says a report on the study. “A Family Affair: Intergenerational social mobility across OECD countries” says climbing the social ladder depends on a range of factors such as individual ability, family and social environments, networks and attitudes. But public action... 

While there is no doubt that women have come a long way from the discrimination and struggles they faced in the previous century when it came to getting an education and finding a job, the sad reality is that when you look at the hard facts, there is still a fair amount of inequality when it comes to women’s role in the working world. Whether you’re a working woman yourself or just want to help support the rights of women, these facts are a surefire wake-up call that women still don’t always get a fair shake when it comes to getting paid, attaining promotions, or entering certain... 

A number of the President’s critics have opined that he didn’t say anything new in the State of the Union Address and mainly tried to rally Democrats to support him. To the contrary, I think three important aspects of the address are pretty clear. The first is what he actually proposed. Politico has an excellent article discussing the President’s proposals from the SOTU and the possibilities that they might happen. Two examples: Despite the fact that health care reform was the centerpiece of his first-year agenda, it’s on life support at best. He didn’t talk much about... 

Only 3.7% of all students enrolled in American higher education institutions are foreigners, yet they contribute nearly $18 billion to the US economy, according to the US Department of Commerce. Most of this income is generated by tuition and other fees. Data compiled by the non-profit College Board reveal that annual tuition fees increased by 5.9% from 2008 to 2009 in all sectors of higher education. In the context of the worst recession since the 1930s, it is noteworthy that these figures are only just up from the average 5% annual rate of increase over the past decade. Disaggregation of the... 

My list of the dumbest things I’ve heard of has gotten quite long over the years, and I’ve just made a new entry. As I was making my daily scan of the Drudge Report, I came across a headline that I couldn’t pass up. The Drudge link leads to an ABC News report, U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed With Secret ‘Jesus’ Bible Codes. Seems that Trijicon, Inc. makes a specialized sight for military assault rifles. The problem is that on each sight they inscribe a notation for a Bible verse. It’s added to the end of the model number on the sight. The notation on one sight... 

Apparently there’s no end to the political dust being kicked up by Game Change, the new book on the 2008 presidential campaigns by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. Politicians left and right are being wounded by their own words and the assessments of their own staffs. As anyone who’s turned on a TV or opened an internet browser in the past few days, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is this latest victim skewered in the book. The authors report Reid said to them in an interview that Obama could win the White House because he was a “light-skinned” African-American “with no Negro... 

The Obama Administration’s decision to try some terrorists in federal court as common criminals is controversial. This policy has been applied to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian citizen apprehended in the United States, as well as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others, non-U.S. citizens captured in foreign countries. Other terrorists have also been tried, successfully, in federal courts during previous administrations. These include Richard Reid, a British citizen apprehended in the U.S.; John Walker Lindh, an American citizen captured in Afghanistan; Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian citizen... 

The first refuge of weak leaders is blaming mistakes on subordinates. It’s unacceptable in the military, in corporate hierarchies, and in other settings where the responsibilities and authorities of leadership are understood and practiced. Harry Truman enshrined the concept with the famous maxim, “The buck stops here.” The principle is that a leader is responsible for everything his or her organization does or fails to do. When a U.S. Navy ship runs aground, the captain of the ship isn’t going to point to a junior officer who was serving as OOD (officer of the deck) and...