About 30 percent of college marching band members surveyed in a new national study reported that they had observed hazing in their programs. Few of the students said they ever reported the behavior, however. “Despite all of our efforts, the message about hazing is still not getting out there,” Jason Silveira, an assistant professor of music education at Oregon State University and one of the study's authors, stated. Read more...

Kennesaw State University said Thursday it is "reviewing the concerns" of a student who posted a video online showing an academic adviser threatening to call security on the student as he allegedly waited for assistance. Read more...

While testing companies must respond constantly to allegations of security breaches outside the United States, the Educational Testing Service is investigating a possible security breach on the SAT given in the United States on May 2, The Washington Post reported. Read more...

Millions of students and families will now pay less to borrow money from the federal government to finance college in the coming academic year.
Interest rates on federal student loans are set to drop by more than one-third of a percentage point following the U.S. Treasury’s sale on Wednesday of 10-year notes. Rates are reset each year based on the yield of the note set by that auction. Read more...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Thursday that it has launched a “public inquiry” into the practices of companies that collect and manage student loan payments. Read more...

A new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research explores the impact that Chinese graduate students had on the productivity of American professors when a change in China's policies in 1978 led to a sudden surge in the number of Chinese graduate students in the United States. The paper (abstract available here) uses databases that track the research output of American mathematics professors and that identify the graduate students working with individual American professors. Read more...

Colorado will standardize how its public colleges grant credit for prior learning, The Denver Post reports. The Colorado Higher Education Commission will create a comprehensive, statewide prior-learning assessment policy, which it said will provide more consistency and transparency. However, the state's colleges will have a chance to weigh in on the standards before they are finalized, the commission said. Read more...

Two gifts of $15 million each were announced last week to TheDream.US Foundation, which supports financial aid for students who lack the legal documentation to live permanently in the United States, The New York Daily News reported. Read more...

The University of Northern Colorado announced Friday that it is resuming admissions into its Mexican-American studies program and a related program to train high school teachers to provide instruction in the field. Read more...

Many private colleges and universities make voluntary payments to localities to reflect their use of local services without paying property taxes. A study released Monday morning by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that there are clear patterns in the levels at which colleges and other nonprofits pay. Read more...