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What’s Your PGP?
By Allan Metcalf. It’s a question we didn’t have to answer in the 20th century. In fact, it’s a question that didn’t exist until recently. We have this question now because we have a growing menu of gender identity. Last week I discussed it with regard to the abbreviations LGBTQQ2IA and Quiltbag. More...
The Case of the Sinister Buttocks
By Geoffrey Pullum. The story behind this strange sentence was first told by Times Higher Education and has since been summarized (often inaccurately) by more than 7,000 other news sources. Lucy Ferriss alluded to it here on Lingua Franca last week. Its reference to musicians and liturgies might suggest a musical or religious theme. But no, this sentence, in a senior thesis submitted by an undergraduate to a London-area university, purported to be about business information systems. More...
Education Dept. Has Ignored Debt-Collector Abuses, Report Alleges
By Chronicle Staff. Report: “Pounding Student Loan Borrowers: The Heavy Cost of the Government’s Partnership With Debt Collection Agencies”
Authors: Deanne Loonin and Persis Yu, both lawyers at the National Consumer Law Center
Organization: National Consumer Law Center
Summary: The authors reviewed complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission against 22 companies that collect defaulted student loans on the federal government’s behalf. More...
State Lotteries Tend to Replace, Not Bolster, Higher-Education Budgets
By Chronicle Staff. Report: “A Gamble With Consequences: State Lottery-Funded Scholarship Programs as a Strategy for Boosting College Affordability”
Author: Kati Lebioda
Organization: American Association of State Colleges and Universities
Summary: The association reviewed 26 state lottery programs that have earmarked funds for use in either elementary and secondary schools or higher education. More...
Think College Rankings Are Useless? Use Your Imagination
By Andy Thomason. Year after year, college rankings maintain their hard-fought relevance. The leader of the pack, as every admissions officer knows, is U.S. News & World Report, whose annual rankings are due out next week. Colleges have long maneuvered to improve their standings on the hallowed list, changing various policies (and sometimes cheating) to jibe with the magazine’s methodology. U.S. News’s stranglehold on colleges needs to end, writes Vox’s Libby Nelson in a post published Friday morning. More...
Is a Degree Still Worth It? Yes, Researchers Say, and the Payoff Is Getting Better
By Lance Lambert. One could be excused for thinking the value of a college degree is in a downward spiral. With overall student-loan debt topping $1-trillion and tuition racing upward, to college graduates facing high levels of underemployment and stagnating wages, it might appear college simply isn’t worth it.
However, a study released on Tuesday by two researchers with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York concludes the opposite is true: The value of a bachelor’s degree is near an all-time high. More...
Rise of Online Booksellers Brings Complaints From Campus Bookstores
A Manly Old Guide to the Ivy League
By Eric Hoover. If your college guide says nothing about finding dates or getting laid, your college guide is woefully incomplete.
I reached that conclusion while thumbing through an entertaining old book my editor plucked on a whim from The Chronicle’s library this summer. With its drab, tattered cover, The Ivy League Guidebook, published in 1969, looks as inviting as a frat-basement couch. Read more...