By Eunice Park. Hey China, you’re welcome. When you think about your future multi-million dollar shipping moguls, innovative tech giants, and up-and-coming diplomats, please remember a small handful of them probably received their Ivy League degrees thanks to me.
I’m a black market college admissions essay writer, and over the last three years I’ve written over 350 fraudulent essays for wealthy Chinese exchange students. More...

By Editorial Board. For seven years running, the number of applicants to Duke has increased with more than 32,000 having fought for a place in the current freshman class. The Class of 2019 hopefuls will have the option of presenting themselves through a new supplement question. The 250-word optional essay prompt asks applicants to “share a perspective you bring or experiences you’ve had,” including experiences related to home communities, sexual orientation or gender identities and family or cultural backgrounds. Duke is the first university to explicitly mention sexual orientation and gender identity on the Common Application.

By Kevin Carey. Four years ago, the sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa dropped a bomb on American higher education. Their groundbreaking book, “Academically Adrift,” found that many students experience “limited or no learning” in college. Today, they released a follow-up study, tracking the same students for two years after graduation, into the workplace, adult relationships and civic life. The results suggest that recent college graduates who are struggling to start careers are being hamstrung by their lack of learning. More...

By Marissa Barnett. Tuition for online classes can be more than 20 percent higher than regular classes at some universities, once extra fees or additional costs per credit hour are included, according to the News analysis.
Among the 18 universities analyzed, only the University of North Texas in Denton and the University of Texas at Austin had lower costs for online classes. More...

By Carrie Wells. The University System of Maryland could expand its tuition remission program for the dependent children and spouses of employees.
Under the current program, spouses and dependent children can attend the employee's college without paying any tuition. The spouse or dependent child can also get a 50 percent discount on college tuition at another college in the state system if the student is in an academic program not offered at the employee's institution. Read more...

By Neil Irwin. Take a look at any of the most widely followed ratings of America’s colleges and universities, and almost all of the top-ranked schools will have this in common: They want to appeal to everyone, or at least everyone with a brilliant mind and a work ethic to match. More...

By Benjamin Wermund. The balance of power has shifted. A once powerful oligarchy has started to crumble. The people are now in control. More...

College students face a variety of options on campus for accessing financial products. As regulations around the marketing of private student loans and school-branded credit cards have tightened in recent years, financial firms have increasingly marketed campus banking products to colleges, universities, and their students. Financial aid refund disbursement services, student ID cards linked to bank accounts or prepaid cards, and student checking and savings accounts are now common across U.S. campuses. While these products can be convenient for students and cost-effective for colleges and universities, certain campus banking products have come under scrutiny for their controversial fees and policies. Banking agreements between schools and financial firms may result in arrangements that expose students to aggressive marketing tactics, high or unusual fees, and restricted choices for managing their money.
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By Gabriel Kahn. This summer, Chad Mason signed up for online general psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. This spring, Jonathan Serrano took intro to psychology online at Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey.
Though the two undergraduates were separated by more than 600 miles, enrolled in different institutions, and paying different tuitions, they were taking what amounts to the same course. More...