That is the picture of a traditional college student? Most of us imagine an 18–21 year old, living on a campus far from home. But recent data compiled by the Wall Street Journal shows that that’s far from the case: First of all, more than 40% of all undergraduates in the 2011-2012 school year were […]

America’s public schools are educating students for a world that no longer exists.  A case in point is the Perkins Act, which funds vocational training in schools—a reasonable project, except that the training is far outdated. Stan Litow, a VP at IBM, writes in USNews:  [The Act funds] education programs that look a lot like what […]

The Chinese tend to be leery of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and the deputy general secretary of a provincial soybean association in China recently stoked their fears. Conflating correlation with causation, Wang Xiaoyu noted that Chinese regions with high GMO consumption also had relatively high rates of cancer, concluding that GMOs make people “more vulnerable […]

A number of law school applicants are getting offers that sound too good to be true. Growing increasingly desperate for highly qualified students, Washington University School of Law has begun offering applicants a free ride via full tuition scholarships, as long as they respond within 24 hours of receiving the offer.On the surface, this sounds like a […]

The Washington Post is following the lead of the NYT’s bleak new take on the White House’s Middle East policy. As Libya seethes, Egypt crashes, and Syria burns, fewer and fewer of the President’s erstwhile disciples in the media understand his administration’s continuing fixation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The WaPo editorial board writes: The intense focus of Secretary of […]

Tragedy struck in the idyllic town of Lac Megantic, Quebec this weekend. A 73-car oil-laden train derailed and exploded early Saturday. Five people died, and the crash site is still too hot—more than 50 hours later—to look for 40 missing people.The implications of the accident extend much further than the small border town: crashes like […]

On Saturday, Islamist militants killed at least 29 students and one teacher in a state in northeast Nigeria. The terrorists set fire to a dormitory, burning many students alive, and shot survivors who attempted to escape.Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” has been blamed for the horrific attack. Presumably the goal in […]

It looks like the rot in Turkey’s AK Party runs deep—and perhaps even all the way to the top. An excellent analysis in the Turkey Analyst of how the Gezi Park protests have concretely set back Erdogan’s political program includes the following passage digging into the recent anti-Semitic drivel seeping out of the party leadership: Erdoğan’s […]

The Egyptian Revolution lurches on. With 42 dead in Cairo last night, and widespread unrest around the country, dreams of a “velvet coup” are evaporating. In the wake of last night’s violence, the Brotherhood is calling on Egyptians to “rise up” against the coup. American diplomacy, aimed now at reconciling the Brotherhood to the coup, […]

Buddhist-Muslim tensions are spreading beyond Burma. Early this morning, the Mahabodhi Temple, one of Eastern India’s holiest Buddhist shrines, was hit by a series of explosions, which officials believe were an act of terrorism. Although little else is known about the attack and no deaths have been reported, the NYT report suggests that these attacks are […]