Affirmative Action for the Privileged Rich

The admittance rate for Harvard’s class of 2025 was 3.43%, the lowest ever . . . except for “ALDCs”:  athletes, “legacies” (children of Harvard alums), “dean’s interest list” (children of rich donors) and children of Harvard faculty and employees (“fac brats“). Naturally these offspring of the school’s “Old Boy’s Club” are largely White:

.”.. 43% of Harvard’s white students are either recruited athletes, legacy students, on the dean’s interest list (their parents have donated to the school) or children of faculty and staff …. The kicker? Roughly three-quarters of these applicants would have been rejected if it weren’t for having rich or Harvard-connected parents or being an athlete.”

— “Turns out, Harvard students aren’t that smart after all,” Tayo Bero, The Guardian

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Image (“Harvard Legacy Admissions”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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You Won’t Have Mitt Romney to Kick Around Anymore

To paraphrase Richard Nixon, you won’t have Mitt Romney to kick around anymore.

Republican Recycling

Tan, rested and ready: Willard Mitt Romney, failed Republican presidential candidate, one-term Massachusetts Governor, dancing horse owner, corporate looter and job-destroying private equity exec. What’s not to like? Get ready America, the 2016 presidential election starts now.

College Sports

“When the Texas Wesleyan Rams arrived here this month to defend their 10 straight national titles, the 14 players and coaches wore navy blue and gold track suits and carried matching bags. The walkie-talkies worn on the hips of tournament personnel crackled to life: ‘Texas Wesleyan has entered the building.’

The opposing teams,—most of whom brought only a handful of players, some in a mishmash of college sweatshirts,—stopped to watch in awe and dread.

‘We are the New York Yankees of table tennis,’ said Texas Wesleyan University Coach Jasna Rather. ‘Everybody hates our guts.'”

— “Don’t Call It Ping Pong: College Sports Rivalry Expands to Table Tennis,” Douglas Belkin, Wall Street Journal

So are college table tennis teams unionized yet?

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Free College for the Rich

“Most people taking free online courses worldwide are among the best-educated and wealthiest of the population, casting doubt on the idea that the classes will benefit the disenfranchised, a survey showed.

More than half of those taking massive open online courses, or MOOCs, were men and the majority were already employed, according to Ezekiel Emanuel, vice provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the authors of the correspondence piece in today’s journal Nature.”

— “Survey: Rich kids reap benefits of online courses,” Nicole Ostrow, Bloomberg via Salon [link added]

Spring Break

“Like Western democracy, Socratic philosophy, written histories, epic poetry, and every other foundational pillar of high culture, spring break began in ancient Greece.

Called ‘Anthestreria’ by the local teens, and their parents, it was a festival dedicated to Dionysus, the god of wine and whoopee and just about every excuse to party. For three days, people would dance, singers would perform, women would deck themselves with flowers, and Greek men would compete to see who could be the fastest to drain a cup of red wine.”

— “2,000 Years of Partying: The Brief History and Economics of Spring Break,” Derek Thompson, The Atlantic

No wonder Greek letter societies are so keen on Spring Break.

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Image (“Glad Day for Surfin,’ after William ‘Hodad’ Blake”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Newt: Every Student Must Work, Like I Didn’t

Newt Gingrich, disgraced former Speaker of the House, is running for U.S. President, and he has a unique education platform. After poor children finish cleaning school toilets and graduate from high school, they can work their way through college, too. If the nation repealed those pesky child labor laws, it could rid itself of over-paid unionized school janitors and government-subsidized loans for coddled, lazy college students, too. right?

Two Hummus Solution

Princeton University students recently rejected a proposal to stock an additional brand of hummus dip besides Sabra hummus. Pro-Palestinian students favor adding a new hummus choice, saying their only chickpea dip option is Israeli-owned Sabra, a company they accuse of having ties to the Golani Brigade, a troubled and violent Israeli military unit.

Some facts:

Semester Abroad. Fries with That?

 

At first we thought McDonald’s had opened a UK franchise of famed Hamburger University. The Oak Brook, Illinois campus flips out 5,000 students a year (over 80,000 served), but doesn’t have much of a football team.

Britain’s Manchester Metropolitan University has it’s own McDonald’s degree program, though. The university’s Business School also runs degree programs for Tesco supermarkets and Booth’s. The latter is either for Booth’s supermarkets or Booth’s Gin.

Attention U.S. exchange students: “Chips” means “fries” in Blighty, “chips” are “crisps,” and the drive-thru window is on the wrong side of the building. Start studying  now.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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For This I Went to College?

 

In today’s America, 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees. So do 80,000 bartenders and over 18,000 parking lot attendants. 17 million Americans with college degrees now have jobs the Bureau of Labor Statistics describes as requiring less than the skill levels of a bachelor’s degree.