Universities Weblog

This Sunday's (Oct. 3) New York Times Magazine will include a special section titled "Great Places to Learn in New York." Written by yours truly, the section presents a tour of New York's colleges and universities and features interviews with campus leaders. You'll also find information on new programs across the spectrum of undergraduate, graduate and continuing education.

Pick up the Times this Sunday and check it out.

(Source: Columbia University)It's a fundamental question that plagues schools of journalism: Do you need to study journalism to become a journalist?

Given recent changes at many J-schools, including those at what some would call the leading program, Columbia, the debate promises to heat up. Columbia is adding a second-year option to its curriculum, enabling students to study issues in depth. The university's president is pushing the school to instill rigor, to elevate journalism education to the level of legal or medical studies. Fat chance.

On the other side of the issue are practicing journalists who claim there's no substitute for on-the-job training. They look askance at J-schools (especially those who didn't attend) and question the need to spend one or two years studying something you should be learning by doing.

And does a journalism degree help you on the job market? I suppose that depends on who's hiring and the side of the debate he or she favors.

But J-schools certainly stand out among professional schools because they're not respected by many in the field their graduates hope to join.

Stop the presses…USA Today has revealed a shocking new discovery: Rich kids are far more likely than poor kids to attend elite colleges. Stunning.

The article cites stats compiled by the Century Foundation, a D.C. policy institute. Among the findings:

Nationwide, nine in 10 high school graduates from families earning more than $80,000 a year attend college by age 24, compared with just six in 10 from families earning less than $33,000…. At the nation's 146 most selective colleges, only 3% of students come from the lowest socioeconomic quarter…; 74% come from the top quarter.The piece goes on to describe how some institutions—like Princeton, Harvard, UNC Chapel Hill and UVA—are beefing up financial aid programs aimed at low-income families and actively recruiting such students.

Uh, what makes this newsworthy? Elite colleges have always favored the wealthy, and over the years have indeed become more egalitarian and diverse. But we shouldn't assume that they now or ever will mirror the nation's socioeconomic landscape. After all, they're not called "elite" just because of their academic reputations.

I've noted this before, but perhaps it bears repeating: This is a great time to think about your MBA.

Why? Well, as a San Francisco Chronicle piece points out, applications to B-schools are down, at least for full-time programs. Many people, uncertain about future employment prospects, are reluctant to quit their jobs to pursue school. So while B-schools may be flush with applicants for their part-time and executive programs, they're not so overrun with applicants for full-time spots.

The pendulum is likely to swing in the opposite direction at some point (it always does), so strike while the iron's hot and the pool is shallow.

The piece also details the buzz surrounding the MBA World Tour, which pulled into San Francisco for the week. Reps from 108 schools touted their programs and answered questions from prospective students. Look for the tour to land in your (major metropolitan) neighborhood soon.

The stereotype of the East Coast kid wanting to pack up his stuff and ship himself off to California for college, just to get away from it all and declare some independence, is becoming more fantasy than fact. Nowadays, says this New York Times article, students opt to enroll in colleges close to home.

That's good news for some institutions that traditionally haven't drawn well from their own states. Connecticut and New Jersey always lead the pack in the percentage of students attending college elsewhere. The brain drain has slowed in Connecticut, as the article documents, with many more Nutmeggers choosing UConn and other public schools.

So why aren't kids straying anymore? Here's what one observer thinks:

"Kids are not as adventurous as I saw 15 years ago, when they were willing to pick a school in Iowa," said Ms. baker of Greenwich High School. "Although we have a number of students choosing schools in those areas, I think that students are a little bit more concerned about maintaining that close tie to family, being able to get home quickly. That could be reflective of the state of our society today, that students are a little bit more anxious. I don't know."I don't know either, but I wonder how parents feel about the weekend furloughs home.

Freshmen arriving at campuses across America can look forward to an age-old tradition: putting on weight. The "freshman 15" myth, suggesting that students tack on 15 pounds in their first year, turns out to be true, according to researchers at Cornell. Not surprisingly, the culprits include large portions (many cafeterias offer all-you-can-eat buffets), midnight snacking, fast food and alcohol consumption.

So now that these students have shed their high school habits, they can turn their attention to more weighty matters.