Tuition hikes spark ‘Maple Spring’ student strikes

Tuition hikes are the culprit behind an increase in student strikes across Canada. The Canadian government’s proposal to raise tuition fees by 75% ($1,625) over the next five years has created social unrest among students. Approximately 170,000 students are on strike and rallies have even reached up to 200,000 protesters at a time. Although tuition in Québec is the lowest in North America, students still refuse to pay an extra $325 a year. The average tuition rate in Canada is $2,519 while the U.S. average is nearly 12 times this amount at $31,000. Strikers aren’t as concerned about the finances as they are the symbolism behind the increases, and the way the government is treating…

Bib:Love: German students offer gals better grades for sex

Three German students have come up with an ingenious way to get laid. They’re offering no-strings-attached sweet lovin’ to female classmates, which they say will help them get better grades. The students, who go by the pseudonyms Oskar, Christopher and Julius and study business at Mannheim University, have started Bib:Love, a service that promises “Good grades through Good Sex.” Bib:Love, a play on the German word for library, Bibliothek, offers stressed-out girls one-night stands, claiming regular “exercise” helps with studying. “The young men claim that their project is about emancipation in a broader sense and that their initiative should be recognized as more than a mere coital campaign,” writes Der Speigel. Oskar, Christopher and Julius…

Yale: Singapore campus to change education in Asia

Yale University’s plans to open a joint campus with the National University of Singapore next year are being criticized by faculty, students and alumni who are concerned about dealing with Singapore’s autocratic government and its long history of trampling on civil and political rights. Yale’s administrators believe they can succeed where other prestigious institutions — including Britain’s Warwick and America’s Johns Hopkins universities — have failed. The campus, called Yale-NUS, “will pioneer a ‘global curriculum’ that ‘will draw on the best elements of the American liberal arts tradition, but re-shape and re-imagine the curriculum and collegiate experience for Asia,’” says a statement on the Yale-NUS website. On Thursday Yale faculty approved a resolution by a…

Asian Americans lose as California schools pursue Chinese students

Funding for University of California schools has been slashed in recent years, and UC schools are looking to students to make up the difference. This means cutting spots reserved for California students in favor of out-of-state or international students, who pay full tuition. The University of California, San Diego, for example, will be accepting 500 fewer in-state students this year. Some of these slots will be filled by students from China. The number of Chinese students at UCSD increased 12-fold from 2009 to 2011 to almost 200, while the number of Asian-American Californians enrolled fell 29 percent to 1,230. UC San Diego tuition is $13,234 for California residents and $22,878 for non-residents. Although an American…

James Franco’s NYU professor fired for giving bad grade?

Former New York University professor Jose Angel Santana is suing NYU, claiming he was fired for giving James Franco a “D” for skipping class. The ticked-off teacher claims Franco missed 12 out of 14 meetings of Tish School for the Arts course Directing the Actor II. Santana lashed out at NYU for creating, what he called, a “Franco-friendly environment,” in which high-profile students are permitted to effectively buy their degrees without having to do the work. He alleges Franco, an Academy Award-nominated actor, didn’t take his other courses seriously, but professors passed him anyway because of his celebrity status. Known for such films as 127 Hours and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Franco…

Asian college admission strategy: Don’t check Asian

Asian-American students applying to elite colleges have a new strategy: Don’t check Asian. They believe that the college admission process disadvantages Asians overachievers. Some even say colleges set a ceiling on the percentage of Asians in the student population. Is this discrimination? A study on data from 1997 conducted by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade calculates that an Asian student has to score 140 points higher on the SATs in order to have the same chance of admission as a white student. No wonder more and more Asians, especially mixed-raced Asians, are choosing not to identify as Asian on their college applications. But the question remains…why is it still OK to discriminate against Asians in college…

The Student Loan Rap!

Do you have student loan debt? Join the club! By some accounts, there is now $1 trillion in student loan debt outstanding. Wow! With all that money spent on higher education, Americans must be the smartest workforce in the world! But funny enough, graduates are having a hard time paying back all the debt. What gives? The grand bargain used to be that higher education was a guarantee of higher wages upon graduation. Yet students are finding that’s not the case anymore. They’ve taken on more debt than their meager incomes can support. Thankfully, President Barack Obama has come to the rescue with several relief measures! Want to find out how you can benefit from…

Bernie Fine fired: abuse allegations sink Syracuse coach

Bernie Fine, the long-serving associate coach of the Syracuse Orange, was sacked after a third person came forward accusing him of sexual abuse. The story was broken in mid-November by ESPN. Fine’s accuser, Bobby Davis first reported the alleged abuse in 2002, but police dropped the investigation saying the statute of limitations had expired. Davis then called Fine’s wife Laurie, who hinted that she knew of her husband’s alleged predilection for young boys. Unknown to Fine, Davis recorded the call. He took the tape to CNN and the Syracuse Post-Standard, but they both failed to follow up on it. CNN said it could not corroborate the allegations. Davis even reported the alleged abuse to Syracuse…