College As Country Club: Do Colleges Cater to Students’ Preferences for Consumption?  Apparently, this is a catchy title for a white paper. The report, released January 2013 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, set off a firestorm of responses in the higher education media sphere: Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Huff Post Teen, have all composed responses to the claims of the study. Well, what’s the shocking news? We find that most students do appear to value college consumption amenities, including spending on student activities, sports, and dormitories. While this taste for amenities is broad-based, the taste for academic quality is confined to high-achieving students.1 The NBER paper goes on to explain the 16%-20% […]

Tell me about yourself. When you’re filling out college applications, schools pepper you with different permutations of this question. Can you briefly recount your most meaningful experience? Who or what matters most to you? How do you handle adversity? Why does diversity matter in your life? Is it any surprise that a new study shows, “First-year students indicating that they frequently felt “overwhelmed by all I had to do” during their senior year of high school increased from 28.5% in 2011 to 30.4% in 2012.” While colleges have plenty questions, far less frequently, if at all, do they ask what you expect them to deliver. If they did ask, would you be in a position to answer? Maybe not until […]