Tight Economy Strains Town-Gown Relations

But US schools clean up

(NEWSER) - Hang your head in shame, Crimson alums: After eight years on top, Harvard sank to a lowly second on the Times Higher Education ’s list of the world’s top 400 universities. Harvard was displaced by the California Institute of Technology (aka Caltech), thanks to its “consistent results across the indicators and a steep rise in research funding,” the Times wrote. More»

Harvard, Princeton top universities list

(NEWSER) - US News and World Report has released its latest college rankings, and it’s full of the usual suspects, with Harvard, Princeton, and Yale topping the list; not much has changed since last year . Among liberal arts colleges , Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore lead the pack. The magazine also presents its best universities in the world : The UK is on top, with Cambridge at No. 1, followed by Harvard and Yale (don’t ask us why Yale beats Princeton worldwide but not nationally). More»

From Brown to Bob Jones, 'what kind of douche do you want to be'?

(NEWSER) - In college, acting insufferable is pretty much a given. “The question for America's youth is: What kind of douche bag do you aspire to be?” asks GQ. The mag helpfully offers the top options.

1. Brown University: Peace Sign on My Mom's 7 Series Douches are limo liberals too good for grades.
2. Duke University: Original Douches. “Probably number one. But we'd rather not rank Duke number one at anything.”
3. Princeton University: Eating-Club Douches “invented affectations.”
4. Harvard University: Harvard Douches—need we say more?
5. Deep Springs College: Only Six People Know About It Douches inhabit a ranch near Death Valley.

(NEWSER) - Penn State has knocked the University of Florida from its No. 1 spot … atop the Princeton Review’s “Best Party School” list. Each year, the Review ranks schools in a huge number of categories based on surveys of their students. A Penn State spokeswoman called it a “popularity contest,” among students. “The results are not connected to reality,” she tells the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. But here are some winners anyway: More»

Providence mayor wants to charge them $300 a year

(NEWSER) - Students at Brown University say they contribute to their community in countless ways, and a proposed $150-per-semester tax shouldn’t be one of them, the AP reports. “We’re more able to provide labor, we’re more able to apply the things that we're learning in the classroom, than we are to write a $300 check,” said one opposed to the plan from the mayor of Providence, RI. More»