School of Economics
The country’s international woes are hitting colleges and universities hard. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed that the state’s university systems cut a collective $132 million from their budgets, and New York Governor David Paterson will demand the State University of New York system trim $70 million. Other state systems are slicing, as well.

Those cuts are leading universities to drop classes, restrict enrollment and lay off staff. Arizona State University recently let go 200 faculty associates to help deal with a $24 million cut.

“This has been a very difficult time,” says Virgil Renzulli, ASU’s vice president of public affairs. “This is the third cut we’ve taken in just about four months. We don’t know if this is the last cut.” (ABC News)

Dumb Jock? Not So Much.
About 79 percent of college athletes in Division 1 NCAA schools graduate these days—a rate actually higher than students as a whole. It’s a sign, according to NCAA President Myles Brand, that schools are serious about educating their athletes.

“Academic reform is alive and well on campuses nationwide,” he said. The NCAA found three of this year’s Final Four women’s qualifiers (Tennessee, Stanford and Connecticut) had fouryear graduation rates of 100 percent.

There are still problem spots. Graduation rates for students involved in the NCAA’s highest profile sports, football and men’s basketball, aren’t nearly as rosy. The average four-year graduation rate in Division I men’s basketball was only 62 percent (a fourth of the NCAA’s 300 teams graduated less than half of their participants), and only 67 percent of Division I football players managed to exchange their pigskin for a sheepskin.

Fresno State was particularly dismal: Only 48 percent of its football players graduate, 48 percent of its baseball players and a depressing 7 percent of its men’s basketball players. (USA Today)

Turning the Page
The new $74 million Peter B. Lewis Science Library at Princeton University has computers, study areas, meeting rooms … everything one might expect from a shiny new library. Everything, that is, except books.

Well, Princeton’s new library still has books, only they’re squirreled away in the basement, far away from the building’s regular traffic. Most of the information these students need is online, anyway. Why risk a paper cut?

“Libraries are becoming more a space where people come to access data and also more of a study space, research space and to some extent, a social space,” said the library’s designer, Craig Webb of Gehry Partners. He hopes the building will help inspire new ideas, not just store old ones. (Bloomberg)

Electives Returning
Reading, writing and ‘rithmatic are great and all; but some schools are adding electives to their repertoires. Kids in some schools can take classes in jewelry making, 3-D animation and the history of rock and roll. A school in Pelham, N.Y., is offering a popular course in military history.

“With some classes, such as history, you don’t like the subject that much,” said senior Greg Bratone, who wrote about his passion for military history on his college applications. “But now that it’s military history, I’m all ears.”

The reasons for this surge in electives are twofold. For one, many school officials believe offering electives helps give their students a breather from honors and AP courses. Two, electives may help boost enrollment. (New York Times)