State Schools Over Ivy League: Elite Schools Beyond Redemption and Other Insights
Data geek: Skip the Ivies for a State School
“If I were advising a friend’s son or daughter facing Decision Day, I’d tell them to pass on the Ivy League and go to a high-quality state school instead,” explains Nate Silver at his Silver Bulletin, with a few exceptions, such as kids “from an economically disadvantaged background” offered enough aid that this is “a golden ticket to join the elite.” But if “this student was just going to school to “find herself” — and she or her parents were footing most of the bill? Yeah, probably go with the top-flight state school — especially if she’s in a state with a very good in-state public school where the cost savings are much greater.” Beware graduating “with a mountain of debt” for “a degree from an institution that is likely to be viewed as highly polarizing.”
Campus watch: Elite Schools Past Redemption
The antisemitism on campuses like Columbia is “the result of decades of deliberate planning by a complex network of administrators, lawmakers, NGOs, and media outlets, eager to convert our universities” into “beachheads” in the war for power, thunders Liel Leibovitz at City Journal. Remember: Columbia, which boasts a 4% admissions rate, chose the “throngs” now “occupying” it and indoctrinated them into “hating Israel and the Jews.” And anyone replacing its leaders “is likely to be just as morally” bankrupt, since that’s the kind of people universities have produced. So let Columbia, Yale and other elite schools remain what they’ve become: “finishing schools for the children of Chinese, Qatari, and other global elites.” Let “anyone interested in America’s future pursue education elsewhere.”
Eye on Pa.: Suing Sheetz = Biden Bumble
Just days after President Biden did “a photo op at a Sheetz in suburban Pittsburgh last week after his visit with local steelworkers,” notes the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito, his Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the gas-station-convenience-store chain. The suit accuses Sheetz of “racially discriminatory hiring practices” by screening job seekers for criminal backgrounds.
Huh: Sheetz has a “deeply local customer base” and “employs nearly 25,000” in over 600 locations across Appalachia. And “the alleged ‘violation’ is what common sense says is just good business practices, such as making sure employees who interact with the public aren’t criminals.” Like Biden’s decision to pause exports of US liquefied natural gas, “the Sheetz lawsuit has local [Pennsylvania] Democrats shaking their heads.”
Law prof: Bragg’s Bunk Case vs. Trump
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is making “a historic mistake” in his case against ex-President Donald Trump, argues Jed Handelsman Shugerman at The New York Times. “Trump is accused in the case of falsifying business records. Those are misdemeanor charges. To elevate it to a criminal case, Bragg and his team have pointed to potential violations of federal election law and state tax fraud,” but “the most accurate description of this criminal case is a federal campaign finance filing violation. Without a federal violation,” the DA can’t “upgrade the misdemeanor counts into felonies. Moreover, it is unclear how this case would even fulfill the misdemeanor requirement of ‘intent to defraud’ without the federal crime.” “This case is still an embarrassment of prosecutorial ethics and apparent selective prosecution.”
Libertarian: Perils of Gov’t ‘Affordable’ Housing
US affordable-housing programs rely on “a bewildering system of price controls, mandates, and subsidies” whose “needless complexity” makes them “self-defeating,” growls Reason’s Christian Britschgi. Take new federal “rules that impose a 10 percent cap on annual rent increases at federally subsidized affordable housing developments”: It doesn’t actually cap rents, but just puts “caps on the incomes that make one eligible for affordable housing programs.”
That poses a “risk for people who receive disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs,” as their benefits can “rise above affordable housing income cut-offs.” It’s not just “excluding many veterans from affordable housing”; experts fear the income-eligibility caps will make it “harder to finance new affordable developments” and “make it harder to rent out affordable units.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
