College Shorts

Author: Thomas Phillips

College degrees pay, Census Bureau says

A student who has a bachelor's degree is likely to make $23,000 more a year than a student who does not have one, according to a recent report by the Census Bureau. The study compared adults with bachelor's degrees to those who only have high school diplomas.

The Bureau reported that college graduates, on average, made $51,554 in 2004, whereas adults with high school diploma made $28,645. Additionally, adults with advanced college degrees made an average of $78,093 while high school dropouts made an average of $19,169. The report did not factor in gender or ethnic differences.

Just as salaries for B.A.-holders are on the rise, more people are attaining high school and college degrees than in previous years. In 2000, according to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, 80 percent of adults had a high school diploma, compared to just over 50 percent in 1970. The most recent figures also show that about 28 percent of adults have at least a bachelor's degree, compared with about 24 percent in 2000 and 11 percent in 1970.

-www.cnn.com


Minority stats up in higher ed survey

Minority enrollment in higher education increased by 50 percent nationwide between 1993 and 2003, according to a recent report by the American Council on Education. The same report, however, showed that minority enrollment still trails white enrollment.

The "Minorities in Higher Education 22nd Annual Status Report" found that 27.8 percent of the 17 million students enrolled in American colleges and universities are "non-white students." The previous report, released in 1993, found this number to be 21.8 percent, marking a six percent increase over ten years.

According to the report, Hispanic students have led minority growth in the pursuit of higher education between 1993 and 2003. The number of Hispanic college students grew 68.8 percent to more than 1.6 million during this time, whereas the number of black students enrolled in college rose 42.7 percent to 1.9 million.

More recently, between 2002 and 2004, nearly half of all white high school graduates between 18 and 24 years of age enrolled in college. During the same time period, 41.1 percent of black and 35.2 percent of Hispanic high school graduates decided to pursue a college degree.

-U-Wire


Crimson suspends plagiarizing staffers

The Harvard Crimson, Harvard University's student newspaper, recently suspended two of its staffers for plagiarism.

On Oct. 29, Harvard undergraduate cartoonist Kathleen Breenden was suspended by the newspaper after four of her published cartoons appeared to copy some already published elsewhere. One was a political cartoon, published on October 25, meant to support Democrats in the Nov. 7 election. The cartoon, however, resembled one published by Pulitzer-Prize winning cartoonist Walt Handelsman in Newsday on Oct. 16.

In a note posted on its Web page, The Crimson wrote, "The Crimson regrets the publication of these cartoons, and would like to publicly apologize to the offended publications and cartoonists. We also apologize to our readers for the breach of trust that has occurred."

Only two days earlier, the paper had suspended columnist Victoria Ilyinsky. One of her columns, "This Word is Killing Me, Literally," dishonestly drew information from an article published by the online magazine Slate.

-www.cnn.com