College Shorts

Author: Jaime Fuller

STANFORD STUDENT INJURED BY FALLING CEILING

Last Friday, a piece of plaster ceiling fell on a Stanford student while she was lying in bed.

"I heard a noise and all of a sudden, before I knew it, a very large portion of my ceiling fell on my head," said Laura Stampler '10, the victim of the architecture attack.

Stampler went to the emergency room at Stanford Hospital after the incident, but sustained no injuries. The cause of the collapse is unknown, and "pending the results of further investigation," but Student Housing promptly began fixing a leak in the residential building where Stampler lived after the collapse occurred. A structural engineer visited the dorm to investigate the damage and Student Housing has covered the hole with plywood, but Stampler and her roommate, Dana Sherne '10, were told that "it wasn't safe for [them] to live in."

The roommates are planning on moving out their belongings to their temporary housing while their ceiling is replastered, but they both are curious to know the cause of the collapse.

"It's just a little bit strange," Stampler said. "I'm still waiting to hear what happened."

- Stanford Daily News

TUITION-FREE COLLEGE MORE ATTRACTIVE IN CRISIS

Applications to Cooper Union, a college in Manhattan specializing in art, architecture and engineering, saw its early decision applications grow by about 70 percent after annual increases of about 5 to 10 percent over the past decade. The impetus for this surge in applications: the college's commitment to providing a tuition-free education for their students.

The school is expected to receive approximately 3,300 applications for the 265 spots in the class of 2013, giving them an admissions rate of 8 percent, which rivals that of other hyper-competitive colleges like Harvard or Julliard.

The college has beaten the higher education competition not only in application numbers, but in size of endowment as well. Cooper Union, which has suffered multi-million dollar deficits in recent years saw its endowment peak at $608 million last year, its first positive financial ledger in over 25 years. The college's choice to invest in real estate, like their lease on the Chrysler Building, instead of the stock market, is one of the reasons they are seeing their funds grow in a time of financial unease for other higher education institutions. In celebration of their economic stability, the school will open its first new academic building in decades this spring.

However, experts caution that parents shouldn't rely on a school like Cooper Union to be a feasible possibility for all students, especially since the student body at Cooper Union is so exclusive and specialized.

"It's great that some people can go to these places, but they are few and far between and only the right school for certain students," said Sandy Baum, senior policy analyst at the College Board and a professor of economics at Skidmore College. "And most people won't get in."

- The New York Times