The United States lands 6 of the Top 10 schools, including the University of Pennsylvania.

U.S. News Media Group Releases 2011 Ranking of World's Best Universities

$4.5 Billion in Earnings, Taxes Lost Last Year Due to the High U.S. College Dropout Rate

Penn State University pays its president, Graham Spanier, more than $1 million a year.

Facing tough economic times, Spanier has been whining about how the state (the Pennsylvania taxpayer) isn't sending enough money to Happy Valley.

Instead of dealing with the economic reality and finding ways to cut costs from the university's bloated $4 billion-a-year budget, Spanier keeps blaming Gov. Tom Corbett and the Legislature for reducing PSU's annual taxpayer allotment by about $70 million.

That meager reduction prompted Penn State to raise tuition by 5 percent.

For the amount of money Spanier is getting paid, he should be able to come up with ways to cut costs and reduce the burden on Pennsylvania families who want to send their children to Penn State.

From an editorial in The Harrisburg Patriot-News:

... tuition at Penn State is too high. It has gone up 104 percent in the last decade and its tuition rate is the highest for a four-year, public university in the nation — the University of Pittsburgh is No. 2 — according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Taking into account room and board plus books, the increase means it will cost more than $100,000 to get a four-year degree from Penn State. This from a school that has its humble beginnings as a land grant university. It has long been a place for a student who is the first in their family to go to college. That goal might be harder to achieve.

Read the full editorial, "Sharing the pain: Penn State must find ways to cut costs," at the newspaper's website.

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The chancellor of Pennsylvania's 14 state-owned universities is OK with pay raises for 1,500 nonunion administrators, including himself, despite threats by university presidents to raise tuition dramatically or cut back programs.

Let this be a lesson to you college kids: When it comes to lining their own pockets, the folks living in the Ivory Towers come first.

Daily Journal - Pa. university system chancellor defends administrators' raises, despite looming deficit

PA Sate Rep. Richard Saccone:

"Let's stop demagoguing potential tuition hikes and consider addressing the real culprit: salaries, benefits and the sheer numbers of faculty and administration needed to run our state-related universities."

Real culprit in rising higher education costs - pottsmerc.com

U.S. News Media Group Announces the 2012 Best Law Schools

U.S. News Media Group Announces the 2012 Best Graduate Schools

Pennsylvania Board of Education Chairman Joseph Torsella has written a letter to Lincoln University President Ivory Nelson asking for an investigation into anti-Semitic remarks made by Dr. Kaukab Siddique, an associate professor of English at the university.

From Torsella's letter:

According to public writings and speeches, Mr. Siddique has characterized Israel as a "terrorist entity;" called for its violent overthrow; and peddled anti-Semitic propaganda ("the Jews…are a small minority in America, yet they have taken over this country by devious and immoral means"). Further, I am concerned about statements in, among other sources, the "New Trend Magazine" about Hezbollah and the Taliban that have been brought to my attention as purportedly authored by Mr. Siddique.

Read the full text of the latter at the link below:

State Board of Education Chairman Joseph Torsella Addresses Lincoln Professor's Remarks

Online Networking Site Helps Conservative Students Organize

Kevin Carey, policy director for Education Sector, an independent think tank in Washington, D.C., believes higher education could be the next industry to suffer a decline in the Internet age.

The Internet has already dealt a fatal blow to newspapers, the once dominant source of news and information.

Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Carey warns that America's colleges and universities could be the next victim of the Internet.

From Carey's column:

Newspapers are dying. Are universities next? The parallels between them are closer than they appear. Both industries are in the business of creating and communicating information. Paradoxically, both are threatened by the way technology has made that easier than ever before.

While the elite schools probably can weather the expansion of college offerings over the Internet, there will be victims, Carey argues: "Less-selective private colleges and regional public universities, by contrast — the higher-education equivalents of the city newspaper — are in real danger."

Read the full column, "What Colleges Should Learn From Newspapers' Decline" at The Chronicle of Higher Education Web site.