Brown University President Ruth Simmons upheld the university's current policy which prohibits the Reserve Officers' Training Corps from maintaining an on-campus presence following a report conducted by the university's Committee on ROTC which was made available to the public in September, The Brown Daily Herald reported. In a letter to the Brown community, Simmons backed the committee's decision that Brown should collaborate with the U.S. Department of Defense to partner with colleges in the surrounding area that offer ROTC programs. Brown students can currently partake in an Army ROTC program at Providence College, but there are no institutions in Rhode Island that currently offer Naval or Air Force ROTC programs, according to The Daily Herald. ROTC proponents allege that Simmons' decision harms students by limiting their exposure to the military, but others said that Brown should not cooperate with the ROTC whatsoever since it discriminates against transgender individuals. Brown's Board of Directors will review Simmons' decision at its meeting this weekend. Brown's policy on the ROTC dates back to the Vietnam War, when anti-military sentiment led to the ban of the program, The Daily Herald reported.
Approximately 73 percent of four-year colleges received a greater number of applications in 2010 than they received in 2009, although selectivity rates remained relatively unchanged, according to a Wednesday report by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. The rise in applications is partially attributable to the increased number of prospective students choosing to apply to a large number of colleges. To address this trend, colleges increasingly utilize longer wait lists, thereby decreasing students' chances of gaining admission off the wait list, the report said. While 34 percent of waitlisted students were ultimately offered admission in 2009, just 28 percent of such students were accepted in 2010. The overall selectivity rate for four-year colleges across the country totals approximately 65 percent, which represents a minor decrease from 2009, the National Association for College Admission Counseling reported.
The large number of students who drop out of community college after their first year cost $1 billion for taxpayers from 2008-2009, according to a report released by the American Institutes for Research on Thursday. Over a five-year span, government spending on community colleges totaled roughly $4 billion, but much of that money was spent on educating students who ultimately never graduated, according to the report.
