Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania both announced tuition increases of approximately 4 percent for the upcoming academic year,. Total undergraduate costs for Penn increased to $58,812 from $56,106, while those for Yale increased to $57,500 from $55,300. Yale and Penn announced that their financial aid budgets will decrease this academic year, with Penn's decreasing by two percent and Yale's decreasing to $119 million from $120 million. Both universities have found government Pell Grants to be less effective due to rising tuition costs. Yale's financial aid director Caesar Storlazzi said in an interview with The Yale Daily News that Yale will be unable to increase financial aid to match government grant reductions, citing lingering effects of the economic downturn.
A report released on Thursday by the Fair Elections Legal Network's Campus Vote project affirmed that despite new voter identification and registration laws, more than one million students registered to vote using online tools and social networks, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. Turnout among voters ages 18 to 29 was 50 percent, a higher rate than that of previous elections, despite low projection rates. This increase was due to the provision of online registration by 12 states and the work of voter registration groups. Programs like the Campus Vote Project worked to combat state government statements that discouraged students from voting. Lead author of the report and Campus Vote Project organizer Dan Vicuna said that changes to voter registration laws mainly result in confusion, even if the laws do not survive legal challenges.
The Harvard Quiz Bowl team was stripped of four consecutive championships on Wednesday after the organizers of the National Academic Quiz Tournaments discovered that the team's former president Andrew Watkins obtained questions prior to tournament matches, The Harvard Crimson reported. Waktins gained access to these questions through a loophole in the National Academic Quiz Tournament's site security system, which allowed him to view the first 40 characters of the questions that would be used in upcoming tournaments. After revoking Harvard's titles, the National Academic Quiz Tournaments awarded the University of Minnesota, Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Chicago championship titles. Watkins issued an apology to the organization and his teammates, citing undergraduate mental health issues as contributing factors to his actions.
