Following a year of deliberations, the Supreme Court avoided a broad ruling on an affirmative action case involving the University of Texas' admissions program, The Wall Street Journal reported. The case, which questioned the legitimacy of factoring race into college admissions, was sent back to a lower court for review. The 7-1 majority ruling reflected the court's consensus, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg writing in her dissent that the University of Texas plan should not be subject to additional review by lower courts. University of Texas at Austin president Bill Powers was "encouraged" by the ruling and believes the university's admission policy fully adheres with the standards defined by the lower court, The Wall Street Journal reported.
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators will introduce a proposal to avoid increasing interest rates on student loans, which are set to double in less than two weeks, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. The plan would set interest rates each year based on the market and would include three tiers. Undergraduate students would pay the lowest rates, followed by graduate students and those who receive PLUS loans, a federal loan available to graduate or professional degree students and parents of dependent undergraduate students. Democrats are fighting for a two-year extension of current rates, and student groups are pressing for an interest rate cap to be included in the bill. It remains uncertain whether the proposal will pass a divided Congress, according to The Chronicle.
As elementary schools adopt online learning networks, parents and privacy advocates have expressed concern regarding student privacy, The New York Times reported. One system, Edmodo, connects more than 20 million teachers and students globally through virtual classrooms. However, it does not use the standard encryption protocol known as SSL that protects personal information. Edmodo spokeswoman Sara Mandel said the company is working to ensure that every school chooses the SSL-encrypted version of the site, which has been available since 2011. Privacy advocates argue that many educators lack basic mastery of data security and privacy, potentially compromising sensitive student information. An independent security analyst concluded that though the site's login page was encrypted, the student sessions remained unprotected, a growing problem with the prevalence of mobile devices.
