Penn in the News

Will a British exit from the European Union lead to a drop in enrollment of European students at U.K. universities? Many expect that it will. Currently E.U. nationals make up 5.5 percent of students at U.K. universities, and they’re eligible for domestic student tuition rates and British student loans. If those terms were to change -- if E.U. nationals were to be assessed the higher tuition rates other international students pay and if they weren’t eligible for government loans -- it’s reasonable to think some of those students would look elsewhere to study.

Amanda Prorok of the School of Engineering and Applied Science talks about her collaborative research on how swarm intelligence could help self-driving cars.

A week before classes begin at the University of Maryland University College, students can start poking around the online course materials. Some do, looking over the syllabus and getting a feel for the subject, but others don’t bother. It turns out that with just a little number crunching of that pre-course behavior, university officials can make some surprisingly accurate predictions about who will flourish and who will flounder.

Philip Tetlock of the Wharton School and the School of Arts & Sceinces is quoted about the accuracy of expert stock market forecasters.

Jonathan Moreno of the Perelman School of Medicine and the School of Arts & Sciences writes about typecasting as a “Trump.”

Randall Mason of the School of Design comments on using arts culture as an approach to help the redevelopment of a city.

When the nation’s leading defender of faculty rights decides to rebuke a college, its precise language may leave close observers scratching their heads. Why, for instance, did it vote this month to sanction the University of Iowa over its controversial presidential search, instead of the board, which it explicitly identified as the bad actor? The answer: It has long believed it has no other choice.

Critics are launching another salvo in a long-simmering debate over the underlying math used to gauge changes in higher education finances over time, arguing a cost-adjustment index used in a closely watched report obscures true trends in revenue. At issue is the Higher Education Cost Adjustment, an inflationary index developed by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association and used in its annual State Higher Education Finance report. The index was designed to estimate inflation in the costs that colleges and universities pay.

The U.S. Department of Education is investigating American University for allegedly mishandling a student’s report of sexual assault, the second federal government probe of the District school in less than two years. In an email to students this week, AU officials said the department’s Office for Civil Rights is looking into a complaint received in March that accuses the private university of failing to “promptly and equitably” respond to an April 2015 report of sexual assault.

Students from the School of Design are mentioned for helping produce a soundscape to accompany an art exhibit.