Penn in the News

Pushing on Pell

Ken Lum on Canada vs. the USA

Ken Lum of the School of Design is featured for his experience living in America, specifically Philadelphia, compared to Canada.

‘Hamilton’ Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda to Speak at Penn Commencement

President Amy Gutmann is quoted about the announcement of the commencement speaker, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The Unlikely History of Tolstoy College

Postdoctoral fellow Jennifer Wilson of the School of Arts & Sciences writes about the history of Tolstoy College.

Pushing on Pell

The Obama administration wants to expand the federal Pell Grant program by bringing back year-round eligibility for the grants, which was eliminated four years ago, and by creating a $300 annual bonus for Pell recipients who take at least 15 credits per semester. The two proposed changes announced today would cost $2 billion in the next fiscal year, the U.S. Department of Education said. Both would require approval by the Republican-led U.S. Congress, which will be a tall order for the White House.

The Promise of Integrated Data Systems for Social Policy Reform: A Q&A With Dennis Culhane and John Fantuzzo, Principal Investigators, Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy

Dennis Culhane of the School of Social Policy & Practice and John Fantuzzo of the Graduate School of Education are interviewed about starting the Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy Center.

Chinese Students and U.S. Universities Connect Through a Third Party

Zhao Yang, 18, a high school student in Beijing, looked upset as she emerged from a room equipped with a video camera. “I was too nervous, so I spoke too fast,” she told her parents. “The questions were too weird. I wasn’t prepared for most of them.” Ms. Zhao is a top student with ambitions to go to a top American university. She has been preparing for years, working with a private admissions agent and taking the SAT and the Test of English as a Foreign Language several times. Her parents have invested more than $30,000 in the project, hoping to give their only child a boost.

Transfer System From 2-Year to 4-Year Colleges Isn’t Working, Report Says

Only 14 percent of the students who start out in a community college transfer to a four-year university and earn a bachelor’s degree within six years, according to a report released on Tuesday by three groups that are studying ways to plug the leaky pipeline between two- and four-year colleges. The report was a joint effort of the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College, the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program, and the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The research breaks down how students fare in different states.

Is It Better to Die in America or in England?

Ezekiel Emanuel of the Wharton School and the Perelman School of Medicine and Justin Bekelman, also of Medicine, co-author an op-ed about the cost of end-of-life care in America compared to Europe and Canada.

Distribution Plus

When colleges discuss general education reforms or announce curricular revamps, it's common to hear professors talk of the need to replace "cafeteria-style" approaches. Distribution requirements, critics say, may assure that all students take a course or two in such broad fields as the humanities, the social sciences and the physical and biological sciences. But the requirements don't necessarily encourage thoughtful integration of different fields of study -- and many students simply look for the easiest options to check the requirements off.