Penn in the News

A racist song that caused a national uproar when it was caught on video was a fixture within a fraternity chapter at the University of Oklahoma and not an anomaly, the university reported Friday, and members first learned it at a gathering of the national fraternity four years ago.

Ian Lustick of the School of Arts & Sciences writes about politics in Israel.

It’s getting hard to keep up with the number of shocking incidents attributed to fraternities. As headlines pile up — racist and sexist speech, sexual impropriety, destruction of property, hazing, illegal drugs, and even the death of a student — there is a growing sense that Greek organizations are out of control.

With rare exceptions, sticker prices at colleges go nowhere but up. In 2012, Sarah Lawrence College in New York crossed a threshold for tuition, fees, room and board that dozens of others have now topped: $60,000 a year. Sometime soon, prices will surpass $70,000.

Shortly after arriving at a big student-affairs conference this week in New Orleans, Rey Junco took a look at the conversation attendees were having on Yik Yak, an anonymous, location-based app. As an associate professor of education and human computer interaction at Iowa State University and a faculty associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, Mr.

Each spring, after college admissions letters have been mailed, U.S. News sees an uptick in visitors to the Best Colleges rankings. High school seniors and their parents turn to our website to research tuition, financial aid resources, academic life and all of the other information we gather on 1,800 colleges and universities nationwide. For the most part, our audience responds positively.

Mary C. Willingham, a learning specialist who blew the whistle on academic fraud at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is promoting a book she co-wrote about the scandal. In a recent conversation with The Chronicle, Ms. Willingham talked about how the scandal highlighted what she said are larger problems in the world of big-time college sports, warning that “the athletic machine is in charge of the university." Ms.

Olivia Mitchell of the Wharton School talks about longevity annuities.

For Virginians in financial need, leaders of the state’s flagship university just approved what amounts to a cut of up to $10,000 in the price of a bachelor’s degree. To engineer this feat, the University of Virginia will raise annual tuition an extra $1,000 for in-state students beginning at Charlottesville this year. For the incoming class the following year, in fall 2016, this extra charge — beyond regular tuition growth — will grow to $2,000.

In a dispute over its right to host an Israeli-Palestinian program, Swarthmore College's Hillel has broken with the global Jewish-student organization and changed its name. The schism is symptomatic of increasing tensions between local chapters and Hillel, which has attempted to stop them from hosting events that involve speakers or groups deemed to be anti-Israel.