Penn in the News

Sarah Gordon of the Law School and the School of Arts & Sciences talks about the origin of the political import of displays like the Ten Commandments monument.

The average amount that college students spend on course materials appears to be declining. But not necessarily because textbooks are cheaper. A growing number of students, surveys show, simply skip buying required course materials. A survey of undergraduates on 23 campuses by the National Association of College Stores, expected to be released on Thursday, found that students spent an average of $563 on course materials during the 2014-15 academic year, compared with $638 the year before.

For some academics, the social network Reddit is becoming less of a guilty pleasure and more of a credible platform to discuss academic interests with people whom they otherwise would not have had a chance to debate. Because of Reddit’s decentralized structure, any user is free to create a community, or subreddit, around any topic. That structure has spawned everything from forums organized around broad subject areas such as politics, technology and video games to catalogs of bizarre memes and safe havens for racism and misogyny.

Senator Marco Rubio, laying out an economic blueprint that will be central to his campaign for president, called Tuesday for dismantling the “cartel of existing colleges and universities” that he said left too many students without viable career paths and burdened by tens of thousands of dollars in debt. In a speech that was part history lesson, part policy prescription, and punctuated with barbs at Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr.

With its growing global clout, China has become the place to be for American colleges, with the number of academic partnerships and programs there increasing each year. But a law proposed by the Chinese government to regulate foreign universities and nonprofit organizations could put those warming relations on ice. Under the draft legislation, overseas colleges would be required to register with the national police ministry and have an official Chinese sponsor for all their activities, from study abroad to student recruitment, faculty lectures to joint research.

Robert Town of the Wharton School discusses what insurers want consumers to know about their coverage and costs.

Doctoral candidate Nora Becker of the Perelman School of Medicine and Wharton School is quoted about studying the money spent on birth control by American women.

When someone spray painted "KKK," "Black Lives Matter" and "Murderer" on the base of a statue of a Confederate soldier at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, people took to social media to discuss the incident. Many -- including those who want the statue removed -- criticized the tactic, calling it vandalism. Some comments were quite critical of whoever wrote those things, with many comments assuming they were students. "What's even worse that [sic] the vandalism is proof of failed educations provided to @UNC students.

C. Neill Epperson of the Perelman School of Medicine comments on an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug being used to help improve cognitive issues related to menopause.

Alum Larry Liu is featured as a transfer student from the Community College of Philadelphia. Peter Cappelli of the Wharton School is also quoted.