Penn in the News

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.

Elaina Lin of the Perelman School of Medicine shares her perspective on fetal surgery and fetal pain research.

Mathias Basner of the Perelman School of Medicine is quoted about a study that developed a test to measure the effects of spaceflight on cognition.

Katherine Nathanson of the Perelman School of Medicine is quoted about BRCA testing.

For years, students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have been asking school leaders to change the name of Saunders Hall, named after a former trustee who was a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Last month, some stood outside the building with nooses around their necks and signs such as “THIS is what SAUNDERS would do to ME.”

Should a doctor of philosophy be considered a .doctor? The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, has yet to make web addresses ending in .doctor available, but the debate about who should be able to register for them has already begun. ICANN recently decided that .doctor should only be available to licensed medical practitioners, meaning the millions of Ph.D. holders in the U.S.

President Amy Gutmann, Presidential Bioethics Commission chair, writes about three key areas of ethical concern in neuroscience research and application.

Sharp cuts in federal funding for medical research are having lasting impact, argues Laurie H. Glimcher, MD, the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City and Provost for Medical Affairs of Cornell University, including driving young researchers out of the field.