The Sept. 7 New Yorker has a thoughtful piece about what college is really worth today from an economic perspective. The piece explores and criticizes various takes from recent literature on the subject. No one's got a wholly satisfactory answer, but it's definitely a question worth considering as the economy changes and tuition costs soar. One […]
Author Archives: Scott Michelman
…are considered in a story that ran today on NPR's Morning Edition. Colleges that give applying students the option not to submit standardized test scores say they are trying to broaden the pool of applicants and achieve a more diverse student body. But achieving the first goal doesn't necessarily lead to the second, NPR reports, […]
We discussed last week the pending petitions in the Supreme Court regarding Obamacare coverage for contraception. Yesterday, Judge Richard Leon of federal district court in D.C. ruled in favor of contraception-mandate challenger March for Life (a pro-life, non-religious non-profit) and enjoined the federal government from enforcing the mandate against it, ruling that the mandate violated […]
…reports The Consumerist. We all know the background: airlines have been consolidating into fewer and fewer airlines in recent years. Since July, no fewer than 75 complaints have charged that the airlines violated federal antitrust laws; according to The Consumerist, United, American, Delta and Southwest now account for 80% of all domestic air travel. Here's […]
…reports Bloomberg Business. A recent decision by the Second Circuit (on which the court this month rejected a motion to reconsider) restricts the so-called marketplace lenders from bypassing state usury laws by partnering with banks in states where there are no such rules. The ruling effectively would stop a practice whereby the lenders can make […]
As Reason.com reports, in a recent case in federal court in northern California, Officials sought the right to track suspects' Cell Site Location Information, or CSLI, for 60 days without gaining a warrant. Such location information lets law enforcement track the whereabouts of our cell phones in relation to cell towers. . . . The […]
…is the title of a Post op-ed questioning whether federal student loan assistance is most wisely allocated toward grad schools. The piece questions, in particular, low-rate loans for law students: Nowhere has Grad PLUS [the government's loan assistance program for graduate students] had a greater impact than in the nation’s law schools. Law-student indebtedness grew […]
The city is D.C., according to the Washington Post. The reason? The high cost of childcare. According to the article, childcare "can be as expensive as housing in some parts of the country." Here's the story, which breaks down cost of living for singles and families and also contains a neat interactive graphic.
As we've discussed previously, almost exactly a year ago Public Citizen sued on behalf of Wisconsin consumer Cindy Cox after employees of an online retailer called Accessory Outlet threatened her with fines and derogatory credit reporting for saying that she would dispute a charge with her credit card company when her order had not arrived. […]
The Washington Post yesterday published an eye-opening expose concerning the practice of buying monetary settlements for lead poisoning from the victims for a fraction of what they are worth — as little as 9 cents on the dollar. As the Post documents, the victims are often cash-strapped, have little education and sometimes mental disabilities, and […]