Guess Who? 10 Most Innovative Colleges

Reuters: "For the fifth year running, Stanford University tops Reuters’ ranking of the World’s Most Innovative Universities, a list that identifies and ranks the educational institutions doing the most to advance science, invent new technologies and power new markets and industries ... he top three universities on the list — No. 2 is MIT and No. 3, Harvard— have all held their spots for five straight years, as long as Reuters has produced the ranking. In fact, eight of last year’s 10 highest-ranked universities remained in the top 10, and 18 of the top 20. The results show that while inventors are often portrayed as iconoclasts, innovation relies on strong institutions."

"Overall, the United States continues to dominate the list, with 46 universities in the top 100, the same as the year prior. Germany is the second best performing country with nine universities. France climbs to third, with eight universities on the list; Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom each have 6; China has 4; the Netherlands and Switzerland have 3; Belgium, Canada, Israel and Singapore have 2, and Denmark has 1."

After Stanford, MIT and Harvard, the top ten most innovative U.S. universities according to Reuters are: University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Southern California, Cornell University, University of Texas System, and University of California System.

Boo! The 'Paranormal' College Experience

Inside Higher Ed: "Gettysburg College, which housed a battlefield hospital during the Civil War and is said to be haunted by spectral soldiers, gets mentioned in local ghost tours ... Bowdoin College is full of spooky sites, according to author and campus developer David Francis -- including Adams Hall, formerly Maine Medical School, where the old floorboards are said to have been made of coffins for the corpses. Smith College hosts a running log of strange encounters. And Pennsylvania State University even saw a multi-season A&E Network reality television show, Paranormal State, about its own student-led Paranormal Research Society."

Some say Colby-Sawyer College, in New Hampshire, is haunted by its first teacher, Susan Colby Colgate. She "has been spotted over the years, floating through the main Colgate Hall building. And a man in a tall, dark hat has been seen peering out of Colgate Hall's third-floor windows. He's suspected of sometimes ringing the bell in a restricted tower ... The back of Colby-Sawyer’s campus is referred to as Susan Swamp, not after Susan Colby Colgate but for a student who, according to legend, fell into the lake one night long ago and drowned ... Students walking by the Colby-Sawyer swamp still report seeing a woman walking in a flowing dress or feeling a cool breeze in otherwise balmy weather."

"Katherine Crowe, curator of special collections and archives at the University of Denver, said she’s 'on the fence about ghosts' and has never experienced one. But she’s noticed that when campuses are said to be haunted, libraries tend to be involved. The Watson Library at her alma mater, the University of Kansas, for example, is supposedly haunted by its namesake and first librarian, Carrie Watson. And Denver’s Mary Reed Hall, formerly the main library, is also visited by its namesake and donor, the late Mary Reed."

Tuition: Who Pays What & Why

Hechinger Report: "While rising education costs and more amenities and luxury housing have played a role in pressing up the cost of college attendance, a great deal of college tuition inflation has been driven by an enrollment strategy that relies heavily on tuition discounting. With it, schools identify families willing and able to pay their advertised tuition or 'sticker price' through savings or loans, and use them to balance out the costs of students who would be more likely to enroll at other institutions due to financial concerns or academic competitiveness."

"The strategy is also known as price-discrimination — in which prices change based on who is paying and when — and has long been used to sell goods and services. It is why we are told to buy plane tickets three months before we want to take a flight. But unlike airlines, which may increase prices once the plane is nearly full and seats are harder to come by, colleges strategically drop their prices in order to get enough students to show up each fall."

"When demand is high enough that families who can afford it will pay virtually any price, discounting schemes can reduce tuition costs for other students to rock-bottom prices even as the school’s revenue remains robust."