College

Once, a utopian experiment burned bright and brief in the Great North Woods.

Rain clouds are just starting to roll in over Franconia and Chris Brooks is leading me through saplings and overgrown grass. We’re trying to find a trace of the buildings that once stood here.

“It’s always hallucinogenic when I come in here, because it doesn’t look like anything I remember,” Brooks says.

It's the time of year when students and their families navigate financial decisions, and the loans, grants, and bills associated. We ask how the rising cost of higher education and increased focus on student loan debt is changing the conversation, and we'll get an update on federal policy.  

There’s been a public dispute going on in Keene over the rights of student journalists.

This is all playing out at Keene State College, where editors at the student-run newspaper say administrators have been limiting access to faculty and staff for interviews.

Among the dozens of agencies and groups watching the state budget process this spring are the two organizations representing public higher education in New Hampshire: the University System, and the Community College System. In recent years, the two have fared differently when it comes to state support.

On this weekend's show:

• Civics 101: White House Press Corps with NPR's Scott Horsley
• The Science of Measuring Crowds with Sean Captain
• "Teaching OutKast and the Rise of the Hip-Hop South" with Professor Regina Bradley
• Producer Taylor Quimby is following musician RC Thomas for this year's RPM Challenge

On today’s show, we’ll talk to the host of The Lonely Palette, a podcast that aims to put art appreciation back in the hands of the masses, one painting at a time.

Plus, the Grammy-award winning group OutKast has had an undeniable impact on hip-hop, and put southern hip-hop on the map. Now that musical legacy is being deconstructed for college credit. We’ll talk to the professor behind a new upper level English class that puts OutKast on the syllabus.

And we get ready to kick off the 12th year of the Portsmouth-based RPM challenge, when artists around the world try to write and record an album in just 28 days.

New Hampshire’s Colby-Sawyer College plans to eliminate five majors. The cuts come amidst declining enrollment and financial concerns at the school. 

For the past two years the college has been operating at a loss of more than $2 million.  This year that loss is projected to be at $2.6 million. 

The decision to cut was based on money, but how did the school decide to cut these programs? And what does that decision say about where liberal arts education is headed?

As college kids move back to campus, one Ivy League insider says that elite universities aren’t producing independent thinkers, but high functioning sheep. On today’s show: the downside of being among the best and the brightest.

Then, oh, the tales bellhops and hotel maids could tell. And many have shared stories of walking in on or cleaning up after some unsavory scenes. Concierges, on the other hand, tend to get a more polite view of guests - along with some fairly ridiculous questions. Later in the show, an inside look at the concierge, including how to tip. 

For Chinese students, getting into an American college is a sign of prestige - but that prestige has incentivized fraudulent essays, faked sat scores, and even cheating during Skype interviews. On today’s show, the global arms race for admissions.

Then, most beauty pageants test the mettle of contestants in categories like the evening gown and swimsuit competition, the Mrs. America pageant has a history of judging contestants a bit differently.

Today's college students are reliable consumers, with annual budgets for furniture, clothes and gadgets. Much of which ends up in a dumpster. On today’s show, how a group of UNH students kept mounds of trash out of the landfill and turned it into cash...a model now being copied on campuses across the US. Then, business schools call it Enya-Nomics – after the new-age icon who's defied every record industry trend – selling more records than Beyoncé without touring, tweeting, talking to the press, or even leaving her Irish refuge.

Since the attacks in Paris, the question of how to engage ISIS and Syria has been front and center. Underlying that debate is the changing nature of America’s armed forces and how technology is shaping the future of soldiers. On today’s show a look at how America’s colleges and universities are reflecting the new military. Then, America’s bright young minds are being lured to jobs offering perks from gourmet food to telecommuting, that's stiff competition for the ordered and inflexible military. We’ll hear about the Pentagon's plan to fight "brain drain".

College Scorecard (9:00):

Two years ago, President Obama announced plans for rating colleges and universities, so students would know whether they were getting a good value.  Now, the administration has released its College Scorecard, and students and families are deciding how best to use it.

Demanding trigger warnings? Canceling speakers? Shutting down comedians? College students today make the political correctness of the past seem tame. Today we’re asking: is oversensitivity ruining education? We’ll also look at the roots of extreme protectiveness in a nation where police officers are stationed at more and more high schools with a story about what happens when school discipline meets law enforcement. And, a job you may have thought was already obsolete – we’ll learn why the humble stenographer may be one of the most essential – and under-appreciated people in the courtroom. 

Fraternities have been getting more bad press lately after embarrassing incidents from racist chants in Oklahoma to the branding of pledges here in New Hampshire. We’ll look at the headlines, but also behind them, including what the data says about the impact of fraternity and sorority life for students from grades to personal health.

Citing declining enrollment, officials with Mount Washington College in Manchester say the school will close in April of next year.

In a statement on its website, the for-profit college says it will stop enrolling new students immediately and will focus its attention on the school’s roughly 500 current students.

The college says students can complete their programs of study online through Kaplan University free of charge.

Kaplan owns Mount Washington College, formerly known as Hesser College.

In the shadow of the Great Recession, many prospective students and their parents are looking at college with an eye toward the economic value of certain majors, with some hoping to avoid the so called 'useless' degree. We take a look at some surprising new research on this topic and hear from voices both in and out of the college system.

To protect children from predators, some schools have rules against physical contact so strict that students can be sent to the principal’s office for holding hands or high-fiving. On today’s show – are schools being too touchy about physical contact?

And a reporter profiles the inaugural class of Thiel fellows – twenty teenagers who were given one-hundred thousand dollars to drop out of higher education and pursue success as young entrepreneurs.

Plus a columnist and comedian argues college kids today can’t take a joke. 

Listen to the full show and click Read more for individual segments.