Free Republic

Acting Columbia University President Claire Shipman on Wednesday bizarrely chose to stoke the flames by acknowledging arrested ex-grad student Mahmoud Khalil at the Ivy League school’s chaotic graduation. Hordes of graduating students in the riled-up audience began chanting Khalil’s name and nearly booed Shipman off the stage throughout her remarks at the embattled university’s commencement. “We firmly believe that our international students have the same rights to freedom of speech as everyone else, and they should not be targeted by the government for exercising their right,” Shipman told the crowd of nearly 37,000. “I know many in our community are...

Hundreds of graduates at Harvard University walked out of their commencement Thursday after the school announced 13 students who participated in the recent pro-Palestinian protests on campus would not be allowed to receive their diplomas with fellow students. Groups of graduates walked out chanting “Free, Free Palestine” and “Let them walk, let them walk” in reference to the students barred from walking at the ceremony, The Associated Press reported. A total of more than 1,000 students participated in the walkout, according to the school’s protest groups.

Seventy-three percent of college graduates who enter the labor market underemployed stay that way for 10 years... almost half of America’s college graduates are working at high-school-level jobs. The study, published Feb. 22, also found that 52 percent of college graduates are underemployed a year after graduation. ... employers are increasingly turning to factors other than college degrees to determine competency. ... 52 percent of college graduates are underemployed a year after graduation. Even 10 years after graduation, 45 percent of college graduates remain underemployed. Graduates who enter the labor market with a college-level job are said to “rarely slide...

It’s not clear exactly why these CUNY Law School grads decided to turn their backs on Mayor Adams but if I had to guess it was probably his reluctance to call the death of a Jordan Neely a murder and instead suggest people should wait for the results of an investigation. But the way it came across today was a bunch of leftists booing him for having once been a police officer.As the City University of New York School of Law dean, Sudha Setty, introduced the mayor on Friday, she noted his time spent on the police force. The crowd...

More than half of recent grads ‘report emotional or mental health challenges’ A survey conducted by the Mary Christie Institute discovered that recent college graduates are not emotionally prepared for the workforce. Specifically the survey found that more than half of these young professionals self-reported “emotional or mental health challenges.” “Our findings show that once in the workplace, young people continue to struggle mentally and emotionally,” the think tank wrote. The survey found that 43 percent of those individuals with mental health said they had anxiety while 31 percent reported having depression. “Women reported worse mental health than men, with...

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced his administration would cancel $10,000 in student debt for many borrowers, while extending a pause on monthly loan payments through the end of the year. For students and young people in Pittsburgh, it should have been a cause for celebration; but just hours after the announcement, reactions skewed negative as left-leaning activists argued the president should have honored his campaign commitment to cancel all student debt. Meanwhile, Republicans chided Mr. Biden for what they see as the president bowing to the progressive movement. “In my opinion, it’s not enough,” said Allie Holler, a University...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) invoked Abraham Lincoln and John Lewis during her commencement speech at Brown University on Sunday, calling on graduates to help unify the country. “I urge you to bring this spirit of unity to whatever you do,” Pelosi said. “It’s no secret that you graduate in a country deeply divided socially, politically, culturally. And there’s even more dangerous factions [that] seek to dispense with democracy altogether, but graduates, you are our hope,” she added.

President Joe Biden urged college graduates on Saturday to take the country back from what he described as growing darkness and hatred in the United States. “Get goin’ for God’s sake,” Biden said at the conclusion of his commencement speech at the University of Delaware. “Godspeed on your journey, keep the faith, and take it back. Please. This is yours. Take it back. We need you.”

Vice President Harris said Saturday that young people are stepping into an “unsettled” world amid destabilizing forces such as the COVID-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine, adding that long-held principles in the U.S. are on “shaky ground.” During commencement remarks at Tennessee State University, a historically Black institution, Harris said, “it cannot be denied also that your class has traveled a stony road — a pandemic that took away so much of the college experience that you once imagined.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci told graduating college students on Sunday that the pandemic brought out deep-rooted divisions in society. “Societal divisiveness is counterproductive in a pandemic,” Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said in a video commencement speech to Emory University students. “We must not be at odds with each other since the virus is the enemy, not each other.” Fauci, who was awarded the president’s medal from the university, urged the graduates to incorporate public service into their lives even if it is not part of their full-time careers.

The 2020 graduating class faces challenges unlike any class before it. Uncertainty looms at every turn: job prospects, social interactions, and many other aspects of “normal life” once taken for granted. So what lessons can be learned from this unparalleled situation? Dennis Prager offers three.

You thought for all these years of hard work you were going to get a real graduation ceremony, and instead your mom erected this embarrassing plaque by your front door. Sad sights are popping up all over my neighbourhood: yard signs reading, “So and so of such and such high school. Class of 2020.” Congratulations, Emily and Jacob, you are being ripped off! You thought for all these years of hard work and perseverance you were going to get a real graduation ceremony, and instead your mom erected this embarrassing plaque by your front door.All over America. traditional graduation ceremonies...

New data from the New York Fed highlights how the job situation for recent graduates is worsening. While the rest of the labor market trends favorably, fresh graduates are more likely to be unemployed than the base U.S. working population. That has not happened before in the New York Fed data going back to 1990. While the unemployment rate for all college graduates aged up to 65 (blue line) is trending lower — currently near its lowest level of this current economic cycle — the market for recent college graduates (red) is bucking the overall trend. With the backdrop of...

It turns out that graduates think they can benefit from them too. "I was a racist teacher and I didn't recognize it," Laurie Calvert wrote in The Education Post last year. "At the time that I taught, I would have argued that I was the opposite." "I was a progressive, a Democrat. I campaigned in my progressive town in Western North Carolina for the first Black man to run for the U.S. Senate against a notorious racist from our state, Jesse Helms. I voted for Obama, even volunteered in his office during the 2008 campaign." Calvert had an awakening, of...

Some public officials leave office as far behind the knowledge curve as when they entered it. "One recent analysis found that 95 percent of the jobs created since 2008 required some post-secondary education or training," outgoing U. S. Secretary of Education John B. King, Jr. declared at the Center for American Progress (CAP) last Wednesday. "Think about that." "If you didn't finish high school—or even if you graduated—you can knock on 95 doors looking for a job before one opens. And everyone else without higher education will be trying to squeeze through those last five doors alongside you." It's a...

The nation and the Republican Party may or may not need ‘The Donald’ but a cursory look at what statistics we can extract from academia today suggests that the academic world needs somebody like him. That is, the Ivory Tower seems to require somebody who can and will say, “You’re fired.” Trustees come immediately to mind. That’s why we trust them. Gleaned from the Chronicle of Higher Education’s 2015-2016 Almanac, here is academia by the numbers: ~ 1% —growth in enrollment at 4-year public colleges (all other institutions of higher learning saw declines in enrollment. ~ 59.8% —“six-year graduation rate...

NEW YORK--Three University of Virginia graduates on Wednesday filed a defamation lawsuit in New York against Rolling Stone magazine, its publisher Wenner Media and a journalist over a now-debunked 2014 article describing a fraternity gang rape. The three men, all 2013 graduates and members of Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity at the center of the story, claim the magazine was negligent in publishing an article entitled "A Rape on Campus" by Sabrina Rudin Erdely. They are seeking damages for defamation and infliction of emotional distress. Rolling Stone apologized in December for "discrepancies" in the account, after the story sparked a...

Life’s traditional milestones of marriage, home and children do not hold any currency for today’s millennials due to lack of cash. Many young adults, facing a difficult job market, suffer from a failure to launch their lives and leave the safety of the family home. Many must continue to rely in some part on parents for financial support, according to the findings of a new survey. “The majority of young adults are struggling to achieve financial security in their transition from college to adulthood,” according to the Arizona Pathways to Life Success for University Students (APLUS). It is an annual...

It’s that time of year again — graduation season. While commencement ceremonies should be a time of celebration for college graduates, it has rather become a moment of panic. Young America's Foundation latest polling shows that 51 percent of graduating college seniors feel “nervous” about their future after graduation. Many of the respondents blamed their anxiety about the future on the bad economy. Of the graduating seniors that were polled, 39 percent said they are not at all optimistic about finding a job in the first few months after graduation. The Obama administration and liberals in Washington are consistently letting...

For those -- and you know who you are -- who have been socially promoted to this semi-worthless diploma, I must tell you in all honesty that you are the functional illiterates of 2014.