Free Republic

Governor DeSantis’ state continues to succeed in education The latest U.S. News & World Report concluded that Florida is the best state for higher education. The rankings look at “the share of citizens in each state holding college degrees, as well as college graduation rates, the cost of in-state tuition and fees, and the burden of debt that college graduates carry,” according to the publication. The publication also ranked Florida high in 2-year college graduation rate, 4-year college graduation rate and for its students graduating with minimal debt.

Reihan Salam, an influential young player in the effort to revive the Republican Party, writes this weekend that Sarah Palin's resignation is another sign of the fading culture wars: What does seem increasingly clear is that Palin's collapse represents the end of a certain kind of politics. If the culture war really is ending, culture warriors like Palin will fade from the scene. I can hear many mainstream Republicans sharing Salam's sigh of relief. I think they're fooling themselves. It's wishful thinking by the GOP's non-social conservatives, who want the party to double down on fiscal conservatism—especially now that Democratic...

FishbowlDC has learned that U.S. News & World Report is going monthly... In June, U.S. News moved its publishing schedule from weekly to biweekly and it's no surprise that the magazine has struggled to compete with its traditional competitors -- Time and Newsweek -- even as those magazines have had their own difficulties in this depressing journalism environment. U.S. News has tried boosting its PR efforts, stepping up its web presence and embracing its image as the-magazine-that-makes-a-lot-of-lists. Still, there have been plenty of layoffs and, last year, the New York Post's Keith Kelly reported that "The magazine has not made...

Newsweekly will begin publishing every other week By Diego Vasquez Jun 9, 2008 Long rumored, it's now a fact. Mort Zuckerman's U.S. News + World Report is formally dropping out of the newsweekly race, leaving the field to Time, Newsweek, The Week and The Economist. Next year, U.S. News will go biweekly, in a shift of focus away from news and the print title to its rankings, such as of colleges and hospitals, and toward its online properties, with their emphasis on data. Calls to publisher Bill Holiber were not returned. A spokesperson for the magazine could not say when...

There is debatable evidence that right-wing radio and TV commentator Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" resulted in Sen. Hillary Clinton's narrow victory in Indiana's Democratic primary on Tuesday.Operation Chaos is Limbaugh's effort to encourage Republican voters to reregister as Democrats or cross over in primaries that permit it, like Indiana's. A vote for Clinton, in Limbaugh's master plan, assures an extended Democratic primary, weakening the eventual nominee.Of course, the egocentric bloviator is taking full credit for Clinton's win by only 14,000 votes in the Hoosier State. Limbaugh has a knack for taking credit for everything he promotes.Imagine if the Democrats were...

U.S. News Slashes Rate Base, Frequency A spokesperson for U.S. News declined to comment on the changes, which were confirmed by media buyers. Lucia Moses APRIL 17, 2008 - In another sign of the ongoing contraction in the newsweekly category, U.S. News & World Report has whacked its rate base to 1.5 million from 2 million this year, while cutting its frequency to 36 issues from 46. A spokesperson for U.S. News declined to comment on the changes, which were confirmed by media buyers. As previously reported, Newsweek cut its guaranteed circ by 16 percent to 2.6 million this year,...

Steven Colbert recently had a segment on college rankings. Colbert expressed disappointment that his alma mater, Dartmouth, did not rank well in the Washington Monthly rankings of college effectiveness. Washington Monthly focuses on the graduation rates of low-income students. Colbert complained that Dartmouth has plenty of social mobility, as you could enter a plutocrat and graduate an oligarch. Despite the lighthearted treatment, a serious issue surrounds the issue of the perverse incentives created by the U.S. News and World Report (USNWR) rankings. Inputs dominate the USNWR rankings--how much money the universities have, and the SAT scores of incoming students, etc....

Another investigative reporting team bites the dust. U.S. News & World Report this week disbanded its “I Team,” which had been a key part of the newsweekly since the 1980s. On Tuesday Mort Zuckerman’s weekly magazine offered buyouts to legal-affairs correspondent Chitra Ragavan, national-security reporter Linda Robinson, and investigative reporter David E. Kaplan, who writes the “Bad Guys” blog. “We had to make the decision to scale back on some of our long-form journalism,” says U.S. News editor Brian Kelly. “Unfortunately, that meant we had to offer buyouts to some very talented people.” Ed Pound, one of the most talented...

NEW YORK John Leo is ending his newspaper opinion column after 18 years. In a Sunday farewell piece, he wrote that "it's time to work on other projects, including a book." Leo began the column for U.S. News & World Report in Sept. 1988. He signed with Universal Press Syndicate three years later. "Now that I'm leaving, I should acknowledge that writing a column has to be one of the best jobs in the world," Leo wrote. "At a cost of only 750 words per week (with an occasional surcharge of sweating a bullet or two on deadline), you get...