Notes in the Margins: A news roundup

Foreign students coming back: China has helped push international student applications to U.S. graduate schools past their 2003 level, which was the point before 9/11-related visa restrictions drove them down. American grad schools, however, continue to send fewer offers of admission to two of the largest producers of such students, India and South Korea.

The best college admissions book ever: And it's the most unsettling, says Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews. Zac Bissonnette, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Massachusetts, has written Debt-Free U: How I Paid for an Outstanding College Education Without Loans, Scholarships, or Mooching Off My Parents, which finds many involved in the admissions process "incompetent, unethical, or both."

MSUM fights the slump: The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead praises the leaders of Minnesota State University Moorhead for rallying the troops during a bleak budget period and pushing up both enrollment and fund-raising.

Tightening the vice: As part of a smackdown on shady for-profit colleges, the feds are developing a monitoring program to make sure schools are sticking to the rules.

You're at home here: Carleton College is one of 19 U.S. higher education institutions that got a five-star rating by Campusclimateindex.com for being a campus that's friendly to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.

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