Notes in the Margins: Difficult parents, rape and tuition

U of M fraternities ban parties after third assault The presidents of all 24 fraternities on the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus say they will ban parties for now following a third sexual assault at a fraternity house. (MPR Music)

Daniel Luzer: College Is Like Real Estate College, despite its rapidly escalating price, is still totally worth it, right? This is certainly true in the aggregate but when making individual financial decisions college value becomes a little more troublesome. (Huffington Post)

College yearbook collections go digital Colleges across the United States have been making digital copies of old yearbooks, student newspapers and course catalogues. (USA Today)

Teaching Math as Narrative Drama Edward Burger, who won a major teaching award, encourages students to take risks and grades them, in part, on "the quality of their failure." (chronicle.com)

How 'Difficult' Parents Look From the Counselor's Side of the Desk One college counselor suggests "overly involved'' parents have turned her hair gray; another counselor prefers e-mailing parents, rather than being drawn in over the phone. (thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com)

Study links roommates, minimized weight gain A new study by the University of Michigan found that college women who are randomly paired with roommates who weigh more than average gain less weight than women with trimmer roommates. (mndaily.com)

Cost calculator to make “cents” of tuition costs St. Thomas will be adding a federally mandated price calculator to its website to help students count the true cost of attending the university. (tommiemedia.com)

About 1 in 4 undergraduate women are sexual assault victims, new study says Undergraduate college women are more likely to be raped than women of the same age not enrolled in college, according to the study. In addition, college students are most at risk for sexual abuse and rape during the first six weeks of school because they are adjusting to a new environment and are more vulnerable. (tommiemedia.com)

Homophobic graffiti found on dorm door Homophobic graffiti on a sophomore student's whiteboard in the residence halls was reported last weekend. Jim Hoppe, dean of students, said there were no leads about who may have written the graffiti, or if it was intended at a specific individual. Several incidents of racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic graffiti led the Macalester student government and the administration to hold public forums last year. (themacweekly.com)

Rifts Show at Hearing on For-Profit Colleges For-profit colleges have become a polarizing force in Washington. The current battleground for the for-profit colleges is the Education Department’s proposed “gainful employment” rule, which would cut off federal student aid to programs whose graduates have high debt loads, and are failing to get jobs that will allow them to repay those debts. (The New York Times)

Peering Behind the Financial-Aid Curtain Colleges don't tell prospective families or counselors enough about how they distribute aid. "I think most admissions officers, frankly, try to avoid or minimize talking about financial aid," said Mary Hill, co-director of college counseling at St. Paul Academy and Summit School, in Minnesota. (chronicle.com)

• How Augsburg is going all Mark Twain
• How past U of M presidents view higher-ed today
• Metro State data breach affected 160,000 students