FAP561: Free stuff Friday, RIAA, cost of college, Scholarship Points, Lovespirals

Student Financial Aid News
+ Inside Higher Ed: The chancellor of the City University of New York floated a unique approach this week to dealing with the long lamented problem of low enrollments in the sciences: Offer promising students conditional acceptances to top Ph.D. programs in science, technology, engineering and math (the so-called STEM fields) as they start college.
+ “This is an idea that was created in my own mind after reflecting on a problem that nobody really seemed to be able to capture and shape in a way that would have the results that we would like to see,” Chancellor Matthew Goldstein said in a phone interview Thursday.
+ Upon entering college, students would be offered a spot in a top Ph.D. science or math program, provided they meet certain performance requirements throughout their undergraduate years.
+ Inside Higher Ed: Greater prosperity requires more jobs, and more jobs require more economic growth. And the best way to do that, this chain of reasoning continues, is to make investments in higher education and high-tech research. How else to cultivate the next generation of highly skilled, motivated workers for today’s ever-dynamic information economy?
+ That view — promoted by college presidents, governors and experts in the economics of higher education — is often cited in the quest for more funding for state university systems. But what if it’s wrong?
+ A new study published Wednesday by the free-market-oriented, Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy suggests just that. Its major finding, that increased state appropriations for higher education actually correlate with lower economic growth, is counter to both established understanding and conventional wisdom.
+ So what does more spending lead to? According to the report, there’s a possibility it could result in “lower living standards for all.” It concludes: “Empirical evidence suggests that a more promising approach would be to constrain government and universities in their spending growth, using the fruits of higher tax revenues over time to lower the tax burden.”
+ From the Chronicle: When the Recording Industry Association of America started filing “John Doe” subpoenas to ascertain the names of campus song-swapping suspects, some lawyers complained about the process. Ex parte discovery tactics — in which John Does are often unaware that they are subpoena subjects — should be reserved for extreme circumstances, the critics argued.
+ In fact, several people identified in the John Doe subpoenas have tried making that case in court, but judges have routinely slapped the argument down. Until now, that is: A U.S. District Court judge has told the RIAA it cannot use the John Doe method to uncover the names of 16 suspected music pirates at the University of New Mexico, according to the blog Recording Industry vs. The People.
+ Again, treat major record label music like the cheap, addictive drug it is, and stay away from it.

Scholarship Update
+ Scholarship Points in just over two weeks
+ Bum Rush the Charts information

Free Stuff Friday
+ iStat menus
+ WhatSize
+ Screenlets for Linux
+ Big.First.Name
+ Alarmd
+ Numbr
+ Lifeclever Skype trick
+ Pipes translator
+ PocketMod
+ 20 moneysaving Firefox extensions

Podsafe Music
+ Lovespirals, Motherless Child
+ Music via the Podsafe Music Network

Reminders
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